The Warrior, page 31
part #3 of Orestes Series
Hermione took that particular incident to heart. Having heard the details from Elektra, she went straightaway downstairs to console the man, and to assist him in making an offering to Zeus and the Two Ladies. “Orestes,” she said later, when she came to my chamber for reassurance that the citadel was not about to be attacked, “you must rescue Halysios’s wife and daughters. I know them! Eurynome’s always among the women who bring in the sacred sheaves. Her daughters help tend the local shrine of Athena.”
I held her close. “We will do what we can.” Three dozen more petitions had come before me that morning, complaining of men and boys beaten, women and girls harassed, and even assaulted in the fields and on their way to market. Chasing and apprehending the perpetrators, most of whom were anonymous Argives who had vanished as quickly as they had appeared, would be a futile exercise unless my agents could learn more. Yet for my wife’s sake, and to appease the goddess, I would redouble my efforts to make certain the woman Eurynome and her daughters were found and returned to their kinsmen.
Up on the palace roof, Strophius and Medon spent their idle time watching Captain Arkados drilling the sentries in the lower court. I said to them, “You’ve never observed them this closely before.”
“Triopas says the Argives attacked our people outside,” Strophius replied, “and that they might attack us here.”
“Your pedagogue heeds too far many rumors.” I sat with them, below the horns of consecration crenellating the roof. “Argos has decided to become our enemy,” I explained, “because there’s a man, Akelos, who claims to be the natural son of King Diomedes, and who says that I commanded my men to kill him. I did no such thing, as your father will tell you.”
Strophius nodded. “The Argive ambassador yelled at him.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “and Lord Melandros tried to yell at me, too, but I told him to mind his manners. Then I told him go home and tell his king that if Akelos has a quarrel with me, he should meet me face-to-face, like a man.” I reached out, patted Medon’s shoulder, and continued, “This means we can’t go deer hunting as I promised. It’s too dangerous for you to venture outside these walls. Even I don’t dare go out on the hunt.”
Their disappointment was palpable, in their crestfallen expressions, but they handled it well, like proper young princes, and nodded solemnly. “We understand, Uncle,” Medon said softly.
Meanwhile, Strophius expressed more interest in whether I intended to declare war on the Argives. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Going to war isn’t always the wisest thing to do.”
“But they attacked you!” he exclaimed. “And you’re a better fighter and have more men. You should fight!”
Not surprisingly, the greater part of the assembly advocated carrying out retaliatory raids. Eurybatos was not present, having obtained leave to attend to the defense of his estate, and Haimon expressed serious reservations about pursuing armed conflict. “It seems to me,” he pointed out, “that the Argives are consciously trying to goad us into outright war. That would be disastrous. Argolis would be devastated, our estates would suffer, our revenues would dwindle, and we could find ourselves at odds with our own vassals.”
Haimon’s observation mirrored the explanation I had given my nephews as to why I had not yet retaliated, but it did not sit well with those who favored a military solution.
“Come, now!” Lykeus cried, scoffing at the potential woes Haimon catalogued. “Diomedes took the finest Argive fighters with him into exile, and Piggy Wanax has never led a host. We can easily beat him in the field.”
“The Argives have had ten years to train up and replace their fighting men,” Haimon fired back. “We have only the vaguest idea how many Cylarabes could send against us.”
“And who would command them?” Menon asked sharply. “They have no war leader, no lawagetas.”
“Are we certain?” Imbrasos, a former high priest, had taken Nearchos’s seat on the assembly. He typically cast his vote for the majority, and spoke rarely, though when he did open his mouth, he always made his words count by raising some salient point. “Cylarabes knows that we have agents scattered throughout Argolis, and he may even know who they are, because he’s been able to keep information from us in the past. Based on that, who’s to say he isn’t keeping a well-trained host and a competent lawagetas waiting in the shadows?”
“You can’t train that many men without someone knowing about it,” Lykeus retorted.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, you can.”
Lykeus acknowledged the correction with a respectful nod. “That was sixty men, my lord, and they trained at night. We’re talking about hundreds here, equipped with chariots, and—”
“And what?” I pressed. “What are they going to do, throw themselves upon Mycenae’s walls?”
Kleitos grudgingly offered his suggestion, “As much as we would all like to trample the Argives in open battle, and win glory, perhaps it isn’t the easiest way to resolve this matter. This trouble started with Akelos’s accusations. So let’s settle this once and for all, and call him out to a duel. Unless Ares is fighting beside him, Akelos doesn’t have the king’s years of disciplined training, and from what I hear about his fighting style, he fights with his spleen rather than his head.”
“The king challenged him when that weathered sack of bones Melandros was here,” Menon argued, “and he never answered, remember? Coward!” He spat his contempt onto the floor, before recalling that he was in the megaron, with its painted stucco floor. He threw me an apologetic look.
“How many knew about that challenge, though?” Haimon asked. “We knew about it, Melandros knew—” He ticked each one off on his fingers. “And Cylarabes would have known once his ambassador returned, but I suspect that message was delivered privately. Akelos may not even have been told that King Orestes called him out, and still might not know, because what quarrelsome young man like that would refuse to defend his honor? Perhaps the king ought to reissue his challenge, but this time do it publicly.”
“You would have the king go straight into the snake’s den itself?” Lykeus articulated the objections rumbling along the benches. “What demon has entered your brain?”
Haimon lifted his hand for silence. “Did I say he should go to the Larissa to deliver the challenge? That would be a fool’s errand. Hear me out, lords, then decide how insane you think I am.” Turning toward the dais, he nodded to me, and said, “Here is what I propose...”
None of the other lords suggested a solution half as workable. Menon and Lykeus, older and more inflexible, discounted Haimon’s suggestions in favor of the brutal, decisive raids familiar to them, but Kleitos, Imbrasos, and I recognized the advantages, and listened with great interest.
The next morning, I closed the megaron to petitions and public transactions, appointing a steward to explain to the people that I was about to demand redress to Argos, and then had Sama bring Mycenae’s eight most competent scribes to take dictation. “These messages will be delivered to Argos, Tiryns, and six other towns throughout the region,” I told Pylades, who, seated on my right, awaited his own instructions. “Scribes, these are my words:
“‘To the lords of Argolis, from Orestes Agamemnonides, king of Mycenae, overlord of Nemea and the Cyclades. This missive is to inform you that we intend to address a damos on the day after the harvest festival, on neutral ground by the stone bridge over the Chavos. There, let the Argive Akelos publicly voice his grievance against our person. Let him face us in the old way, and let his sponsor, King Cylarabes of Argos, come also, to see what manner of man he has taken into his household.’ There!” I waited for Sama and the other scribes to finish before issuing further instructions. “Bring me your documents.”
As the scribes came to the dais, I inspected and closed each diptych, and impressed my personal seal into the blob of melted red wax securing the twine bound thrice around the wooden cover. Then I handed the stack to Pylades, and told him, “Choose the most reliable messengers to convey these. They must go to the Argive assembly, to the warden of Tiryns, and to the lords of Troezen, Nauplia, Epidauros, Midea, Lerna, and Asine. Instruct those messengers to break the seals before, and not hand them over to, the lords of those towns, and to read them aloud before as many witnesses as possible.”
All that remained was for the aforementioned lords to swallow the bait, as they eventually did. Over the next ten days, word trickled in through my messengers and agents that my missive had stirred a hornet’s nest throughout Argolis, a peculiar juxtaposition of outrage and curiosity that would, as Haimon averred, bring noblemen and commoners alike to the Chavos on the appointed day.
There were no further disturbances, yet it was an anticipatory quiet, akin to the hour when dark storm clouds loomed ominous on the horizon, but had not yet advanced with their lashing rains, wind, and shattering thunder. If the Argives attacked again, harvest would be the ideal time to do it. I maintained the patrols along the borders, keeping my warriors in readiness, even riding out with them in my chariot, and in full battle gear to reassure the people, and warn my enemies that any violence would be answered with force.
Meanwhile, my women occupied themselves with preparations for the harvest, and sacred rituals in the women’s sanctuary. Hermione slept uneasily at night, and slogged through the hot days with shadows under her eyes. “I hope Akelos never answers your challenge,” she said.
“Because you don’t want me to fight and lose?” Elektra had expressed the opposite sentiment, that she wanted to personally watch me pummel the bastard to a bleeding pulp before I trampled his carcass into the dust.
“No.” Hermione’s gaze narrowed. “I want him to flee like a coward and be revealed as the fraud he is.”
“Ah,” I answered, “but the point is to draw him out and kill him, and thereby confound whatever scheme Cylarabes intended for him. There’s no reason to worry. Akelos is a baseborn shepherd who hasn’t had the long years of training and hard discipline that I have. He fights with his spleen, not his head, so he’s bound to make a fatal mistake.” Yes, those were Kleitos’s exact words, but from what little I knew and had seen of Akelos, they articulated the most accurate assessment of the man I had yet heard.
Hermione turned her head away, toward the window where her women had tacked up a square of wet linen as protection against the relentless heat and stinging insects. “It’s beneath your dignity to fight this man. Appoint a champion instead. Thestalos is a good fighter.”
She would have me stay home altogether. “Perhaps I will consider him.” Not that I would do any such thing, not where my honor was concerned, and where I had already announced that I would undertake this duel with my accuser and enemy. Hermione knew that full well.
*~*~*~*
Harvest began on a searingly cloudless day, with a propitiatory sacrifice to Mother Dia. Dressed as the goddess-on-earth, her face painted as white as death, Hermione wielded the labrys down at the altar fronting the Perseid grave circle. I watched from the terrace above as the acolytes removed the drugged heifer’s garlands, sprinkled her head with water and sacred meal, and stunned her with a mallet so their high priestess could neatly sever the animal’s spine. A shout went up from the priestesses and ladies of the court. They clapped their hands, and began dancing in their bare feet, their swishing skirts and well-turned ankles as enchanting as their naked breasts.
At that most inopportune moment, as I was fantasizing about fondling the enormous dugs of Sama’s wife, Eteokles bent at my elbow and informed me that a messenger had arrived with urgent news from Tiryns. “Forgive the intrusion, but it cannot wait, my lord.”
As the women continued to chant and dance, and the acolytes collected the sacrificial blood in bowls to sprinkle in the fields, I had the messenger brought to the terrace. He knelt before me, wilting from heat and exhaustion, and breathlessly spoke, “My lord, King Cylarabes’s grandson died last night in his bed.” It took me a good moment to remember that Cylarabes had a grandson, and that he was sickly, though I failed to see why his death was considered urgent news.
When I told him so, the young man sucked down another breath, and added, “Rumors abound that a Mycenaean killer crept into the palace and smothered the boy with a pillow.”
My amorous musings vanished in an instant with the cold realization that the rumors had been manufactured, and perhaps even the death as well; the Argives were using the murder of a child to their advantage. A bloodcurdling shriek from below caused me to jump inside my skin. Elektra brandished the bloody labrys with the rapaciousness of a maenad. I stared at the knot of women forming around her without focusing, chilled and sweating simultaneously, hearing in my mind the frenzied accusations of the Erinyes, singing, “Murderer! Murderer!” And that would be the least of the slanders with which my enemies would blacken my name, because the people would believe. No matter what the outcome of the duel, they would all-too readily believe that I, the man who had murdered his own mother, had had an invalid child smothered in his bed.
Then Pylades was speaking, “It is well known that young Polylaos had weak lungs.” That was the boy’s name, yes. Polylaos. “Apollo could just as easily have stilled his breath.” My instincts cried out otherwise. Murder! “Orestes!” A rough nudge. “Are you listening?”
The messenger had gone; Eteokles must have taken him away. “Yes,” I answered, “but, no. Apollo did not do this. The timing is too suspicious, too favorable for the Argives.”
Apparently, no one had warned the messenger to keep his mouth shut about the boy’s death, for by noon the news had spread all over the citadel. Hermione, still robed as the goddess-on-earth, and attended by the priestesses and ladies of Mycenae, intercepted me on the way to the megaron. “What is this I am hearing about you murdering the Argive king’s grandson?” Her voice took on a tone of great urgency. “That cannot be true.”
Her timing could not have been worse, just as I was about to confer with the assembly, but at least she had enough presence of mind soften her tone, so that neither her attendants nor the courtiers thronging the great court should overhear. “An unfounded lie,” I hissed back. “We will discuss this later.”
My meeting with the assembly was short and decisive, though it did nothing to lessen the sidelong glances I received on the way out. Gods above, even the servants believed the tale! A ghost of the old double curse had returned to haunt the House of Atreus. It was one thing to execute an enemy’s sons to prevent them from taking vengeance as adults, for that was an acceptable, necessary evil, but quite another to smother a seven-year-old invalid in his bed when his death conferred no benefits or served any purpose except to inflame the anger of the people. Atreus must have faced similar censure when he killed his nephews, except that he had been guilty, and beyond remorse.
“Deal with this after the harvest, once your ritual obligations are satisfied,” Pylades advised. “These lies cannot be allowed to interfere between you and Mother Gaia.” He still called the goddess by her Phocian name. What, I wondered, did my nieces and nephews think about their uncle now? I had not seen them all day, and was reluctant to inquire about them. Thank the gods that my own children were still too young to understand.
My ritual obligations consisted of offering a lock of my hair, and pouring libations of wine and honey to Mother Dia before the great hearth, and pledging my worship and obedience on behalf of the people.
At sunset, Hermione as the goddess-on-earth received the sacred sheaves in the great court, and danced with the women as the moon rose, round and yellow, above the mountain peaks. I retired early, troubled in my mind, and craving oblivion, but found it impossible to sleep in the sultry heat, with the music of the drums and pipes, and women’s voices coming from downstairs.
Hermione found me still awake a few hours later. Her maids had scrubbed away her paint and dressed her for bed in a thin linen shift; she looked like a young girl standing there by the curtain. “We should send our condolences and funerary gifts to Lysimachus and his wife.”
“It is not in our best interests to do that.” Once satisfied that I had not acted beyond my authority, and ordered the child eliminated, the Mycenaean assembly had concurred that the Argive king must have arranged the murder, for it was not an undertaking which Akelos would have attempted on his own. “We must distance ourselves from this crime.”
“I was not speaking of our best interests, but of what is pious and decent.” Hermione folded her arms across her breasts. “Let Lysimachus and his wife refuse our envoy and our gifts, but that will be on their heads. You must demonstrate your innocence.”
I let her have her way, for there was no harm in it, and, even if the warden rejected the gesture, I might somehow be able to turn it to my advantage. “Very well, then. Choose something appropriate to send, but you should not expect anything but disappointment to come of it.”
Hermione chose modest yet well-made funerary gifts, and even composed a consolatory message, from one mother to another, to the lady of Tiryns, but finding a suitable volunteer to serve as our envoy proved more challenging.
Pylades offered to convey our gifts and condolences, but to send him was tantamount to murder; as my councilors pointed out, there was no telling what the Argives in their misguided resentment might do to him on the road south. An armed escort would protect him, but the aggressive display would heighten the tensions our messages and his mission was meant to ameliorate.
Haimon commented, “It does not seem that any Mycenaean messenger could succeed—”
Imbrasos interrupted with his elegant drawl, “Certainly not any ordinary messenger, or any member of the royal family, but I—” He stepped from his inconspicuous seat into a square of light slanting down from the clerestory windows, demonstrating his talent for the dramatic. “Remember, I am a high priest of Poseidon. Let me don the raiment of the god’s servant and take your words and gifts to Lord Lysimachus. The Earth-shaker shall be my shield, and my blade should the warden of Tiryns or his subjects violate the sacred precepts of hospitality.”
