Heroes (formerly Talisman of Troy) (23 page)

One autumn evening some time later, princess Electra left the great Gate of the Lions at Mycenae and walked down the narrow valley of the tombs. She was carrying a basket filled with offerings, honey and milk and white flour, offerings for the shadows of the dead. But she didn’t stop in front of any of the great mounds along the path. She continued with hurried step until she found a large slab of stone covering a cistern hollowed out of the underlying rock and there she stopped. She poured the milk on to the stone and then the honey and then scattered the flour, invoking the shade of her father.

Big congealed lumps showed how many times her hand had generously poured those offerings and were proof that not even the animals, the stray dogs and the foxes, had dared to contend with the angry shade of the Great Atreid. She prostrated herself on the bare rock and wept with her cheek pressed against the huge slab, wetting it with her tears.

The sun had dropped behind the mountains and its light was suddenly swallowed up by a dark mass of clouds that advanced from the most remote horizon. The wind slipped into the valley and its voice, in the narrow gorge, joined her lament. The princess got up on to her knees, her right hand still caressing the stone. Her head was low. She could hear the twittering of the birds seeking a shelter for the night. The last swallows circled low on the arid grass, crossing in flight between the dried amaranth and the thorny brambles.

The valley was nearly completely invaded by the shadows when Electra got up. ‘Farewell, father,’ she murmured, bringing her hand to her mouth for a kiss. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can.’

She had seen him, for the last time, all covered with blood with his throat cut, being dragged obscenely across the floor like a butchered animal. Awakened in the night by the screams coming from the great hall, she saw everything from the gallery on the second floor but she could not cry out the horror and desperation gnawing at her heart; her soul was lacerated with pain and then invaded by the most implacable hate. Yet every time that she came to that wretched, unworthy tomb, she tried to remember her father as he was when she saw him leave for the war. He had come into her room where she, sitting on the floor in a corner, was trying to swallow her tears. He had put his hand on her head and had said: ‘Iphigeneia will leave tomorrow to become the wife of a prince, but you must keep watch over your brother who is still small, and respect your mother. I will think of you every evening, when the sun descends behind the mountains or among the waves of the sea, and I’ll dream of holding you in my arms and of stroking your hair.’

She had got up and hugged him. She had felt the cold contact of the bronze covering his chest and had been seized by a stab of pain, the same that she felt now, every time she laid her face against that stone, always so cold, even on the hottest summer evenings.

‘Farewell, father,’ she had said, crying, and she had raised her eyes to meet his. In his face she had read the mark of dark desperation, in his eyes the uncertain sparkling of tears. He had given her a kiss and had left, and she had remained to listen to the pounding of his wide steps down the stairway and the clashing armour on his powerful shoulders. She would never see him again. Alive.

A pebble suddenly rolled near her feet, from the left; Electra turned in that direction and saw a cloaked figure advancing at a cautious pace from behind the boulders in the valley. She shrank back, frightened; anything could happen in such a solitary place. The man stopped and bared his head, revealing the face of a young blond god.

His voice rang out, close and warm, in the silence of the evening: ‘Electra.’

‘Oh, gods of the heavens . . .’ stammered the princess, peering in the near darkness so that her eyes might confirm what her heart already knew. ‘Brother,’ she said, ‘is that you?’

The young man embraced her, nestling her head against his shoulder, while she could not hold back her tears. He led her to the shelter of a jutting rock and had her sit beside him. He held her tightly, nearly cradling her in his arms.

She suddenly started: ‘You are mad,’ she cried, ‘to have come here! If anyone sees you, you’ll be killed at once. Aegisthus’s men are everywhere.’

‘I had to see you and let you know you’re not alone. We are gathering an army and when we are ready we shall lay siege to the city.’

‘You’ll never succeed,’ said Electra. ‘The city is invincible. The Phocian forces have no chance against the squadrons of war chariots that Aegisthus can send into the field.’

‘Uncle Menelaus is back. Haven’t you heard?’

‘Yes, but I had heard that he was very ill, close to death.’

‘He’s fine. But don’t let the word out; no one must know. Nestor will send his fleet to sea to stop the Cretans if they should attack us; he’ll send us one thousand men, commanded by Pisistratus, and one hundred chariots. Many others will join us from Argos, Tiryns, Nemea and from Mycenae as well.’ He took a fleeting look at the slab covering the cistern. ‘Our father will be avenged and he will finally have peace in Hades.’

Electra couldn’t take her eyes away from him, and he stroked him gently as he spoke. When he had finished she dropped her head for a while as if gathering her thoughts: ‘Do you know what all this means?’

‘I do,’ said the youth. ‘It means the death of our mother. By my hand. If we win. If we are defeated, it means my death, and yours, and the death of all of our dreams.’

‘You’ve never killed anyone. How could you kill your mother? Have you thought of how you will feel afterwards? Of the nightmares that will torment you for your whole life? Her spirit will give you no peace, neither by day or night.’ She kissed his eyes, his forehead, his hair. ‘You’re just a boy . . . you would have the right to different thoughts. Oh gods . . . why? Why us, we’ve done nothing!’

‘Do not ask, sister. There is no answer to your questions. Destiny is blind and has cast all this misfortune upon us. In this very moment someone else, in some other place, far away, is enjoying every happiness . . . even ours, the happiness that would be ours. But one day, who knows, perhaps more serene days will dawn for us as well. Perhaps we’ll be able to live, and to forget.’ Orestes rose to his feet. ‘But now we will do what must be done. Don’t cry as I leave you.’

He covered his head and turned, soon disappearing into the darkness that had descended to cover the land.

The chirping of the birds had ceased; they were sleeping in their nests under their mother’s wing. The dark valley now sounded with the hoots of the birds of prey and the howls of the jackals which roamed the darkness to rob the dead of the offerings left by the pious living. Electra pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders and started her walk back. As she was leaving the valley, her gaze flew to the citadel and the high walls of the palace. She thought she saw, for just an instant, a solitary figure dressed in black on the tower of the chasm. Then the wind carried the echo of a wail coming from a house near the road. A babe crying for fear of the dark, consoled by his mother’s singing.

Electra listened to that lullaby and it called up lost images, forgotten long ago. A knot tightened her throat and an aching nostalgia filled her soul.

Then the baby’s crying stopped, and the mother’s song as well. Electra began walking.

A
NCHIALUS JOURNEYED AT LENGTH
amid steep mountains and thick forests, living on what he could find. When he came upon a village, he would remain and work there for some time, in exchange for food and shelter. He pushed on this way until one day, having decided that it was time to move on, he realized that the choice was no longer his to make. The people whom he lived with had come to consider him their property and intended to keep him as a slave. His sword was taken from him, and an iron collar was put round his neck, with a ring they used to chain him up at night. He remained in that state for a long time, without understanding where he was or who the people who held him prisoner were, until one night the village was stormed and sacked by a people coming from the north. The
Dor
.

He was spared because he was a slave and that day he traded one master for another. He saw that the
Dor
community was divided very rigidly: there were the warriors, those who did manual labour, and the slaves, nearly all plunder of war, like himself. The slaves had to attend to the animals and take the flocks to pasture.

He had never managed to learn the language of the people who had first kept him slave, but he realized that it was much easier for him to understand the language of the
Dor
, which sounded strangely familiar to him, similar somehow to his own.

He could not fathom the reason for this, and he tried to remember the traditions and stories that the elders of his people would tell when he was just a boy in search of an explanation, but he found none. At night when he dropped on to his mat of dried grass, he could not sleep, exhausted as he was. He thought of the comrades whom he had let die at sea, he thought of the others who had stayed with Diomedes; he thought of his king, to whom he had made a promise it would be very difficult to keep.

He implored the gods to free him, to remove the yoke weighing on his shoulders, to restore his shield and his spear. But much time passed before anything happened.

The
Dor
settled for nearly three years on a plain near the shore of a lake encircled by tall mountains, and he with them.

One day they gave him a woman, a slave like he was, so they could generate more slaves, but when he lay with her he spilled his seed on the ground so that he would not be bound to that life, so that he would have no wife and no children. Every day, at the break of dawn and at the setting of the sun, he repeated to himself: ‘You are Anchialus, son of Iasus, and you fought with the son of Tydeus, Diomedes, under the walls of Troy. No one can keep you in their thrall.’

He feigned docility and cowardice, he pretended to tremble in the sight of his master, he grovelled and whimpered when they threatened punishment and soon no one had any more regard for him than for the sheep and goats they raised in their pens.

And so one night he strangled his master in his sleep, took his weapons and his horse, and escaped. He descended the banks of a river, leaving no traces, and he continued on day and night without ever pausing, never eating and never sleeping. When he was certain that he had put enough distance between himself and his enemies, he stopped to look for a little food so he could gain the strength to go on. He set traps, as he had learned from his first masters, and caught some game. He dug in the ground for tubers and roots with his sword, and he gathered wild fruit from the trees as he had done after surviving the pirates’ attack.

When he felt strong enough, he took up his journey once again, keeping well clear of villages this time. Nearly two months passed in this way, although he could not say how much ground he had covered. He knew only that he was walking southward, leaving the darkness and night behind him.

One morning, just as day was breaking, he finally reached a rocky peak from which he saw an expanse of waves that shone like polished bronze. A strong salty odour was carried on the breeze and his heart swelled in his chest. ‘The sea,’ he murmured aloud.

Along the coast he found a village of fishermen who spoke his language. He asked them what land he found himself in, and they told him it was Epirus, ruled over by Pyrrhus, a youth just seventeen years of age. The fishermen told him that their young king had come by ship after fighting at length in Asia. It was said that he was the son of a fearful warrior who had died far from his native land. ‘The son of Achilles!’ thought Anchialus. ‘Achilles’s son, here . . . how could that be?’ He was more convinced than ever that the accursed war had ruined them all, overturning kingdoms and dynasties, procuring no less trouble for the victors than for the vanquished. So the son of Achilles did not reign in Phthia and over the plains of Thessaly as would have been his right, but over a poor, primitive place at the edge of the land of the Achaeans!

He asked the fishermen where he could find the king’s house, and they answered that he must continue along the coast, never losing sight of the sea, proceeding south until he reached a place called Buthrotum. There lived the young king, surrounded by his warriors, with a foreign bride, older than he, beautiful but very sad. No one had ever seen her smile, but neither had anyone ever seen her weep. Those who had known her said she looked like a statue, with skin pale as marble and lovely, lightless eyes.

Anchialus thought and thought of who that woman might be, but he could not remember anyone who fitted that description. He was pleased nonetheless; he thought that he would finally meet one of the kings who had fought under the walls of Ilium, and that he could report to him as Diomedes had ordered. He would ask for a ship, and he would set sail west once again. Sooner or later he would find Diomedes and the comrades he had left, and he would join them in their new kingdom, in their new homeland.

He walked for two days before he found a fisherman who was going by boat to the city to sell his catch of fish; he asked if he could go there together with him. They talked at length while the boat slipped calmly over the clear waves, under a brilliant sun. He felt as though he had never left those lands. They could see islands rising from the sea on one side and, on the other, the steep, rocky coastline with its low sandy stretches bordered by lush trees and thick bushes of fragrant juniper and myrtle.

Buthrotum appeared towards evening, walls reddish in the twilight, standing out against the deep green of the surrounding woods. Dogs were barking; gulls screeching over the jutting cliffs. Epirus seemed an untamed land.

Anchialus reached the palace and entered the courtyard to announce himself to the guard at the gate.

‘I am Anchialus, son of Iasus. I once fought at Troy with my king Diomedes, son of Tydeus, the lord of Argos. Tell your king that I am here and must speak with him as soon as possible. A grave danger threatens these lands, and he must know of it.’