Gregory

by Panos Ioannides

  Yes, Odysseus was not mistaken when he said that he knew the Cypriots. With just one question he would find out what lay behind all this tragic farce. He had noticed that Amakos had repeated three times that as ‘an honourable officer whose services were regally rewarded by the Paphian throne, he was unable to add anything to what he had said’. This phrase gave him the lever he needed. He pushed into his tent and brought out his old armour, in which he had hidden the plunder of recent months. Fortunately Agamemnon was not present, otherwise he would have been obliged to explain how he had amassed it, for misappropriating from the plunder he was responsible for and authorized to send every three months to Mycenae, whatever he thought Clytemnestra would not like…

  “You were an honourable officer of Cinyras”, he said, undoing the straps of the armour and letting the silvery contents pour out at the feet of the admiral. “However, if you wish, as from today, with this as your first salary, you cease to be an officer of Cinyras and become an honorable and loyal officer of Agamemnon.”

  During the short silence which followed, the eyes of the curious Greeks who had gathered in a circle expressed more anxiety and vacillation at the problem faced by Talthyvios’ captive than the captive himself. As for Talthyvios, apparently indifferent, he kept one eye on the Cypriot and the other on the spectators, with his hand on his sword, in case one of them, or all of them, would covet the foreign plunder more than the solution to the foreign dilemma.

  Amakos was the only one who faced the challenge unperturbed.

  He thought: ‘An honest Cypriot soldier is useful only as long as he has his head on his shoulders. And in the final analysis a Cypriot soldier is a Greek soldier. Cyprus is a part of Greece. Loyalty to Cyprus is less Greek loyalty than loyalty to Greece itself. I am upright Greek Cypriot and I have been offered an honorable promotion in the Greek army… I have no choice in the matter…’

  And Talthyvios learned the truth: Cinyras, under pressure from the courtiers and his counsellors decided that it would be catastrophic for the Paphian economy, which was already facing intense competition, if Cyprus identified its fortunes with those of Hellenism in Asia. It was in the greater interest of its people, and even of Greece itself, for Cyprus to remain outside the conflict, awaiting its outcome. If Greece won the war it would become evident that its assistance, with all its painful consequences for Cyprus, would be essentially superfluous and its contribution merely symbolic. If, on the other hand, the war were lost, the ruination of Cyprus would be of no assistance to Greece. On the contrary, a strong and prosperous Cyprus would be in a position to reinforce the Motherland and help it to thrive. The only problem remaining was the convention. He had committed himself before Gods and men. But he soon found a solution to that problem, too. He would send a real vessel and forty-nine of terracotta to Troy.

  “It had not been specified that he would send fifty wooden vessels…”

  The final words of the new Greek officer were drowned in a confusion of voices. The Trojans’ attack had begun. The fortress gate creaked open and the bronze - spears, shields, lances and breastplates flashed in the sun.

  At the estuary of the Scamander, the paeans of the Trojan sailors were silver-plated by the clanging of weapons and the creaking of oars.

  III

  For a whole month Cinyras did not appear to the clergy or the people. And at the Great Procession of Yeroskipou, which marked the beginning of the Mysteries of Aphrodite and at which he honored her every year by being the first to raise the huge wooden phallus, supporting the chryselephantine testicles on his shoulders, it was announced that the Arch-Priest would be obliged, due to serious affairs of state, to appoint Kourios as his representative.

  But the official announcement was in complete contradiction to a persistent rumour, according to which Cinyras no longer exercised his high duties from the throne-room. And the people were justifiably beginning to ask themselves what kind of duties were they which kept him away from his natural headquarters and obliged him to abandon the clergy to his immature heir.

  Conjectures and rumours were naturally rife: a serious dispute over property with Queen Metharme; the initiation of an anaphrodisiac ambassadress of Nileria in the grove of Chlorakis; copulation when he was intoxicated with his daughter Smyrna, from whom he was now expecting a son and grandson together; narcotization from the perfume “Adonian”, manufactured by his son Amarakos, the elixir that was coveted by the Olympians themselves so that they conspired to poison him in order to appropriate it; hasty flight from Paphos after the unforeseen victory of the Greeks at Troy, which was accompanied by rumors of a harsh punishment for the Cypriot treaty-breakers.

  These latter rumours were the most persistent and most probable. Judging that the rage of Agamemnon would be terrible and justified, all the honourable Paphians, who happened to be the only ones who had no share in the state funds, forgot that during recent years in Paphos for every reactionary there were ten secret agents. And so they began to externalize their fears and to protest vaguely ‘about the inconsistency of the leadership’ at first, about the ‘leader’ later, and finally about ‘Cinyras’ openly, and to express the conviction that his machinations and shameful treachery would be paid for by - who else - the people! Feeling rose even further when the information leaked out that labyrinthine galleries and safe luxurious hiding-places were being hastily prepared in an abandoned mine, where the leader and his cohorts would take refuge in the event of an invasion!

  And while things were in such a state and the people were living in a whirlwind of rumors and fears, protests and demonstrations, arrests and threats, the rebellion of the Amathusians suddenly broke out.

  For some time the efforts to find a peaceful and mutually acceptable form of ‘subordination’ of Amathus had been deadlocked, and they had been followed by veiled at first and then open threats of military conflict and the settlement of differences by force of arms.

  The rebellion broke out on the eve of the Aphrodisia festival, when the Paphian coastguards chanced to discover a group of Amathusians transporting large quantities of Assyrian arms, hidden in loads of holly myrtle. In the ensuing conflict, two coastguards were killed as well as twenty Amathusians, including five women and two babies, whom the ‘pitiless Amathusians were using as cover’.

  After this incident feelings were inflamed and the deadly war between the two City-Kingdoms was officially declared on the day of Aphrodite.

  Arriving in Cyprus, Talthyvios found Paphos convulsed by the tragic events that had occurred. Deep in mourning but also busy with the task of reconstruction.

  The aim of Agamemnon’s envoy - after the Greek victory, Agamemnon had reinstated Talthyvios in his original position with the stipulation that vengeance be taken on the traitor in the name of the Greeks - was to organize a coup d’etat that would neutralize Cinyras definitively and absolutely.

  For assistance, Talthyvios counted on his old collaborators from the Paphos-Amathus war. Men who were more loyal to Greece than to autonomous Paphos, soldiers and intellectuals and artists who revered their ancestry more than their lives and prosperity. When he had left Paphos ten years earlier, most of them had accompanied him to the harbour, a veritable procession, and had sworn loyalty and devotion. He would never forget their friendly arms on his shoulders, their eyes moist with an emotion that was genuine because it was manly! Unfortunately, during his previous mission he had been unable to see Stasinos or Zenon and the others. The hard diplomatic battles with Cinyras, the palace formalities and ceremonies, had not allowed him to travel to the provinces to seek them out, because naturally they were not to be found at Court nor in the aristocratic neighbourhoods of Paphos that he had the opportunity to visit. He had, however, spoken of them to Cinyras, urging him to rely on their value and on their virtues and stressing their attachment to Greece. ‘If they are called on to die for Greece, it will be their greatest honour’ he assured the Paphian king. Cinyras was very moved and demanded further information. ‘I need such men,�
� he said.

  ‘With such collaborators as the hard core of my army and with as many malcontents as they can assemble, success is assured,’ thought Talthyvios throughout the voyage, and he looked forward to the reserved, dignified enthusiasm of Agamemnon, the friendly teasing of Odysseus and the envy of Diomedes the day he returned to announce that Cinyras lay with his ancestors in the sacred grove and the new Arch-Priest was now Chalcanor and the new King Cypragoras.

  The light Trojan vessel, plunder of the Greek victory, which brought him secretly to Cyprus, set him down at an isolated cove two hours from the capital. In a cave he hid the cases of Paphian coins which had been entrusted to him ‘in order to secure, if he did not find it free, the patriotism of the subjects of Cinyras’, trimmed his beard, put on the Cypriot cloak he had found in the cabin of Amakos, and set off for Chalcanor’s house, which as far as he remembered was not far away.

  The previously monotonous rural landscape was now enlivened by the evidence of the catastrophe: burntout farmhouses, neglected fields, the remains of bodies and vultures and bands of refugees with bundles full of loot and babies.

  The house of Chalcanor was still standing, a discord on the devastated plain. He knocked at the door, consumed with the expectation of squeezing the arm of his faithful friend and anxiety lest the master had not been as fortunate as the house.

  The door was opened by a woman with red hair and fissured skin.

  “Doesn’t Chalcanor live here?”

  “Welcome. Come in!” she said eyeing him coquettishly.

  “Chalcanor… The son of Amilkas,” he repeated.

  “Sit here…” Once again she avoided replying, and she offered him a seat, throwing a sheepskin over it. She herself sat opposite him, on a stool.

  “The noble Chalcanor has been living at the palace of Cinyras, for some time,” she said in her sing-song voice.

  “What is Chalcanor doing at the palace of Cinyras?” he asked betraying his surprise.

  “In Aphrodite’s name, stranger, what would anyone be doing at the palace of Cinyras? What are you? You are certainly not a Cypriot. An Amathusian?”

  “No… a Salaminan”…

  Certain that Cinyras must be hosting his friend in the tombs of the Kings, Talthyvios set off for the country cottage of Cypragoras. He arrived at dusk. In the place of the farmhouse rose a two-storey villa, newly-built, with ostentatious mosaics at the entrance, depicting Cinyras distributing corn to landless peasants. In the garden, hedged by cypresses, slaves worked like bees. He knocked, although he was now sure that something terrible awaited him here too.

  A fair-skinned girl, with a baby at her breast, told him that her master now had his own apartment at the palace…

  He had no further doubts! Cinyras had noted the names that he had naively given him and unleashed his secret agents to round up those ‘suspicious patriots’ who were prepared to die for the glory of Agamemnon, but who did not bother, of course, to fight the Amathusians and defend their country, which had greater need of their loyalty…

  It was solely from acquired momentum that he decided to continue his quest. However, before visiting the estate of Stasinos, which was some distance away, he decided that he should make himself comfortable first. In the afternoon, leaving the villa of Cypragoras, he suddenly realized that he was no longer as young as he wanted to believe and all his wanderings and sleeping under bridges or in ruined sheep-folds had exhausted him. And even worse, besides the fact that he feared reptiles and the cold, he began to fear that the hardships and the discoveries that accompanied them would day by day cause the fever for vengeance that had brought him from Troy to subside. And that must not happen. Never!

  He trimmed his beard even more, plucked more tufts from his bushy eyebrows, put on all the clothes he had brought with him under his Cypriot cloak, to look fatter, and certain that thus disguised not even Odysseus himself would recognize him, he left Chlorakis and took the coastal road that leads to Paphos.

  The City-Kingdom was just as he had known it, as ostentatious and noisy as ever, and more devoted than ever to its leader.

  His marble, wooden, bronze and engraved image was everywhere - in squares, on pediments, public buildings, taverns, brothels.

  The market that Talthyvios visited in search of food and information was bustling. It was evident that far from being paralyzed by the war, commerce was flourishing. It had become a passion and end in itself. Someone who did not know the Paphians would have thought that this was a natural consequence of the anguish that these people had experienced, a way out, a justified desire to let themselves go and to forget. But he, who knew better, was convinced that no other people, under such different circumstances, had remained so consistent in their way of life, philosophy and particular characteristics!…

  He approached a money-changer and offered him one of his gold coins. The old man weighed him up with a glance and bit the coin with his canine tooth.

  ‘I’d like a cheap room for a few nights…, Talthyvios began.

  “Where are you from? From Argos?” asked the money-changer, taking him by surprise, as he counted out ten copper coins.

  “Me?” protested Talthyvios, disquieted, and he looked around him anxiously. Fortunately there was no one close by.

  “Come on now! My ear is not fooled. My ear and my tooth are never mistaken. Only my eyes are a match for them!”

  “Yes,” Talthyvios was compelled to admit in a low voice. “I was born in Argos, but I’ve been living in Salamis for the past fifteen years.”

  “Salamis of Paphos?”

  “Of Paphos,” he replied, trying to force a smile. “Though the Salaminans would not agree with your geography..”

  “And what work do you do in Salamis?”

  “Commerce! Wine and oil with Neliria and Crete…”

  “Your hands show you oughtn’t to get involved in commerce. But what can you do? We cannot always do what our hands say…”

  And he added:

  “I know a house… Go about your business and return around sunset.”

  Talthyvios left the money-changer panic-stricken. Out of all those thousands, did he have to chance upon that scoundrel? If Agamemnon should ever find out that his plans were put at risk by such a rascal… He had to neutralize the danger at all costs. But how? By avoiding the old man? Would that not merely provoke greater suspicions? By bribing him? How could he know whether the three canine teeth would ever be satisfied? By killing him? But would he bring it off? Even in that he was inexperienced.

  And then again, who knows what other hidden skill the old man possessed? What if he were a secret agent in disguise? Would he not pin him to the wall before he could draw his blade? No, it was wiser to continue the game. Since he had begun to play the part of an Argive-Salaminan, he must continue the comedy, keeping his eyes pealed.

  He cursed his ill-fortune and thrust into the first tavern to quench his thirst.

  “What will you have, sir,” asked the bartender. Sweet, dry or semi-sweet wine Cinyras brand?”

  The farmhouse that was once shared by Stasinos, Zenon and Nikias was, as he expected, in ruins. Stasinos had taken up residence at the palace. The other two had been the victims of some ‘accident’. The naturalness with which his informant spoke the terrible word impressed him. But he did not wish to learn more than he already suspected. ‘Accident or apartment in the Palace’. That was what the shepherd meant; that was what he could expect if he had correctly understood.

  Deeply disappointed at the turn events had taken and compelled to expend his gold coins in order to buy the assistance he required, he returned to Paphos, to the small house the old man had found. Tomorrow, whether he liked it or not, he would have to go down for the first installment…

  Entering the atrium he was surprised by the cleanliness; furniture, paved-floor, even the cobwebbed corners of the walls, everything was spotless. And in the kitchen there was a cloth on the table beside the grate. During the ten days he had now been in Paphos,
old Roxana had not accustomed him to such delicacies! A double-mouthed jug of wine, roast leg of lamb and honey-cakes. He called the old woman to thank her, but also to politely demand an explanation about the way she had been squandering the money that he had entrusted to her for a whole month. But he received no reply. And exhausted as he was, he sat down. Shortly, intoxicated by the wine and with his stomach as heavy as the whole leg of lamb, he took to his bed and did not wake up again until the following day, at noon.

  Displeased, he remembered what he had planned to do. He ate what was left over from the evening meal and then following the coast road he arrived at the hiding-place. After making sure that there was no one around, he dug up the cases and counted out fifty, no that was too much, forty gold coins. His plan was simple; he would buy a clerical costume and thus disguised he would enter the palace and free as many of his friends as were still alive. Five gold coins were more than enough for a costume. The rest would be for the guards…

  He returned to Paphos towards dusk and certain that the previous evening’s miracle would not be repeated - his luck never persisted - he bought smoked ham and wine.

  Afterwards, strolling indolently through the most remote alleyways and drawing up his plans for the next day’s adventure at the palace, he returned home. The door was ajar. Before leaving he had bolted it; he remembered well. And the old woman did not stay so late. He approached cautiously. He heard footsteps.