‘Exactly. You know, Agamemnon,’ Nestor said reflectively, ‘desperate ventures mounted on purely commercial grounds are seldom attractive to Heroes. You burned Thebes for the sake of corn, but the Followers went to avenge their fathers. I think that’s why our support in the Throne Room was so lukewarm. Heroes are incurably romantic, and like a romantic reason for endangering their necks.’
A sagacious observation whose truth became later apparent.
* * *
Thus far I could reckon on Nestor’s firm alliance; while Diomedes, tied by oath, and Agasthenes by treaty were bound to follow my lead. From Agapenor of Arcadia, who bore the Dorian brunt, I extracted a promise of help provided our joint campaigns freed him from an ever-present threat. Which left Menelaus, who was unwilling to commit himself in spite of all the arguments I deployed. I saw his point: my brother had stepped into Sparta’s throne and wanted to consolidate his governance before engaging in foreign adventures. At length, exasperated, I mentioned Nestor’s proposal.
‘Go swanning off to Troy before the crown is settled firmly on my head? Not ruddy likely. Why can’t Nestor go himself?’
‘Pylos’ ships, like mine, have fought Troy’s fleets, and Priam holds him hostile. Sparta’s haven’t; therefore he’ll regard you as a neutral mediator. You dislike the idea of a Trojan War; here’s your chance to remove the need. You’ll be gone a moon at most. Is your rule so flimsy it won’t survive that long?’
By a mixture of hard reasoning, cajolery and calculated insult I eventually had my way. He took five ships, fifty bodyguard Heroes, costly gifts and an impressive regalia. At Prasiai, the port of embarkation, we sat on the beach while slaves heaved baggage aboard, and Menelaus said gloomily, ‘A fool’s errand. Priam’s an obstinate mule, and won’t budge a finger’s-breadth.’
‘Precisely my view,’ I agreed cheerfully.
Menelaus jumped. ‘Then why the blazes,’ he said stormily, ‘do you insist I go--‘
‘Not for your diplomatic skill, but because you’re the best military strategist in Achaea,’ I said soothingly. ‘During your stay in Troy, Menelaus, you must reconnoitre possible landing beaches, discover a site for a fortified base, study Troy’s defences--an earthquake razed the city since last I saw it in Atreus’ time--estimate her own and her allied forces, calculate her food reserves. An appreciation, in short, of our chances in a war.’
Menelaus trickled sand between his fingers. ‘You’re a cunning blackguard, brother. I’m a military reconnaissance in ambassadorial guise. Very well. It will help to ease frustration while I’m arguing with Priam. Which doesn’t mean,’ he warned, ‘Sparta agrees to send her Host to Troy!’
The final bales were swung to the holds; rowers manned the benches. I embraced Menelaus and wished him luck. He waded to a triaconter rocking in the shallows and clambered over the counter. Sails rattled to the mastheads, oarbanks lifted and dipped. I watched the ships grow small in the distance, frail white wings on a hazed horizon.
I returned home and organized Mycenae’s part in a combined attack on the Dorians. The columns were due to march on the first new moon after sowing, so giving time for Pylos, Argos and Elis to train Heroes in the type of light-armed dismounted fighting we envisaged. I told Ajax to start from Nemea and penetrate Arcadia till he reached the Elian border. Flying columns could not take wagons; his men would have to live hardily on rations carried in chariots and game killed on the march.
I then bade Periphetes prepare a ten-ship squadron for carrying me to Crete.
Lest you be ignorant of maritime matters as any land-locked Arcadian I shall explain shortly how Achaean navies work. Every ship is a merchantman launched primarily for trading. From the proceeds of commerce shipyards are built, vessels repaired, losses replaced and crews rewarded. The more your overseas trading prospers the larger becomes your mercantile fleet.
From the earliest days, however, pirates have preyed on merchantmen. So, ages ago in the mists of time some Cretan naval architect designed a deep-sea galley which combined in a single hull the qualities of warship and cargo-carrier both--a pattern that varied little down the centuries. Today you’ll see no difference between a fighting ship and a freighter: their construction is identical, their functions interchangeable at sight of an enemy sail.
After Atreus appointed me Master of the Ships I crewed eight triaconters with an additional fighting element--ten spearmen and four bowmen--called them a battle squadron and sent them to hunt down pirates. The experiment proved successful; over the years the squadron expanded; pirates now have virtually vanished. (Except in the oceans west of Pylos, whose ships still meet Sicilian corsairs--much to Nestor’s annoyance.) Nowadays Mycenae alone among Achaea’s naval powers can sail over thirty warships whose only task is fighting. An expensive possession: deprived of the profits of overseas commerce the ships and crews are a charge on the treasury.
Since leading a seaborne raid on a pirates’ nest at Malia years ago I had not visited Crete, nor had I met my grandfather King Catreus. Crete sailed a powerful fleet, equal to Pylos’ in numbers, roughly two-thirds of mine. Like everyone else since the Hellespont closed she suffered a dearth of corn. It was time I met a strong potential ally and inveigled Catreus into the Trojan adventure.
The squadron sailed from Nauplia on a sparkling springtime day, formed line abreast after clearing the harbour, spanked south under sail and a following wind. Fishes received my customary tribute before Nauplia vanished astern; thereafter I enjoyed the voyage, lounging on the sunlit poop by a garishly painted cabin. Waves slapped strakes and sprinkled spray, gulls cruised mast-high alongside, dolphins played touch-last across the bronze-sheathed ram. We harboured first at Seriphos, rowed holidaying to Naxos where I’d loved for a night Ariadne whom Theseus deserted. (She stayed on the island for years, took to drink and drugs and led a covey of Maenads: a crazed, bloodthirsty sect Dionysus founded. I saw a shrine the Naxians built to her memory.) A galley went ahead to announce my visit--kings do not disembark unheralded on foreign shores--and we cruised southward under sail. Crete’s snow-helmeted mountains scalloped the skyline; the squadron entered Amnisos and beached on a pebbled strand.
A stocky middle-aged man met me on the foreshore. Shoulder-length black hair, deepset grey-green eyes, a squashed and broken nose, brown unbearded face. (Gentlemen in Crete are generally clean-shaven.) A tightly buckled gold-studded belt supported a short leather kilt; muscles like hawsers coiled on arms and chest. He announced himself as Idomeneus, King Catreus’ nephew, and apologized for the king’s failure to receive me in person: his aged uncle was ill and unable to greet visitors. A damned nuisance, I thought: my purpose in visiting Crete was to seek the king’s alliance.
‘Is Catreus able to conduct affairs of state?’
‘No. He is sick from a wasting fever. The Council has appointed me Regent; I have authority to act on the king’s behalf.’
This, then, was the man I must convince. I exerted myself to be pleasant, praised the horses of the cortege carrying us to Knossos and approved the escort’s turnout. Idomeneus smoothly accepted all my fulsome compliments; the look in his eyes was a warning he guessed I was hunting a favour. An astute individual, far from a fool.
Knossos had obviously seen better days. Much of the city was crumbling into ruin; the palace wore a faintly decrepit air, outer courts and houses in neglected disrepair. The central buildings were splendid enough with stone-stepped spiralling stairways riddling the entire complex. I was given quarters overlooking a vineyard-quilted valley, my bodyguard Heroes in chambers that honeycombed the palace. After the usual opulent banquet accorded to royal visitors I tumbled thankfully into bed.
Next morning, wearing a golden crown and dressed in robes of state, I attended a Council meeting. Idomeneus sat in an alabaster throne flanked by griffins painted on carmine walls. Heroes in full panoply guarded his shoulders while Councillors lined the walls on marble benches. The scene resembled an audience in any Achaean Throne Room except for a bare-
breasted priestess wearing a long flounced skirt and lofty headdress topped by a golden dove. A slim snake coiled round either arm; schooled to be part of the costume they were still as twisted twigs. I blinked at this apparition standing motionless by the door; in Achaea The Lady’s Daughters are never allowed in Council.
I shall not detail the tortuous negotiations which lasted most of the day. After stating my grounds for war against Troy I pleaded for Crete’s support as a dominant naval and military power. Idomeneus invited his Councillors to speak in turn. (In Mycenae I give my opinion first and sternly discourage dissidence.) Sentiment was divided: while elders recoiled from a reckless enterprise the lure of war and adventure attracted the younger Heroes. I argued, blustered, wheedled; sweat streamed down my spine. Flies buzzed in the sunless room, oil lamps smoked and guttered. Idomeneus listened, chin on fist, and never spoke a word.
The Council dispersed undecided. Feeling jaded and drained I left the Throne Room. While mounting the Grand Staircase Idomeneus said. ‘You’ve convinced me, Sire, and shall have your way. I will convert the doubters. Only give me time.’
I said, ‘The Council exerts undue influence in Crete. Decisions in Achaea belong to kings alone.’
‘I am Regent, not king, and have to tread softly.’ Idomeneus paused. 'How many ships and men will Mycenae provide?’
‘Plans haven’t reached that stage. Four thousand spears, perhaps, and ninety galleys.’
‘So. Then Crete will match you, ship for ship and man for man, provided ...’
We emerged from stairway to Great Court. After confinement in the Throne Room’s gloom harsh sunlight stung my eyes. I said tiredly, ‘Will you impose conditions, Idomeneus? It’s a privilege of kings, and you--’
‘I’ll soon be king. Catreus won’t recover from his sickness. Whatever happens I’ll lead Crete’s Host.’ He hesitated, and continued determinedly, ‘If my forces equal yours it is only right I should share command overall.’
Absently I fingered gilded bull’s-horns projecting from an altar in the centre of the court. Idomeneus snatched my hand away and muttered, ‘Your pardon, sire. It is forbidden to touch the sacred emblems.’
I said, ‘You have military experience?’
‘How should I?’ Idomeneus sounded cross. ‘Crete has not made war for many years.’
The man suffered pangs of ambition, and certainly could not conceive the responsibilities, problems and stresses of high command. They would drown him like a kitten in a bucket. He’d be merely a figurehead hunting advice--which invariably I should provide. A trifling price to pay for the forces he commanded.
‘As you wish, Idomemeus. When the fleets set sail for Troy we will share leadership.’
He beamed; and conducted me to the Hall where I thirstily gulped cold wine.
* * *
Idomeneus was a most considerate host. He took me hunting in the mountains where I shot an ibex--a well-judged shaft at forty paces, the target running hard--but sport is poor in Crete, which has neither lions nor boar. I saw youths and maidens perform to the music of lyres and pipes some peculiar gyrations called the Crane Dance: a relic of ancient rituals. I watched the famous bull-leaping, remembered Theseus’ braggart tale and smiled to myself: whilst the acrobats, male and female, displayed remarkable agility the bulls were small and lethargic, either drugged or trained to placidity.
Idomeneus perceived my scepticism and told me discontentedly the act had degenerated greatly since olden times. As proof he showed me a fresco depicting athletes leaping a truly gigantic bull, painted, so he said, in Knossos’ palmy days before Acrisius’ invasion. I wagged a sympathetic head and agreed the world was a decadent place and things were not what they used to be.
A mantle of useless ceremony stifled the palace at Knossos, a shroud of pedantic ritual quite unlike the free and easy manners prevailing in Mycenae. It was hard to open your mouth without offending some taboo, difficult to cross courtyards without treading ground proscribed to unhallowed feet. Although The Lady’s worship predominated as the official faith certain archaic customs whose origins hide in the mists of time are still prevailing in Crete. Eerie music and agonized cries leaked from secret shrines in the dark labyrinth of rooms below the palace. I saw more snake-priestesses around than Daughters of The Lady. None of my business, of course; but I disliked the degenerate atmosphere that lingered over Knossos like a poisonous miasma.
(Discussing the matter with Gelon some time later I expressed surprise that these unpleasant survivals from pre-conquest days still infested the island. Sicilians slew the last Cretan Minos--a royal title derived, so Gelon averred, from a long-dead Egyptian king called Menes--and Achaeans had ruled in Crete for a hundred and fifty years. Surely time enough, I supposed, to eradicate the last vestiges of a native religion? Gelon pursed his lips. Bull worship, he said, was very old in Crete; the common people never truly accepted The Lady; snake priestesses--a hereditary sect--fostered the cult and wielded tremendous influence. The old faith revived, and flourished below the surface. Long before Acrisius’ conquest Zeus brought its tenets to Achaea, where relics remain to this day--and he pointed significantly to stone bulls’-horns decorating my palace’s roof-crest.)
I asked Idomeneus discreetly whether he knew Aegisthus’ whereabouts in Crete. (Recapturing fugitive noblemen is often tricky; kings jealous of their sovereignty are apt to refuse extradition.) He admitted the youth’s arrival--spies in every kingdom report foreigners’ comings and goings--but regretted the unlikelihood of discovering where he lived. If he had brought a little treasure in gold and jewels he could easily buy shelter in some remote mountain village. Since my inquiries in Mycenae had revealed that Clytemnaistra sent her protégé abroad with body-slaves and baggage I concluded he’d found safety for a time.
For a time. The rigours of stark existence in rugged Cretan highlands would soon drive out a youngster used to cosseting in Mycenae. Meanwhile Aegisthus led a miserable life--a prospect I later delighted in picturing to Clytemnaistra.
I sailed from Amnisos without regret, skirted Thera--a bleak uninhabited crater whose explosion devastated Crete and drove Zeus to Achaea and foundation of my House--harboured a night at Naxos and rowed against contrary winds to Chios, an island Mycenae colonized--as, in fact, she had colonized many from Lesbos south to Crete. From Chios we rowed to Lesbos and beached for the night in a sheltered haven far from habitation. I liked these nights in the open. After killing and roasting goats on driftwood fires--each galley carried her meat on hoof--we sprawled around the embers, drank from wineskins and talked of the sea and ships: discussions where an oarsman’s views were cogent as a king’s. Lulled by the rustle of breakers I slept wrapped in a cloak on sand beneath a star-stippled velvet sky, and wakened when the dawn wind sprinkled sea-spray on my face.
In the teeth of a stiff north-easter the squadron rowed to Tenedos, a small island close to the Trojan coast which I remembered from a visit in Atreus’ time as a promising jump-off point for an army invading the Troad. We rowed all round the island and I marked down likely beaches. The galleys then headed north on a short quick row to the Hellespont’s mouth. To starboard the coast curved east, and I glimpsed silvery fronds where Scamander entered the sea. Was the shadowy hump inland the citadel of Troy? I strained my sight and could not be sure-the plain as seen from the sea was a midden of hillocks and mounds. Somewhere in that windswept waste Menelaus sought concessions from an obstinate, senile king.
Periphetes had told me about Abydos and Sestos, twin cities sited astride the Hellespont’s narrowest channel, allied to Troy and harbouring ships as bases for Priam’s blockade. Was it possible to row within sight of these formidable fortresses which could influence the course of a Trojan war?
Rock-fanged shores of the Hellespont’s mouth compressed the line of warships till barely a spearcast parted hulls. I sighted a tree on the shoreline. Though oarbanks lifted and plunged at a speed approaching the battle-stroke--a pace no rower can hold for long--our prows crep
t slow as a funeral past the mark.
The steersman tugged his sweep and said, ‘Best go about, me lord. We ain’t making overmuch way.’
‘Very well,’ I said, ‘we’ll go back.’
Gaffs climbed smoothly to mastheads, four-ply linen sails unfurled. Crewmen quickly sheeted home; sails bellied and strained at the masts. Under oars and sails our galleys raced from the Hellespont, blue and crimson seahorse prows cresting the long black hulls, bronze-sheathed ram beaks and shearing waves, pinewood oar banks spurting spray, wind-curved sails and lion-head sternposts.
I ordered the steersman to lay a course for Nauplia, entered the poopdeck cabin and harshly told Eurymedon to bring me watered wine. Sipping the sour liquid--the pitch and roll of ships at sea play havoc with wine in jar--I brooded over the problem of Abydos and Sestos. How to neutralize those harbours while my forces disembarked? During the landing I must post strong screening squadrons across the Hellespont’s mouth. Dissipation of force: it could not be avoided.
* * *
I found Menelaus awaiting me in Mycenae. ‘Been here only a couple of days,’ he explained. ‘A storm blew the flotilla off course, and we ran for Nauplia.’
‘Your galleys and mine must have passed hull-down. I’ve had a profitable voyage: secured a Cretan alliance and made a reconnaissance sweep off the Troad coast to the Hellespont.’ (I avoided mentioning our craven retreat.) ‘Now, Menelaus, what have you learnt?’
‘You don’t ask whether Priam made any concessions,’ he said glumly. ‘The old mule didn’t.’ He propped his heels on a low alabaster balustrade. We talked on a balcony of the palace’s summer bedrooms, high on the topmost storey overlooking township, valley and Argive Plain: the place where, thirty years earlier, Atreus flogged my brother for a crime that I committed. ‘I’ll tell you about it.’
His flotilla anchored off Sigeum in shallows beyond arrow-shot and conducted a shouted argument with a Hero commanding coastguards. Menelaus was allowed to beach and rode in the Hero’s chariot across Scamander’s plain.
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