Heroes (formerly Talisman of Troy)

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘I will do as you say,’ he replied. ‘But then I shall return. They say that this sea is really a gulf. I will catch up with you, when I have done as you have ordered me. I will sail up the coast until I find you. Leave a sign on the beach that I can recognize.’

  ‘I will. Seeing you again will fill me with joy.’

  The other three ships had joined them. The fires burning in the fore braziers cast a crimson halo on the waves, like a blood-stain.

  ‘But before you go, let us render our lost comrades their last honours, ship by ship.’

  They all stood, gripping an oar in hand and, one ship after another, looking towards land, they shouted out the names of their lost comrades, massacred by the enemy, hacked to pieces, abandoned without burial on a wild and hostile shore. Then Anchialus raised his hand in salute and pushed his ship back, his oarsmen at their places. The night swallowed them up and the wind carried afar the names of their comrades.

  Diomedes walked back to the stern and covered his head in mourning for the loss of such gallant men. Strange quivers of blood-coloured light shot through the clouds crossing the sky. Perhaps it was their souls, seeking the light of the stars one last time before plunging into Hades.

  The foreigner that they had hoisted aboard followed Diomedes and went to sit at his feet. He had chosen him as his master and awaited his command. Myrsilus, at his side, had taken the helm, keeping his eye on the Little Bear whenever it appeared between one cloud and another. It was too dark to seek a safe landing place, for they risked being smashed to pieces against the rocks, nor could they remain still and allow the wind and the waves to set them adrift. They had to navigate, confiding in the help of the gods and in good fortune. Telephus, the Hittite, sat on a basket near Diomedes, sharpening his knife on a whetstone.

  ‘What land are you from?’ asked Myrsilus, to break the silence and fear.

  ‘You call us Chetaeans but we are Hittites. My native name is Telepinu and I come from a city of the interior called Kussara. I fought at length as the captain of a squadron of chariots in the army of our king Tudkhaliyas IV, may the gods preserve him, against the league of Assuwa, which we defeated. But when you arrived from the west, the league was reconstituted in support of Priam and his city Vilusya, which you Ahhijawa call Ilium. We were willing to help Priam at that point, setting aside our past conflicts with the league in order to repel our common enemy, but only a small contingent could be sent. Other peoples had come from the east, from the Urartu mountains, and invaded our land. Our king sent a legation to the king of the Egyptians but Egypt was being invaded as well, by multitudes from the desert and from the sea. If we had been able to draw up our whole army and all of our war chariots against you we would have chased you back into the sea! Nothing can withstand the charge of a battalion of Hittite chariots.’

  Myrsilus smiled in the dark: ‘That’s what they all say. Ahhijawa . . . so that’s what you call us . . . it’s strange, a people do not exist because of who they are, but because of what others consider them to be. Have you seen Egypt as well?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I was sent to escort one of our princes who had gone to visit their king, who is called Pharaoh. Their kings know the secret of immortality, but reveal it to no one. Two thousand years ago, they were already building stone tombs as tall as mountains. Their priests know how to obscure the sun and make it reappear at will. And they have a gigantic river whose waters beget monsters with mouths full of teeth and backs covered by armour that no weapon can penetrate.’

  Myrsilus smiled again. ‘What lovely stories you tell, Chetaean. By chance, do you know something of this land we are seeking?’

  ‘No. I’ve never heard speak of it. But all those people marching south worry me.’

  The shrieks of a flock of cranes broke the silence of the night. The Hittite pulled his cloak close around his shoulders. ‘We’re heading where they’re escaping from. We’re going the opposite direction from the cranes, who are wise enough to abandon inhospitable places where the winters are too harsh . . . Have you noticed those strange lights behind the clouds? I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. And never, as far back as man can remember, have so many peoples left their own lands and set off to cover such immense distances. Something has terrified them, or perhaps something urges them on without their knowing why . . . like when the locusts suddenly, for no reason, gather and begin to migrate, destroying everything along their path . . .’ He turned to look at the king, who stood still and silent by the railing, his cloak pulled up over his head. ‘You are all running as well . . . without knowing where. And I with you.’

  He found a blanket and curled up between the baskets and ropes, seeking shelter from the damp night. Diomedes turned to the pilot then: ‘Are you well awake?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m awake, wanax, I’m holding the route and keeping windward. Sleep if you can.’

  The king laid out a bear pelt and lay down upon it, covering himself with his cloak. He sighed, grieving for the comrades lost.

  The Hittite slave waited until the king was asleep, then walked over to the pilot and pointed at a box tied to the mast. ‘Do you know what’s in there?’ he asked.

  Myrsilus did not even turn towards him; his gaze was riveted to the sky. ‘In what?’ he asked.

  ‘You know. Inside that chest tied to the main mast.’

  ‘Ask me once more and I’ll chop off your head.’

  ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ insisted the slave. ‘Do you think you can treat me like a mouse just because I’ve fallen into servitude? I am a Hittite warrior. I was the commander of a squadron of chariots. And I wasn’t born yesterday. There’s something strange in that box.’

  ‘One more word and I’ll cut off your head,’ repeated Myrsilus. The Hittite slave said nothing. The other men were laid out on the bottom of the ship and were sleeping under their cloaks.

  The foreigner who had been taken aboard was sitting against the ship’s railing with his legs close against his chest and his head leaning on his knees. The Hittite slave watched him for a while, then approached him. The glow of the brazier at the stern lit up his dark face. ‘What kind of a man are you?’ he asked him in his own language.

  The foreigner raised his head and in the same language answered: ‘I am a Chnan.’

  ‘A Chnan . . . what are you doing here? And you speak Hittite . . . where did you learn it?’

  ‘The Chnan speak many languages because we take our wares to all the peoples of this earth.’

  ‘Then you’re not one of those wretches whose village they destroyed?’

  ‘No. We were pushed up here by a storm two months ago, at the end of the summer. My ship sank and I barely saved myself. They welcomed me, gave me food. They did not deserve to die.’

  ‘We do not deserve to die either. Do you know anyone who deserves to die? To sink into darkness, leaving behind forever the scent of the air and the sea, the colours of the sky, of the mountains and the meadows, the taste of bread and the love of women . . . is there someone who deserves such horror, just because he was born? Who were those . . . Dor . . . you were talking about?’

  ‘That’s what the people who took me in called them. They are a powerful, ferocious race. They live on a great inland river called the Ister, but for some time now they have been restless, and they make continuous raids towards the sea. Those whom you saw were but a small group of them; if some day all of them decide to move, no one will be able to stop them. They have weapons of iron, they ride the bare backs of their horses . . . did you see them?’

  ‘I did. Do you speak the language of the Achaeans as well?’

  ‘I can understand much more than I speak. But it is better they don’t learn that . . . until I know them well. But tell me, what men are these that sail in this sea, in this season and in this direction? They must be mad, or desperate.’

  The Hittite looked into the sky again. The strange lights had been extinguished and the vault of the heavens was as grey and smooth as a
leaden bowl.

  ‘They are both,’ he said.

  *

  At that same hour, Clytemnestra lay on her wedding bed alongside Aegisthus. She was not sleeping; she lay with her eyes open and the lamp lit. She had killed her husband without hesitation, as he returned after years of war, but she could not bear the visions that crowded round her head if she closed her eyes. She could not bear the hate of Electra, the daughter who remained to her. Since that murdering night, she had often gone up to the tower of the chasm at night, in the wind, and there she had remembered the days of her wedding, the night in which a choir of maidens with flaming torches had accompanied her to the wedding bed of the king of Mycenae, the king of the Achaean kings.

  They had undressed her and perfumed her. They had combed her hair and loosened her belt, laying her on the bed. She remembered how the king had appeared, the copper reflections on the thick locks that shaded his forehead and cheeks, mixing in with his full beard. She remembered his chest and his arms shining with scented oil, and she remembered how she had done her duty. How she had pretended to cry out with pleasure when his scourge lacerated her womb.

  She had used her allure wilfully but without abandon, without ever letting herself be moved.

  Men have to submit or die. As when the great queen, the Potinja, once reigned. Once a year she chose her bedmate, the male who would render her fertile, the strongest and most fearless, the most vital. He who after having fought duel after duel with the others had earned himself the privilege of being king for one day and one night before dying.

  Clytemnestra got up and went to the throne room. She sat on the seat that had belonged to the Atreides and waited there for the sun to rise.

  Even before the maidservants had left their beds and lit the fire in the hearth, the man whom she had been expecting for days arrived. He entered and, seeing that the room was still dark, he sat on the floor near the wall to wait for someone in the household to awaken. The queen saw him and called to him.

  ‘Come forward,’ she said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Did you see my cousin, the queen of Ithaca?’

  ‘Yes, wanaxa, I have met with her.’

  ‘And what did she tell you? Has she agreed to our requests?’

  ‘Yes. All will be done when Ulysses returns.’

  ‘But . . . how? Did she tell you how? The king of Ithaca is the most cunning man on earth.’

  ‘She is no less able than he. Ulysses will never suspect anything.’

  ‘What of him, did you see him? Why didn’t you wait for his destiny to be fulfilled?’

  ‘I waited, but king Ulysses did not return. He should have reached Ithaca no longer than three days after Agamemnon and Diomedes returned. But when I left, a month had passed and there was no word of him.’

  ‘A month is too long. It couldn’t have taken him so long.’

  ‘Perhaps his ship foundered. Perhaps he is already dead. While I was in Ithaca, a ship arrived at port and a man came ashore and spoke with the queen. I learned that they were Achaeans and that they had come from Argos, but I could find out no more.’

  ‘Argos?’ repeated the queen, getting to her feet. ‘Did you see that man in the face?’

  ‘For just a moment, at the port, as he was boarding the ship.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘He had long blond curls that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were dark, bright and watchful. His hands were strong and his gait was forceful, as if he were accustomed to carrying a weight on his shoulders.’

  ‘The weight of armour,’ said the queen. ‘Perhaps you saw a king escaping . . . or preparing to return.’ The man shook his head without understanding. ‘My cousin is with us. I am sure of it. And when we have extinguished the mind of Ulysses, the last obstacle will have been brought down.’

  The man left and the queen walked out on to the gallery of the tower of the chasm. The clouds were low on the mountains and swollen with rain. Suddenly, Clytemnestra saw a woman wrapped in a black cape leaving from one of the side gates below; she walked swiftly towards the bottom of the valley, and stopped at the old abandoned cistern. There she fell to her knees. She rocked back and forth, gripping her shoulders, and then she lay flat and placed her forehead against the bare stone that covered the opening. Electra. She mourned her father, contemptibly murdered and contemptibly buried, and the gusts of wind raised the soft echoes of her laments all the way up to the bastions of the tower.

  *

  Meanwhile, on the distant northern sea, Diomedes’s ships advanced in the light of dawn. Their beaked prows ploughed through the grey waves, passing between deserted islands and rugged promontories reaching out like hooked fingers into the sea. Little villages perched high above, surrounded by dry walls like nests of stone. They could see the inhabitants venturing out with their herds of goats, wild men these too, covered in fur like the animals they tended.

  That night they found shelter near the mouth of a river, and the night after that as well. At dawn, Diomedes decided to walk upstream with Myrsilus and other companions in search of game. But they were soon to be confronted with the strangest of prodigies. Having gone round a hill and descending on the other side, they saw that the river had vanished. They searched and searched for it, but could find it nowhere. After a long stretch on foot they reached a place where the river reappeared but was immediately swallowed up into the ground, sucked into a sinkhole. Diomedes realized that the hole must lead to Hades and he sacrificed a black goat to Persephone so that she might propitiate his journey. The victim’s blood stained the river water red and disappeared into the ground.

  They dared not draw water from the cursed river that fled the light of day like a creature of the night, and so they continued inland in search of game and water. The land opening up all around them was quite different from any Diomedes had ever seen; it was covered by stunted, twisted trees and furrowed by deep gorges and wild, overgrown ravines.

  A little group of deer appeared and the hunters closed in. The Hittite and the foreigner were armed with bows and hid behind some brambles; Diomedes and Myrsilus took position opposite them with their javelins. A flock of birds took to the air with shrill cries, startling the deer. As they bolted, Myrsilus hurled his javelin but missed the mark, while the Hittite had had the time to take aim and he hit a large male which collapsed to the ground, dead. The others tied him by his legs to a branch and began to make their way back to the ship. Although the territory they crossed seemed deserted and uninhabited, the eyes of the foreigner kept darting here and there, as though he sensed some presence.

  He was not mistaken. One of the men suddenly yelled out in pain and dropped to his knees; an arrow had pierced his thigh. They all turned; behind them, just topping a hill, were a mob of wild-haired savages with long beards, wearing goatskins. They were armed with bows and wielded heavy clubs with stone heads. They ran forward, shouting loudly and waving their bludgeons. Diomedes ordered his men to retreat to a gorge where they would have some hope of resisting, although they were so thoroughly outnumbered. Some of the attackers were letting out shrill, high-toned cries, like those of sea birds. Their cries echoed in the distance, bouncing off the rock walls, the precipices and the caverns; they must have been calls for reinforcement, because the enemy strength soon swelled to an enormous number of men.

  The Achaeans continued to fall back but shortly found themselves in a deep, narrowing gully. Their enemies were soon upon them, looming from above at the rim of the steep crevasse and pushing huge stones down below. The stones roared down the rock walls, picking up speed and dislodging others on their way to the bottom of the gully. Diomedes ordered his men to flatten themselves against the walls and then to run as fast as they could in the direction of the sea, but some were struck nonetheless by the stones and crushed to the ground, while others met an even worse fate. That cursed gully was rife with pits and swallow holes, covered with thick bushes and brambles. As they ran, many plunged below to their deaths, while others lay helplessl
y on the bottoms of the pits howling with pain, their bones shattered.

  Diomedes took stock of the tremendous danger and, as the enemies rushed to close off every path of escape, he ordered his men to stop and to seek cover among the bushes and the rocky crags of the gully walls. He glanced around and saw that the ground was all scattered with white animal bones. That was how this fierce people hunted game! By herding them towards that gorge and raining down stones on them from above, just as they were now trying to destroy him and his companions. He, King of Argos and son of Tydeus, was forced to scramble like a wild animal being hunted down by savages, was forced to listen to his wounded warriors’ cries for help without being able to raise a hand for them. They hid among the bushes and waited, perfectly still, although the stones never ceased to fall from above, just barely missing them at times. Thus they waited until nightfall. Then the stones stopped falling and fires were lit on the rim of the gully. Their enemies were not going anywhere. They were waiting for the sun to rise and then they would slaughter them all.

  One of his men crept towards Diomedes; it was Cleitus, son of Leitus of Las, who had fought at his side at Ilium. He said: ‘This is the fate that has befallen us for following you! To be massacred by ferocious savages without any chance of defending ourselves, to be stoned to death like beasts without ever drawing our swords. If we had remained at Argos we would have at least been able to fight on an open field in the light of the sun, and we would have died in our own land.’

  Myrsilus interrupted him: ‘Hold your tongue. No one forced you to follow the king. You did so of your own will. If you don’t stop whining I’ll break your jaw and make you spit blood. What we must do is find a way to escape while it is dark and they cannot see us.’

  Telephus, the Hittite slave, approached him as well, and said: ‘The wind is blowing from the sea, and the ground above us is covered with dry grass and branches. Where I come from, when the peasants want to burn the stubble on their fields, they wait until a strong wind picks up from the east; the whole plain soon becomes a sea of flames.’