Ransom

by David Malouf

  Just on three, a cart drawn by two black mules and driven by a man the whole town recognises as a simple carter, Somax, the son of Astrogon, lumbers slowly out of the palace gates and downhill towards the square.

  On the crossbench beside the driver, very stiff-looking in a plain white robe, sits the king, Priam, severely upright and with no fillet on his brow, no staff in his hand, no amulet or armband.

  On either side of the cart, and in rows behind, sauntering along in a casual way and, when the cart slows or comes to a halt, stumbling a little as they crowd in one against the next, come the king’s remaining sons: Helenus, Paris – the crowd names them as they pass – Agathon, Deiphobus and Antiphonus, Dius, Pammon, Hippothous, and the youngest of all the royal princes, the boy Polydorus.

  The mules pull and sweat; the cart is heavy. Some heaped-up load covered by a cloth is in the tray. The driver is anxious. He makes more fuss than seems strictly necessary about negotiating the cartwheels over the big cobbles. Priam, like the statue of himself at the entrance to the temple, sits stiff and square, his gaze fixed rigidly ahead.

  It is such an unaccustomed sight, so sober, so stripped of all finery and show, that the crowd, for all its high spirits, does not know how to react. No one thinks it appropriate to cheer. Is the city’s wealth being taken to safety somewhere deep in the country? Is the king deserting them?

  They watch the cart stop before the high wooden gate, see the bar raised, hear the great locks snap.

  From the walls the crowd, buzzing now with excited speculation, watches the procession wind downhill to the stone trough among riven pines where in the old days, before the war, the Trojan women used to go to steep their washing in the spring. Then on to the lookout with its lone, windswept fig.

  Here the little group breaks up.

  The cart lurches on and, with Jove’s eagle sitting high above, takes the high road that leads out across the plain. The royal princes, singly or in groups, turn back and make their way, bend after dog-legged bend, uphill.

  Whatever it was is over. Or, mysteriously, has just begun.

  Just on dusk, with the light begining to fade but the air still heated and thick, the wagon creaked down to where Scamander, in its leisurely winding across the plain, scoops two channels out of the bone-white gravel of its bed. One bubbles and is milky-green. The other, which runs deeper, is a smooth-flowing blue. Both were shallow enough at this time of the year to be forded. Glossy-leafed rosebay bushes grew in flowering clumps on the islands between, and in the air above, swifts, with an excited crying, wheeled in high wide circles feeding on midges or skimmed the surface of the stream. ‘Well, my lord,’ the driver announced, ‘we’ve come this far safe enough.’

  Rather stiff in the joints, he eased himself down from the cart and, whispering a word or two in the ear of the little off-side mule, secured the reins to the trunk of a tamarisk; then stood waiting with his hand extended for Priam to get down.

  But the king, his chin raised so that the loose skin at his throat trembled with the effort, continued to sit.

  Dear me, the driver thought, he’ll get an awful pain in his back if he goes on sitting like that. He scratched his head, uncertain how he should address the king or what he might say to tempt him down. He cleared his throat, and the king, reminded of his presence, spoke.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘I shall just stay here in the wagon with the body of my son.’

  The driver blinked.

  Ah, he thought, so that’s it. The old king’s thoughts, leaping ahead, past all the many difficulties they were yet to pass, had already arrived at the end of their business. It was the body of Prince Hector, freshly washed and shrouded in white linen, that he saw glowing out of the bed of the cart. Well, that was foolish of course, but entirely understandable.

  Very tactfully, his heart softened by fellow-feeling, since he too was a father, he allowed himself the deception of pretending he had misheard. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘If it’s the treasure you’re afraid for, my lord, that’ll be safe enough. Beauty here will keep an eye on it, won’t you, my love?’

  The little mule pricked her ears at the sound of her name and turned her head.

  The driver chuckled. ‘See, my lord, how she knows every word I speak to her? She’s as good as any watchdog, I promise. She won’t let them get away with even a copper coin, will you, my pet?’

  The old king saw his error then. A flush came to his cheek. Looking very slight and frail, he moved to get down, and the driver, relieved of a difficulty he had thought he might not be able to resolve, reached up to take Priam’s hand. He had acted on impulse. Only when he saw how startled Priam was at this unaccustomed touch did it occur to him that he might have committed some affront to the king’s sacred person.

  But Priam had already recovered. Far from taking offence, he seemed grateful – or so the man thought – for the ready consideration of his need. With great courtesy he thanked the driver, and with one or two twinges, but no lack of royal dignity, allowed himself to be handed down.

  ‘That’s it, my lord,’ the carter told him, ‘you’ll see. We’ll have a nice rest here, and maybe even a bite to eat.’ He thought he should sow that seed early, since he had had nothing himself since close on dawn. ‘We’ve got shade from the heat and plenty of cover. No one will spy us here.’

  He led the king down through soft sand to the water’s edge.

  ‘It’s an easy enough crossing at this time of the year, though it can be wicked at others.’

  Twisting the homespun of his robe in his fist and hoiking it manfully up to his knees, he took a step, sandals and all, into the stream.

  The bottom was sandy, the shallows so still and clear you could see the fingerlings that, alert to this sudden large intrusion into their world, formed a silvery arrowhead of light under the surface and came darting in to investigate. All quiver and nerve, they nosed in and nudged and nibbled at him.

  The carter, hands on knees, leaned over to study them.

  ‘Hello, little ones,’ he called.

  But they had already decided that he was an object of no interest. In a single shivering movement, they wheeled and cut away.

  With a laugh the carter followed the flash they made under the surface, then straightened and turned back to where Priam, looking uncertain and out of place, stood watching. He’s like a child, he thought, a bit on the slow side. Or a man who’s gone wandering in his sleep and doesn’t know where he is or how he got there.

  Well, it was clear no orders were to be expected from that direction. If they were to move forward it was up to him. But how should he begin? How, he wondered, would that other, the real Idaeus, have acted? He had never in all his life till now had to do with any but simple folk like himself, eaters of sheep’s cheese and raw garlic, women laying out a bit of washing to dry on a bush beside the road, half-naked children, their heads shaven against lice, who came to a wicker fence to wave as he passed, calling, ‘Hey grandad, where are you off to? Ride us, why don’t you, to the big wall.’ He would have to rely on native wit, and such bits of experience as are common to all, whether the gods in their wisdom have set us high or low.

  ‘You’d feel better, sir,’ he ventured, ‘if you were to do as I have, and come down and dabble your feet a little. The coolness of the water will buck you up no end. There’s a good hour till sundown, and we’ll go safer on the other side if we wait till dark.’

  The king looked startled, as if this voice had come from nowhere. But the driver, bolder now, thought that having once begun he had better go right on. He climbed back up the shelving bank, knelt, and since the king offered no resistance, but simply stood looking down at what he was doing as if it were happening with no agency at all, unlaced first one, then the other of his sandals, each time with an upward glance of apology for anything there might be in the action, or in his touch, that was unseemly.

  Like an obedient toddler, Priam lifted one foot then the other till the sandals were off and sitting s
ide by side on the lip of sand; then, with a glance towards the driver, who nodded to urge him on, took three uncertain steps into the stream. When, as the driver had promised, he felt the cooling effect, he smiled, looked back to where the driver was still crouched on the bank above, and nodded. Then stood staring down at his naked feet, which were very bony and white, as the same little slivers of light came flashing in, and nudged and tickled. He observed with amusement that they found the royal feet every bit as disappointing and without interest as the driver’s.

  He was a rough fellow, this companion he had chosen, with no notion, so far as he could see, of what was proper, but he did know his way about, and there was so much simple modesty and goodwill in the man, and so much tact in the way he made his suggestions, that Priam found nothing objectionable in him. It was not reverence he lacked, only a knowledge of the forms. And out here, perhaps, and in the world the fellow moved in, such forms might not be altogether useful.

  He indicated to the man that he should sit, then sat very contentedly himself, letting the goodness of the cool clean water extend its reviving benefit from his feet to his whole being.

  His spirits, which till now had been clouded by uncertainty and a fear of so much that was still unknown, cleared and lightened.

  Meanwhile the driver had released a leather satchel from his shoulder and was laying out its contents on a square of clean if ragged cloth.

  ‘It might be as well,’ he suggested, ‘if you took a bite to eat, my lord. We won’t get another opportunity, and we’ve got a goodish journey before us. Just a mouthful. To keep your strength up.’

  Priam shook his head.

  The carter nodded. He looked at the good things he had taken from the bag.

  There were olives, plump black ones. Pumpkin seeds. A stack of little griddlecakes of a kind Priam had never seen before, of a golden yellow colour and about the size of a medallion. The man, his Idaeus, looked at them, he thought, rather regretfully. No doubt the fellow was hungry.

  With great courtesy the king said, ‘Please, do eat something yourself. The little cakes look good and I have no objection.’

  ‘Well, it’s true, sir, I’ve taken nothing since early morning and it’s already after five.’ He took up one of the cakes.

  ‘These little cakes, now, since they’ve caught your eye, sir – pikelets they are, or griddlecakes as some people call them – were made by my daughter-in-law. Best buckwheat flour, good thick buttermilk, just a drop of oil. The buttermilk has to be of a cream colour, and thick, so that when you pour it out of the crock it comes in a slow stream. Then the batter is ladled onto a skillet over hot stones. My son, the gods rest him, set the stones up in a new way, out of affection, you know, for my daughter-in-law, to make things easier for her, and so that the cakes would cook faster and be the sweeter for it. He was a clever fellow in that way, always thinking about things. And it has an effect, it really does. It’s a real pleasure to watch the batter bubbling and setting and turning a golden brown, as you can see, around the edges. The lightness comes from the way the cook flips them over. Very neat and quick you have to be. The daughter-in-law, she’s a good girl, uses her fingers – it’s a trick you have to learn – and if she happens to burn them she pops her fingers into her mouth quick smart like this –’ and by way of illustration, he popped one of the little cakes into his mouth, almost unnoticed it might have been under the influence of his talk.

  ‘Ummm, you can taste the lightness! I’ve eaten twenty of these little fellows at a single sitting. Not out of greed, sir, but for the joy they bring to the heart. The flavour comes from the buttermilk, but owes something as well, I dare say, to the good humour of the cook, and the skill, you know, of her fingers in the flipping. That too you can taste. But maybe for that you have to have been there to see her do it. So quick and light,’ and with thumb and finger not quite touching, he turned his hairy wrist in the air to give Priam some notion of it, but also to revive his own happy memory. ‘Are you quite sure, my lord, that you won’t take just a bite of one?’

  When Priam shook his head the man said, ‘Well at least, sir, take a few drops of wine. To wet your mouth a little and bless the occasion.’

  Priam, who realised now that the man mentioned it that he was rather dry, but also because the fellow was so pleasant and persuasive, agreed to this, and Idaeus, with a happy smile, passed him the flask.

  ‘There now,’ he said, as Priam took a modest swig, ‘that’ll do you no end of good.’

  And it was true, it did. Priam took another, more copious mouthful.

  ‘You see, sir, a fellow like me, who needs his strength for hard work, has to know a little about what is good for the body as well as the spirit. Now – if you’ll allow the suggestion, my lord – not to be light-headed after the wine, you really should take a bite of something. It won’t help our business if halfway along we get sick with faintness. A man needs to be practical about these things, to help the spirit along, if you’ll entertain the thought, sir, with a good comfortable feeling in the belly and the legs. There’s no harm in that. If the one is to be considered, so must the other. We’re children of nature, my lord. Of the earth, as well as of the gods.’

  So it was that Priam, who did feel himself a little faint, but not without a fear that in this he might be compromising the purity of his mission, allowed himself to be persuaded and took one of the little cakes in his fingers, broke off a morsel, and tasted.

  It was very good. What the driver had said of its lightness was true, and of its effect on the spirit. He finished the cake but declined a second. Abstemiousness was native in him. He based a certain sense of his formal relationship to nature on his being not too dependent upon it; despite what the driver had said, and very pertinently too, of their being doubly tied both to the gods and to the earth.

  When he set out on this business he had understood quite clearly that he would be exposing himself to things he had not previously encountered. That was the price of the new. But as he sat now with the golden taste of the pancake in his mouth and another drop of wine on his lips, he saw that what was new could also be pleasurable.

  This sitting with your feet in cooling water, for instance, that ran over them and away.

  The little fish that came to investigate, and said, No, nothing to be got out of this one.

  The wheeling and piping of swifts, which grew both in volume and excitement as the day’s light thickened.

  Of course these things were not new in themselves. The water, the fish, the flocks of snub-tailed swifts had always been here, engaged in their own lives and the small activities that were proper to them, pursuing their own busy ends. But till now he had had no occasion to take notice of them. They were not in the royal sphere. Being unnecessary to royal observance or feeling, they were in the background, and his attention was fixed always on what was central. Himself. The official activity that was his part in any event or scene, the formal pose it was his duty to maintain and make shine.

  When he went out on a boar hunt, for example, he was surrounded by attendants young and old, some on foot, others on horseback, each with a particular role to perform in the ceremonial play; as beaters and dog-handlers, as court officials in charge of the provisions, as tenders of the wagons that would carry them, as squires and cup-bearers who would set up the tables in the woods where at midday the whole company would eat, or as the one, specially chosen for the occasion, whose honour it would be, when the boar had been harried and brought to bay, and lowered its head and stood stamping and foaming among the leaves, to pass him the lance he was to cast – often, given the feebleness of his arm these days, in a merely formal way – before some other, younger man stepped in and made the kill.

  He was symbolically at the centre, as form and his own royal dignity demanded, but could have no part in the merely physical business, all panic and sweat, of rushing through the brush to where half a ton of steaming flesh and bone waited to be hacked, and thrust at, and brought crashing to eart
h.

  The boar was his, of course, and at the end of the day was presented to him – or rather, he was presented to it – and a little of the beast’s thick blood smeared on his brow. Men cheered, applauding his prowess. All this quite formal, and not to be taken literally. He would pour a libation, and with the gods’ assent some of the boar’s fierce energy, and hot muscle and hotter breath, would fatten his spirit. It was a mystery. Part of a world of ceremony, of high play, that was eternal and had nothing to do with the actual and immediate, with this particular occasion, or this boar, or this king. Even the landscape it took place in was freed of its particular elements – the kind and colour of the leaves, or whether the day was sunlit or mistily overcast, the earth dry or muddy underfoot. The realm of the royal was representational, ideal. Everything that was merely accidental – a broken thong, the cry of pain from a beater where the boar’s tusk found bone and real blood drenched the leaves – all this was to be ignored, left to fall away into the confused and confusing realm of the incidental and ordinary.

  His whole life was like that, or had been. But out here, he discovered, everything was just itself. That was what seemed new.

  In being just itself, neither more nor less, each thing appeared to him in a form he barely recognised; self-absorbed, separate, too busy with its own life of running from here to there like the water, or seeking out food like the fishlings and the noisy circle of swifts, to take much account of one old man who had wandered in among them to settle for a time and then pass on.

  It was bewildering, all that, but not unpleasurable. On the whole he felt easy with himself, both in body and spirit; comfortably restored. (He waved off a cloud of midges that seemed especially attracted by his royal sweat.) But would any of it have been possible, he wondered, if he had been accompanied in the usual way by his other Idaeus? Of course, he would have been treated with the greatest consideration, but there would have been none of the surprises this new Idaeus offered.