'The way I see it,' I said after a while, 'we've got two choices: north or south. Whichever way we go, we'll have to stay well away from Argos and all the places we went through on our way to Argos from Asine. That would make me tend to favour going north, more or less the direction we're headed in at the moment, until we reach Mycenae. After that, home'll be due west; Orchomenus, straight across the mountains... It'll be a hell of a journey, but at least we'll stay clear of big cities where they may have heard of us. Don't ask me what we're going to live on, by the way, because I don't know. But people do live in the mountains; we can beg, or steal, maybe even work, there'll be olives and figs to pick before we get home. It sounds pretty grim, sure enough, but there's no point lying to our hearts about it, we're in a pretty grim situation.'
I looked round. Cratus didn't seem to be listening. Sarpedon was nodding, with a face as long as a ship's mast. Pentheus was fiddling with the strap of his left sandal, which was frayed almost through.
'There's another way,' Dusa said.
I was about to tell her to shut up when my heart said to me, Go on, you might as well hear her out. After all, things are so bad, what have you got to lose? 'Go on,' I said.
'All right. We go north, just as you said; but instead of heading west, we carry on until we reach Corinth. There we talk our way aboard a ship and get a lift all the way home. Beats walking.'
You can tell how far down my heart was; I hadn't even considered a ship. 'You said "talk our way aboard",' I said. 'How are we supposed to do that?'
Dusa shrugged. 'Haven't a clue,' she replied. 'But it's got to be easier than walking right across the middle of the Peloponnese on an empty stomach.'
Sarpedon lifted his head at that point. 'I know someone in Corinth,' he said.
We all looked at him.
'Really,' he went on. 'Man called Oxyxiphus; I saved his life in a battle once. He'll help us out, if we can get that far. He'll give us stuff for presents - jars of wine and rolls of cloth, that sort of thing. We can give-and-receive our way round the coast. There's people do that sort of thing for a living, so they tell me.'
I frowned. 'Really?' I said.
'I believe so. The drill is, you find a man with a ship and give him a present; he lets you sleep on his ship and store your stuff under the bench. You've got to row, of course.'
I couldn't see it myself. 'Just you and the man who owns the boat?' I asked.
'No, of course not. There'll be thirty or forty others, all doing the same thing. Straight up, it's a way of life for some people during the off season. Quite fancied it myself when I was a good deal younger. Well, I'd have had my own ship, of course. But the idea's the same.'
'Are you sure?' Cratus asked. 'I mean, if this is just some story you've heard somewhere-'
'No,' I interrupted, 'come to think of it, he's right. You remember those foreigners who stayed with us when we were kids? The short, dark men with the smelly hair?'
"'Short, dark men with smelly hair",' the Phoenician repeated.
'Thank you very much.'
Cleander grinned feebly. 'We were younger then, remember. And not many of them - sorry, not many of you people came as far as Elis in those days. Thinking about it, I guess they used to get as far as Pylos and the Messenian coast and do their giving-and-receiving there, and any stuff that got as far as Elis came to us from
Pylos by way of the Triphylians. We got it when everybody else had finished with it, so to speak.'
The Phoenician nodded. 'I can believe that,' he said. 'But surely you had-' He said a word the rest of them couldn't understand. He tried again. 'I'm sure you must have had people who gave-and-received for a living who weren't Phoenicians; Sons of the Achaeans, I mean.'
'We did,' Cleander replied. 'But it didn't occur to us that they were - well, quite so cynical about it. We thought they were wandering sons of noblemen out for adventure. That's what they told us they were.'
'Really,' the Phoenician said.
Anyway (Cleander went on), that's what we decided to do. Everything depended, of course, on Sarpedon's friend still being alive, and willing to put himself out on our account; also on news of our dreadful activities not having reached Corinth by the time we got there. That was a bigger gamble than Sarpedon's friend; Corinthians go everywhere, everybody goes to Corinth, so sooner or later all the news in the world ends up there. Still, thinking about it calmly, there was no way anybody could prove we were who we were unless they were actual eye-witnesses. Would the Corinthians want to get involved with somebody else's feuds? Unlikely, we assured ourselves, until our hearts got sick of hearing us and told us they were convinced. It's remarkable how you can fool yourself into ignoring risks when you have to. Nobody else could have talked us into doing what we proposed to do, but we managed it.
We suffered a lot, getting from Argos to Corinth. An old man once told me that you had to be wilful or stupid to starve in open country, provided you knew which berries are safe to eat and how to kill small, stupid animals. I disagree. Between Argos and Corinth, you'll find a great deal of bare rock, plenty of sheep and goats (and mean-looking shepherds with big, ugly dogs), a few fig and olive trees and about a million small boys who pass the time by scaring away birds and reporting the advent of strangers to their betters. Hunting, gathering and theft won't feed you; so, if you're obviously poor and no good and so not fit to claim the hospitality of the better sort, that leaves work or begging.
We tried work, but nobody wanted us. It has to be admitted, we looked like trouble. Itinerants don't go around in packs of five; thieves and bandits do. Accordingly, even begging wasn't easy. Thinking about it, I can see why not. If I'd answered the door to find four villainous-looking men in my porch, I'd have shut and barred it quick as you like - nobody with any sense wants to be outnumbered by unvouched-for strangers in his own house, thank you very much. A lot of the people we called on - middling smallholders for the most part, living out in the open in a fortified house with gates and a tower - acted very hostile indeed, and we were glad to get away in one piece, hungry or not.
It was after we'd been thrown out of one such place that Cratus made the suggestion.
'Come on,' he said, after we'd all looked at him as if he was mad. 'If everybody's going to assume we're thieves and robbers anyway, what've we got to lose? And we won't actually hurt anybody.'
'No,' I said. 'Absolutely not.'
Cratus sighed. 'It's that or starve,' he said. 'And I don't want to starve, thank you very much. What've we got to lose?'
Sarpedon, who was sitting under a rock trying to stay cool in the midday heat, made a snarling noise. 'Our pride,' he said. 'And our honour.'
Cratus was starting to lose his temper. 'Fine,' he said. 'Well, we'll have your pride roasted on a spit and basted in honey for our dinner tonight, and your honour lightly fried with onions for breakfast tomorrow. Then we'll rob somebody.'
To my surprise, it was Pentheus who seemed most upset by the suggestion. 'I'd rather die,' he said. 'For the gods' sakes, I haven't come this far to end up becoming what I look like. If I'd thought it'd come to that, I'd never have bothered in the first place.'
So we put the idea out of our minds, and as soon as it was cool enough to continue we carried on trudging. But the mountains didn't get any lower or softer, and by the time we reached the hill where they reckoned Mycenae used to be, we weren't feeling quite so high and mighty.
I say used to be - we'd assumed there'd be something there, even if it wasn't a great and powerful city like it's described as in the songs. But there was nothing to see; a shepherd we asked the way from pointed to a hill with a few stones sticking out of it, like our ribs.
'Lot of pride and honour under that hill,' Cratus muttered as we started walking again. 'Pity we can't dig it up and eat it.'
I think it was Cratus' incessant whining more than the hunger itself - oh yes, and Dusa had started too - that finally got to me. Anyway, I called a halt and made them all sit down.
'Well?'
Sarpedon said. 'You aren't actually considering it, are you?'
I sighed. 'I don't think we've got all that much choice in the matter,' I replied. 'It's that or split up and go our separate ways - we might stand a chance begging if we're on our own, but nobody's going to open the door to us as a group. We can't go on like this, that's for sure.'
'Thank you,' Cratus said.
'About time,' Dusa added. 'There was that fat old man with a donkey loaded down with cheeses we passed a way back. If you'd decided earlier, we'd all be stuffed with cheese by now.'
Sarpedon looked at us, then grunted. 'I suppose that if you're going to do this incredibly stupid thing, you'll need someone to make sure you don't do it completely wrong.'
'So you agree?' I asked.
'I suppose so,' Sarpedon replied wretchedly.
'I don't,' Pentheus said.
Cratus scowled. 'Nobody asked you,' he growled. 'Which reminds me: what the hell are you doing still following us about? We've saved your life - again; now why don't you go to the crows and stop bothering us?'
'Leave him alone,' I said. 'I haven't got the patience or the energy to deal with either of you, so just keep your faces shut and let me think.'
'Why you?' Cratus objected. 'Since when have you been giving orders to free men?'
'Since when were you capable of thinking?' Sarpedon snapped. 'I know I'm not,' he added with a wry grin. 'Not until I've had something to eat and washed some of this dust off my face, anyway. If Cleander wants to play at being Agamemnon, I say we let him.'
And that, my friends, is how we took the last step down the ladder. We'd gone from being the emissaries of the King of Elis, better than most and equals of any, all the way down to fugitives and vagrants; but at least, up till then, we hadn't done anything wrong, we'd been the victims of bad luck, other people's malice and the rather distasteful humour of the gods. Now, to complete the process, we were going to do something to deserve our wretchedness - become what we looked like, as Pentheus had said. Oddly enough, as soon as we took the decision, we all started to feel a whole lot better - even Pentheus, who didn't take long to join in the ensuing staff meeting, in the course of which he displayed a remarkable degree of insight into and understanding of the craft of highway robbery.
'What we really want to do,' I said, after we'd discussed various alternatives, 'is find a narrow place between two rocks. I know, it's just the sort of place where people expect an ambush. But that's only because it's the sort of place where ambushes happen. For a reason.'
Sarpedon shook his head. 'For one thing,' he said, 'look around. See any suitable places? Thought not. For another, that's the sort of place you'd choose if you were planning on what you might call the traditional approach - jump on the buggers, cut their throats and be on your way. Great location for that sort of thing, no good for what we're planning. If you aren't figuring on killing anybody, there's no advantage in it. Quite the reverse: you'll panic them into fighting, because they'll be expecting to be murdered if they don't.'
Then Pentheus joined in. 'I know what I'd do,' he said quietly.
We stopped talking and looked at him. 'All right,' I said, 'don't keep it to yourself. What would you do?'
He smiled. 'It's a matter of making the best use of our resources,' he replied. 'Now, what we need is an open stretch of road with a little light cover-'
And that's how come Cratus, Sarpedon, Pentheus and I found ourselves crouching in a mulching-trench on the edge of someone's vineyard, right on the outskirts of a tiny village half a day's walk from Mycenae, staring at the road and trying not to think about the cramp in our knees. We were there a very long time, and for a bronze brooch-pin we'd have given up and carried on walking, except that it'd taken so much strength of will to get us in that ditch in the first place, somehow we'd have felt small if we'd simply got up and walked away.
Then, finally, we saw what we'd been hoping for: an old man and a young lad (grandfather and grandson, by the looks of them) leading a pair of heavily laden donkeys along the road. There were jars on the donkeys' backs, and both men had satchels over their shoulders, the sort you carry your food in. There had to be something to eat.
They were chatting quietly as they walked, and so didn't hear the soft groaning right away; in fact, the old man nearly trod on the beautiful young girl lying in a crumpled heap beside the road before he noticed her.
'Help, help,' she repeated, in between groans. Honestly, she wouldn't have fooled me for a heartbeat. Fortunately, the gods put simpler thoughts into those fools' hearts. They stopped and rushed over to see what the matter was. Bad mistake.
Pentheus dropped a bit of cord round the young lad's throat, Sarpedon waggled our sword a couple of times under the old man's nose, while Dusa got up and dusted herself off, looking extremely embarrassed.
'You're thieves,' the old man said, as if thieves were some kind of fabulous monster found only in Lower Egypt.
'Yes,' Sarpedon replied, pulling the satchel off over the old man's head. 'And, like jewellers and sandal-makers, we prefer to work in silence. Indulge us.'
The old man looked so hurt and sad it was nearly enough to burst your heart. Cratus, meanwhile, was twisting the stoppers out of the jars.
'Wine,' he said. 'More wine. More wine. Gods, you people must drink a lot in these parts. Mind you, if I had to live here, so would I.'
'All wine?' I asked? The old man nodded. 'Except the big one. That's olive oil.'
'Marvellous,' Sarpedon grunted. 'We can drink ourselves to death rather than starve. Let's see what's in your satchel.'
'Nothing,' the old man replied, sounding a bit confused. 'Well, there wouldn't be,' he added. 'It's nearly evening.'
Logical, of course. If we'd robbed them in the morning, it'd have been different.
'You haven't done this before, have you?' the old man added.
'It's that obvious, is it?'
He nodded. 'Which is a good thing, surely,' he added. 'I mean, robbing people well isn't really something to be proud of.'
I sighed and flopped down on the ground. 'Let them go, for pity's sake,' I said in disgust. 'We're wasting our time, no point in making things worse than they already are.'
Sarpedon grunted and lowered the sword, while Pentheus removed the cord from round the boy's neck. 'Sorry,' he said.
The old man massaged his throat where Sarpedon had pricked it a little. 'That's all right,' he said, 'no harm done. You boys look like you're having a rough time.'
I laughed. 'That's no lie,' I told him.
'Mossus, put those lids back on the jars.' The boy nodded and got on with the job. 'Tell you what,' the old man went on, 'my place is just down the road from here. We haven't got much, but I expect there's enough to feed us all if you don't mind last year's barley.'
We looked at each other like idiots. Finally, Dusa had the sense to say, 'That's very kind of you,' or something like that. Then we followed the old man home.
On the way, of course, I did my best to make amends by explaining that really we weren't thieves and low-lifes; on the contrary, we were noblemen and respected citizens in our own country. The old man just smiled, as if he'd heard that one many times before.
'Noblemen,' he repeated. 'Not princes, then?' He grinned, and before I could answer he went on, 'Doesn't matter to me in any case. Far as I'm concerned, you're poor buggers like me and you could do with a feed and a sleep on some clean reed.'
'We're that all right,' I said.
'Of course. Words lie, eyes don't. Next time, though, make it princes. Sounds better.'
The old man's name was Glycus, and his grandson was Mossus. Both of Glycus' sons had died years ago (we didn't find out how) and Glycus' wife had died the previous spring.
It was a tidy little smallholding - well, not so little; Glycus had built it while both his sons were alive and at home, and they'd made a good, thorough job. There was a shoulder-high outer wall with a good, straight gate; inside that were the house, a couple of barns, a well and
a tower. He'd built it with defence in mind more than convenience - it was quite some way to his fields and his steading, but he'd chosen a high place with a good view and its own water.
'These parts haven't always been quiet,' he explained. 'Used to be a good few wild men running about here; you wanted to be able to bar your gate and lock your door at night, and see who was coming before they saw you. Things are better now, though; they pushed the wild men out, sent them packing west. Haven't had any trouble since before Mossus here was born.'
I asked who these wild men were; Glycus was a bit vague on the subject - he wasn't all that interested in them - but I got the impression that they'd been the last surviving descendants of the people who once lived in the great city of Mycenae; the Giants, as we always called them, except they weren't big and strong. In fact, they were shorter and slighter than the Sons of the Achaeans, though that aside there wasn't much to tell between them and us. For some reason, I found it very hard to take; I believed him, I just thought it was sad and not at all like what I'd always believed. You always think that the people in the old stories were big and strong and clever, better than us; according to what the old man told us, not a bit of it. And yet they built huge cities and wonderful palaces, had gold and silver and bronze treasures the like of which we don't know how to make any more - and they did such things, like crossing the Sea and sacking Troy.
Sometimes, you just don't know what to think.
That night, after we'd eaten rather too much of Glycus' spare food and drunk a jar of his quite palatable wine, he told us a story.
Olympiad Tom Holt Page 27