Heroes

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  He wheeled full around the camp and hurled back towards the point from which he had launched his attack.

  Nemro had got to his feet in a fury and assembled all his men but Diomedes caught him off guard again by bursting through at the same point, where the men were now grouped around their chief. One was hit straight on and trampled under the horses’ hooves, while two more were maimed under the chariot wheels. Nemro himself was struck at his side by the left horse and thrown to the ground in a daze.

  Then the chariot of bronze and fire disappeared into the night.

  For three days, the woman refused to eat or sleep. She lay curled up on her mat with her knees drawn up and her hair completely covering her face. Sometimes towards evening she would let out a melancholy, quavering song like a lullaby crooned to rock a child to sleep. It seemed to be her way of soothing herself, of relieving her pain. She was rapidly wasting away; her face thinned and seemed even tinier than it was in reality. When she lifted her eyes they were puffy and red with tears.

  ‘Perhaps she loved him,’ said the Chnan to Diomedes. ‘Nemro was to be her husband, after all.’

  ‘She had never seen him before, I’m sure of it. Her family had sent her from a distant land, how could she have loved him?’

  ‘Maybe you left her too long with him: just a few days can be enough to win a woman’s heart, especially if she knows that the man she has been given to will be her husband for the rest of her life.’

  ‘Do you think she knows the language of the people of this land? There must be some ties between her people and these people if she was sent as a bride to a chief of this land. Perhaps she knows a few words. . You could try to talk with her.’

  The Chnan shook his head. ‘One deaf person speaking to another: how could we understand each other? My knowledge of this language is so scarce; hers must be even less. She probably doesn’t know more than a few words, if any at all. Perhaps a caress would count more than any word. She’s only a frightened girl. She doesn’t know who you are, what you want from her. She is almost certainly a virgin, never touched by man.’

  ‘No one has harmed her! We have offered her food, a bed, we share with her what little we have.’

  ‘She’s afraid. She won’t eat because she fears you.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said the king.

  ‘It’s her only defence. By not eating, she’ll become ugly and thin, and you will no longer desire her. Perhaps, if you made her understand that you don’t want to hurt her. .’

  ‘You know many things, man of Chnan, things that I do not know. . or have never wanted to learn. I’ve been taught that all that matters in life is the honour and the glory that a man conquers in battle. Perhaps this is why I lost Aigialeia, my queen. Or perhaps it was Aphrodite’s revenge.’

  ‘We call her Isthar,’ said the Chnan. ‘And she can be a terrible goddess indeed. What did you do to anger her?’

  ‘I wounded her in battle, as she stretched out her delicate hand to shield her son who had fallen to the ground under my blows. Since then I have feared her revenge. The gods never forget. They can strike us whenever they want, in the most atrocious of ways. If the worst thing in the world for a man is to fall into the hands of another man, can you imagine what it means to fall into the hands of a god who hates you?’

  ‘But perhaps there is also a god who loves you. Or a goddess; you are a king and you are handsome and strong.’

  ‘The goddess who loved me has abandoned me. I haven’t seen her for a very long time, I haven’t felt her presence. . We are a cursed race: my father Tydeus devoured the brain of a man while it was still warm. But I admire him all the same. The greatest courage in life is embracing it all until the bitter end, until the last horror, if necessary. .’

  The Chnan lowered his head and held his tongue. The king’s gaze was fixed on the sky, covered with black clouds frayed with white towards the bottom, towards the earth. A cold, damp wind penetrated their bones and shook the fragile walls of the reed and clay houses in the little dying city. The Chnan bounded across the road and entered the hut he had chosen as his dwelling.

  The wind had begun to blow stronger and thunder exploded in the sky directly above the village, making the ground tremble. The rain pelted down, streaming over the road. The king had never felt time flowing away from him like this: fast, unstoppable, like the muddy water spilling into the moat from a thousand streams. He went out into the tempest that swept the village with its biting gusts of wind. The rain poured over his face and his chest and dripped down his back; his feet sank into the mud up to his ankles. He stood, head bent, in the downpour as if to purify himself, and then he went to the hut where Nemro’s woman was being held.

  Two of his warriors stood guard, motionless, one in front and one in the back of the house, sheltering as they could under the overhanging roof. They were faithful, patient men, capable of enduring anything. Seeing them like that, immobile in the wind and water, in that wretched place, he felt compassion for them; he felt stronger and sharper than ever the desire to give them a life and a land, to give them women and herds of oxen and fat sheep. He ordered them to go and find a warm fire and some food. They obeyed with a nod, pulling their cloaks over their heads and running off. The king entered.

  It was dark inside: a single earthenware lamp was smoking, burning sheep’s fat. In the corner was the food that had been brought to her and that she had refused to touch, left to be gnawed at by the mice. This was his wedding chamber? The perfumes and the scents? The wedding torches? He couldn’t even see the girl until his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom. And when he did see her his soul filled with despair: she was scrawny and pale and he could barely see her face behind a tangle of dirty hair. She startled at his entry, and began to whimper softly. Then she backed away, creeping, into a corner and hid her face.

  Diomedes took off his cloak and began to approach her, but when he saw her shaking in fear, he stopped in the middle of the bare room. He brought his lamp close to his face: ‘Look at me,’ he said, ‘I need you too.’

  At the sound of his voice, the girl turned slowly and the king could see her bewildered eyes, the pale flicker of her gaze. But he also perceived, greatly wounded and broken, that remarkable, ambiguous force of spirit that had struck him the first time he saw her.

  The fire in the hearth had gone out; Diomedes put a little wood on top and lit it with his lamp. The flames licked up while outside the rain pelted down even harder.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, adding more wood to the fire. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ and he held his head low as if he, too, suffered from the same desolation as she.

  The girl seemed to revive and moved slightly away from the wall.

  ‘Come closer,’ said the king. ‘Come warm yourself by the fire. Come; don’t be afraid.’

  The girl raised her head and looked at him. Then she got to her feet and walked slowly towards the fire. She was trembling, and her step was uncertain after fasting for so long. She stumbled, but Diomedes, who had not taken his eyes off her, caught her in his arms before she could fall. He set her gently next to the fire, then removed his own wet clothing and took her delicately into his arms. She stirred and the king opened his arms so she could go. If she wanted to.

  She didn’t go, and the king held her without speaking, listening together with her to the sound of the rain on the straw roof.

  Time passed, so long that it stopped raining and the sun began to shine through the cracks in the door. The Chnan’s voice could be heard, saying: ‘The men have made bread, wanax.’ And the little hut was invaded by a ray of light and an intense aroma. The king got up, went to the door and took the bread, then went back to the girl and offered her a little piece. She opened her lips and ate it while the king lightly stroked her hair. He took some bread himself and ate it while looking into her eyes, without moving his other hand from her head. And in that moment, the beam of sun that entered through the door lit up his hair from behind, bathing it i
n blond light, like a god’s. He gave her more bread and she ate from his hand and accepted his caresses.

  It didn’t take long for Nemro to learn where his enemy was hiding. The weather was bad and the incessant rain had wiped away the traces of Diomedes’s chariot and horses, but as soon as he could, Nemro had sent his men to search the land far and wide.

  A group of them encountered the old priest who they had left behind when they had set off for the Lake of the Ancestors, to officiate the rite of the severed heads in the deserted city. He was wandering through the countryside with a satchel at his neck; he did not even seem to recognize them.

  ‘It is us, Oh Man of the Sun and of the Rain,’ they said. ‘Stop! We seek the blond foreigner who flies on a chariot. He has abducted the bride of Nemro and has kept her for himself. Without her, Nemro cannot guide his people to the Lake of the Ancestors and build a city on the water. She is our only hope; her blood is not contaminated by the Sun of the Swamp.’

  The old man blinked repeatedly as if a violent light were wounding his eyes: ‘He has passed twice among the burnt heads and he is still alive,’ he said. ‘His flesh is harder than your bones. And he has spoken with the Sun of the Swamp: I saw it in his eyes. How can Nemro hope to combat him and win?’

  ‘You leave us no hope, then. But at least tell us where he is; we will do anything we can to have Nemro’s bride back. We fear nothing any more in this world.’

  The old man pointed south towards the horizon and then set off again with his slow, shuffling step in the other direction. They would never see him again.

  That evening they reached the city occupied by the invaders, and they slipped in during the night. They watched them from their hiding places for days and days. They watched the men train with their weapons, hurling their spears and shooting their bows, wielding sword and axe. They watched them fight each other, and stand guard at night with fine weather or with rain. They realized that their own forces could never defeat such warriors.

  When they returned to report to Nemro, he listened to them in silence without a blink of his eye, then withdrew to his tent where he remained at length. He finally came out and assembled his men. He said: ‘We cannot go to the Lake of the Ancestors without my bride and we cannot fight our enemies alone; they are too strong and too fierce. We need help, and we will find it in all the surviving villages and among the other peoples. We shall ask the Kmun of the Mountains of Ice and the Ambron of the Mountains of Stone. We will tell them what has happened, and they will tell the other peoples who live near them: the Pica and the Ombro. We will say that the foreigners of the flaming hair have come to kill us and carry off our women. . that they have come to steal everything from us, even our hope. They will help us, and our enemies will find ambushes in every forest, traps in every valley. The water they drink will turn to poison, every birdsong or animal call will hide a signal for attack. They will die, one after another. . as we have been dying until now.’

  Nemro lowered his head with a sigh and said: ‘Whoever survives, of the two of us, will have the bride for himself and will generate a new people with her. If I am the one who remains alive, I will take you to the Lake of the Ancestors, at the foot of the Mountains of Ice whence our forebears came. If it is he, the man who flies on the fire chariot. . if it is he who remains alive on the battlefield, then his seed will generate a new race of exterminators and there will no longer be any room for anyone else in this land. . for no one, between the mountains and the sea. We must destroy him, because he, perhaps, has come from the Sun of the Swamp himself! Perhaps he is the last and most terrible calamity.’

  Nemro’s men took his message to the Kmun on the Mountains of Ice and the Ambron on the Mountains of Stone, and these warned their neighbours, the Pica and the Ombro, and these in turn told the Lat who had settled at that time in the plains of the western sea. Whatever path the invaders chose, they would find it fraught with mortal danger.

  Meanwhile, the Man of the Sun and the Rain, the old priest, continued his solitary journey towards the place where none of his people had ever dared to venture. He knew that his energy would not suffice to follow Nemro in his quest for survival, but he thought that perhaps enough remained to discover where the poisonous seed of death had come from, when it fell from the sky like a globe of fire and sank its roots in to the swamp.

  Although it was already late in the spring, it continued to rain hard and long every day. But he never stopped; he walked all the same through the tall grass and reeds that had overrun the fields once flourishing with crops and rich pastures for numerous flocks. He would rest now and then in a deserted village or an abandoned house when the inclemency of the elements prevented him from going on. And then he would take up his journey once again.

  After seven days he reached the swamp where the seed of destruction had fallen. He was exhausted with fatigue, hunger and pain; his hands and feet were full of sores, his legs attacked by leeches. And yet he thought he heard the gentlest dirge, like the soft wailing of women grieving for their lost husbands. He followed that song, dragging himself to the shores of a large pool with a surface as smooth as a bronze mirror.

  He leaned over to peer inside and saw his own image reflected in the shiny black water, nothing else. Only his own thin, dazed face. He moved all around the liquid mirror, forcing a passage between the thick reeds, the willows and millet stalks.

  The wind rustled in the boughs of colossal poplars, filling the air with their white down, but not a bird took wing, not a chirp could be heard, nothing but the ancient lament that still echoed very faintly in the misty undergrowth.

  Utterly disheartened and defeated, the old priest let himself slip to the ground and sat propped up against a big trunk, uprooted like a little twig by some immense force. He had hoped not to abandon life before learning the truth, but now he felt his energies forsaking him on the shores of that dead water, although nothing had happened. No vague idea had formed in his mind, no sign had appeared before his eyes. His weariness weighed so heavily upon his eyelids that sleep finally overcame him and he sank back, head lolling and arms outspread. In his uneasy sleep he saw the deserted cities of his people crumbling into ruins, one after another; the canals filling with reeds, the palisades rotting away, swarms of rats invading the roads. A turbid grey sky covered all, swollen with disease. His closed eyes filled with tears and his heart brimmed with anguish.

  But then he saw the black lagoon fill slowly up with mud and sand, becoming a swamp, first, and then a marsh, until it became solid ground and was covered by a forest of aged oaks. And over that land he saw that the sky was blue again, and the sun shone, and a new people descended from the wooded mountains to occupy the deserted plain. Many, many years. . but one day life would flourish again in the great valley of the Eridanus; the newcomers would mix with the last descendants of his unlucky people.

  He saw men tilling the earth, digging canals and building cabins. Ripe wheat rippled in the summer sun and exuberant grapevines stretched their cluster-heavy shoots towards the sun.

  He did not see the warrior of the flaming hair who had passed twice between the severed heads without harm, but he felt his shadow vanishing beyond the wooded mountains, beyond the blue summits.

  The old man never stirred again, and the wind covered his wasted body with white down, like a larva in its cocoon. But his spirit was soaring with great butterfly wings over the sea of swaying reeds, over the waters of the Eridanus, high above the swollen grey clouds, through the pure, transparent air, towards the infinite light.

  9

  Diomedes advanced westward with his warriors, journeying up a muddy little river in the hopes of finding more welcoming lands and less hostile skies, but as soon as he had left his refuge and ventured on to open land, he immediately felt the presence of a hidden enemy who seemed to be everywhere.

  By day the men would hear distant sounds, like animal cries, in the midst of the plain or the deep of the forests. By night, fleet, faint shadows passed in the g
limmer of the moon; shapes, similar to beasts or fantastic birds, appeared out of nowhere before the sentinels who stood watch in the darkness, only to vanish like the creatures of a dream.

  Telephus, the Hittite slave, warned everyone to stay alert; to take care not to be lured away from the camp or guard post. He said that he wouldn’t be provoked by a shadow; crossing swords was the only way to challenge him. No flimsy shade could frighten him; he had never heard of anyone being killed by an apparition or a ghost. Only a good span of bronze or iron would do that job.

  ‘You don’t believe in invisible creatures and gods, then?’ the Chnan asked him one evening as they were roasting a wild pig they had snared in a trap.

  ‘I believe in the gods of my land when I am there, but here. . who could ever desire to live in a place like this? There can be nothing but the spirits of animals or of trees here; nothing that can worry us. Stay within call and within reach, always, and no harm can come to you. I commanded a chariot squadron in the Hittite army, but I’ve had to patrol the mountains and forest of Toros and Katpatuka on foot, as well. Those places are crawling with fierce, treacherous savages. We simply watched each others’ backs; no one ever went out alone to look for water or forage for the pack animals.’

  As he was saying this a shrill sound whistled through the air and one of the sentinels on guard at a short distance collapsed with a sigh, run through by an arrow. The king was notified immediately, and he rode out on horseback with fifty armed men to encircle the area the arrow had come from, but the darkness and the rough terrain protected the aggressors. They never found a trace of them, as if they had never existed.