Heroes

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Diomedes fell silent, thinking of the Chnan’s words. They seemed right. They seemed true even though they were so terribly simple. But was it all really so simple? So simple to live, or to die?

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘And yet a particular vital force burns in some of them more than in others, and the others are slowly attracted to them like lamplight attracts moths. Like a small seed becomes a great tree, perhaps one day a new nation will grow here.’

  He rose to his feet and went to the entrance of the tent, contemplating the green expanse at his feet which extended like a precious carpet under the golden light of the setting sun. ‘Look,’ he said then, ‘another day has passed in the land of Hesperia, but it has not passed in vain. Many seeds have fallen here, carried by the wind of fate. Some will grow roots, others will dry up and die. And tomorrow this land will be different than it is today. Something is born, something dies, but each thing must be true to itself. An oak seed cannot generate a rush, nor can an eagle give birth to a crow. I am Diomedes, son of Tydeus, destroyer of cities. Even if I were stripped of everything, I would still carry my world inside of me, whether right or wrong. I will combat so that my world may live. If I die, it will mean that my death was meant to happen. This is what the Land of Evening has taught me.’ The Chnan lowered his head and did not speak.

  The next day, Diomedes summoned Myrsilus and said: ‘There are only four days to the new moon. Where are my arms?’

  ‘But wanax,’ said Myrsilus, astonished, ‘I have been doing nothing but taming your horses and preparing your chariot and you have never said a word to me. Your weapons will be ready very soon, if this is what you want.’

  The king lay his hands on Myrsilus’s shoulders: ‘This is what I want. They must sparkle on the day of the duel like the day they were crafted.’

  ‘They will gleam, wanax. They will be ablaze like the noonday sun. You will look awesome and invincible, like that day a goddess took the reins of your chariot against the god of war before the Scaean Gates.’

  Myrsilus took the king’s armour from his tent, the embossed greaves and breastplate, the shield and the helmet, adorned by a horsehair crest. He ordered a slave to shine them, to remove the patina that darkened them. He himself took a long ashwood stick from the forest; he removed the branches and the bark, polished it with a pumice stone, and shod it with the heavy, solid bronze head. He weighed it in his hand until it was perfect, and then fitted on the bronze socket at exactly the right point. He then took the baldric which was remarkably crafted in gold, enamel and silver and he cleaned it with his own hands, making it gleam. It had once belonged to Tydeus, when he fought under the walls of Thebes. Last of all, he took the great sword of solid bronze; he sharpened it with a whetstone, tested the long edge and the sharp tip and greased it with pork fat melted over the fire, until he saw it shine. The king had used it only once, when he had fought Nemro; never since had he found a worthy adversary.

  When his work was finished, Myrsilus put the arms back into the king’s tent so he would see them and his courage would grow within his soul. His bride saw them as well, and her eyes filled with tears.

  When the day of the new moon arrived, the king asked Myrsilus to be his charioteer. He awoke him when it was still dark and spoke to him: ‘If I should die, bring my body back to my bride so she can bathe it and prepare it for the funeral rites. You yourself will dress my body with this armour and bury it in front of the Achaeans. Raise a cairn and set a stele that I will be remembered by. Shout out my name ten times and then entrust it to the wind. And then depart; you will lead the comrades. No curse weighs upon you. Perhaps the gods will forget and you will succeed in beginning a new life in this land. Otherwise, if they so wish, take them back to Argos. The Chnan will know how to find you ships.’

  ‘None of this will ever happen,’ said Myrsilus. ‘It is as you say: the gods want this duel to be fought to its end, and then we will be able to live a new life and build our city. You will fight and you will win. As you always have.’

  He shook the reins and urged on the horses, who took off at a gallop. Myrsilus drove the team up on to a small ridge of land near the great river, a softly sloping hill from which the valley and plain of the Lat could be seen.

  The rising sun had just begun to lighten the horizon behind the mountains, but the plain was still in shadow. A slight mist covered it, like a light veil. Birds chirped their welcome to the morning. A large heron passed through the sky in slow, solemn flight. The king watched him at length as he vanished in the distance over the sea. He said: ‘Sometimes I dream that I am a bird, a great bird with white wings. I dream that I am flying over the foamy swells of the sea, my heart free of worry, of pain, of fear. It is a beautiful dream. When I awaken my heart is light.’

  But Myrsilus’s eyes were fixed on the plain. ‘Wanax!’ he said, and the king turned that way as well. A chariot advanced through the mist, appearing and disappearing with the rippling of the ground. Then the light of the sun struck it in full and the point of a spear sparkled with dazzling fire, a white crest swayed in the morning breeze. Diomedes’s hand tightened on the shaft of his spear. At that moment, the chariot stopped and the blast of a horn sounded over the vast plain, struck the peaks of the mountains and echoed over the snow-covered summits. The son of Anchises was launching his challenge.

  ‘He has seen us,’ said the king. ‘Let us go.’ And Myrsilus drove on the horses.

  They were face to face, after so many years, dressed in resplendent bronze, as they had been then. Diomedes shouted: ‘It’s you or me, son of Anchises! Only one of us will see the dawn tomorrow!’

  Aeneas answered him: ‘It’s you or me, son of Tydeus!’

  Myrsilus sent the team galloping over the plain. Aeneas’s charioteer shouted out and set the war-car racing off against his adversary of old. Diomedes took a javelin from the quiver; he weighed it in his hand and when Aeneas’s chariot was within range he hurled it with all his strength, aiming low, at the belt. The tip hit the parapet and shattered it into pieces. Aeneas flung his javelin as well; it struck the edge of the shield and rebounded to the right. For an instant, as the chariots flew past each other the hubs of the wheels were so close they nearly touched, the two warriors glared at each other and the ancient fury was rekindled. Aeneas saw in those eyes the sinister reflection of the flames that had burned his homeland, Diomedes saw the arrogant challenge of Hector and Deiphobus, the fire that had burned the rampart and the ships.

  They reached the confines of the field and the charioteers took the reins and assumed their positions again. The warriors took a second javelin from their quivers.

  ‘There’s a strong cross wind, wanax, adjust your aim to the left.’

  Diomedes nodded. ‘Go,’ he said.

  Myrsilus whipped his stallions’ backs with the reins. The steeds raised a long whinny into the air, distantly echoed by Aeneas’s horses, then broke into a gallop. ‘I’ll take you right into him; you’ll have him directly in front of you, but just for an instant,’ shouted Myrsilus. ‘Careful! Weigh it both left and right before you throw!’ When he was at the calculated distance, he swerved violently with his right horse, widening and then narrowing on the left at the last moment while Diomedes crouched low, holding on to the rear handles and leaning in to the other side, to keep the wheels gripping the ground.

  Aeneas’s charioteer was disoriented by the move and Diomedes re-emerged from behind the parapet with his javelin tight in his fist. He found Aeneas right in front of him then, for just an instant, and he hurled the weapon at his neck, at the collar bone. The javelin missed its target by a hairbreadth because Aeneas’s chariot gave a jolt, but the bronze still cut into his skin above the shoulder. And while his adversary rode off, Diomedes turned and shouted: ‘First blood, son of Anchises!’

  But Aeneas’s charioteer took him by surprise: he did not halt the horses, but widened their path in a full curve without diminishing their speed. When Myrsilus had started his team running again after hav
ing stopped at the end of the field, they were already upon him, racing at full tilt. Just an instant before he let his javelin fly, Diomedes realized that Aeneas was aiming to strike his charioteer. He raised his shield to protect Myrsilus, but this threw him off balance and he missed his throw.

  ‘Thank you, wanax,’ said Myrsilus. ‘But you’ve lost your third javelin. Now you must do battle on the ground with your spear and sword.’

  ‘It would have been worse to lose my charioteer and end up in the dust,’ said Diomedes with a smile. ‘You were magnificent. Sthenelus could not have done any better.’

  Myrsilus set the horses off at a trot and turned back, then stopped at a short distance from their adversary. Diomedes and Aeneas descended from the war-cars, and the charioteers handed them their spears. The sun was already high over the mountains and was turning south, sparkling on the waters of the great river.

  The two heroes faced each other warily, protected by their shields, spears in hand. The speed of the horses could no longer be added to the force of their arms. Now ability counted as much as strength. Diomedes chose not to throw his spear from a distance, but engaged Aeneas in hand-to-hand combat, crossing his ashen shaft with his enemy’s. Wood and bronze crackled in the close assault, bronze points seeking out a gap in the other’s defences, a space between the joints of the breastplate, a brief opening between the edge of the shield and the visor of the helmet. The whole valley resounded at length with the din of the battle.

  Myrsilus stood pale on the chariot while the horses tranquilly browsed on the grass. He abruptly started: with a sudden surge of energy, Aeneas had leapt backwards to dodge a blow, crouched down and hurled his spear from the ground, shearing off one of the shoulder plates on Diomedes’s armour. Blood reddened the chest of the son of Tydeus, who managed still to cast his own spear. The point of bronze struck the side of Aeneas’s helmet with such force that the Dardan hero wavered and nearly fell. Diomedes raised his sword to finish him off but Aeneas reacted, lifting his shield against the furious raining of blows. He moved backwards and, one step after another, he regained his composure, stood tall again and drew his own sword.

  They stopped for an instant, panting heavily, then attacked each other with renewed violence.

  Myrsilus was astonished: he could not understand what mysterious energy upheld Aeneas’s arm against Diomedes’s fury. He watched the sun as it continued to rise in the sky. Perhaps Aeneas was truly born of a goddess, as he had heard, and he prayed to Athena to hastily infuse new vigour in the arm of Diomedes.

  The ferocious battle went on. It went on and on, until their swords were blunted and deformed by the blows. They were useless now. The charioteers approached them and offered the double-edged axes. The two combatants were disfigured by the tremendous struggle. Blood dripped from innumerable wounds; sweat blinded them and they burned with thirst and fever. As he handed him the axe, Myrsilus looked the king full in the face: ‘There’s still enough fire in your eyes to burn a city. Strike him down, wanax, no one can stand up to you. You’ve already beaten him once, and forced him to flee.’

  And the charioteer of Aeneas also spoke to his lord as he handed him the sharpened axe: ‘His energies are waning. He’s desperate. You have a son, a people with women and children. Strike him down, son of Anchises. You will be the one to see the dawn tomorrow.’

  And the battle resumed with the axes: long, exhausting, cruel. Their shields were shattered, mangled by their blows, the straps holding their helmets and breastplates were ripped to shreds. At the end, the heroes faced each other, offering their undefended bodies to the axes. Skin and bone against bronze.

  But a god, perhaps, took pity on them. As they attacked each other for the final time, even the handles of the axes split, and the two warriors remained on their feet, gasping, soaked in bloody sweat.

  Diomedes spoke first: ‘Son of Anchises, the gods have granted victory to neither one of us. See? Our weapons are broken and useless; we have nothing but our teeth with which to wound each other. It would not be worthy of us to attack each other like dogs. I. . I believe that the gods have sent us a sign; is it not a miracle that we are both still alive? Look, the sun is already descending towards the sea. We have fought this entire day. Perhaps this is what the gods want: that there be peace between us.’ Aeneas regarded him in silence. Only the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest accompanied his panting breath.

  Diomedes spoke again: ‘Listen. Achilles is dead. Hector is dead. You and I are the strongest warriors in the world. But neither of us is stronger than the other. Let us forget our ancient animosity. Let us unite our peoples in this land and form a new, invincible nation. Listen, son of Anchises. I am willing to share with you the greatest of my treasures, the most precious talisman of your lost homeland.’ Aeneas listened with a look of deep apprehension. ‘On the night in which we conquered the city, I managed to slip into the sanctuary and abduct the Palladium, the sacred image of Athena which had made Ilium the greatest and most prosperous city in the world. I knew where it was kept; Ulysses and I had stolen into the citadel some time earlier and we were the only ones to know where it was. I’ve been carrying it with me all these years. I was waiting for the day in which I would found a new city. I would have placed it in a beautiful temple and there I would have built a new kingdom. And now I offer it to you, so we can build this kingdom and this nation together. Enough blood and enough tears. Enough.’ He bowed his head and awaited Aeneas’s response in silence.

  The Dardan hero stared at him without saying a word. There was no longer hate in his eyes, but rather melancholy and pity. He said: ‘Son of Tydeus, I fought for years to defend my homeland and I fought you now in the hopes of destroying the last shadows of my past before beginning a new life here, in the land of Hesperia. The gods wanted our last encounter to end this way, and now let us separate, so that each of us may take his own road. Too much hate and too much blood have divided us. Our wounds are still bleeding.

  ‘What you believe to be the talisman of the Trojans is nothing. It is nothing but a false image, one of the seven replicas that King Laomedon had made to mask the true idol. All of you searched for it that night, blinded by the dream of endless power: you, Ajax Oileus, Agamemnon. Ulysses himself. Cassandra fooled you all. She alone knew which one was the true idol, and that night she revealed the secret to me. I returned unseen amid the flames which were still devouring the city and recovered it, and I took it with me, to Mount Ida. It was the smallest and poorest image of them all; just two cubits tall, I could easily carry it in my arms.

  ‘Only Ulysses realized the trick. He had always suspected something. That night at Tenedos, while you were all sleeping, overwhelmed by weariness, he searched your ship and Ajax’s ship and found the false images. That is why he turned back; he wanted to warn Agamemnon, but when he landed on that deserted beach, the Atreid king had already departed.

  ‘I saw Ulysses rummaging through the ruins of the citadel that night as I slipped away. I spoke to him; I appeared to him as a ghost amid the pillars of Priam’s palace, reduced to ash. I did not kill him; I knew that the worst torture for him would be having been deceived. This is why he still wanders the seas without purpose and without hope.

  ‘The sacred image now protects my camp and for this reason I know that this small refuge will become a city and that this city will generate one hundred cities, all beautiful and prosperous, and will unite all the peoples of Hesperia, from the Mountains of Ice to the Mountains of Fire, along the crests of the Blue Mountains, for ever. Farewell, son of Tydeus. May the gods have mercy on you.’

  17

  Diomedes felt like dying. He fell on to his knees and wept, as Aeneas mounted his chariot and disappeared over the plains of the Lat.

  Myrsilus brought him back to the camp by force and there he lay for three days and three nights, devoured by fever, touching neither food nor drink. Myrsilus had all his weapons taken away, for he feared the king would take his own life.

  On the
fourth day he spoke to him: ‘Oh king, I and my companions know the truth now and yet, although we are sick at heart, we have not given ourselves up to despair. All these years we have followed you and we have fought with you so that your dream and ours might become reality. The gods have willed differently, and we mortals can do nothing against Fate. But we love you, and we want to live with you or to die with you.

  ‘I saw you fight with spear, sword and axe against the son of Anchises, and I heard your words. There is no man on the face of the earth who can match you. We have come to a decision, and we want you to know this: if you live, we will live; if you die, we will die.’ He stretched out his arm: ‘This is the sword I have borne with honour. Take it. If you use it against yourself, I will take my life with the same blade, and our comrades will do the same and we will sleep here together, under this sky, lulled by the voice of this great river. If you eat and drink with us, we will be happy and we will follow you until we find a place to live in peace in this land and together we will await the end that the gods have reserved for us.’

  Upon hearing those words, the king wearily got up from his pallet and showed his pale face, his blood-matted hair, his unkempt beard, his eyes red behind dark rings, and he burst into bitter tears. His back was shaken by sobs and big drops coursed down his hollow cheeks. Myrsilus stood before him unmoving until he saw him begin to calm, to wipe his eyes with the edge of his tunic. He nodded then to the bride, to long-haired Ros, who crouched in silence in a dark corner of the tent, and she took a jug of spring water and gave it to him so he could drink. She touched his face, then got up and had some water heated. When it was ready, she removed his clothes and bathed him, she poured scented oil over his head and then she lay down beside him, under a warm sheep’s fleece. She embraced him, caressing his tortured body with light fingers, passing on the warmth of her body until sleep descended on his eyes.