by Ben Blake
*
“Castor will be all right,” Tyndareus said. The king of Sparta was old now, and hadn’t even tried to keep pace with the hunters through the long hot morning. “He’s a fighter, that boy of mine. A little thing like a broken leg won’t stop him for long.”
“Of course it won’t,” Nestor said. He knew well enough how many men died from injuries like that, but then so did Tyndareus, and it would be impolite to point it out. Castor was his only son, the one man who could succeed Tyndareus when the Fates cut his thread and Hades took him, as he surely would before long. Nestor knew how he’d feel if his own first-born, his only son, was taken from him. Or no; he didn’t know how he would feel, couldn’t know, because the gods saved such suffering for the men who endured it, and others could only guess and shiver and hope such darkness never blighted their lives.
Thrasymedes was a son to make his father proud, nine years old now and growing straight and strong. He’d never be an Ajax, but then who was, apart from storied Heracles? Nestor felt his heart would burst whenever he looked at the boy. To lose him to such a thing as a broken leg… he made a warding sign against evil and shook the thought away.
But Castor’s leg had been more than merely broken. It had been snapped, cracked in half like a mast torn in two by a storm wind. Nestor had seen it flapping as the chirurgeon heaved him onto a board for treatment. If the boy lived he was always going to limp, every day of his life. He’d never fight, never win glory in battle as Greek kings were expected to do.
Enough of this, Nestor told himself firmly. Put such worries aside. Castor will live or he will not.
The lad was missing now, probably deep in the opium sleep, but Telamon was back among the lords and he was, characteristically, angry. It never took much to rouse the lord of Salamis’ temper, and being spitted by another man’s thrown knife was more than enough to do it, even without the boar all but goring him as he lay helpless. The big man sat on a bench with his injured leg stretched out in front of him, swathed in bandages, and drank thirstily from a wine cup filled at regular intervals by a servant. The level of the water jug nearby hardly seemed to move at all. Telamon was going to be drunk as Dionysius soon enough, but nobody was about to tell him to stop.
Nestor’s mind wandered back to the priest and his prophecy. A warrior ten times greater than his father, Archilaus had said, and perhaps it would be so. Nestor didn’t recall that he’d ever seen little Achilles, so he couldn’t judge. But the boy would be about seven or eight now, a year younger than Thrasymedes yet old enough for his abilities to have begun to show. It might be worth making an enquiry, if he could do it discreetly.
It was the other thing that worried him though, the first statement Archilaus had made. From this moment the world turns towards war. There were always wars, of course, one king battling another over the disputed placement of a border or some minor insult given by a royal cousin the year before. Or when one king went looking for plunder, for that matter. For whatever reason, there had been less of it since Atreus became High King. Arguments tended to be resolved in council now, and fighting men earned their glory overseas, as Theseus had done on Crete thirty years ago, and Jason in far-off Colchis.
Perhaps the war would come in Egypt, where the pyramid-kings’ control was not as firm as it had once been. Raiders had won booty and captives from the coast of the Nile in recent years. In former times that had been a sign that Egypt might slip into one of its periods of internal strife. That would mean chaos in the trade markets, especially for wheat, but Nestor couldn’t really see how the Greeks would be dragged into any fighting.
Certainly the war wouldn’t come in Colchis; Greeks couldn’t even get there now, between the dangers of the Hellespont and Hittite control of the land routes, through their client kings. It couldn’t come in the west either, simply because there was no nation there strong enough to stand against the Greeks. There were only cities, Hesperian or Etruscan for the most part, none of them able to exert control more than a day’s walk from the walls. That left only Greece. Did the priest mean that the Argives would turn on themselves? Perhaps the lords of Mycenae were going to lose their authority. It would be worth watching events unfold.
Nestor was still thinking that as his gaze drifted along the line of kings and princes, past Atreus sitting flanked by the sons who now towered over him, to the stranger in his kilt and fine-spun shirt.
“It’s nearly time to eat,” Peleus said then, stepping into the midst of the group. The air was heavy with the smell of roasting pork, and Nestor’s stomach rumbled at the other man’s words. “But first, we have with us today a guest, come all the way from windy Troy. He has asked to speak to you all, and I believe we should indulge him in this.”
The stranger stood and bowed to Peleus. “My thanks, lord of Thessaly, and those of my king, at whose command I come. I am Antenor.”
Now there was a name Nestor knew. Antenor was king Priam’s closest advisor in far-off Troy, his chief helpmeet, and not a man well liked in Greece. It was Antenor who set the transit duties for goods that passed along the Trojan road, avoiding the treacherous waters of the Hellespont to the north. Set them too high, as any Greek merchant would tell you. He was said to be a shrewd and tough man, and he was here, with this hunt of kings in the hills of Thessaly. Nestor could think of only one possible reason for that.
“Bind my tongue,” Theseus said before Nestor could speak, “this is about Hesione, isn’t it? Again.”
On his bench Telamon had gone very still, wine cup held halfway to his lips.
“The lord of Attica is as perceptive as we were told,” Antenor said smoothly. “Age can wither muscles, but the mind endures longer, they say.”
And Trojans can make any words sound like honey from the lips of gods, Nestor thought. It came of haggling with merchants from all across the Greensea. Sometimes it seemed the meanest of Trojans could dicker with kings from any other land, and most likely sell him a pig in a sack for more gold than the kingdom could afford.
“This is indeed about the lady Hesione,” Antenor said. He moved into the centre of the circle, left empty by Peleus. “The king’s sister has been held captive in Greece now for nearly ten years. Priam is of the opinion that this is long enough. He wishes her back.”
“He can’t have her,” Telamon growled. “Besides, she bore my son. Would you take her from her child?”
“Why not?” Antenor answered. “You took her from her father.”
Telamon dropped his cup and started to struggle to his feet.
“Enough,” Atreus said from across the clearing. Nestor thought he looked like a man already walking with death. It wouldn’t be long now until glowering Agamemnon was lord in Mycenae, but Atreus’ voice at least was still firm. “Peleus our host has granted this man the right to speak. Whatever we think of that decision, we will respect it. Sit down, Telamon.”
“I will not give Hesione back! What would –”
“Sit down,” Agamemnon said, and his voice was even harder than his father’s. Telamon broke off and then sank back to his bench, looking surprised that he’d done so.
“I am grateful,” Antenor said. He bowed to Atreus, more deeply than he had to Peleus. “My lords, we Trojans realise that women are treated differently here in Greece. You regard them as spoils of war. A glance at your history reminds us of that. Perseus took Andromeda from Joppa against her will. More recently Jason took Medea from Colchis, against her will. And more recently yet my lord Theseus here stole Ariadne from the palace of Knossos, again against her will… and then abandoned her on an island before he even reached home.”
“What would you suggest I should have done?” Theseus asked. He sounded honestly bewildered. “Bring her home to my father’s palace? A snake sleeping in my own bed?”
He hissed then, turning to Atalanta who had just dug the tip of her knife into his thigh. She withdrew the blade and studied the scarlet tip. “If that was your concern, you shouldn’t have taken her from Knos
sos in the first place, Theseus. I never did like what you did to her.”
“I would never do it to you,” he said.
Her answering smile was brilliant, even on a woman past her fiftieth year. “You never could. I do not depend on you, king of Athens.”
It was well known that Theseus had asked Atalanta to marry him twenty years before. She had refused, but taken him to her bed nonetheless. So things had remained, with him periodically asking for her hand and she rejecting him, refusing to be tied to any man. Watching them from across the circle of men, Nestor wondered how many married couple shared the love he could see in the pair. He didn’t think there would be many.
“As I was saying,” Antenor resumed, “we Trojans view women in a different way. We give them rights, powers alongside men. It is our queen Hecuba who will decide who her children marry, and it’s she who intercedes with the gods on the city’s behalf. Things are the same in her homeland of Lydia. Cultured men do not treat women this way.”
“Weak ones do,” Leonteus snapped.
There was laughter at that, though the king of Pieria hadn’t meant it as a joke and seemed briefly discomfited by the reaction. Antenor let the amusement pass, though Nestor thought his skin reddened slightly.
“Priam asks that dignity is served in this,” the Trojan went on. “He asks that Hesione be given back, to resume her life in Troy as the princess of the city she was born to be.”
“No,” Telamon said bluntly.
“Perhaps we might discuss other matters,” Nestor said, breaking his silence. He thought he might know why it was Antenor who had come to ask this time, and not the usual lower-ranked official. “Such as the levies charged for use of the Trojan Road.”
“Perhaps we might,” the Trojan allowed. “After we have seen evidence of some goodwill.”
There was a silence. Every man in the valley knew what lower transit duties would mean for their country’s merchants, and therefore for the royal treasuries: more gold. Every king in Greece always needed gold. They turned a blind eye to piracy if it brought coin into the cities: some even went with the raiding parties with scarves tied across their faces, then denied being there if a diplomat came to protest.
“Some compromise might be possible,” Atreus began.
“No,” Telamon said again, cutting across the High King. His face was red with anger. “How many times must I say it? Hesione was taken as a fair spoil of war. She belongs to me and I will not hand her back like some mewling weakling.”
Antenor stared down his nose at the big man. “There was no war. The princess was taken by pirates raiding the coast.”
“He’s calling me a reaver,” Telamon said, appealing to the crowd. “And don’t forget, I wasn’t alone that day. I sailed with Heracles himself. Would you call the son of Zeus a pirate?”
Partway around the circle, Tyndareus muttered, “Bind my tongue, but I wish you’d shut up about Heracles.”
He wasn’t quiet enough, and the words carried. Telamon started to get up again. This time his son Ajax took a step forward too. Schedius spoke before they could go further.
“Handing Hesione back to Troy will make the Greeks look weak in the eyes of others,” he said. His eyes gleamed under thick black brows. “There are cities around the Greensea that wait for us to falter. This is not about one woman, whatever Antenor might wish us to believe.”
“Which cities?” Antenor asked. “I know of none which can stand with Troy. None which control trade routes as rich as ours.” He turned to Atreus. “I ask for your judgement, High King. Is a single woman’s fate more important than the friendship of mighty Troy?”
Atreus studied him for a moment, then shook his grizzled head. “You are asking the wrong person, Trojan. I am High King, but that doesn’t grant me authority in all affairs. This is Telamon’s decision to make –”
“Then no,” Telamon said.
“– and however coarse he might be in council,” Atreus went on, “I cannot change that.”
Antenor looked at the king of Salamis.
“No,” Telamon said. “I won’t hand her back. By the dog of Egypt! Not for all the wealth of Troy, I won’t.”
“Then that closes the matter,” Atreus said. “Though I would be pleased to discuss trade duties with you, Antenor, if your time allows.”
The Trojan bowed once more. “My time is yours, High King, until my own lord calls me home.”
His time might be, but Antenor would make no agreements today, Nestor was sure. He’d want to make sure Atreus understood that Greek intransigence over Hesione could be met with Trojan stubbornness over trade prices. But Antenor knew how to be subtle. He’d smile and say all the right things, like any glib-tongued Trojan, and then go home without giving anything away.
The meeting began to break up, most of the men heading towards the big fire and the boar sizzling above it. Odysseus lingered though, leaning down to murmur again into Nestor’s ear. “That’s a clever man, I think.”
“Antenor?” he asked. “Yes, he’s a devious one. He must be, to have thrived in Priam’s court. They’re all snakes in the east, but Trojans most of all.”
There weren’t many clever men in this field, in truth. Odysseus was one, Antenor another with his measuring eyes. Atreus was canny, and there was Nestor himself. The elder son of the High king, Agamemnon, might be shrewder than his broad farmer’s face might lead a man to believe; Nestor wasn’t sure of him yet. But Theseus was a fathead lost in past glories, and the memory of a Greece which had changed and left him behind. Telamon was a braggart and a drunk; and Peleus a fool, for thinking he could let the Trojan speak without causing antagonism. Most of the others were just warrior lords, men who let their muscles do the thinking and couldn’t read if you cut their index fingers off. Men from the past that Theseus longed for, and who hadn’t yet realised it was gone.
It had to be gone. Greece couldn’t continue as a land of fighting men and pirates; at least, not only as that. They had to learn to build, the way Priam and his predecessors had built Troy into a city of fable, or as Minos had once made Crete into the cultural hub of the world. Here and there they had begun to. Tyndareus had a palace of gardens and courtyards, and Atreus was turning Mycenae into a mercantile city with large new agora for merchants to trade in. Nestor was trying to do the same in Messenia, though it was harder there, at the edge of the Greek homeland. But they were the only ones. The rest of the kings preferred to go on as they always had, bickering and snapping at each other, feral dogs with inflated egos and obsessed with their own pride.
Theseus and Atalanta passed him, making their way towards the fire. As they walked Nestor heard the old hero say, “I’ll not ask you again. From now on I will take what you offer, be glad of it, and ask no more.”
Nestor couldn’t help smiling. There was hope for even the most stubborn of Greeks if the ox-brained lord of Attica could learn that a woman sometimes knew her own mind, and would not be swayed from it. The Trojans all knew it from early childhood. Perhaps the Greeks would understand it one day too.
His stomach rumbled. Nestor turned and headed for the roasting boar, to feast and drink cups of watered wine, and swap lies with the other kings about hunts and women and war, in the hour the gods gave them before Castor died.