by Colm Toibin
The guards seemed to enjoy looking at Orestes’ slate, showing the marks to each other and commenting on them, but over the first few weeks, they passed on. He was not told to stand out until the fourth week.
He stood beside a shivering Mitros, having presumed up to now that he would not be touched, having believed that his status in this place was different from that of the others. He had not even planned how he would respond if he were selected for punishment. As he was roughly pushed through the doorway of the dining room, he saw that the guard had a stick in his hand.
‘If you touch me,’ he said, ‘just touch me, my father will learn about it.’
‘Your father?’ the guard asked.
‘My father will find out about this.’
‘Is that your father with his throat cut?’ the guard asked.
Orestes stood back for a second and took in the mocking expression on the guard’s face. He then looked around the room. Had there been a knife close by, he would have used it on the guard, but the only thing he could see was a chair at the smaller table that was falling apart, and it was easy to pull off a leg and lunge with it towards the guard.
‘Touch me now!’ he said, wielding the leg of the chair.
The guard looked at him and laughed.
In that second, one of the guards who had been moving stealthily behind Orestes managed to overpower him. He pinned his arms behind his back, while the other guard began to hit him on the face full force with the back of his hand. When his arms were released and he fell on the ground, both guards kicked him before the one who had taken him down to the dining room whispered into his ear: ‘Your father isn’t any use to you now, is he? We won’t be hearing that again, will we?’
They left him there. Later, he hobbled back to the dormitory, noticing the intensity of the silent watching as he limped past the others towards his bed. For the next two days, he did not go to the refectory except to get water, but stayed in bed, unable to sleep, trying to piece together what might have happened to his father.
An image came to him then of his mother and Aegisthus. He was not sure when it was, but it must have been the morning, a morning when he had come to the room earlier than usual, and his nurse at the doorway had pulled him back but not before he had caught a glimpse of his mother and Aegisthus, and saw them naked and making sounds like animals. The image stayed with him now, became as solid in his mind as the image of his father’s face as it brightened when he returned, and the memory of his father’s voice and the cheering all around, and the smell of horses and men’s sweat and the sense of happiness he felt that his father was home.
The following week, as he found himself in the baths with Leander, he edged away from him and began to splash water with one of the other boys so that Leander and the fourth bather could whisper without being heard. But Leander pulled him towards the shadowy end of the baths and let the other two cover for them.
‘I want to escape,’ he whispered. ‘I need to help Mitros escape too before they kill him. I can’t escape with him on my own. I want you to be the one to help me.’
‘Why are you putting marks on my slate?’ Orestes asked.
‘Some of the boys hate you because of your family. They asked me to do that.’
‘Why do they hate me?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. And I wanted to see what you would do when they came to punish you. You were brave. I thought I could trust you not to be afraid.’
‘How can we escape?’
‘Some night I’ll wake you. You be ready. It will start with Mitros coughing. Tell no one, and stop looking at me all the time.’
‘I don’t look at you.’
‘You do, and stop it. Ignore me. You look around too much. Begin to behave like all the rest. Fit in.’
‘When will we escape?’
‘We must stop talking. Move away now.’
During the days that followed, Leander continued to put marks on his slate, but not too many. He tried to follow Leander’s advice and stop looking at him. But it was hard and made him feel alone and frightened. He began to worry about escaping, about where they would go, about what plans Leander had, and about what would happen if they were caught. When he woke during the night or in the morning, he thought it might be best just to stay here and hope that he would be rescued somehow. He wondered if there were a safe way to let Leander know that he did not want to go with him and Mitros, but no one ever spoke except in the baths, and when he went to the baths the next time, Leander was not there.
One night, as Mitros’ cough worsened, Leander came and tapped Orestes on the shoulder. When he opened his eyes, he could just make out Leander’s shape. As the rasping sound from Mitros began, Leander whispered to him: ‘Get dressed and follow me to the door.’ When he tried to reply, Leander put his hand firmly over his mouth to stop him speaking. Orestes desperately wanted to go back to sleep then, knowing that, if they did not escape, the day ahead would be hard, but at least the fears he’d feel would be familiar and predictable. He waited, nervous and uneasy, until Leander pulled him out of bed and stood with him while he dressed.
They went towards the door of the dormitory and waited there, as Mitros’ coughing grew louder, even more piercing and alarming than usual. When they heard the door opening, Leander and Orestes slipped to the side. The guard came into the dormitory. Then Leander led Orestes out into the corridor, where they searched among the objects near the guard’s day bed. When Leander found a knife, he handed it to Orestes. He himself picked up a flat piece of wood. And then they waited as the guard in the dormitory put his hand over Mitros’ mouth and appeared to hurt him in some way so that Mitros let out a muffled howl that caused others in the dormitory to wake and cry out.
Orestes heard the guard make some threatening noises; he noted his footsteps as he approached the door. He tried to hold his breath. He had no idea what the exact plan was, but presumed that he should try to attack the guard and stab him before he could shout for help.
They let the guard shut the door. As he lay down and yawned and made as though to settle back into sleep, Orestes inched forward, and, holding the knife hard, stabbed him with as much force as he could in the neck while Leander brought the wood hard down on his head. As the guard let out a roar, Orestes held him by the hair and ran the knife hard into his neck again, pulling it out and stabbing him in the chest with all his strength until he could not dislodge the knife from the bone. Leander clubbed the guard in the face. And then they both stopped. Orestes listened as Leander held him by the shoulder. There was no sound, except some coughing from within the dormitory. Leander, using his two hands, made Orestes stand still against the wall as he went back into the dormitory.
In his absence, Orestes could, from the shadowy light that came from the stairwell, make out some shapes of things in this small space. He looked at the door to the outside, wondering where the key might be.
He was going through the guard’s possessions in search of the key when Leander and Mitros appeared. Leander located it on a ledge and went swiftly to open the door and whispered to Orestes to come quickly.
Once they were outside, Leander locked the door and led them both away in the moonlight that illuminated the passage between rocks and then the steps and then the broad vista when they emerged into the open. They stood and listened, but there was no sound of anyone coming behind them.
‘We walk in the same direction as the wind,’ Leander said.
As Mitros’ cough began again, Leander held him, putting one hand on his chest and the other on his back. Mitros started to vomit, doubling over.
‘You’ll be better when we are away from here,’ Leander said.
‘No, I won’t,’ Mitros whispered. ‘You should leave me. I won’t be able to walk as fast as you.’
‘We’ll carry you,’ Leander said. ‘The only reason we escaped is you, so we can’t leave you.’
They descended towards the plain, Orestes looking back all the time, aware that in the
brightness anyone could make them out from the hills above and follow them. Since Mitros would not be able to run, he wondered if they would be wiser to find a place to hide for a few days, but Leander was pressing ahead with such cold certainty and determination that Orestes knew he would not entertain any changes to his plan. Thus Orestes and Mitros followed him, Mitros with his head down, like someone who had been already defeated.
When the sun came up, Orestes saw that they were moving towards where it would eventually set. He had presumed that both Leander and Mitros would want to return to their families immediately, but they were not following the route that he judged would lead back home.
He waited until night, when Mitros was asleep, to ask Leander what his plan was.
‘We can’t go back,’ Leander said. ‘None of us can. We would be kidnapped again, at least I would be, and Mitros too.’
‘Is my mother still alive?’ Orestes asked.
Leander hesitated for a second and then reached out and touched his shoulder.
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard the guards talking.’
‘And Electra?’
‘Yes. She is alive too.’
‘But my father is dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did he die?’
Leander made as though to speak a number of times. Finally, he fell silent and did not look up.
‘Do you know how he died?’ Orestes asked.
Leander once more hesitated and shifted his position.
‘No,’ he whispered, but still he did not look at Orestes.
‘But you are sure my mother is alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did she not send men to search for me?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she did.’
‘Is Aegisthus alive?’
‘Aegisthus?’ Leander appeared suddenly alert. He looked at Orestes directly, as though puzzled by the idea that he had asked such a question.
‘Yes, he is alive,’ Leander said eventually in a low voice. ‘He is alive.’
Once more, as with the guard, Orestes felt that if only he could think of one single right question to ask, then he would find out what he needed to know. But, he sensed, no direct question would work. He could not think what to ask instead.
‘Did Aegisthus kill my father?’ he abruptly asked, regretting the question almost immediately.
‘I don’t know,’ Leander replied quickly.
Orestes sighed.
In the morning, Leander spoke to them about what they should do.
‘The only thing I know is that we must not kill anybody else. No matter what. That is the first rule. If we kill someone, then people will come after us. What we want is to find a place where we can stay. Even if we are attacked, we must not kill.’
Looking at Mitros, who nodded in agreement, Orestes wanted to say that Mitros would not have the energy to kill, and that, in any case, they had no weapons, since he had left the knife lodged in the guard’s chest.
‘We need to carry small rocks that we can throw at people, injure them maybe, encourage them to leave us alone. And we need to get food and water by sending Mitros to a house to ask for it. Unarmed. Just asking. No one will feel threatened by him. We need to look at each house carefully. If we think it is hostile, we must pass on.’
‘The wells could be poisoned,’ Orestes said.
Leander nodded distractedly.
‘We can offer to work for people,’ he said, ‘in exchange for food and shelter, but we don’t want to stay anywhere near here. If we do, we will be found. We have to move faster than they can. Maybe Mitros will get stronger. If he doesn’t, then the two of us will have to get stronger so that we can carry him, or at least support him part of the way. We will walk every day from as soon as we wake until it is too dark. If we don’t do that, they will catch us.’
The tone of voice reminded Orestes of his father in the camp with the other men, when he wanted his father to play or carry him on his shoulders, but when his father was too busy. He shivered as it occurred to him that he would be safer back in the dormitory with the others, and almost more content. He would have more time to think about things, conjure up images of having sword fights with his father, or coming to his mother in the morning and finding her waiting for him, or sitting between Electra and Iphigenia as they talked, or moving easily among the servants and the guards.
When they came to a well, Orestes wondered if he should be the one to test the water for poison. If it were poisoned, he did not want to have to stand and watch as Mitros began to vomit and choke and slowly die, and Leander seemed so powerful and strong as he led them forward that his being stricken by poisoned water was unthinkable. Maybe they should all three drink at the same time, he thought, but then he felt that if he were to volunteer, it would impress Leander, be a sign of his bravery.
When, having left Mitros by the side of the road, they approached the well, Leander took the spring water in the cup of his hand and smelled it. He stood up and looked around.
‘Let me drink it,’ Orestes said.
‘One of us will have to,’ Leander said.
Leander dipped his two hands again into the water, and, cupping as much of it as he could, he drank, and then he indicated to Orestes to follow his example. Orestes had a vision then of all three of them writhing from the poison. As soon as he drank, however, he felt that the water was good. They waited for a while, cupping the water in their hands again and again and drinking, before Orestes went to let Mitros know that he thought the water was pure.
Later that day, they came across a man with a herd of goats.
‘Make sure he can see our hands,’ Leander whispered.
On noticing that the man had moved away from them nervously, Leander told Orestes and Mitros to stay back. He would approach the man, he said. They watched him walking slowly, swinging his arms, towards the man, patting the goats on the head gently as he passed them.
‘Everybody trusts him,’ Mitros said. ‘When they kidnapped us first and were going to leave me on the side of the road because I was sick, he stopped them. The guards paid attention to him.’
‘Did you know him before you were kidnapped?’
‘Yes, his grandfather used to come to my father’s house. His grandfather brought him everywhere. They let him listen when the men talked among themselves, the older men. They treated him like one of themselves.’
‘I remember him,’ Orestes said. ‘We played together when I was small, but I don’t remember you.’
‘I was too sick to play. I always had to stay at home. But I heard your name. I knew your name.’
They watched as Leander and the man with the goats remained deep in conversation. Orestes wanted to sit down, but thought it better if they both stood so that they could be clearly seen.
‘Do you think we are being followed?’ he asked Mitros.
‘My family will pay money for me, but the family of Leander will give everything they own. The kidnappers must know that. They must feel that someone stole a fortune from them when we escaped. They can’t sell us back now.’
‘How do you know they were planning to sell you back?’ Orestes asked.
‘Otherwise they would have killed us,’ Mitros said.
‘So why didn’t we stay and wait?’
‘Leander didn’t think I could survive much longer, and he was worried too that all of us could be killed if the guards thought that our families had sent men to rescue us and they were getting too close.’
‘Why didn’t they send men to rescue us?’
‘Because Aegisthus is in charge now. Or so Leander says. He heard it from one of the guards.’
‘In charge of what?’
‘Everything.’
‘Did he order the kidnappings?’
Mitros hesitated for a moment and looked over at Leander and the man. He seemed to be pretending that he had not heard the question. Orestes decided to whisper it to see what would
happen.
‘Did he order the kidnappings?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mitros whispered in reply. ‘Maybe. Ask Leander.’
‘Leander said that some of the boys hate me because of my family.’
Mitros nodded, but did not offer any comment.
They watched as Leander remained with the goats while the man approached them.
‘Are you ready to work, the two of you?’ the man asked.
They both nodded, Orestes trying to look eager.
‘I have barns to clear out,’ the man said. He studied Orestes carefully and then Mitros.
‘In return you get food and shelter, and when it’s done you go.’
Orestes nodded.
‘Is there someone following you?’ the man asked.
Orestes realized that he had only one second to decide how to reply. He did not want what he said to contradict what Leander might have said.
‘Mitros is not well,’ he said softly. ‘So maybe Leander and myself will do most of the work.’
The man narrowed his eyes and glanced over at Leander.
‘We’ll keep you well hidden if anyone comes,’ he said.
They followed the man and his herd until sunset, when they reached a small house and barns close to some trees. Leander never left the man’s side, talking to him all the time, while Orestes and Mitros walked behind. Orestes wondered how long it would be before some food – even some bread – would be produced and they could eat it, or if they would have to do some work first, or wait until the man was ready to eat and then share the food with him.
The man’s wife, at the door as they approached, gave the impression that she was deeply worried about their presence. She walked into the house, away from them, with her husband following. When the man came back out, he ordered three large dogs and a number of smaller ones to circle them. The man led the goats into a barn and seemed in no rush to return. Mitros began to pat one of the dogs and play with it, but the other dogs were less friendly, snapping at their ankles. It would be easy, Orestes realized, to hold Leander and him and Mitros here, using the dogs as guards, until the men following them arrived. He tried to work out if the man might have been able to guess that they were worth money.
