King in Splendour

by George Shipway

  I lifted helmet from head and wiped my face. ‘Your pretensions stun me! Could you conduct a Council, adjudicate on tenancies, settle land disputes, bestow estates on deserving Heroes? Doubtless,’ I sneered, ‘you’ll be able to tell Mecisteus where to station his warriors should the Goatmen again attack!’

  Clytemnaistra sent me a long, considering look, green eyes glinting under slanting brows. ‘All that, and more. You misjudge the quality of the woman you have married, Agamemnon. Do you truly believe I enjoy the humdrum life of a palace lady--childbearing, copulation, spinning and weaving cloth? Do you?’

  I replaced my helmet, fastened the strap. ‘Most certainly. Every noble lady, some better born than you--wasn’t Agenor, a Phoenician, your great grandfather--accepts a woman’s duties. What else are they fit for?’

  This, as I intended, flicked a nerve. (Nothing infuriates a noble more than disparaging his lineage.) Clytemnaistra said tightly, ‘A warrior fighting naked is foolish to cast a spear. Your kinsman a century back was bastard-born!’

  ‘I suppose you mean Perseus? Get your pedigrees right--we’re not related at all. Attend to your domestic affairs, my lady,’ I ended brusquely, ‘and keep your fingers out of politics!’ Clytemnaistra sighed. The tautness left her bearing, she pensively stroked a gold and ivory necklace. (Her sudden docility enough to arouse the meekest husband’s suspicions.) ‘It shall be as you say, Agamemnon.’ Hand on wrist she led me back to the outer wall and pointed to an armoured column thronging the valley road. ‘Your war-bands await you. I shall behave most dutifully while you’re gone.’ She crossed her arms on the parapet and, aware that I watched her face, scrutinized deliberately a muscular, handsome Hero who leaned on his spear on the ramparts below.

  Clytemnaistra met my eyes, and smiled. ‘Perhaps I’ll find diversions to pass away the time.’

  I clamped teeth on a bitter retort and descended from the tower. My chariot waited below the wall, Talthybius at the reins. Eurymedon gave me shield and spear; Talthybius felt the bits; wheels grated rough stone paving, rumbled through the gate. Halfway down the citadel’s mount I ordered him to halt, and looked back at the glittering group on the tower. Clytemnaistra lifted a hand. Thoughtfully I fingered the spearshaft. My Companion bridled his fretting stallions--a pair of Kolaxian greys--and eyed me curiously.

  I had planted no spies in Clytemnaistra’s household--and began to regret a mistake. I did not fear political plots. There were no obvious pretenders to Mycenae’s throne, no kindred claiming succession through royal blood-lines. Menelaus lived happily in Sparta; the rest were dead. All? I remembered Aegisthus, incest’s spawn, descended as I was from Tantalus and Pelops. Irrelevant--the boy lived far away in Elis, permanently exiled and surely aware that given half a chance I’d send him the way his father went.

  No--my malicious queen insinuated another kind of deception. I could not really believe her: adultery in royal families earned most fearful penalties. She knew the wretched Aerope’s fate, whom Atreus hurled from a cliff. Her lascivious leer at the garrison Hero was simply meant to provoke me. And yet ... Though cold as a clammy winter mist when I grappled her in bed I sensed that fiery passions smouldered in Clytemnaistra, ready to blaze incandescent when somebody lighted the torch. The Lady knew I had tried--and failed. Did she hunt a hotter flame?

  Too late to set a watch on the woman--impatient war-bands waited on the road. Spies abounded in Mycenae, but you can’t choose any rascal to keep an eye on a queen: the mission needs discretion and very careful briefing. I resolved to correct the omission directly the campaign ended.

  ‘Drive on,’ I told Talthybius.

  Heroes called loud greetings, spears lifted in salute. I rode to the column’s head and signalled the vanguard to march.

  * * *

  Sunset splashed a vermilion glow on Corinth’s walls and towers. A vast encampment sprawled on the plain and spilled to the brink of the sea. I visited Polyctor of Tiryns, Alcmaeon of Midea, Gelanor of Asine and lesser Wardens. They reported their war-bands in excellent fettle, raring to march on Aigiai--and certainly hoping the place would resist and therefore to be given to sack. The corpulent Warden of Sicyon (where Atreus years before first met his doomed Pelopia) complained of a brush on the way with Stymphalian cattle raiders. I had never forgotten Stymphalos, whose axemen hacked to death my first and only love, my beautiful Clymene. The time drew near, I decided, to erase that stinking city.

  Next day I led the war-bands--two hundred chariots, two thousand spearmen--on the coastal road to Pellene. (The Host was one-third less than Mycenae’s maximum strength; the Dorian threat, as I have said, enforced an adequate garrison to remain in every citadel.) After halting the night at Pellene we reached Aegira by noon. I summoned a council of war--Wardens and principal Heroes--in the citadel’s tiny palace.

  Aigiai, a small independent city like all on the Corinthian shore, acknowledged no overlord’s supremacy. Obviously the inhabitants knew what we intended: you cannot hide a marching Host; and remembrance of Atreus’ conquests declared the fate that impended. The enemy therefore had three straight choices: to open the gates and surrender directly they saw our spears; or fight it out in the open; or man the ramparts and stand a siege. I asked Aegira’s Warden--a gaunt-faced, wiry Hero, his speech clipped short as his beard--to tell me what he knew of Aigiai’s lord and people.

  ‘We’re on very good terms,’ he stated, ‘I visit Lord Panthous often--a short chariot ride away. Pleasant fellow. Bit of a dandy. Lacks guts, in my opinion. He’s got only twenty Heroes or so. Reckon he’ll surrender.’

  This comfortable estimate altered by not a single spear my battle plans for the morrow. I decided to march in fighting array, chariots leading, spearmen behind. Baggage remained at Aegira. After issuing detailed orders and allotting each war-band its place in the line I dismissed the council, and demanded from the Warden information about Helice, my objective after Aigiai had fallen.

  He scratched a head unmodishly close-cropped. ‘Don’t know much about ’em. A different flagon of wine, from what I hear. Strong citadel--which Aigiai is not--resolute chap in command with over fifty Heroes at his back. Not the type who’ll yield. Don’t think he’ll risk a battle. You’ll probably have to leaguer.’

  My laconic Warden’s prophecies were remarkably accurate. I led the chariot line across a scrub-pocked plain which aproned Aigiai’s mount, saw the citadel’s gates flung open and heralds filing out. Panthous made graceful submission and pleaded his city be spared a sack. Disappointed Heroes, deprived of fighting and plunder, crowded into the Hall and drank Aigiai’s wine stores dry. Nobody despoiled the citadel, but I could not prevent--nor did I try--some wine-sodden warriors from pillaging the houses in the town.

  Next morning I brought up the baggage train and directed the Host’s encampment. I imposed an immediate indemnity--so many droves of swine, cattle herds, sheep and horses--which, after taking a tenth for myself, I divided among the Wardens and principal Heroes. Lowing cattle and squealing pigs milled round the camp all day; greedy gentlemen disputing shares caused several fights and a couple of deaths.

  I decided to depose Panthous. While he was indeed a congenial fellow, a warrior who had yielded his city once might easily do so again. I promised him a holding near Mycenae and appointed Diores, my old tutor, as Warden of the citadel: a fitting reward for a Hero who had trained me in my youth. Diores didn’t say much--he was always a taciturn man--but gratitude shone in his eyes. Panthous, also, was not ungrateful: he realized that the lords of captured cities, however easily surrendered, often came to swift unpleasant ends.

  I have always considered myself a remarkably merciful man.

  With Aigiai’s affairs in order the Host set out for Helice, a half day’s march away on the coastal road. War-bands marched in column of route till we sighted Helice’s towers; then halted and deployed in battle order. The township’s houses looped from shore to shore; beyond the arc of rooftops the citadel’s bleak stone walls climbed from the beac
h itself. Spears glinted on the ramparts, the gates were firmly closed.

  Helice’s lord intended to stand a siege.

  Gelanor of Asine--an impetuous young man with a jaw like a war-galley’s ram--wanted an instant attack. I told him coldly to control his ardour: as we had neither reconnoitred the ground nor studied the approaches to hurl an assault at the gates merited disaster. (I quote Gelanor’s fat-headed proposal merely as an example of your average Hero’s blinkered military vision. A headlong charge was the limit of their tactical ideas.) Alcmaeon of Midea, who had seen the duel at Corinth that killed Hercules’ son Hyllus, propounded sending a challenge to Helice’s lord, the issue to be decided by single combat between him and ... He looked at me inquiringly.

  ‘Certainly not!’ I snorted. (With two thousand seasoned warriors at hand why the blazes should I risk my valuable life?) ‘Only an idiot would gamble his city on the outcome of a man-to-man encounter; and he’d think me weak to suggest it.’

  ‘It means a siege, then,’ Polyctor said lugubriously.

  ‘Of course. We may discover a weakness somewhere which invites an escalade. Until that happens we starve them out.’ Talthybius driving my chariot, followed by war-band leaders, I made a leisurely circuit beyond bowshot from the walls. Sunlight sparkled helmets on the ramparts, warriors bellowed defiance. On the seaward side the citadel, like Asine, reared straight from a tumble of crags that were washed by the waves. The shoreline curved in a shallow bay; fishing craft and hoys lay tilted on the beaches. Apart from a sally port facing the sea the fortress owned but a single gate.

  I said, ‘Destroy the ships, or the enemy will use them to ferry supplies; they’re bound to have friends in coastal villages. Your job, Gelanor; I want it done within three days. To prevent any seaborne traffic from landing near the citadel we’ll build two forts on the beaches either side, beyond bowshot range from the walls. Your responsibility, Polyctor: start the work tomorrow.’ The siege began.

  First we scoured the country to round up stock, and sacked outlying villages. We burned the town flat one lovely morning in volleys of smoke and sparks. Polyctor built his beach-forts. Gelanor destroyed thirty boats and complained the enemy bowmen frustrated his efforts to hole the remainder, beached close to the citadel’s walls.

  ‘I’ve had a Hero and five spearmen killed, and several wounded. Men moving on the beach directly below the ramparts make easy targets.’

  ‘Try it in the dark,’ I suggested.

  He stared pop-eyed. ‘Fight at night? Be damned to that! It’s against all--’

  ‘How many vessels are left undamaged?’

  ‘A score.’

  ‘Assemble twenty Heroes in one of Polyctor’s forts before sunset. Give each an axe or crowbar. No armour save helmets and corselets. Barefoot. No weapons except daggers.’ I paused and considered. A fairly safe assignment, promising credit and minimum risk. ‘I’ll take them to smash the boats.'

  After briefing my little band--Gelanor, shedding qualms, insisted on coming--I led it in single file along the beach. Silvery starlight dusted the sea; the rustle of waves on sand drowned cautious shuffling footsteps. Helice’s walls loomed blackly above, sentinels’ helmets spiked the ramparts, starshine danced on the points of spears. My knee bumped the nearest fisher-boat’s prow; I touched the Hero breathing at my back. He halted and crouched in the shadows below the hull. I found the boats in turn, left a warrior beside each. Sand yielded to rock, a craggy tongue that jutted beneath the walls. Slipping on slimy weed, wading in thigh-deep water, guarding my hatchet from clinking contact I clambered over the reef, eight silently blaspheming Heroes crawling behind. More boats on the farther side; I stationed a man by each. I collided with the ninth, glimpsed more long mounds beyond.

  Gelanor, blast him, had miscounted.

  I explored the canted hull, gripped my axe’s olive wood shaft and chopped below the waterline. The crunch carried clear on still night air. Heroes tensely awaiting the signal stood and hammered axe-heads home on water-softened strakes.

  On tall black walls that blotted the stars sentries shouted alarm. Running feet and excited calls. Bowstrings twanging, arrows thumping softly in the sand. The tinkle of throwing spears glancing rock. A staccato banging and cracking--bronze axes splintering wood.

  The enemy, night-blinded, shot haphazard, aiming at the noises of destruction. An arrow scratched my helmet, I ducked--a futile gesture--and hacked away at the hoy like a frenzied woodman. I thumbed the jagged hole, large enough to admit a Molossian boarhound. Torches spluttered redly on the ramparts. ‘Run for it!’ I roared above the clamour, and stumbled at a trot the way we had come. I bumped the back of a Hero, thrust him on, tripped on a prostrate body, flinched from the flick of an unseen arrow, hobbled over rocks and splashed through lazy wavelets lapping the beach. Gasping and winded, shouldered by running figures, I thankfully reached the entrance of Polyctor’s boulder-built fort, collapsed on a pile of baggage and counted heads by the light of flickering lamps. Only two were missing.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ I said. ‘A very effective exploit. The second successful night operation I’ve taken part in. Perhaps we should do it more often in future, despite our military experts’ strictures.’

  Gelanor grunted, unconvinced.

  * * *

  The summer wore on. Existence in the siege lines was monotonous, tedious and hot. The only signs of activity the garrison displayed were attempts at night to repair the damaged ships. I hardly expected a sally: the Host outnumbered them five to one. Impatient Heroes--prominently Gelanor--pressed for an escalade.

  Sternly I refused.

  ‘Over two thousand people--Heroes, Companions, spearmen, herdsmen, women, children and slaves--are packed inside Helice’s walls. Food must be running low. Starvation does the work--why waste our lives?’

  ‘We’ve sat here a moon already,’ Alcmaeon grumbled. ‘The season marches on. There’s not much time before harvest for taking Dyme and Erineos,’

  ‘An advance beyond Helice,’ I lied, 'was never part of my plans. Do you expect the Corinthian shore to fall in one campaign? Atreus took two years to get as far as Aegira.’

  Bored warriors started bickering, chiefly over women--I had distributed the female slaves taken from the villages. Exercising royal privilege I chose for myself a buxom blonde--the prettiest in a mediocre bunch--and amorous gymnastics helped to preserve my health. Meanwhile I kept the peace between various quarrelsome Heroes; and subdued an uneasy feeling that Helice might hold out till harvest time in Mycenae compelled the Host’s return.

  On the fiftieth night of the siege a runner from Polyctor wakened me from slumber in my gold-haired trollop’s arms. A disturbance, he reported, on the beach below the walls, keels grating on shingle, a furtive creak of oars. Eurymedon armed me hurriedly; I strode to the fort and peered along the shoreline in the gloom. A sliver of moonlight sprinkled the sea, limned ebony shapes on the water, sparkled on an oarblade’s lift and splash.

  ‘Somebody’s running away,’ Polyctor said. ‘Shall we charge along the sand and cut them off?’

  ‘Let them go. I believe, by The Lady’s grace, Helice’s leaguer is ending.’

  In the grey of dawn I anxiously scanned the citadel, hoping to see the gates thrown wide, heralds announcing surrender. That night-time departure by ship, I believed, meant Helice’s lord had fled with his principal Heroes. If the core of resistance had gone the garrison, abandoned, was unlikely to hold out long.

  Perhaps they needed a push.

  Trumpets howled a call to arms. The entire Host, dismounted, paraded on the space between citadel and siege lines. War-bands massed in line, tall hide shields and serried spears like a palisade of bronze. Spearmen hefted an oak tree’s bole to batter down the gate. The spectacle exploded a riot on the ramparts; sentinels yelled alarm; warriors crowded to battle stations.

  The Host tramped through the township’s burnt remains, and kicked up clouds of grey-black dust. The line arrived within bowshot range
. Not an arrow sped from the ramparts. Unarmed men brandishing olive twigs appeared from a curtain wall that shielded the gate. The column rolled over Helice’s heralds, vanished behind the curtain. Gelanor reappeared on the gate tower, brandishing a bloodied spear and whooping in triumph.

  The Host went mad. In a strident din of war-cries Heroes irked by moons of waiting swooped on a city open to sack, a lure irresistible as drink to a thirst-crazed man. War-bands broke ranks and raced for the gate, jammed in the entrance, fought to get in.

  Swept on a roaring torrent I stumbled into Helice. Warriors flooded the citadel, tore house-doors from the hinges, killed all the men inside and threw booty into the streets. Here and there in alleyways, in courts and on the ramparts little knots of defenders fought to the death. The storming became a hunt, pursuit of fleeing men, spearheads lancing bodies, women seized and raped where they lay, plunder piled in heaps.

  Helice’s agony shrilled to the bland blue skies.

  My bodyguard forced a way to the palace, a four-square whitewashed building crowning the citadel’s mount. We crossed the deserted Court, clanged through the portico, entered the Hall.

  A fire smouldered on the hearth, furniture was scattered in pell-mell disarray, cups and platters littered the floor--all the signs of hurried flight. A boarhound prowled for scraps, contentedly wolfed a biscuit. The Hall’s other occupant was a man who reclined at a three-legged table and stolidly gnawed a mutton bone, apparently unmoved by the tumult splitting the air. I pointed my spear at his chest.

  ‘Who the blazes are you?’

  He cocked a bushy eyebrow, spat a sliver of meat. Muscles corded arms and legs and rippled on a broad and hairy chest. Dark tousled hair and wiry beard framed a face that might have been roughly hacked from a chunk of weathered oak. A few years younger than I, at a guess.

  He dropped the bone and wiped his mouth. ‘Odysseus, guest-friend to Helice’s lord. I regret to say my host has lately departed. And who, may I ask, are you?’