The Young Lion

by Laura Gill

  “Well,” said Poimenos, “as long as you’re not here for the taxes.”

  Timon shook his head insistently. “As far as I know, there are no tax collectors in my family.”

  Then Hermes trotted over to me, wagging his tail, an interjection which dispelled some tension. I scratched him behind the ears. Mother had never let me have a dog, no matter how hard I begged. I knew the names of all Mycenae’s hunting dogs, and sometimes visited their kennels, but it had not been the same.

  Poimenos uttered a short laugh. “The man who gave him to me was rather odd in the head. He swore Hermes would one day lead me to something very important.”

  Hermes licked my hand. “Did he?” I asked.

  “Come here, you rascal.” Poimenos called the dog over, and gave him a little bread. “You act like nobody ever feeds you.” When the last morsel was gone, he looked at me. “Whatever your name may be, young man, you’ve eaten my bread and salt, and slept at my hearth. That makes you my guest, and therefore you and your companion are protected by Zeus.”

  So neither he nor Rhene would betray me, but that did not mean no one else would. “What about the neighbors?”

  “I won’t lie,” he replied, frowning. “The sooner you and your companion leave, the better.”

  He and Rhene continued to address me as Alastor, but their mannerisms said Orestes. Sometimes Poimenos managed to bring nourishing red meat from the village sanctuary. He reported no trouble with the neighbors, but sometimes I awakened during the night to find him peering through a crack in the shutters, with faithful Hermes alert at his side. “I do not mean to impose on you,” I said softly.

  Poimenos betrayed irritation with my waking. “Close your eyes, young man,” he rumbled. “Zeus sent you to this hearth for a reason.”

  I did not mention the incident again, and if I happened to wake during the night to discover him sitting sentinel by the door with Hermes, I closed my eyes and did not let him know.

  Timon sought ways to alleviate my boredom, patting clay into tablets and devising lessons. I had no heart for mathematics or geography, and would rather have been hobbling around outside on my crutches, or on the road again. Sometimes I dismissed him, but other times, when I was not so glum with frustration over my convalescence, I humored him, because otherwise he would have brooded on his perceived uselessness, especially his not having rushed to my aid during the attack.

  “You’re my friend,” I said. We were alone in the cottage, Poimenos having gone out with his flock, and Rhene outside in her vegetable garden. “Had you not been there, I would have died.”

  His voice broke. “It was not enough, Orestes.”

  “Listen to you talk! What do you think happened when they killed Father? I did nothing!” I threw both arms around his thin form. My lower jaw shook with the effort of holding back tears. “I didn’t even warn him!”

  Timon returned my embrace; he smelled like clay and bread, as he always did. “It was not your fault, and you know that,” he murmured into my hair. I knew it was the truth, but refused to believe it; my heart was too heavy with guilt. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  We abandoned the lesson and went to sit outside in the warm spring sunshine. Timon assisted Rhene weeding the vegetable plot; he had been helping with whatever chores he could so he did not burden our hosts. It was difficult for him not to have his familiar scrolls and tablets.

  I took out Father’s seal ring to study it closely. It sat heavy in my palm, the blood and gore from that awful day having been scoured away until the gold gleamed again. The double lions of the Atreidai reproduced the Lion Gate in miniature. Timon had told me that the goldsmith must have had Cretan training to have been able to execute such detailed work. For the first time, I dared try it on my forefinger, where it hung loosely. I was not yet a man, certainly not the man Father had been. I’m so sorry I failed you! Clearly I would have to earn the right to wear that emblem of kingship.

  *~*~*~*

  A fortnight passed before the healing plaster was removed. I saw my wound for the first time since I had cauterized it, and it was not a pleasant sight. Puckered, shiny scar tissue ran a six-inch diagonal across my right thigh. A few inches more and my attacker would have sliced off my manhood.

  My dismay deepened when I discovered how deeply his blade had sliced into the muscle. The attack had left me lame. A king’s son had to be able to run and fight and hunt, but who would ever follow a prince with a hobbled leg?

  It was time to leave. Timon and I had overstayed our welcome, and we knew it; the longer we lingered, the greater the danger to our hosts. Poimenos and Rhene were contrite, though, and did what they could to assist us with our journey. Poimenos informed us that a neighbor driving his wool to the great market in Sikyon could take us. From there, he said, it was but a short walk to the coast. “Pilgrims travel that route all the time in summer. The fishermen make a good business ferrying them across the water.”

  Poimenos would not accept the gold ring I offered in exchange for his hospitality. “It would offend the gods to take any gift.”

  “I will come back one day,” I said, “and give you something for your kindness.” I reached down and grasped my testicles through my tunic, as one did when taking the most solemn oaths. “In the name of Zeus Xenios, I, Orestes Agamemnonides, so swear.”

  Hermes shoved his head under my arm. “Ah, yes, you rascal!” I hugged his muzzle to my chest. “I will bring you something, too.”

  Chapter Twenty

  In the end, my lameness worked to my advantage. I might have been as tall and red-haired as the missing prince of Mycenae, but no scion of the High King would ever have appeared so pale and threadbare, or limped along a road on a crutch like a crippled young herdsman.

  Despite what Poimenos had said about the pilgrim ferries, it was difficult to find a fisherman willing to ferry us across the Gulf of Corinth. As before, Timon did the talking, asking along the beach where the fishermen had their boats hauled up onto the sand. Unfortunately, they were accustomed to taking on multiple passengers at a time and reaping a good profit from the venture, which might take the entire day depending on the weather and currents. No one was willing to relinquish a day’s catch to sail out for one old man and his lamed grandson.

  Toward mid-afternoon, we found a fisherman willing to entertain the possibility of ferrying us across. However, I took an instant dislike to the leathery old salt; his surly mannerisms during the interview did nothing to alleviate my revulsion.

  Timon produced part of a gold ring he had taken from the first tracker; he had gnawed and bent to make it look like scrap metal. “You can have this now,” he said, “and another one just like it when we get across.”

  The fisherman snatched it from him, and bit down on it to ascertain its quality. He snorted. “Now, what makes you think my mates and I won’t shove you two overboard once we’re out on the water and seize them both?”

  As far as I was concerned, we were through bargaining with the villain. “Hermes watches over travelers.”

  “And thieves,” the man retorted.

  I wanted to strike him for his impertinence. “Poseidon will curse your nets if you commit murder in his domain.”

  The fisherman squinted at me. “Well, now, you’re awfully clever for a cripple, aren’t you?”

  “I’m lame, not an idiot,” I answered coldly. “Either you take us across like an honest man, or you give Grandfather his gold back.”

  Hawking yellowish phlegm at my feet, the fisherman instead flung the gold scrap at Timon’s chest. “Piss off, then.”

  A sympathetic fishwife who witnessed the exchange hustled us aside to commend us for not trusting that villain. “Go up the coast a bit. Keep west till you get to Xylokastro,” she advised. “You might have better luck there.”

  Xylokastro was a thriving port town. It had a fishing industry, but also welcomed merchant vessels and catered to pilgrims. People there recognized the plight of an ailing grandfather t
aking his crippled grandson to seek healing at Delphi, and tried to press on us talismans, home remedies, and amulets for an exorbitant price.

  Timon found us a place on a boat ferrying three other pilgrims across. Having never before ventured into Poseidon’s realm, my gut churned with each swell. I broke out in a cold sweat, murmuring propitiatory prayers to the god even as I heaved my breakfast over the side. The captain and four oarsmen chuckled at my predicament. “It’s a mild day, boy!” the captain exclaimed. “This is nothing.”

  Timon was clutching the side so tightly his knuckles showed white, but somehow he avoided succumbing to seasickness.

  The fresh salty air soon enervated me, and I began to take interest in my surroundings. The gulf waters were a deep bluish-green. On a clear day such as this, one could see the opposite shore as a bluish haze sprawling across the entire northern horizon.

  A pilgrim who had made the journey to Delphi twice before regaled us with his stories; he knew the surrounding landscape well enough to describe it. “There on your right,” Spheros said, “that mountain you see is Helikon. From its heights, you can gaze down into Boeotia all the way to Orchomenos and Thebes.”

  He knew his northern geography quite well for man who spoke with an Arcadian accent. “That’s my grandfather’s country.” Spheros thumped his barrel chest with one hand. “I spent time there in my youth, before the war.”

  “So you were at Troy?”

  He nodded. “For a few years.” Then he sighed ponderously. “I didn’t come back with spoils, if that’s what you want to know. Nothing but some scars and a few stories, and an affliction only Apollo can ease.”

  “What affliction?” I asked. He was a rangy man, with a bulbous nose that had been broken at one time and poorly set, but despite the few scars seaming his flesh, he was not unsightly and still possessed all his limbs.

  Spheros tapped his temple with a brown finger. “In here. Ares breeds terrors on the battlefield, and those terrors have a way of staying. There’s sure to be more men like me at Delphi, now that the war’s over.” He glanced aside, taking in the wavelets lapping the side of the boat, and sighed. “It was bad, very bad.” His voice took on a distant quality, as though he was caught in a waking dream. He shook his head. “Don’t ever go to war, young man. You won’t ever be able to go home again.”

  I wondered whether his advice also applied to twelve-year-old boys who had seen their fathers murdered before their eyes. Perhaps the holy sanctuary of Delphi, not the citadel of Krisa, was where I ought to be headed.

  I left him alone with his ghosts to study Mount Helikon. As the sun climbed higher, and we continued on our northwest heading, a second mountain rose like a colossus across the horizon.

  Spheros abandoned his reverie long enough to notice my interest. “That’s Parnassus. She’s as old as the gods themselves. Apollo and Dionysus dwell there, and many other spirits whose names have been forgotten.” He made a little noise in his throat. “She’s also thick with brigands. You have to be careful on the road to Delphi.”

  We beached late in the afternoon, coming ashore at a fishing village. The fishermen had friends there and invited us to stay the night, but theirs was not a pious invitation in the customary fashion. The Phocians profited from the Delphic pilgrimages wherever and however they could, by charging pilgrims for food and lodging, and exacting tolls along the sanctuary road.

  Our pilgrim companions had expected the fees, and paid. Timon and I decided to camp down the beach until a villager reiterated the warning about brigands. “It’s not safe to go alone on the pilgrim route.”

  Timon traded the good leather belt I had taken from the first tracker for food and shelter, even though he wanted to keep it because his old one was no good. He still had hidden in his clothing a tiny scrap of gold, which he told me he was saving in case we had to bribe our way into the Phocian royal citadel.

  Spheros walked with us on the northward road. Along the way, he tried to allay what he assumed were my anxieties about entering the god’s sanctuary to be healed. He said much that was useful about the royal citadel at Krisa, about Delphi, and even shared a few reminiscences about his time at Troy. Menelaus had once saved his life in battle, so he claimed. “Never saw his wife, though,” he admitted. “I couldn’t tell you whether she was worth all the fuss.”

  *~*~*~*

  Entering the town of Krisa in mid-afternoon, we found vendors plying their trade in the agora as the citizens stirred from their noon respite. Fortune tellers and self-professed healers competed with craftsmen selling amulets and votive figures. Spheros shooed them away, beat them back with his walking stick, and ushered us into a quarter where we could wash away the dust of the road. “You’ll find the same hucksters at Delphi, too,” he said.

  I glanced up at the royal citadel, which was seated on a spur of Parnassus pointing like a finger toward the sea. Given the late hour, we would have to wait until morning to seek an audience with my uncle the king. I hoped the local customs were the same as at home, where anyone who looked presentable could enter the palace as a petitioner. Timon and I could do nothing about our threadbare clothes, but Spheros showed us a spring set aside for pilgrims, where we could bathe and exchange news.

  Among the press of travelers, it was easy to lose Spheros and the other pilgrims. I felt guilty abandoning him without so much as a farewell, but there was no other way to proceed while maintaining anonymity.

  Timon hustled me onto a side street, where we found a relatively quiet place to confer over our next step. “I think we should approach the queen first,” he said. “She is your kinswoman by blood, and will be far more likely to receive you.”

  Provided my aunt would take any interest in two beggars. “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “If I can get some clay and a stylus, I can write out an official-looking message and you will seal it with your father’s insignia,” he explained. “That should get us as far as the forecourt of the megaron.” A worrisome look crossed his face. “You will probably have to show the ring and give your name at the door, though, or we may have to wait there for days to get an audience.”

  From a potter, he obtained a little clay, patted it into a tablet, and used a sharpened stick to scrawl out the message. I pressed Father’s seal into the clay and Timon returned it to the potter to place in his kiln. Once he saw that Timon could read and write the man assumed that we had official business with the palace, and invited us to stay the night; however, he never examined the seal to notice the Atreid double lions. That would have been an awkward conversation! At his hearth, without giving ourselves away, we made a libation to Hermes to watch over us during the last hours of our journey.

  Anxieties plagued my thoughts that night, making it difficult to sleep. Had the potter truly not noticed the royal Atreid seal, or was he just shamming obliviousness? Could he be trusted not to cut our throats in the darkness? One’s sacred guest-right was not necessarily assurance against attack.

  Moreover, we might not even be able to get through the Krisan sentries and stewards to see the king or queen. Even if we did, they might not believe I was who I said I was. Father’s ring would vouch for me, but suppose someone took it from me at the megaron threshold or at the gate. I’ll never let them take it. I’ll die holding it to my breast. Brave words for a lame boy who had not even warned his father about the danger awaiting him!

  Assuming that my aunt and uncle recognized me as their nephew, who was to say they would not dismiss me as a coward for what had happened at Mycenae? Maybe they would be reluctant to get involved in the blood feud between me and Aegisthus, and turn me away. Perhaps then they would send me on to Sparta. Hermione would be there, and Menelaus would almost certainly have returned home by then. Surely he as my father’s brother would welcome me and take up my cause.

  I knew I was thinking too much, tearing myself down when I should have been optimistic, and thanking the gods for having seen me this far. Not every twelve-year-old boy, after all, c
ould weather the journey from Mycenae to Krisa with only his own determination and an old man to help him.

  We left at dawn, with the tablet still warm from the kiln. The fortune tellers and votive merchants were hawking their wares in the agora even as the rising sun tinted Krisa’s whitewashed buildings in shades of rose and gold. Smoke rose from the main sanctuary as the priests made their morning offerings. Fishwives pressed the night’s catch on us, and a cart almost ran us over on the main thoroughfare.

  At the citadel gate, Timon gave his name and credentials, and submitted the tablet for inspection. The guards were illiterate, but recognized the High King’s seal when they saw it. Timon answered their questions with a haughtiness belying his threadbare clothes, until the exasperated guards waved us through just to be rid of him.

  Ascending to the upper citadel, we joined the three dozen petitioners already waiting in the great court. Timon found us a place to stand crammed against a ledge, and surveyed the scene. After several moments, he tut-tutted under his breath and drew me down to murmur in my ear. “At this rate, we will never be seen. Now, that steward manning the aithousa is the fellow we have to deal with. Put the ring on.”

  Anxious, I glanced over at the steward of the door, a paunchy, self-important looking fellow who appeared to derive great satisfaction from turning people away from the king’s presence. “Maybe we should wait a bit longer. Didn’t you tell the guards we had a message? That official might still call us.”

  Timon knew me as well as I knew myself, and shook his head. “You will lose your courage, waiting here.”

  So I would have. A legitimate messenger would have approached the steward right away. I squared my shoulders and forced myself to breathe. Don’t let that man intimidate you. He is nothing but a lackey, a fat sycophant, and you are the son and rightful heir of the High King.

  The steward did not even notice us at first, being preoccupied issuing orders to his subordinates. Timon cleared his throat, earning him a raised eyebrow, then a shooing gesture when the brow alone was not sufficient to dismiss us.