The Young Lion

by Laura Gill

  I wanted nothing to do with her complaints about my martial training. Elektra had not the slightest idea what waging war was all about, and was too hardheaded to realize that men needed time away from fighting to hunt, carouse, and travel. Pylades and I would set out at sunrise whether she liked it or not.

  On the way downstairs, I bade goodnight to young Strophius and his infant brother Medon, then spent the rest of the evening with friends.

  Boukolos lent me a sympathetic ear, along with his good humor. “How do you expect me to woo you when you are so troubled?” He mixed wine and water, tasting it first before passing me the bowl. “Your mind is a hundred leagues away.”

  I welcomed his jests, after the suffocating headache of my sister’s complaints. “Will you never give up?”

  “How, when you grow more magnificent every year?” He pressed his hand over his heart, while throwing me a look of mock despair. “You have bewitched me with those piercing blue eyes. I yearn to lie beside you on your fleeces and count your freckles.”

  Oh, how he was pouring on the compliments tonight! “You can’t count that high,” I retorted.

  “True,” he admitted ruefully. “I always run short of fingers when trying to catalog your virtues.”

  Pylades joined us by the brazier. Spring nights on Parnassus were cold. “Are you still pressing your suit, Boukolos?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Our friend dwells in a dream world.”

  Boukolos gave me a knowing look. “And you dwell too much in nightmares and melancholy.” He reclaimed the mixing bowl. “Forget your mother and your sister, and their tangled webs. Let us drink to the only woman that matters. To holy Parnassus!”

  *~*~*~*

  Ascending Parnassus meant passing through Delphi, and traveling up the twisting mountain roads to Apollo’s most holy sanctuary meant leaving our chariots behind in favor of donkeys.

  Delphi occupied a high, secluded mountain valley. A small town just below the sanctuary welcomed travelers arriving from the coast or coming through the mountain passes from Boeotia and Attica. Our royal rank secured us lodgings in a tidy, whitewashed building away from the stink of the narrow alleyways and the clamor of the agora. In some respects, especially in its lower quarters, Delphi was a typical Phocian town.

  After a bath and brief refreshment, I stood upon a terrace peering down Parnassus’s forest-clad gorges, and taking in the sunlit expanse of earth, sky, and the distant sea far to the south. When one could find solitude amid the noise and congestion, the peculiar aura of tranquility and sanctity for which the valley was famous became apparent. Delphi was god-touched.

  A few hours of daylight yet remained. We might have traveled farther on up the mountain and lodged in one of the alpine villages closer to the summit, but like all Phocians, Pylades took immense pride in the kingdom’s principal holy site, and wanted to show me around.

  Fortune tellers swindled gullible pilgrims wishing to commune with Apollo. Vendors hawked amulets, votives, and sacrificial animals. The fragrance of expensive incense and medicinal herbs permeated the air along with the more commonplace aromas of frying onions and baking bread, and the stench of unwashed bodies. I heard half a dozen foreign tongues spoken in the agora, where priests rubbed elbows with pilgrims, merchants, herdsmen, and the town’s own residents.

  Scores of pilgrims sat or stood along the steps leading up to the principal sanctuary, cramming the route so thoroughly that one could scarcely navigate around them. We left amulets to Apollo and Dionysus at an altar near our lodging, and, in a shallow cave toward the rear of the valley, sacrificed a dove to the Mother of the Mountains.

  In the morning, we left Delphi and continued east until we reached the village guarding the pass leading into the Boeotian lowlands. From there, we turned west on a switchback track toward the high alpine meadows, where mountain daisies had begun to show their yellow and white heads among the hardy grasses. I found it much easier to walk than ride on the rough terrain; my thigh did not trouble me as much as it had. Above us, Parnassus’s broad summit climbed toward the heavens.

  Pylades swept his arm in the direction of the meadows. “The local men know not to loiter here midsummer nights, or during the harvest and wine festivals. The Mother of the Mountains is strong here, and Dionysus is revered by the women. They drink and dance, and make their offerings.” He motioned toward a tumble of blackened hearth stones some thirty yards away. “Never disturb their grounds. You won’t like what you find among the ashes of their sacrifices.”

  At this, his companions regaled me with stories about those who did not heed the warnings.

  Arisbas said, “I know a herdsman that found human bones up here.”

  “You’ll find more bones in their sacred caves, they say,” tall, gangly Nikos added.

  “Has anyone ever been inside those caves to tell of it?” I asked.

  Arisbas grunted through his thick beard. “A few years ago, a herdsman’s boy stumbled into a such a place when looking for a stray goat. He found an altar stone with faded bloodstains, and bones strewn all over the floor. I heard it from his kinsmen after he died. They said he was cursed with nightmares, that the maenads tore him limb from limb while he slept. His mother found him lying mangled in a bed of blood.”

  Broad-shouldered Machaereus interjected, “No, that’s not the version I heard. He wandered out into the night and was never seen again.”

  “No, I heard they found bloody footprints that vanished right into the side of the mountain,” Nikos said.

  Late in the afternoon, we reached the last village before the summit. We would have to leave our donkeys behind and ascend on foot. A village elder gave us shelter in his house. He was blessed with a warm, cheerful hearth and two lovely daughters who were not only good cooks, but were more than willing to let us tumble them.

  Arisbas and Nikos remained behind to watch the donkeys while the rest of us embarked on the ascent. Crisscrossing goat paths covered the mountain, easing our way. At this altitude and time of year, snow still powdered the high gullies and crevices, but it was thin and slushy, and would melt soon. Hardy wildflowers had sprouted in abundance among the rocks: pale daisies, yellow hypercium, brilliant violet campanula. A brisk wind blew, cold and bracing; under my clothes I was hot with exertion, and burning to forge onward when the others wanted to rest.

  “You’re always so impatient, Orestes.” Pylades lifted a hand, bidding me to be silent. “Listen.”

  At first, I heard nothing but my own panting breath and the crunch of the rough earth beneath my soles, but then, a sound of distant pipes carried across the mountainside. A herdsman, playing somewhere below as he tended his flock. Disembodied music filled Parnassus’s crags and gullies, as though Apollo himself had chosen this morning to roam the mountain.

  Pylades saluted the young god, wherever he was, with a raised hand, and then we continued on.

  We reached the summit before midday. The final stretch was far less strenuous than I had anticipated, though the breeze buffeting my limbs was icy cold, and my thigh had begun aching from the exertion. But I was warm inside, flush with triumph, and at long last, eight thousand feet above the sea, standing atop the world.

  Elated, I raised my fist to the heavens and loosed an exultant shout. I was drunk on Parnassus herself. And why not? The world spread out before me: the forested vales, the Phocian coastal plain, and brilliant blue of the Gulf of Corinth to the south. Beyond that sprawled Corinthia and Achaea, and the hazy bluish mass of the mountains girding Arcadia’s northern border. Pylades indicated Mount Helikon on the southeastern horizon, and the mountains of Lokris and Doris to the north.

  It was not the view which moved me so much as the utter sense of peace, far more so than at Delphi, for there, at the very fringes of Zeus’s realm, there were no other souls but us. The heavens were never bluer than they were there, the air never purer, and the sun never brighter. Were my arms but a little longer, I could have reached up and touched the gods. Parnassus reduced the p
etty concerns and feuds of men to insignificance. Up on her summit I could have shed the mortal carapace that was Orestes, left behind my obligations, the double curse on my house, the memories of ghosts and terror, and become someone else, or perhaps nothing at all.

  “You are lost in your thoughts.” Pylades stood at my shoulder. “Communing with the gods?”

  I nodded.

  After we rested a while, we made the descent. I was reluctant to leave the summit to return to the world. I kept looking back, trying to hold that magnificent view for as long as possible, trying to take away some of the mountain’s high tranquility, but at last managed to force myself away.

  Back in Delphi, I offered a second dove to the Mother of the Mountains, and spent a longer time than customary at her altar. Lady, you are holy Parnassus, and Helikon, and Charvati, and all other high places of the world. You are the intoxicating thin air and everlasting snows, forested valleys and caves and high meadows and... I rubbed my face, burning with shame at such ecstatic thoughts when all had been peaceful and still before; the priestesses were looking upon me strangely. Finally, one asked whether I had been to the summit. When I said yes, she suggested that breathing the ether of the gods acted as an intoxicant.

  Finishing the sacrifice, I washed my hands, received the priestesses’ blessing, and rejoined my companions outside. Human traffic swelled the streets below the sacred cave, agitating my senses with its press, noise, and stench. I felt hemmed in, watched by invisible eyes. A nagging anxiety wiped clean my earlier bliss, as though something ill-omened was about to occur.

  A touch upon my elbow. “Over there, to your left,” Pylades murmured. “Someone’s watching.”

  Turning my head slowly, I saw him: a swarthy man with a broken nose, studying us intently. I knew by the look of him what he was. Aegisthus had sent another spy, or perhaps another hired killer. They had begun appearing two years ago, the spring after the attempt to poison me had failed.

  Our eyes met. He was a fierce-looking man, but looks could be deceptive; this one turned out to be a coward who, realizing he had been discovered, panicked and tried to flee. Arisbas and Machaereus plunged into the crowd after him, catching him before he could disappear. Pylades left dealing with him in my hands, as he and my uncle had done with all previous villains. So I had experience meting out justice to Aegisthus’s hired men, and even women, and did not hesitate.

  At my command, they dragged the man into an alley where the local women hanging their wash scented trouble and immediately ducked indoors.

  I grabbed a handful of the man’s tunic. “Who sent you?”

  Of course, he denied everything. “Please. I’m but a humble pilgrim, sir.” It was the same lie every time. Had Aegisthus learned nothing from his failures?

  “You’ve got an Argive accent, and a shifty look about you.” Pylades grasped his chin to command his attention. Even though he left the command to me, he did not hesitate to assist with the interrogation or the carrying out of the sentence. “Who sent you?”

  “Nobody, sir.”

  “Then why were you staring at us?” I boxed his ear for emphasis. “Thinking maybe to rob us?”

  His composure started to crumble. “Begging your pardon, Prince Orestes.”

  “Prince?” I exclaimed. “Who told you I was a prince?”

  He was caught in a lie, and knew it. Aegisthus chose simple cutthroats and sluts who would accept his gold and do as they were told, without thinking too much. Mother had nothing to do with those killers. I could not know for certain, of course, but my every instinct told me these attempts on my life were not her idea. If they were, she would have gotten it right the first time.

  I had absolutely no compunction about slitting this man’s throat or running him through right there; the mishap with Aktaia had hardened my heart. There could be no mercy for traitors who did Aegisthus’s bidding.

  “Bind his hands behind his back and bring him,” I told the guards. I would not stain Delphi’s sacred stones or dishonor Apollo by shedding this man’s blood within its walls.

  “Don’t hurt me, sir!” To no one’s surprise, the miscreant struggled against his bonds and pleaded as we dragged him once more onto the main thoroughfare. “I didn’t do nothing to you but look.” People stared, but made no attempt to intervene; our rank and the presence of our guards lent our actions an official air.

  I led the way outside the walls, down the road to a vantage point where travelers could take in an immense gorge and the rolling foothills beyond. Away from the town and its crowds, I felt once more the spirits of the mountain call out to me. Bring the offering. Yes. This is the place.

  “This is where traitors and cutthroats end up.” I seized the man from the guards, hauled him struggling to the brink. When he saw the drop, he twisted and screamed. “Mercy, lord! Mercy!” But I had no pity for him. A foul odor of excrement and urine assaulted my nostrils; he had soiled himself in his terror, as befit a coward.

  A single hard shove sent him shrieking into the void. I watched his legs flail as he fell, till he vanished into the trees far below, and the mountain devoured him.

  Satisfied, I turned to my companions. “It’s done. Let’s go back.”

  Pylades nodded his approval. Tonight, we would drink wine, find some willing women, and enjoy a well-deserved rest. Aegisthus would send another wretch soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  As Apollo’s summer festival began, Timon took to his bed, feverish and weak. I remained at his bedside to bathe his forehead and nurse him as he had done for me throughout my childhood, leaving only to pour the first libation at my name day feast. What desire did I have for rich food or wine or joyous music when my beloved pedagogue, he who had been a father to me, lay dying on the eve of my seventeenth year?

  Timon’s lucid spells were growing shorter, his ability to speak waning, but he managed to squeeze my hand to let me know he still recognized me. “Orestes,” he rasped.

  My heart hammered in my breast. Thanatos would come for him tonight, or the next night; he would not last more than a few days. I kissed his gaunt fingers; they felt cold, and smelled like sickroom herbs. “Timon. I will take you home. I will furnish you with gold and silver, and a dozen cats to keep you company.” Hot tears flooded my eyes. I could not have loved my real father more than this man, or grieved harder. “But I wish you would not leave me!”

  He mumbled my name again. Still holding his hand, I rested my head upon his chest. Ekhinos rested upon his knees, and the little female Meli curled up purring under Timon’s left arm. Animals could sense when they were needed. Like me, the two cats would stay until the end.

  My sister came downstairs to look in on me near midnight. “You missed your own celebration.”

  I lifted my head from Timon’s sleeping breast. He was still breathing, his heartbeat faint but present. “I know.”

  “He’s old.” Elektra filled the doorway. Her spangles and jewels glittered in the lamplight. “Leave him be. I hardly think he will notice.”

  Her dismissive air ignited a fury in me. Surging up from my footstool, I grasped her by the shoulders and shook her hard, never mind that she was my sister or heavy with child yet again. I matched her now in height and strength, and was still growing—and she knew it. “Don’t ever speak that way about him!”

  Her eyes blazed defiance. “Let me go.”

  Ignoring her demand, I shook her again, pressing my fingers into her flesh. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard you,” she snarled. I released her, before she could wrench herself free. It was not the first time I had chastened her over her derisiveness toward Timon, but by the gods, it would be the last.

  Timon mumbled in his fevered slumber. I reclaimed my seat, taking his hand to soothe him. His breathing was labored. Elektra sniffed at the pathos of the scene, then left. I did not understand why she scorned him when he had been so faithful and done such valuable service, except to surmise that it was in her nature to despi
se weakness, as a lioness would that culled a herd of its old and sick.

  At length, my aunt and uncle arrived. Anaxibia brought food from the feast, with a servant to taste it before urging me to eat. “Orestes, you have not eaten anything all day.” I thanked her, but had no appetite for the roast mutton, spiced lentils and vegetables, or rich sweets.

  “Your gifts await you in your chamber.” Strophius laid a sympathetic hand upon my shoulder. “I made your excuses for you, but tomorrow I expect you to appear in the megaron and greet your well wishers.”

  That night, the harbinger of death flew through the chamber on silken-soft wings to collect Timon’s soul for the nether world. I neither saw nor heard the god, nor marked my friend’s passing until morning revealed the evidence in his waxen features and blue-tinged lips. He was not breathing. Alarmed, I felt for a pulse, yet found none. “Timon!” Anguish choked my words. “Please, not yet!”

  I raced to summon Ainios. He subjected the body to a cursory examination, then shook his head and laid a hand over his heart to express his condolences. It was over. Timon was gone.

  A servant woman came in to open the shutters, whereupon she threw back her head and wailed. Her cries drew other women, who peered through the doorway and, seeing their dead neighbor, joined in the bone-chilling shrieking. I watched Ainios draw the coverlet up to shroud Timon’s face, a final act which broke through my disbelieving bewilderment and loosed my tears. I wept, snatched Timon’s cold hand up from under the linens, and kissed the arthritic fingers.

  Pylades came straightaway to fetch me away from the death chamber and the wailing women, leading me upstairs to my chamber where he ordered the servants to heat a bath. “You’ve hardly slept in two days.”

  After the servants bathed and rubbed me down with soothing oil, I lay down amid my name day gifts: rich garments, tooled leather, vessels, and a splendid ox-hide shield. I would have traded them all to have Timon back. Morpheus claimed me, holding me in his grasp through the entire day and well into the evening.