Eurystheus summoned Thyestes.
I began worrying directly his bull-necked figure swaggered into the Hall. For an indefinite time the man would control Mycenae, his machinations only obstructed by a dotard or two on the Council. From the Marshal's dissertations I knew Thyestes' ambitions were unlimited and pitiless, his capacity for mischief beyond all calculation. He profoundly hated his brother and, since Plisthenes' death, hungered for revenge. I pretended to myself that while the king went warring he couldn't do much damage: he had no troops at his command save a slender palace guard; neither Argos nor Sparta, friendly neighbours both, were likely to lend their Heroes to further his designs. Pylos? He might be in touch with Neleus, but Atreus hurried to draw that serpent's fangs.
Neverthless I remained uneasy.
A series of minor incidents added to my anxieties. Thyestes was quartered in chambers adjoining the Marshal's staterooms where my mother kept her court. He strolled in and out of her rooms all day, his visits far more frequent than courtesy required. I managed to be present at several of these meetings - Aerope declared her surprise at her son's unwonted attentions - and disliked the glint in Thyestes' eye, the responsive gleam in my mother's. She had always had a weakness for burly, muscular men - Thyestes was certainly that - and I called to mind unhappily a long-forgotten scandal dating from her spinster days in Crete. Catreus had surprised his daughter in bed with a lusty Hero, and was only just dissuaded from selling her to slavery. (The unfortunate Hero he burned alive.) They hushed the matter up; perhaps Atreus had never learned of it. Perhaps he had, and the knowledge of her frailty incited him to seduce her while Plisthenes still lived. Yet I was tolerably certain she had never horned the Marshal since her marriage.
But Atreus travelled Laconia's distant roads, the court would shortly remove to war - and my mother's fragile defences faced a redoubtable foe.
1 debated the problem. Should I send the Marshal a courier urging a quick return, a warning suitably veiled? - you couldn't be blatant with verbal messages. Difficult. Atreus obeyed a royal command: nothing short of Eurystheus' seal would turn him back. Least of all a young man's callow counsel based on grounds no stronger than foreboding and suspicion.
I abandoned the thought - which proved unfortunate. From my weak-kneed dereliction flowed a torrent of catastrophe
whose scars endure today.
* * *
Menelaus, still a Companion, arrived with the Tiryns contingent. A brisk argument and a hearty bribe - three jars of olive oil - persuaded his Hero I could take him as my driver. (While seeking a Companion among Mycenaean gentry I found nobody very anxious to share my chariot. A driver and his Hero grow very close; most of the younger men believed me the Marshal's son and feared - I wouldn't say wrongly - I might betray their confidences.)
On a morning in late summer, the harvest safely gathered, the Host started from Mycenae. Eurystheus and five sons - he seemed determined to make the campaign a family affair - rode in the van behind a sprinkle of scouts, a brilliant sight despite his age in armour washed with gold. Palace Heroes followed, then noblemen from Tiryns and our tributary cities. Every chariot, including mine, trailed a troop of slaves and spearmen, carts and mules and donkeys: the Hero's personal entourage. A long disjointed column straggled into the hills.
I saw nothing singular in the order of march, for this was my first campaign. (Atreus, when I described it, almost threw a fit. His chariots invariably led, all spearmen in a body marched behind; he sternly relegated transport to the rear, and a rearguard closed the column. Such uncomfortable innovations imposed by a great commander who thought in advance of his times met with nobody's approval. With his presence removed, the Heroes - King Eurystheus included - happily reverted to the old chaotic ways.)
The sun blazed down in fury, dust clouds scarved the column and gritted your teeth and nettled your skin. I sweated like a bullock beneath my newly-wrought bronze; Menelaus, lightly armoured, fluttered his whip and smirked. 'A Companion has advantages you'd never suspect in peacetime! I hope, in the coming battle, you'll order your course in a way that'll win me my greaves! Where do you think we'll find Hyllus and his friends?'
'The Lady and, I presume, Eurystheus knows.' I wiped a dribble of muddy sweat from my chin. 'I'm told we halt at Nemea tonight and Corinth late tomorrow. Slow progress. Atreus, herding the Heraclids, did Mycenae to the Isthmus in a day!'
'So I heard.' Menelaus reviewed the noisy rabble rambling through dancing dust. 'We could do with a modicum of discipline and order. A pity he isn't here.'
Menelaus spoke more truly than he knew.
After a restless night in the open at Nemea - the palace so small it could house only the king and his sons - the Host absorbed the Nemean levy (five chariots and fifty spears) and followed a mountainous road that led to Corinth. The slender sinuous track which alternately climbed and fell as the bones of the hills dictated played havoc with the column's brittle cohesion. Wagons toppled down bluffs, lost wheels and blocked the way. The vanguard entered Corinth's gates in early afternoon; the last of the stragglers plodded in by starlight. Spies from Attica reported the enemy at Eleusis, the strength estimated at less than a thousand all arms: the Heraclid band, detachments from Locris and Athens, a Theban contingent and various odds and ends. Eurystheus called leaders to a council in the Hall. There followed a heated discussion under the flickering light of torches amid the debris of a meal, servants clearing tables, a bard crouched in a corner and crooning to himself. Gelanor of Asine and Alcmaeon of Midea advised that the Host remain at Corinth and await the Heraclids' onset, thus fighting on ground of our choosing with a firm base at our backs. The king's eldest son Perimedes, supported by Tiryns' captains, advocated seizing the initiative by an advance across the Isthmus to catch the foe unbalanced on the Eleusinian Plain. Eurystheus, normally the most cautious of men, uncharacteristically resolved on the latter course. (I am sure his greed for belated glory nurtured a rash decision.) The Host, he stated, would march at dawn to Megara, encamp there for the night and advance to battle the following day. He declined to take the Corinthian levy - which proved a fortunate judgment.
We marched before sun-up and straggled along the Isthmus track, the most horrible road in Achaea. On one side a precipice sheers to the sea, on the other are vertical cliffs. The road itself gives a goat to think. At a place called Sciron's Rocks the mountainside in ages past had fallen into the sea, the track weaves through jag-toothed boulders big as houses. Charioteers dismounted and warily led their horses. (The pass is named after a bandit chief whose band of rogues and outlaws, years before, lived in the crags and murdered solitary travellers; until a Corinthian warband sent by Eurystheus wiped them out. Afterwards, happily ignoring dates - the man was a babe at the time - Athens fostered a tale that Theseus killed Sciron. A typical Athenian invention to collect some undeserved credit - but The Lady knows they need every scrap they can filch.)
The Host emerged from Sciron's Rocks in considerable disorder. Alcmaeon exhorted the king to halt for a while and allow the column to close. Eurystheus refused; incandescent sunlight rebounded from the rocks and enclosed his ageing body in a heat like an over-stoked oven. Megara beckoned, half a day's journey ahead. The troops rambled on, sometimes twenty bowshots separating chariots.
Hillsides retreated on either hand, the Isthmus road debouched on the Megaran Plain, a featureless scrub-blotched flat- land patched by cultivated strips and isolated farmsteads. Menelaus sprung his horses for the first time since Mycenae. 'Slow down,' I told him. 'Give our retinue a chance!' I scrutinized my sweating spearmen and troupe of slaves and carts - one missing over a cliff at Sciron's Rocks - the scattered clumps in rear, each trawling its private dust cloud. We closed on Eurystheus' bodyguard marching in the van.
Dust plumes feathered the plain in front, came near and resolved into galloping scouts who reined in a spurt of pebbles and gestured towards the sun-hazed flats. Eurystheus halted abruptly, Her
oes jostled around him.
'Enemy in sight!'
Menelaus hauled on the bits, the chariot rocked to a standstill. He mopped his brow and said, 'Blasted scouts can't tell a spearman from a swineherd. Ruddy nonsense - the Heraclids were reported last night at Eleusis, a day's march further on!'
Though Eurystheus likewise doubted the scouts' unlikely news his innate prudence directed precautions. He issued hurried orders: Heroes wheeled about and galloped to hasten laggards. All the chariots present - roughly half the total - formed a ragged line, each with attendant spearmen tramping behind. Baggage detachments were left where they stood, forlorn blobs on the tawny plain.
I dubiously watched a scrambling deployment, and told Menelaus to station the car on a flank. 'There'll be horrible collisions when this mob starts to move - let's keep clear as long as we can!' The Host - such as had made their ground - halted in line of battle and waited for the dawdlers to arrive.
'I hope the king won't keep us extended all the way to Megara,' Menelaus observed. 'Damned difficult driving in thorn- scrub.'
I shaded my eyes and stared into the haze. A shimmering curtain of dust banded the horizon. The sun flicked slivers of light on the mist like gold-specks scattered in sand.
'Scrub or no scrub, brother, your driving is going to be tested. The Heraclids have stolen a march and sprung a surprise. We're only half assembled, and they're closing on us fast!'
Commanders had seen the enemy; orders and counter-orders rattled along the line. Indecision and argument eddied like leaves on a flooded stream. The discussion continued far too long: an elderly palace Hero solemnly quoted encounters from wars Electyron waged. The majority wanted to stay where they were till the Host was fully mustered; young hot-headed Heroes advised an instant attack. Gelanor of Asine - a most impetuous youth - ordered his chariot forward, his spears obediently followed. Others copied his example, chariots bowled from the ranks. Eurystheus shouted commands that were drowned in the crunch of wheels, struck hand to brow despairingly and pointed his spear to the sky. Like a wavering breaker spent on shoals the battle-line advanced.
'Incline to the left,' I told Menelaus. 'Keep well on the flank if you can.'
I settled my helmet firmly, tested the chinstrap, fronted shield and hefted the ten-foot spear, scrubbed a sweaty palm on the warm dry figwood rail. From a throat that was suddenly dry as a stone I instructed the spearmen to close on the chariot's tail.
A wheel lurched over a boulder, Menelaus cursed. I recovered balance and planted my feet on the plaited leather floor, screwed eyes against the sun-glare. I distinguished garish helmet plumes, and silvery harness-trappings; a line of cantering chariots fronted a rolling dust cloud.
The enemy were nearer than I'd thought.
It is hard to recall impressions on the threshold of your first big battle. From epics sung by bards I cherished vague conceptions of chariots charging in rank, thundering hooves and singing wheels, warriors bellowing war-cries and maddened horses neighing, an ear-splitting clash when they met. Then a furious, swirling mellay till one or the other broke, a galloping pursuit and killing, killing, killing.
It was not like that in the slightest.
Companions curbed their horses for fear of outstripping the spearmen running behind. The line dissolved in fragments before it had gone a bowshot; Heroes examined the enemy ranks for details of horses and mail, forms and faces - maybe seeking personal foes in order to settle scores, or fighters famously formidable to be avoided at any cost - and directed their drivers accordingly. Chariots swerved, criss-crossed, scraped hub against hub in flurries of violent language. Panting troops of spearmen followed the erratic tracks.
The leading cars clashed wheel to wheel, spears lifted, hovered and plunged.
The combatants dispersed in individual duels. Chariot circled chariot, Heroes hacked and stabbed, spearmen battled spearmen - holding the ring, as it were, while their principals fought it out. Companions adopted traditional tactics and manoeuvred to take opponents in the rear where spears met shieldless backs; their opposite numbers wrenched on bits to counteract the moves. Vehicles swirled in circles like puppies chasing their tails. Dust-towers spiralled from every fight and mingled in a canopy. Triumphant yells and death-shrieks resounded from the murk.
Whatever I expected, it was certainly not this.
Menelaus edged far to the wing and overlapped the Heraclid line. No immediate enemy presented himself in front. I ordered my brother to halt, and tried calmly to assess the scene. King Eurystheus gave battle with barely half his troops, and kept no reserve in hand - an elementary error Atreus had often condemned. The individual duels ensured a protracted struggle. A very untidy battle, the outcome most uncertain. Prudent to hold my hand and see how affairs turned out.
A contest an arrow-shot distant came to a gory end. A Mycenaean warrior - I recognized Gelanor's piebald horses - pierced his adversary's guard and skewered him through the buttock where cuirass jointed brazen skirt. The spearhead spitted bowels and bladder; the Heraclid lurched from the chariot and his armour clanged around him. His Companion dropped the reins and ran; the dead man's spearmen sheltered his flight and then, their Hero killed, fled like hunted deer. Gelanor and his retinue stripped the corpse's armour, piled it in the enemy car and trotted with his prizes briskly from the battlefield. Similar little scenes were everywhere repeated. Victors in the duels on either side quickly collected booty while spearmen stood on guard. Triumphant loot-laden Heroes drove from the conflict in both directions; the scattered personal tussles grew noticeably fewer. Did the result, I wondered, depend on the ultimate duel? - or on which side won the heaviest load of plunder ? Only round Eurystheus, conspicuous in gilded armour, did organized fighting continue: he and his sons, a compact brand, battled a cloud of chariots.
'Get moving, Agamemnon,' Menelaus growled impatiently, 'else we won't win any booty, and I'll never win my greaves!'
So that, I concluded dimly, was why Heroes fought so heroically. Remember I was young and extremely inexperienced.
A violent interruption whipped decision from my hands. A chariot whirled from the dust-fog, the Hero brandished a spear and bawled at the stretch of his lungs: 'Who'll fight Theseus of Athens, Theseus of Athens!'
I surfaced sharply from a stupor the weird manoeuvres had induced. 'Take him, Menelaus! The idiot's out of control. Whip up and turn behind him!'
Theseus thudded past, the naves of his wheels whirred a foot from our own, an ineffectual spear-jab thumped my shield. Menelaus swung his team in a tight two-cornered turn, and flailed his whip. The chase led across the battlefield's front, we swerved round interlocked chariots, skirted bunches of spearmen and slowly gained on Theseus whose driver wrestled the reins to curb his bolting horses. We crashed through a group of Locrians swinging slings of fine-spun wool; a stone bounced off my helmet. Menelaus closed on the quarry, guided his chariot abaft the nearside wheel. Theseus frantically twisted about, tripped on the rocking floor-thongs, cowered behind his shield. I lifted my spear for the thrust.
'The Lady save us!' Menelaus howled. 'Look to your left!'
I turned my head. A solid wall of chariots raced like a tidal wave, a roaring, thundering breaker galloping wheel to wheel. Long hair streamed in the wind of the charge, tawny naked bodies - absolutely naked - manned the hurtling chariots, a bugger and his catamite in each, and every one hell-bent on death or glory. They wore neither helmets nor shields; a menacing cable of spears glittered like frost in the sun.
The Heraclids' hidden reserve flung in at the critical moment: the Scavengers of Thebes.
My spear haft slid from a paralysed hand. 'Run!' I shrieked. 'Turn right! Drive like the wind!'
Menelaus needed no telling. We tore from the field of
Megara like men possessed by furies, overtook panic-struck Heroes who had also seen the horror, scraped past slower drivers, jolted over corpses, smashed through scrub and bushes. Like a gathering storm behind us we heard the Theb
ans' war- cries, the roll of drumming hoofbeats and strident bronze-tyred wheels. Menelaus flogged his horses, I gripped the rail and struggled to keep my feet, glanced fearfully over my shoulder.
Gradually but certainly our fast Venetic thoroughbreds outstripped the Theban horde.
We left the plain in a welter of flying vehicles that crammed the hill-girt funnel gating the Isthmus road. Ruthlessly my brother thrust sluggish teams aside, tipped in the ditch a lumbering three-horse chariot - an artful trick, nave lifting nave - and overhauled satisfied Heroes who had left the battle early with chariot-loads of plunder. The track, approaching Sciron's Rocks, made overtaking difficult; I pretended I carried to Corinth the king's victorious tidings, and demanded right of way. Grumbling, they shuffled aside. Having gained the lead I shouted that the Scavengers were loose; if they wanted to save their skins they had better move like lightning.
Warriors in Bronze Page 10
