Tiryns became my home, and during the next few years I seldom saw Mycenae. The palace Heroes - some twice my age - obediently accepted me as Warden: they recognized in Atreus' son their future king. Midean cattle raids had ceased on Atreus' conquest; our friend Adrastus of Argos allowed no dissensions within his realm; so nothing marred the harmony of my peaceful life in Tiryns. I expected some disturbance when Adrastus sent an embassy demanding tribute from Epidauros - an inoffensive city notable only for the medical clinic Aesculapius founded. But Argos and Mycenae had reached an understanding about their respective spheres of influence: Atreus' eyes henceforth were turned to the north, to command of the Isthmus and dominion along the Corinthian Gulf.
Epidauros conceded an annual tribute and asked Adrastus in return to sweep the mountains clear of robbers and rustlers who for years had pestered their lands. Which Adrastus did, and so began the extension of Argive influence that Diomedes in years to come so vigorously continued.
The construction of ships at Nauplia progressed in a desultory way. Twelve lay beached and ready; twenty more were building in the yards. All were triaconters, thirty oars a side, the largest craft afloat. (Because you may be ignorant of maritime affairs I explain that triaconters are longships painted black, shallow-draughted for beaching, brazen beaks for ramming, sternposts carved in outlandish shapes: a lion-head or seahorse. The captain has a cabin in the sternsheets, a flimsy wooden hut whose walls are gaudily painted; amidships rises a mast of fir stepped in a hollow box. To shelter the rowers from sun a collapsible oxhide canopy supported on poles runs fore and aft. Cargo is carried in coffer-like holds between the rowers' benches.)
I bought slaves to augment the work force, trebled wagons and woodmen hauling timber from the forests, chased carpenters and shipwrights. I needed seventy galleys to match the Pylian fleet. The yards disgorged triaconters to swell the ranks on the beach; I then faced a shortage of crewmen. While you can teach any idiot to row - except perhaps Hercules - you must have sailors to navigate, steer and handle sails and sheets : the experts who keep a ship afloat when storms and reefs are about. I shipped pressgangs to Crete, whose maritime traditions reach far into antiquity, and obtained the men I wanted. Force was seldom needed; with Cretan overseas trade in the doldrums unemployed sailors were glad to find work.
I embarked on my maiden voyage in a galley beached at Nauplia. Rowers ran the vessel to the sea, put mast and sail aboard, trimmed the ship, fixed oars in leather slings. The master, a red-haired ruffian, face blackened by sun and salt, straddled a monstrous steering oar and hoarsely bellowed orders. Sixty oars struck the water together, the galley leapt like a startled horse and glided into the bay. The coxswain piped on a flute to mark the rowers' rhythm.
In ruffled water outside the bay the crew shipped oars and hoisted sail: layered squares of linen stitched together. The sun dashed sparks from dancing waves, the galley rolled and plunged, spindrift sprayed my beard. The crimson prow climbed high on the combers, pitched in the troughs between. A strange sensation invaded my guts. I clutched the backstay and swallowed. A grin exposed the master's yellow teeth. 'Over the lee side, my lord, if you please.' I knelt at the low beech transom and voided into the waves, the first of many tributes I paid the sea.
(In all my many voyages I invariably spewed while the ship still sighted harbour, and never felt the smallest qualms thereafter.)
After wading ashore from this short trip and driving back to Tiryns I met Menelaus in the Hall. I seated myself on Perseus' marble throne, ordered wine and food - I was ravenously hungry, my breakfast gone to the fishes - and inquired his news. My brother said he brought a message from the king, pointed an elbow at noblemen and ladies who loitered within earshot, and pursed his lips. I stuffed cheese in my mouth, led him to the hearth and mumbled, 'If you now feel we're sufficiently private will you kindly tell me what Atreus wants?'
'He is going to kill Aerope.'
I choked on my mouthful, sprayed crumbs and gulped down wine. 'How? When? Where? By The Lady, he's taken long enough to make up his mind!'
Menelaus said wretchedly, The king has decided on a public execution, and is bringing her to Nauplia to throw her into the sea from the cliff above the harbour. He sent me to bid you choose the place and make arrangements. And other matters.'
I found, to my annoyance, the wine cup shook in my hand. 'Why drag her to Nauplia? If he demands that kind of death why not the Chaos Ravine?'
'It's the place of execution for common criminals. Aerope is noble, a daughter of Minos' line.'
I felt both shattered and numbed. Atreus' belated vengeance seemed unnecessarily cruel, like a cat that plays with a mouse before the claws unsheathe. (I did not know, nor Menelaus, he had sent searchers after Thyestes, hoping to kill them together - hence the delay.) 'A public execution. Atreus will bring spectators from Mycenae; Nauplia and Tiryns will gloat upon her dying. I'll have no hand in this. Tiryns' gates will be closed, the garrison confined while the procession passes by.'
Menelaus attentively examined the pleatings of his kilt. 'I said there were other matters, Agamemnon.'
'You did. What do you mean?'
Menelaus took a breath, and looked me in the eye. 'Atreus ordered me to watch our mother's killing. I refused. He then offered me the choice of banishment or death.'
My mouth sagged open in stunned disbelief.
Menelaus said, 'Yes - I couldn't believe it either. Since you left Mycenae the king has changed for the worse - solitary, brooding, dangerous. I believe his lust for revenge is driving him demented. Nothing but the deaths of the couple who dishonoured him will purge the venom poisoning his mind.'
'He's got Aerope. Does he know where Thyestes has gone?'
'Elis. King Augeas gives him sanctuary.'
I pressed fingers to throbbing temples. Heroes wandered in groups in the Hall, conversed in undertones and sent us speculative glances. My squire Talthybius, flagon in hand, came to fill our cups. I waved him away.
You agreed to see our mother flung to her death, or you wouldn't be here. She deserves her fate. How can I blame you for accepting Atreus' ultimatum?'
'I bring you much the same conditions, Agamemnon.'
'What! The king commands my presence on the cliff?'
You, and all the noblemen of Tiryns.'
I hurled my goblet in the fire. 'No! It's abominable! I'd rather quit Tiryns, live exiled in Sparta or Pylos and never set eyes on Atreus again. I will leave before night!'
Menelaus said wearily, 'I said much the same conditions. Atreus offers you one choice only: obedience or ... death.'
I supported my shaking frame on a hearthside pillar. 'The king is undoubtedly mad! And, if I refuse, does he think I shall stay in Tiryns to await his retribution?'
'His executioners have travelled in my train. Unless I tell them otherwise they will come for you by sundown.'
I am ashamed to say I burst into tears. That Atreus, whom I worshipped, was ready to destroy me opened a bottomless void that swallowed my soul. For one dark frantic moment I considered calling on Tiryns' Heroes, barring the gates and challenging the king. But who would support a youthful Warden against his formidable sovereign ? Menelaus gripped my hand. 'Don't torture yourself, Agamemnon ! Aerope is doomed whatever we do - why should we sink in the welter? Remember the scene in that dreadful room! Can you truthfully say she hasn't earned her punishment?'
'I don't give a damn for Aerope,' I gulped. 'But Atreus....'
'Atreus at the moment is not quite sane. He believes that if Aerope's sons witness the execution people will think her condemnation justified. He feared you'd disobey him - and he loves you, Agamemnon. He can't bear the thought of you defying him, turning against him, hating him. He'd rather you were dead.'
'Small comfort for me in that. And you, my brother? Prepared to tell the executioners —'
'Not really.' Gently, with the back of his hand, Menelaus brushed tears from my cheeks. 'I reckoned you'd be
shrewd enough to see the light. Senseless to sacrifice life and land in the cause of a faithless slut who happens to be our mother.' He paused. 'I take it you agree?'
I nodded miserably.
'Good. Now we both need a drink.' He signalled Talthybius, who came running. 'Your oldest vintage, lad, and fill the cups to the brim!'
* * *
The procession left Mycenae at daybreak. From Argos it collected a rabble of curious spectators - tradesmen, peasants, slaves, women, even children - and reached Tiryns by early afternoon. Spearmen marched in the van, followed by Heroes in chariots. Then a solitary ox-drawn four-wheeled wagon used for carting hides - your nostrils shrank from the stench as it passed. Four strapping Thracian slaves - Atreus' executioners - walked behind the wagon. The king in a gilded travelling chariot, his palace Heroes, more spearmen in the rear.
Aerope rode in the wagon, her seat a bale of hay. She dressed in the height of fashion. Naked rose-tipped breasts thrust from a short-sleeved bodice of transparent azure linen scalloped by silver threads. A girdle of solid gold suspended a quilted apron studded with gems and striped by golden sequins. Seven separate flounces of a gaudy embroidered skirt flowed gracefully to her feet. Carefully waved hair clung to her skull like an ebony cap, a tress in a bandeau across the top. Carmine stars adorned her cheekbones, the mouth a scarlet wound in a face the colour of chalk. She clasped her hands in her lap; wide dark eyes stared trancelike straight ahead.
She had never looked more beautiful.
Menelaus led Tiryns' contingent to follow at the tail, driving tight-lipped through the chattering mob from Argos, riff-raff rapidly swelled by trash that spewed from the town and harbour.
I waited at the place of execution, and gazed across the sea.
The day was sultry, breathless; from horizon to horizon clouds blanketed the heavens. Thunder muttered remotely, flashes sheared the skyline. A grey and oily sea breathed out sluggish surges which broke in splatters of foam at the foot of the cliff. Gulls spiralled across the surface like snowflakes flurried by wind.
Just below a watch-tower perched on the summit an ancient landslide had sliced a rocky platform broad enough to hold two hundred men. I stepped to the edge. The cliff fell sheer for fifty feet, bulged on a rampart of rocks, dropped like a plumbline to wave-washed crags which the height made small as pebbles. Tufts of grass and withered bushes mottled the face of the fall. At the brink of the ledge lay a red-striped woollen rug.
This was the place I had chosen for ending my mother's life.
I left Talthybius and my spearmen escort, climbed to the watch-tower and viewed the procession approaching the precipice's landward face. From the shoreline a path crept upwards, stony, steep and tortuous, impassable for wheels. The column halted, riders dismounted. The executioners guided Aerope to an open litter borne on the necks of four strong slaves.
The procession crawled up the zigzag track.
I stumbled from the watch-tower and waited on the ledge. The cloud-pall floated lower, tendrils of mist stroked the crest of the ridge. The air was oppressive, hot in my lungs. Lightning gashed like a sword, thunder rumbled and crashed. Far away on a leaden sea, moth-like in the gloom, a galley ran for shelter in the harbour.
Spearmen rounded the ridge-top's scarp, marched to the platform, halted. Heroes and Companions tramped behind. The litter appeared, and swayed to the red-striped drugget. A Thracian murmured commands, the bearers lowered their burden. Aerope stayed on the rough wood seat, blank-eyed, lost in a dream.
Atreus strode forward, folded his arms and stood at her back. He wore Mycenae's royal regalia: golden crown, purple gold- hemmed cloak, gold-and-ivory sceptre slanted on his shoulder. His face was a mask of stone, blue eyes sunk in the pockets, the brilliance somehow faded. Greyness powdered his hair like rime. He had aged ten years in the moons since last I saw him.
Noblemen and spearmen thronged the platform. The rabble scattered and climbed the slope, chattering and yapping, and found convenient viewpoints. I felt a touch on my arm. Menelaus. His auburn beard framed ravaged features pale beneath the sunburn.
The executioners, not unkindly, raised Aerope from the litter and supported her between them. She swayed a little, and shuddered, red lips parted and quivered. For an instant our glances crossed. I looked away.
There was terror in her eyes, and that I could not bear.
The executioners led Aerope to the brink. Atreus, close behind, followed step by step. She bent her head and looked at the sea two hundred feet below. She lifted her gaze to the sky, and closed her eyes. Thunder rolled in a roaring crescendo, a searing flash of lightning split the clouds.
The mob on the crest was quiet and tense and still.
The executioners shifted their hold. Each put a hand on my mother's shoulder, the other spread on her back. They looked at Atreus, questioning. He said something I could not hear. The men dropped their hands, and left her free.
Atreus levelled his sceptre, rested the golden eagle between Aerope's shoulders and lunged with all his might.
She uttered a strangled cry, forlorn as a night-rail's call. The body hurtled out and down, curved in the air and smashed on the bulge of rocks. It bounced and plummeted down, broken and limp as a rag, and plunged to the sea. A transient fountain spouted, small as a raindrop's splash.
The gulls circled and squawked and swooped on Aerope's grave.
Chapter 5
the Heraclid War had delayed the expedition to Colchis. I assembled ships and crews and collected trading goods in warehouses near lie wharf. We still needed Troy's permission for transhipment at the Hellespont and use of the overland route. Atreus decided I should head an embassy to King Laomedon, and provided royal gifts - gold and bronze and scented oil - to smooth negotiations.
I took three triaconters. With a following wind and tranquil sea we beached at dusk successively in Andros, Chios and Lesbos, and on the fourth day lowered sails at the Trojan shore. Lookouts had reported our approach; a warband barred the beach. Rowers paddled my ship to the shallows; I jumped overside and waded ashore alone. A youthful, handsome commander introduced himself as Hector son of Priam, son of Laomedon.
'Who are you, my lord?' he asked. 'From what country have you sailed across the highways of the sea? Is yours a trading venture, or are you pirates roving on chance?'
'I salute you, Hector son of Priam,' I answered formally. 'My name is Agamemnon, son of Atreus of Mycenae. I come in peace to seek a boon from Laomedon King of Troy.'
The punctilious greetings over, Hector accorded permission to beach the ships and disembark my followers. His warband stayed alert, shields fronted, spears on guard. They outnumbered us two to one: a wise precaution on a coastline frequently raided. (A pity it failed disastrously when Hercules made his landfall.) I introduced my Heroes, detailed a guard on the ships and mounted in Hector's chariot. We drove across a windy plain and saw Laomedon's mighty ramparts towering in the distance. In fact the walls he built on the ridge were not as straight and steep as those at Mycenae or Tiryns; nevertheless their aspect was forbidding. Guard towers pillared the battlements above each of Troy's four gates, the tallest the Tower of Ilion beside the Scaean Gate.
We forded the Simoeis river, and Hector delicately probed the reason for my mission. His peculiar dialect was difficult to follow: Trojan pronunciation grates on Achaean ears. I made myself agreeable; apart from being a very pleasant fellow Hector, as Priam's eldest son, would succeed in time to Laomedon's throne, so his favour was worth pursuing. I came in truth as a suppliant from a lesser king to a greater, because Troy then governed dominions more extensive than Mycenae's. As the bulwark of a prosperous kingdom her power was felt in Thrace, along the Euxine coast, and south to the Lydian borders.
We drove through a sprinkle of houses - as in Achaean cities most of the population dwelt outside the walls - and dismounted at the Scaean Gate. The houses within the citadel crowd more closely than Mycenae's, the streets narrower and steeper,
impassable for vehicles. At Laomedon's palace Hector summoned squires who escorted me to a bath. Clean and smelling of perfumed oil and clothed in fresh white linen I was conducted to an audience in the Hall.
The reception of an embassy is a formal state occasion. Again I presented my half-dozen Heroes, and spread at Laomedon's feet the gifts we had brought. The king, though full of years, hair and beard foam-white, was apple-cheeked and hearty, lean and straight as a spear. After the usual courteous cross-talk he wasted no more time and directly inquired the reasons which had brought me across the seas.
I answered him as straightly: Laomedon was not a man to tolerate prolixity.
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