Heroes (formerly Talisman of Troy)

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  When Menelaus disembarked, he found a deserted beach scattered with the bones of men and animals, and with the remains of shipwrecked vessels.

  He left his men at the ship, laid down his sword on the sand and entered the cave alone. The walls were painted with scenes of fishing and hunting; men in long pirogues chasing huge sea cetaceans, others in groups, armed with bows and arrows, hunting fabulous beasts with long spotted necks, and short-maned asses or mules with black and white stripes. A sudden barking startled him and an animal that was half dog and half fish ran off towards the sea, rolling on fins that took the place of his legs. The king had heard say that the Old Man used similar beasts as his guard dogs.

  He went forward and found himself before a great basin lit by a ray of sun that entered from a crack in the cave ceiling. At the sound of his steps the water suddenly boiled up and a scaly back emerged from its depths, then a bristling tail and a mouth full of teeth. A monster the likes of which he had never seen in all his life. Along with a stink of rot and putrescence that turned his stomach.

  ‘Where are you, Old Man of the Sea?’ shouted Menelaus.

  ‘I am he,’ answered a deep, gurgling voice. ‘I am the dragon who swims in these waters. In this land they call me Sobek and they worship me as a god in a great sanctuary at Nbyt. But beware, do not approach me! Or your human existence may finish up between my jaws.’ Menelaus backed off in dismay and his hand fell to his side, defenceless.

  ‘I am he!’ screeched another voice. ‘Son of the night!’ and Menelaus saw an enormous bat lazily swinging from a crevice in the vault. ‘I am blind but I can fly through the darkness and see things that no human being can see.’

  ‘I am he,’ said another voice, soft and hissing. And Menelaus saw a serpent raise his head and swell his neck, darting his forked tongue at just a span from his knee. ‘I am the child of the sun, and the guardian of the night.’

  The king of Sparta did not move as the serpent swayed back and forth on his rolls of coils before slipping silently away between the pebbles and the sand. He walked forward then, towards a tunnel at the back of the cavern that seemed to penetrate into the bowels of the earth. He entered and continued at length in the dark, in absolute silence, until he saw a light reverberating at the top of the passage. The light became more intense as he advanced, and he soon found himself in a large grotto invaded by a bright ray of sun which poured in from above, illuminating an old man with his head veiled. He sat on a wide stone seat on the banks of a dark, clear spring. His skin was black and wrinkled, while his beard and the hairs on his arms and legs were pure white.

  ‘Are you Charon, perhaps, who ferries souls to the under-gloom?’ asked Menelaus. ‘Must I die here? Here, so far from my homeland, forgotten by all?’

  The old man raised his head and showed two deep, glittering eyes.

  ‘I have come to learn my destiny,’ said Menelaus. ‘I have suffered greatly, I have sacrificed my life and my honour. I want to know if this has any meaning.’

  The old man did not move. His gaze was locked into a fixed stare. Menelaus drew so close he could touch him.

  ‘I am a king,’ he said. ‘I was a powerful sovereign, father of a daughter as lovely as a golden flower, husband of the most beautiful woman on earth. Now my life holds naught but poison and despair. My warriors die without glory and I am going mad in this torrid, flat land. Oh Old Man of the Sea, they say that you have the wisdom of the gods. Help me, and when I have returned I shall send you a ship laden with gifts, with all those things that can gladden your heart. Help me, I beseech you, tell me if I will return, if I will escape an obscure death in a foreign land after enduring such pain for so many long years. Shall I ever return to live with the queen in my palace? Will I ever forget the shame and dishonour that keep me awake at night?’

  He sat down in the dust and lowered his head like a suppliant.

  The old man neither moved nor opened his mouth.

  ‘I will not go from here,’ said Menelaus, ‘until I’ve had an answer. I will starve to death if you do not answer me.’ And he too fell into silence.

  Nothing happened, for some time. But then all at once, the ray of sun spilling down from the ceiling of the cavern touched the surface of the water, and the spring shone with myriad reflections, lightening even the walls of the cave with a pale glow. The old man shook out of his torpor and pointed his finger to a point at the centre of the pool. Menelaus stood and stared at that point, as his soul was invaded by a strange, untried trepidation. He heard the voice that had already greeted him in the guise of the dragon, the bat and the serpent; it was different now, with a deep harmonious sound like that of a song whose words he could not understand. But that melody roused images from the surface of the water, as if it were a mirror. Menelaus saw and heard as if he were present in the events that flowed beneath his eyes, but unable to speak or react.

  He saw an impostor seated on the throne of Mycenae along-side queen Clytemnestra, grasping the sceptre of the Atreides. He saw the funeral mask of his brother Agamemnon rising like a golden moon from behind the palace and weeping tears of blood. He saw a maiden escaping from a hidden doorway, dragging behind her a blond boy with terror-stricken eyes. They ran through the windy night, stopping often behind a tree or a rock in the fear they were being followed. And then they ran again, until they found a man awaiting them with a chariot to which two fiery black steeds had been harnessed.

  The maiden clasped the boy to her breast in a long embrace, kissing his face and forehead. Her lips moved as if she were imparting warnings, advice, encouragement. And the light which flickered in her eyes blazed with passionate love and with fierce hate. She hugged her brother again and spoke more hurried words, turning often to check behind her. Then the young prince got into the chariot next to the driver who held the reins still; the wind filled his great dark cloak like a sail in a storm. The maiden turned over her charge to him and she cried as they left. The man whipped the horses and the chariot departed swiftly in a white cloud. They were Agamemnon’s children and his own niece and nephew: princess Electra and prince Orestes, forced to hide and to flee, orphaned and persecuted.

  He shouted and wept with rage, shame and grief, as he never had before, so loudly that the surface of the water trembled and darkened. His cry shook the walls of the cavern, stirring up hosts of squeaking bats who flitted away and halting the strange melody that had accompanied his visions.

  The black-skinned man sitting on his stone throne in the shadows now was roused: ‘Why did you set off the war?’ said his voice. But his lips were sealed and his face was still, like that of a statue carved in wood or sculpted in stone.

  ‘To divert a river of blood. To ward off the destruction and the end of my people.’

  ‘What destruction?’

  ‘It was written that the sons of Hercules driven away by Euristheus would return . . . that they would return to annihilate Mycenae and Argos and all of the cities of the Achaeans. There was only one single thing on the entire earth that could save us: the talisman of the Trojans. But how to win it? It was hidden away in Ilium, protected by layer upon layer of inviolable secrets. Our only hope was for someone, one of us, to gain entry to the innermost parts of the city and the citadel by living there for years and years. Only thus could we hope to learn their secrets and penetrate their defences . . . we needed someone who could win over the minds and the souls of the princes and the trust of the king.

  ‘Only Helen could succeed! All women and all goddesses live within her; love and perfidy, purity and deceit. Only she dares wield the infinite weapons that make her more fearsome than a phalanx drawn up on an open battlefield.

  ‘The responsibility for saving our people fell to the Atreides and solely to us: we bore more grief than any of the other Achaeans, more than Achilles and Ajax, who died under the walls of Ilium. Agamemnon sacrificed his beloved daughter . . . and I was asked to sacrifice my bride, the only love of my life, and my honour. We made war to hide our true intent,
and we knew that the final attack would not be launched until the last secret had fallen. Until Ulysses and Diomedes had entered the city by stealth and discovered where the talisman of the Trojans was hidden.

  ‘Useless, all of it useless. My brother is dead. I have seen an impostor sitting on the throne that belonged to Perseus and Atreus, I have seen the young prince and princess, terrified, fleeing in the night . . . All useless . . .’

  He fell to his knees on the banks of the spring and wept, hiding his face in his cloak.

  ‘You did not do your part! You did not pay the price that was asked of you!’ thundered the voice of the Old Man. Menelaus started. ‘Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?’ he shouted, even more loudly.

  Menelaus stood and walked towards him, his eyes filled with stupor: ‘How is it possible that you know this? Your oracle is truthful, then . . .’

  ‘Admit your blame!’ said the voice. ‘Or leave now and never come back.’ The Old Man’s eyes were closed but his forehead and face dripped with sweat. The drops that slid over his dry skin were the only signs of life on that ashen face.

  Menelaus lowered his head: ‘All of the kings of the Achaeans would have wanted her as their bride. She was given to me. Can’t you understand? Can’t you understand me?’

  ‘As you journeyed to Delos your brother was butchered like a bull in the manger,’ said the voice. ‘If you had stayed with the others, this would not have happened. You are to blame. The blood of your brother is on your hands.’

  It seemed completely, both in timbre and tone, the voice of his dead brother accusing him; he thought of the persecuted prince and princess escaping in the night, swarms of pursuers at their heels. His heart cramped in his chest, as though pierced through by a spear.

  He cried out, weeping: ‘Oh Old Man of the Sea, if you speak in truth, tell me whether I will be granted an honourable death. Because I have nothing else left to hope for.’

  ‘What do you want?’ demanded the voice.

  ‘To return, to avenge my brother, if he has been murdered. I will ask for help from the other kings, Ulysses, Diomedes. They will not abandon me.’

  But as soon as he pronounced those words, he realized that he was in a different place.

  He was walking on the deserted beach of a sunny island. The warm air was fragrant with pine and myrtle and he felt a powerful, invisible presence hovering about him. The water of the sea lapped at his ankles, the sand slipped between his toes like a rough caress. A rock jutting out into the sea blocked his way, and he clambered on to it, so as to descend on the other side and continue his walk. But when he was at the top, he looked down and saw a man sitting on a stone, a white cloak wrapped around his bare limbs. He recognized him: it was glorious Ulysses, son of Laertes. He looked out over the horizon, eyes glazed with deep sadness. And a female voice called out: ‘He is mine, for seven years!’

  ‘Oh lady hidden in the air,’ shouted Menelaus, ‘allow my friend to depart! Allow him to take to the humid paths of the sea. He is needed in the land of the Achaeans; we need his wits, his invincible mind!’

  ‘He is mine, mine for seven years,’ sang the voice again. And her words hit him like a gust of wind, making him spin like a dead leaf. He fell into the sea, sinking into the cold embrace of the abyss for the longest of times, until he emerged once again from the centre of a dark lagoon, under a sky laden with low clouds. Before him was a miserable camp, with shelters made of reeds and swamp grasses. The men were emaciated, livid with cold and hunger. Among them was Diomedes, son of Tydeus. His beard was long and unkempt, his hands were dirty and his cloak was soiled with mud. Menelaus turned away from that pitiful sight and then found himself immersed in the waters of the spring, under the vault of the immense cavern, standing before the black-skinned man, the Old Man of the Sea.

  A noisy laugh exploded under the great vault: ‘Have you seen your companions? Do you still think they can help you?’ asked the voice. Menelaus covered his head with his cloak.

  ‘Old Man of the Sea,’ he said, ‘I cover my head and deliver myself to the infernal gods. I recognize my guilt and I am ready to suffer my punishment. But one thing you must tell me, and I will do the rest: where is the talisman of the Trojans now? Did Queen Clytemnestra take it from Agamemnon after killing him? Is she hiding it somewhere . . . or has she destroyed it? Tell me only this, I beg of you. I alone remain; I alone can stave off the misfortune that weighs upon the Achaeans.’

  ‘Who else, besides you, knows your secret?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘No one ever suspected anything . . . except for Ulysses.’

  ‘All was born in deceit and in deceit it is destined to end. But you can turn the evil you have done into good. Ulysses can help you, far away as he is. Use his mind. Carry out what he has imagined,’ said the voice. ‘No more than this can I tell you.’

  The ray of light dimmed until it nearly disappeared and the hiss of the wind issued ever stronger from the top of the cavern.

  The Old Man of the Sea seemed to have dozed off on his stone throne. His limbs hung limply, his mouth fell half open. The king of Sparta turned back, traversing the tunnel and the great chamber until he found himself once again in the open. The wind had become very strong and his men struggled to secure the ship’s lines to the ground so that the sea would not steal it away.

  Menelaus watched them through the swirling sands that obscured the light of day, and he hardly recognized them, as if they were foreigners pushed there from distant lands by the force of the sea and the wind.

  Only the next day were they able to return to their island in the delta. The queen saw the ship coming to shore, and yet he tarried. After a long wait, she walked to the beach and found her king sitting in silence, watching the waves. She asked him what the response of the Old Man of the Sea had been and Menelaus, without turning, said: ‘His response was quite auspicious, for me and for you, my queen. The old man said:

  Menelaus, it is not your destiny to die in the bluegrass land of Argos,

  but in the Elysian fields where the gods will send you,

  there where life is lovely for mortal men.

  No snow, nor chill, nor rain there,

  but always the gentle breeze of Zephyr blowing

  sonorous from the Ocean, soothing and refreshing.

  For the gods hold you, as Helen’s lord, a son of Zeus.

  ‘One day sorrow and wounds and death will end, my queen. We shall live in a happy place, far from all others, for ever.’

  He fell still again, watching the foam of the waves that died at his feet, and then said: ‘We must return.’

  6

  MYRSILUS THOUGHT THAT HIS last day had come when he saw armed Trojans in such a far-off land. But the Chnan had no fear and he approached the new arrivals, mingling among them, watching and listening to try to understand why they were there.

  It was evident that the village chieftain and the man who seemed to be the chief of the Trojans did not understand each other, but that they had become accustomed to communicating using gestures, and even the Chnan could understand these gestures well.

  ‘I think,’ he told Myrsilus later, ‘that the foreigners want to remain here. They are prepared to exchange bronze for wheat, milk and meat for the winter, and seeds for the spring. They want to settle down in this land.’

  ‘When Diomedes finds out he will march here with his men and wipe them all out! I am certain he wants no Trojans in the land in which he will found his new kingdom.’

  ‘Then don’t tell him,’ answered the Chnan. ‘We cannot wage war in these swamps, in this bitter cold, and those wretches mean no harm. They’re just trying to survive the winter. When the seasons change they will sow wheat and, if they manage to harvest it, a new people will be born, in a new land, under a new sky. Let the seeds take root, warrior. This land is big enough to nourish many peoples.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right, Chnan. There’s only one thing I do not understand; why it is deserted. If we were in the land of the Achaeans,
there would be at least six or seven villages in the land that stretches from here to the sea. Here we’ve found nothing but these four huts in an entire day’s journey. And no more, as far as the eye can see.’

  ‘You’re right. Perhaps the land is inhospitable, perhaps it is infested with wild beasts. Perhaps the people who lived here were driven away by famine or killed off by a plague. Man persists in living everywhere, even if the earth doesn’t want him. Do you know that there are men who inhabit the great sands, where not a blade of grass grows? And men that live in lands covered with ice? But the earth, sooner or later, frees itself of men like a dog scratches off fleas. Perhaps it is best that we rest now. Tomorrow morning we will have to start off for the ships before dawn, or your king will set off looking for us and get all of us into a fine mess.’

  ‘What about our comrades out there on the plain? They have no shelter; they’ll die of cold when the frost sets in.’

  ‘I’ll go tell them to come here with us. There’s plenty of room.’

  ‘No,’ said Myrsilus. ‘Someone must remain outside the village in case something happens.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the Chnan. ‘I’ll go . . .’ He took a pile of pelts from one of the corners and stole away, disappearing into the darkness. He returned not long after. The Trojan camp was lit up by a few scattered fires. The village was just barely illuminated by the ash-covered embers that still burned in the centre of the main clearing.

  As he groped around for the entrance to the hut, he felt a heavy hand fall on his shoulder. He spun around and saw that it was one of the women who had looked with longing at the goods he had set out. No one had offered to exchange pelts or food for an amber-beaded clasp for her. But she knew she had something even more precious that perhaps the foreign merchant would appreciate: herself. Tall and buxom, her blonde hair fell loose on her shoulders and a leather cord decorated with bits of bone adorned her white neck.