Heroes (formerly Talisman of Troy)

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Helen. ‘The same thing.’

  ‘But you must certainly know then . . . Who took it? Was it Diomedes? Menelaus? Ulysses perhaps? Or maybe . . . perhaps it was Agamemnon. He was the great king, after all.’

  ‘If Agamemnon had had it, how could it have escaped you? No one got away, as far as I’ve been told . . .’

  ‘Many of his ships managed to set sail that night; we do not know where they went. No one has seen them since. Could destiny mock us so? Could it have been on one of those very ships?’

  ‘I do not know who has the talisman of Troy. I know that many that night were looking for it: Diomedes, Ulysses, Ajax, perhaps even Agamemnon or Menelaus . . . there’s only one person who surely knows where it is to be found: princess Cassandra, who is your slave, I believe. She was the priestess of the temple.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Clytemnestra said.

  ‘Dead? But why?’

  ‘She was his lover. I killed her.’

  ‘How could you have done that? What did it matter that Agamemnon had a lover? You have destroyed the only chance we had to learn the truth.’

  ‘What is done is done. Maybe Menelaus knows something nonetheless. It won’t be difficult to find out if you use your wiles . . . You must learn everything before making him die.’

  ‘Why do you desire that thing so? By wanting it, you’re making us like them. Seeking power for power’s sake.’

  Clytemnestra was pale, and her forehead was damp: ‘I must know why this war was really fought; I must know, at any cost.’

  ‘Tonight I will go naked to Menelaus’s bed, and I will be wearing the perfume you have given me. You will soon know whether your design will be brought to completion. And you will know all the rest, if there is anything more to know. But how will you remain silent, until then? Menelaus will surely demand to see the burial place of his brother, and will immolate a sacrifice to his shade. How will you explain his death? Will you shirk your own part in it?’

  ‘Perhaps it would be better to kill him at once.’

  ‘Impossible,’ replied Helen. ‘He is always accompanied by his guard, all veterans from the Trojan war who never leave his side for a moment. I am the only person to have intimate contact with him. Should something happen to him, I will be immediately blamed, and put to death. There are many who hate me. Especially the elders, who believe that the war was fought for my sake, and reproach me for the deaths of their sons in the fields of Asia. I must convince Menelaus of your innocence. Or at least leave him doubting your guilt.’

  ‘I know what I can do,’ said Queen Clytemnestra. ‘I will send a legation to render homage to Menelaus and to invite him to Mycenae so he can learn the truth about his brother’s death and make a sacrifice on his tomb. He will certainly sense a trap and refuse. At this point I will no longer have to justify myself, and I can accuse him of being in bad faith. You will take care of the rest.’

  ‘That seems like a good solution,’ responded Helen. Clytemnestra drew close to embrace her, but Helen flicked her eyes at the men of the guard who stood observing them at the threshold of the sanctuary. ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘Farewell, my sister, may the gods enable us to fulfil our aspirations.’

  They left, taking each her own road.

  *

  That same evening Menelaus met in his palace with old Hippasus, who had once been the lawagetas at Mycenae, head of the army under the Atreid king. His sons had brought him there in secret, disguised as a farmer on a hay cart.

  The king approached him and clasped the old man tightly to his chest. Hippasus ran his hands over the king’s face. ‘The war has left its mark on you, my king,’ he said. ‘Where have the days gone when I would take you and your brother on my chariot to hunt boar in Arcadia?’

  ‘Those days are long gone, my old friend,’ said the king with moist eyes, stroking the old man’s thin white hair. ‘Days that will never come again. But tell me the reason for your visit. You certainly haven’t come all this way in disguise just to welcome me back.’

  He ordered the servants to bring a seat and a stool, and told the maidservants to wash his guest’s feet. The old man sat down, while his sons remained standing behind him. There were four of them, big men all, with wide shoulders and powerful arms. The old man let the women wash his feet in a large basin filled with hot water.

  ‘I have come to bring you unhappy news. Your brother Agamemnon . . .’

  ‘I know. He’s been killed.’

  ‘Murdered in his own palace by Queen Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus; he is a monster, generated by incest. His father and his grandfather are the same person.’

  The king bowed his head: ‘Much horror has gathered around our family. The house of a king is always a house of blood, but we must nonetheless do what must be done.’

  ‘How did you learn of Agamemnon’s death?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain. I visited an oracle in the land of Egypt, where I saw, like in a dream, his body butchered and his funeral mask rise like a bloody moon behind the tower of the chasm. When I landed here and did not see him come to greet me, I understood that my dream was the truth.’

  ‘Diomedes is gone as well. They say that he was killed in a trap set for him by his wife Aigialeia, but no one knows where he is buried. Some say that he escaped with his fleet and took on the winter sea. Idomeneus was driven away from Crete and we know nothing of Ulysses.’

  ‘I am alone,’ said the king, and he spoke with a deep, low voice, laden with sadness.

  ‘Not all is lost. Your brother’s children, Prince Orestes and Princess Electra, are safe. Electra lives in the palace but never leaves her rooms except to pay homage to her father’s tomb. Orestes is in Phocis with your sister Anaxibia: I had him brought there myself, by one of my sons. Now that you have returned, you must put him back on his father’s throne. King Nestor of Pylus will surely give you his help.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Menelaus, ‘but it will be another bloodbath. How can I ask my people to begin another war? Another endless siege? The walls of Mycenae are unassailable. Tiryns could only be taken by the Giants. Certainly Aigialeia and Clytemnestra have joined to see their plot brought to completion.’

  ‘We will help you from the inside,’ said Hippasus. ‘Many are still faithful to the Atreid dynasty and hate the queen and her lover for the atrocities they have committed.’

  Menelaus remained silent in thought as the maidservants brought more seats and prepared the tables before each one of them. Hippasus’s four sons sat and, as soon as the meal was served, reached out and devoured the large pieces of meat on the trays.

  ‘Only if it becomes inevitable,’ said the king finally. ‘Blood disgusts me.’

  Several days later, a legation from Queen Clytemnestra arrived to pay her respects to King Menelaus and invite him to Mycenae, but the envoys were told that the king was ill. He lay in his bed, seized by fever; the queen was at his side, wetting his dry lips with cool water. Machaon, the healer who had so often cured him in the fields of Ilium, was dead, slain by the sword of Euripylus. His brother Podalirius, no less gifted in the medical arts, had been lost on their return voyage. All trusted that the gods would come to the king’s aid. As soon as the king was better, he would certainly go to Mycenae to meet with his sister-in-law and immolate a sacrifice on Agamemnon’s tomb.

  The envoys waited several days to see if there was any improvement, to no avail. They only caught a glimpse of Queen Helen as she celebrated a sacrifice to speed Menelaus’s recovery. They were so close that they could see the small mole on her right shoulder and smell the heavenly scent of her skin as she passed.

  When the head of the delegation reported this news to Clytemnestra, the queen seemed anxious: ‘There was something strange about her when I met her at Nemea. She always spoke softly, and stayed in the shadows.’

  ‘I don’t know why you say that, my queen,’ replied the man. ‘I saw her very closely, in broad daylight. Years and years have passed, but she
is as beautiful as ever. Her skin still has the fragrance of violets, her voice is as sweet and harmonious as when she was a young maiden, when the Achaean kings were contending her hand.’

  Clytemnestra asked no more, and was satisfied with the news she had received. The king’s illness was doubtless the result of her poison. Helen was loyal to their cause.

  Another month passed, and the news from Sparta was still more comforting: she was told that an artist had been called to the palace to make a mould of the king’s face in damp clay and prepare his funeral mask. The great moment was close.

  But the artist who made the mould of Menelaus’s face would have been in no hurry to complete his work had he seen how quickly the king had leapt from his bed afterwards, stealthily gone down to the stables and had his fastest chariot prepared for him. His head covered by a hood, he stepped aboard alongside the charioteer and nodded for him to lash the horses.

  Three days later they passed the Peloponnesian isthmus at night, so as not to be seen, and continued for a week until they reached Boeotia and the shores of Lake Copais. On an island at its centre rose the impregnable fortress of Arne. The armed sentinels standing guard were astonished to see a tawny-haired warrior descend from the boat; the herald announced him as Menelaus the Atreid, king of Sparta, shepherd of peoples. Soon thereafter Queen Anaxibia was awakened in the deep of night and accompanied to the throne room. The king stood still as a statue in the centre of the room, his long red hair tied at the nape of his neck with a leather string; he spun around at the sound of her steps. They fell into each other’s arms and wept without saying a word in the middle of that large deserted room. They shed bitter tears, thinking of the childhood they had spent together, of the adolescent dreams of love they had confided in each other, of the memories of happy times and of their long separation, of the never-ending years of the Trojan war.

  When they had given vent to their feelings, Menelaus looked at her as if he could not believe his eyes. ‘Beloved sister,’ he said, running the tip of his finger over a tear on her cheek. ‘Only you remain in this hostile land. I have come to ask for your help.’ A sudden gust of wind swept the hall from the windows open on to the courtyard. Menelaus’s black cloak swelled for a moment and fell again, swaying, to his ankles.

  ‘No,’ said Anaxibia. ‘I’m not the only one left. Sit down. Wait,’ and she motioned to a handmaiden who had risen from her bed to do her queen’s bidding. The woman moved off.

  ‘What is your plan? You surely know of the death of our brother . . .’ The woman was back already, standing at the threshold of the door. With her was a youth of perhaps seventeen. He wore naught but a sheet around his bare shoulders. A golden down covered his cheeks and a cascade of blond hair lit up his face. His hair was so blond it seemed nearly white but his eyes were pitch black. Queen Anaxibia held out her hands to him, and kissed him on the forehead and eyes, then, indicating the guest, said: ‘This is your uncle Menelaus. We thought he was dead, but he has returned. He has just arrived from Sparta.’

  Menelaus opened his arms. ‘Son,’ he said, his voice still trembling. ‘My boy.’ The young prince, still half asleep, returned his embrace a little uncertainly, and kissed the king on the cheek. ‘Orestes, I have come to put you on the throne of your father, at Mycenae, if you so wish.’

  ‘I do, wanax,’ said the young man. He was wide awake now, and his gaze was firm and certain.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ said the king. ‘I’m your uncle and I love you as if I were your father . . .’ They sat down and the maidservant brought them warm milk and some wine. ‘There is something that perhaps you do not know . . .’ And as he was speaking, Menelaus sought the eyes of his sister to have her approval for what he was about to say. The queen nodded. ‘My boy, your mother was not forced against her will . . . your mother made you an orphan of her own hand.’

  The prince did not flinch. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I will kill her for it.’ He took a cup of milk from the table and downed it. He stood and took his leave with a slight bow: ‘Good night, uncle. I’m happy that you have returned.’ He crossed the threshold as weightless as the night air. The light of the torches burning in the corridor made the sheet covering his body transparent: he was as beautiful as a god.

  Menelaus followed him for a moment with his eyes, then bowed his head. ‘It will be a bitter, fierce fight,’ he said, ‘more cruel than the Trojan war.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the queen. ‘Only members of the same family can truly hate each other.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said the king, ‘that my strength will not suffice. I must face a powerful coalition, alone.’

  The queen’s lips curled into a smile. ‘You’re not alone,’ she said. ‘You have the most powerful ally that exists in the world. Come, I want to show you something.’ She got up and walked down the corridor. Menelaus followed her to the end, then down a stair that led under ground. They reached a small door closed with bronze bolts. Anaxibia drew them and thrust her torch into the interior. Menelaus was struck dumb, his eyes filled with stupor.

  ‘The talisman of the Trojans!’ he gasped. ‘Oh gods, gods of the heavens . . . then it was not all futile . . . all of that blood was not spilled in vain . . . oh gods, I thank you.’

  The queen closed the door and bolted it. ‘This is why you’ve found me here at Arne. This fortress in the middle of the lake is impenetrable; no one can violate it.’

  ‘But how could you have . . .’

  ‘When our brother was murdered by that bitch, a ship managed to reach me here before anyone had thought of chasing it. Everyone thought that the talisman of Troy was to be found on Agamemnon’s flagship, which was burned at port and sunk by its crew. Clytemnestra was led to believe that the men had carried out an order of the king, who had somehow sensed her betrayal. She even sent divers down to explore the wreck, but the sea bottom was too deep; not even the most expert sponge divers could reach it. She could not know that the talisman was aboard a little thirty-oar which escaped towards the north and went ashore at Aulis.’

  ‘An action that seems inspired by the mind of Ulysses!’

  ‘Who says it wasn’t?’ said the queen.

  ‘Yes . . .’ murmured Menelaus. ‘Ulysses turned back . . . I’ve always asked myself why.’

  Anaxibia shut the door that closed off the underground stair from the corridor and motioned to her handmaidens, who were waiting in a group, chatting with each other, each holding a lit lamp in hand. They rushed to hear her orders, then took Menelaus up to his room. They undressed him and bathed him with abundant warm water, then dried him off and dressed him in a fine linen dressing-gown. They asked if he wanted one of them to remain with him in his bed, whichever of them he preferred, but the king let them go and stretched out exhausted on the big pine-scented bed. An able craftsman had carved it from a trunk uprooted by the winds of Mount Ossa. Above his head was a bronze plate embossed with a line of warriors flanking charioteers on their swift war-cars.

  *

  One autumn evening some time later, princess Electra left the great Gate of the Lions at Mycenae and walked down the narrow valley of the tombs. She was carrying a basket filled with offerings, honey and milk and white flour, offerings for the shadows of the dead. But she didn’t stop in front of any of the great mounds along the path. She continued with hurried step until she found a large slab of stone covering a cistern hollowed out of the underlying rock and there she stopped. She poured the milk on to the stone and then the honey and then scattered the flour, invoking the shade of her father.

  Big congealed lumps showed how many times her hand had generously poured those offerings and were proof that not even the animals, the stray dogs and the foxes, had dared to contend with the angry shade of the Great Atreid. She prostrated herself on the bare rock and wept with her cheek pressed against the huge slab, wetting it with her tears.

  The sun had dropped behind the mountains and its light was suddenly swallowed up by a dark mass of clouds that advanced from t
he most remote horizon. The wind slipped into the valley and its voice, in the narrow gorge, joined her lament. The princess got up on to her knees, her right hand still caressing the stone. Her head was low. She could hear the twittering of the birds seeking a shelter for the night. The last swallows circled low on the arid grass, crossing in flight between the dried amaranth and the thorny brambles.

  The valley was nearly completely invaded by the shadows when Electra got up. ‘Farewell, father,’ she murmured, bringing her hand to her mouth for a kiss. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can.’

  She had seen him, for the last time, all covered with blood with his throat cut, being dragged obscenely across the floor like a butchered animal. Awakened in the night by the screams coming from the great hall, she saw everything from the gallery on the second floor but she could not cry out the horror and desperation gnawing at her heart; her soul was lacerated with pain and then invaded by the most implacable hate. Yet every time that she came to that wretched, unworthy tomb, she tried to remember her father as he was when she saw him leave for the war. He had come into her room where she, sitting on the floor in a corner, was trying to swallow her tears. He had put his hand on her head and had said: ‘Iphigeneia will leave tomorrow to become the wife of a prince, but you must keep watch over your brother who is still small, and respect your mother. I will think of you every evening, when the sun descends behind the mountains or among the waves of the sea, and I’ll dream of holding you in my arms and of stroking your hair.’

  She had got up and hugged him. She had felt the cold contact of the bronze covering his chest and had been seized by a stab of pain, the same that she felt now, every time she laid her face against that stone, always so cold, even on the hottest summer evenings.