The Outcast

by Laura Gill

  When he reached the hearth, he stopped and straightened, and raised the sword with both hands. Gleaming bronze plunged into the coals, through them, down, down into the hearthstones, into the foundations of the megaron, and the very citadel mount itself, piercing the breast of the Mother of the Mountains. And as he did this, his voice boomed out like a thunderclap, “Orestes!”

  I squeaked and stood on my hind legs, but he did not see me. Saplings shot out from the sword’s silver-studded pommel, and suddenly the netted corpse-man was gone, and there were only leaves and branches, and their shadows, writhing upon the moonlit walls, reaching for me, a mere mouse who had no bolt hole to run into...

  I woke drenched in sweat, to the sound of footfalls thumping the boards outside my door. Alarmed, I reached for my dagger as the curtain parted and a head thrust inside. “My lord.” A Phocian accent flavored the man’s voice.

  “Nikos,” I mumbled. “What is it?”

  “Machaereus caught an intruder.”

  Blinking, I sat up to shake away the last shreds of the dream. The shadows spreading their fingers across the moonlit plaster, the tree with its skeletal fingers, taking root, and shaking the earth—but no, the wall opposite the window was dark, blank, for the light had shifted during the night. I sheathed my dagger, fumbled with my sandals, and shuffled outside to join Nikos.

  A light burned in the storeroom adjacent to the kitchen. Pylades and two guards monitored the man bound and huddled on the floor, while Boukolos and the other men continued to search the premises for additional intruders. Melita stood nearby, rumpled from sleep and wrapped in a shawl; the servant girls congregated behind her: pale, whispering fearfully to each other, and watching us with uncertain eyes.

  I banished the women outside, except that Melita, citing her rights as mistress of the house, refused to withdraw.

  Lean and youngish, the man did not look like much. A bruise swelled one eye, and he wore scrapes and cuts from the scuffle with the guards. Someone had stuffed a rag into his mouth, but his dark eyes followed me intently. Someone had, indeed, told him what to look for.

  “Have you questioned him?” I asked Pylades.

  “Not yet.”

  I drew my dagger and crouched down to shove the point under the man’s chin, then with my other hand wrenched the rag from his mouth. “Who are you?” He made an unintelligible noise. “What is your name?”

  “Simpleton,” Arisbas muttered.

  Machaereus bent down, gripped the man’s jaw, and squeezed to get him to open his mouth. “No, he’s got no tongue.”

  “He can still nod yes or no,” I said. When Machaereus released him, I renewed the interrogation. “Did Aegisthus send you?” As I expected, the man tried to play dumb—they all did—but the light in his eyes revealed the truth. “Am I going to find a gold ring or two on your person?” He shook his head as vigorously as he dared, with the knife point pricking the soft flesh under his chin. I did not believe that, either. “So you would have me believe that you climbed the wall just to rob this woman and her servants?” I glanced over my shoulder at Melita, who was ashen under her freckles. “Do you recognize this man? Is he from around here?” She shook her head no.

  The young man whimpered, earning him a sharp cuff on the ear from Arisbas. I waited a second to let the pain subside before addressing him again. “Should I slice off your ears, or put out your eyes?”

  Tears leaked from his eyes to run sticky tracks down his bruised and dirty cheeks. Arisbas gave him a hard jerk.

  “Not here,” Melita said.

  Her interjection forced me to remember my manners. “No, not here,” I agreed. “But you should go now, and see to your women. This is no business for a lady.”

  Meanwhile, the young man started to struggle again. “Stop your squirming.” I thrust the knife point a hair deeper into his throat, drawing a thin ribbon of blood that trickled down his neck into his threadbare collar. “I can kill you in pieces, or make it quick. Now stop lying to me.” Even though he looked harmless, even though he had voided his bladder in his terror, so the room stank of his urine and sour fear, I had no pity for him. Too many attempts on my life had hardened my heart. “Did Aegisthus send you?” He nodded. “Are there others out there waiting to attack?” He shook his head. I withdrew the knife.

  Arisbas and Machaereus searched him, wrenching him back and forth, and stripping him to his sodden loincloth. I took the gold ring they found, went outside, and gave it to Melita for her trouble. “He heard there were women here living alone, and came to rob and rape you,” I said. “I will have him taken out and dealt with.”

  She had heard too much about Aegisthus and spies to believe me, though—I could see it in her eyes—but the incident stopped her tongue, and she accepted the ring.

  I felt sorry for disturbing her and her women, who had shown us nothing but courtesy, yet would not have conducted myself any other way. The world was what it was, precarious and rough. Either a man killed his enemies, or was killed by them.

  Nevertheless, I had a dilemma. Slitting the young man’s throat not only meant shedding his blood in my hostess’s house, where I had sworn not to, but it also meant having to remove his body, which was not something easily accomplished in a large town. And not enough hours of darkness remained to take the captive out into the country to kill him there; it would have to wait until the next nightfall, and require a local man who knew where best to dump a corpse.

  My choice fell upon Arkados, a gruff redheaded veteran of Troy who served Atymnios; he was dependable, and intelligent enough to grasp the situation without my having to explain too much. “I know just the place,” he said. I had him select three other reliable men, and, sending word on ahead to his lord that he had work, linger after twilight. As the moon rose, he and the others muffled the prisoner in a gag and hood, drag him from the storeroom where we had kept him bound and under guard, and took him out into the night. Hours later, they returned alone. Arkados gave me his report. “It was no trouble at all. No one but the eels will ever find him.”

  Pylades heard the report also. Later, he drew me aside with advice. “I like this man’s quality. Let’s keep him close, and if he does well, make him a captain. You’ll need one.”

  After sending word to Atymnios, I went a step farther, retaining the best man from each lord, under the same strict rules that the Phocians followed: no brawling, thieving, or harassing the servant girls. I needed them to remain focused, and so set the example, taking the night watch, watering my wine, and sending the servant girls indoors. Ah, but what torture it was to have to refrain from sex, though! I had not enjoyed a woman’s embrace for months now, and here were four winsome girls willing to accommodate me.

  Kleitos returned a day later with good news, which he took me aside to deliver. “We can rely on the captain and his two sons to meet us in the appointed place at the right hour.” He glanced aside, as I did, to make doubly certain no one was listening. “There was some trouble on the road,” he admitted. “I was followed.” He held up a hand, indicating I should let him explain. “I recognized the man from before, when he used to watch me up in the hills. What a fool! I lost him by double-backing through the brush, just long enough to get behind him and strangle him. I left the body in a ditch in the high grass sixty paces from the road. It’ll be some time before anyone finds him.”

  “You did well,” I said. Kleitos would sooner have run barefoot across a tangle of thorns than lead an enemy to my door. “Go rest. We can talk more later.”

  I encountered Melita spinning yarn indoors, where she should have been sitting outdoors on the aithousa where it was cooler, and the light much better. Clearly, the attack and its consequences had rattled her. “Forgive me,” I said. “He came to murder me, but he certainly would have robbed you, too, before he left.”

  “I didn’t ask for this trouble.” Her hands shook as hard as her voice as she wound her finished thread around the spindle. “Zeus knows, you’re a guest, but...”

/>   She wanted me gone. I could not blame her. “We’re leaving soon, before summer ends.”

  After supper, as the sun was sinking, I conferred with Kleitos in the rear storeroom where the captive had been held, and which still stank of his urine. “I have another task for you.” I whispered, mouthed my words, used gestures wherever possible, even though Arisbas stood guard against eavesdroppers. “You’re to take three men into the citadel on the day of the harvest festival, and deal with Philaretos. He must be eliminated.”

  Kleitos answered with a sober nod. Philaretos, captain of the citadel guard, had been our mentor and instructor in the ways of war, but that was nothing now. He had chosen the wrong side, he was a traitor, and for that he must die.

  Harvest was swiftly approaching. In three weeks, I would have my vengeance and my throne, or I would be dead. A grim thought to haunt my quiet moments. I grew tense, anticipating the day, and my nights were sleepless. Pylades and I spent long afternoons sitting side by side in the shade. There was nothing more to say that had not already been said, and we were not women to fill the air with empty words.

  Melita hesitated to ask for our assistance harvesting the fig tree. She had changed since the night of the intrusion; she was never rude, though it was clear she was counting the days till we left and freed her and her women from their fears of a second attack. But Nikos and I climbed the tree, anyway, cut loose the fruit with our daggers, and dropped it down onto the blankets the women spread on the ground. Boukolos and Pylades also lent a hand, pruning the branches abutting the house.

  In the evening, the women came out to sit with us on the aithousa, and to share with us soft white cheese and watered wine and new figs dipped in honey. Arkados sang a love song he had learned from an Anatolian slave girl, but though he had a rich and melting voice, and the women smiled at his singing, they did not mingle with us, and averted their gazes, whereas a week ago they had been bolder, more inviting.

  To ease the tension, I tried to engage Melita in conversation. “Has anyone told you that you’re a very handsome woman?”

  She started, not expecting a young nobleman to compliment her, a widow and grandmother, on her looks, but then she became playful. “Are you wooing me?”

  “Ah, I have a lady already, though her father won’t let her marry a man with no inheritance or prospects.” How I wished I were sharing this warm summer evening with Hermione, talking and flirting with her! “And no woman wants an impoverished youth who spends his days loitering about the house with his friends when he ought to be looking for work.” I grinned, winked at her. Melita must have been quite a beauty in her youth, with her chestnut curls and pink cheeks; she was one of those women who aged slowly, gracefully. I would have gone farther with her, too, under different circumstances, but it was a time for killing, not making love. “No, I meant among the local merchants and tradesmen. Is there no one you fancy?”

  “It’s not so bad, being a widow.” Melita glanced away, although she kept her smile. “Men bring trouble with them. It’s in their nature.”

  I caught the subtle barb. “You’re still sore about the trespasser.”

  “I never had a man break in before you came,” she said.

  “It’ll never happen again.”

  Melita sighed. “It better not, young man. You’re involved in a dangerous business. I want nothing to do with it.”

  For a moment, I wondered what she would say to the entire truth, that the son of the High King had, indeed, returned from her exile, and was in her house, and speaking to her.

  Telling her, of course, was out of the question.

  *~*~*~*

  Two weeks later, it was time.

  After seeing to a few final arrangements, we bade our host farewell and headed out, leaving town just before dawn on the second day of the grain harvest. Kleitos and Arkados, leading their separate groups, had already left, departing during the small hours of the morning; my group went last. Late summer’s heat burned away the early coolness, and grew more unbearable the farther we moved inland. Pylades and Boukolos had shaved their beards to conceal their identities. I envied them their hairless faces. My beard scratched interminably, and my hair sweated and itched under the dark cloth I had wound around my head.

  Midmorning came and went. Argos on its high mound appeared to the left, then slowly receded into the distance as we kept going, taking the northward road toward Mycenae. Horse pastures were as common as farms here on the plain, and the air heavy with the mingled scents of sweet grass, horse manure, and dust. Cicadas twittered in the shade of the high grass, flies buzzed above the lazy shimmer masking the road ahead. Women chanted ageless harvest songs in the fields to either side of the road. I saw the flash of sickles, and rising shocks of golden grain.

  At noon, we stopped to rest and refresh ourselves under a spreading oak. We were far enough inland now to have entered Mycenaean dominions. Charvati’s parched flanks hunched upon the northeast horizon, with the royal citadel spread across its lap. Mycenae. A shudder of foreboding passed through me, a sudden chill untempered by the salt sweat stinging my face and the back of my neck.

  “There it is,” Boukolos said.

  Grunting, I tore my gaze from the distant walls, lest my resolve falter. Pylades caught the expression on my face, and nodded encouragement.

  We set out again after an hour’s rest. At length, we found ourselves walking a road lined with dark cypress, which the locals said Atreus had planted to give the people shade as they toiled under their burdens on sweltering days like this one. Farther up ahead, we crossed a bridge of cyclopean masonry spanning the Chavos stream, dry in summer but a raging torrent in the winter. Atreus had built that, too, according to those who crossed with us. Had Father built anything in this valley, apart from his great tomb, or were his monuments to be found in the rubble of the towns he had sacked?

  We traveled until the gloaming hour, when the last lingering bands of scarlet and orange faded in the west, and the moon rose yellow in the darkening east. The air was still warm, busy with insects. Lanterns burned in the fields, illuminating great patches of stubble, and rows of grain yet to be scythed; the workers would continue until hunger and exhaustion and the late hour drove them inside. Mycenae’s walls rose before us, pitch black against a cobalt sky, its ramparts glittering with yet more lanterns; the guards were out in force to protect the harvesters and the sheaves against a sudden raid. Yet the gates stood open, allowing merchants, laborers, and visitors admittance to the lower town, which had come alive in the early evening.

  Arisbas met us in the agora, where vendors did business selling fruit, cool drinks, and pastries, and unattended children played barefoot among the town elders talking business. Grilling fish and herbs, frying onions and garlic, and baking bread added their aromas to the smells of the day’s labor.

  In the midst of our mutual arm clasping and laughter, Arisbas surreptitiously gave me directions to a nearby safe house. “There's an old salt waiting for you there.”

  The old salt was Myrinos, who had captained my father’s own pentekonter during the war. He had come up from Tiryns with his two sons, a steersman who was also a war veteran, and a cart of salted fish. Myrinos was a true son of Poseidon, with the leathery brown sinews, keen eyes, and reserved manner of those the god claimed as his own, yet he found time to reminisce with me about my father. “Had no sea legs,” he said, “and was weak as a babe whenever the god stirred the waters, but he always wore a brave face.”

  We ascended to the coolness of the roof, drank cool water flavored with barley and mint, ate some cheese and fruit from the agora, and, as the town slowly settled into the rhythms of sleep, so did we. Although I was exhausted from the trip, I lay awake deep into the night, staring up at the moon and summer stars, and breathing in the admixture of sweat, stale lamp oil, cooked food, and refuse that was the lower town. Myrinos and his sons snored a few feet away.

  Mycenae. For the first time in seven years, I drank its water, breathed its air, a
te its food, felt its pollution crawling along my skin. Had I sat up and looked toward the mountain, I would have seen the lights of the citadel winking against the blackness. Was Mother awake, mopping her brow with a cool cloth in the sweltering night? Did Aegisthus drink with his retainers and play knucklebones and kottabos in the torchlight along the wide aithousa? They had a little more than two days left to live, and did not even know it.

  Arkados and Kleitos, who had spent the night in two different safe houses, came to consult with me early the next morning. “Tomorrow is the harvest festival,” I told them in a low voice. “Do not let your men drink or sport with women or boys. In the late afternoon, give them their orders, and go in. Kleitos, you have the Lion Gate. Arkados, you have the postern gate. Act quickly, hide the corpses. Don the armor and take your positions. Kill anyone who suspects you.”

  Then I took them out into the courtyard, under the shade of a pomegranate tree, and killed one of two ewes I had sent Myrinos to buy that morning. Arkados and Kleitos quartered the carcass, so the stones underfoot were a mess of blood and viscera. I made them stand with one bare foot upon the earth, the other upon the sacrifice, and made them swear a dreadful oath.

  “Zeus Horkios bear witness as these men swear their loyal service to Orestes Agamemnonides, the trueborn king of Mycenae.” I waited for Arkados and Kleitos to grasp their testicles in one hand, and raise the other, so they could not cross their fingers behind their backs. “Swear that you will lead the men under your command with courage and obedience, that you will slay the men upon the watch and hold the citadel for your rightful king. Do this, and you will prosper, but forswear your oath, and may the brains leak from your ears, and the ears of your women, your children, and your aged parents. May worms eat your vitals. May you die in hunger and thirst and everlasting darkness.”