The Songs of the Kings: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  These thoughts and the return of dread they brought with them so occupied him that he was hardly aware of nearing the shore. Only when they were out of the boat and wading, with Poimenos holding his arm, did his mind clear. They agreed with the boatman by signs that he should return next day when the sun was overhead, and in order to be sure he came Calchas promised payment only then.

  They could see from below the place of the goddess; it was marked by the presence of water, a cluster of close-growing plane trees, the glint through leaves of a thin cascade. They began to climb, following the rocky path, passing through straggling bushes of broom, brown with seedpods. After this, where the water came closer to the surface, there were ferns and two walnut trees, the nuts still green. Bees were busy among the thyme and origan, rifling the tiny flowers, releasing their scent, performing miracles of balance and tenacity as they clambered and clung, endlessly jostled by the wind, which brought scents of the sea and pine resin and summer dust.

  Higher up the spring bubbled out over the flat, mossy stone, rippling the trails of moss like hair in the wind. Below it a pool had formed, clear water under the trees, with cress at the edges. Dragonflies hovered here and gnats rose and fell. Beyond was the dark mouth of the cave. It was a small, separate world of water they were in, set apart from the dry scrub of the hillside, the loud concert of the cicadas and the myriad brittle creatures of drought.

  Close to the entrance was a formation of rock in the shape of a belly and a navel, and as they paused here an old woman came towards them, walking upright but slowly. From the absence of greeting they knew her for the guardian of the shrine, the keeper of the fire. She stood before them and bowed her head but did not speak. They gave her the woven shawl they had brought with them as a gift to the goddess and she took it and stood aside. They entered the mouth of the cave and stood together at the edge of the low wall of stones built round a raised slab for offerings. There was the smell of woodsmoke and they felt a faint heat against their faces from the hearth below the table, where a fire of charcoal was kept alive under its quilt of white ash. The ground at their feet was scattered with cold ash and the bones of animals.

  The old woman lit the lamp that stood on the earth floor inside the entrance. They were able now to see the dark stains of blood on the table, and the votive offerings that lay over the stains: bronze knife blades, the simulacrum of a double-headed ax, a wide-mouthed jar. Beyond this, in the center of the cave, rose the shrouded figure of the goddess, in the shape of a column, streaked with eternal dew.

  The priest felt Poimenos draw closer to him, press against his side, felt the fear transmitted through the boy’s body, helping him to control his own fear, relieving the constriction of his heart. In these moments of silence they heard the slow drip of water from the darkness deep inside the cave, a sound strangely distinct. Calchas prayed in his native Luvian to the goddess, mistress of animals, Mountain Mother, asking her pardon for this intrusion of strangers, her blessing for Poimenos and himself, her help in lighting up his mind with the meaning of the message she had sent them through the man’s throat. Touching the stone of the wall with his forehead, he thought he heard a hiss of breath from deeper inside the cave, sign that he had been heard. They poured libations of wine, using the bronze beaker they had brought with them, and they left this as an offering and came away to the clear space outside.

  From here, from a point just above the pool, they could see through the trees and look back across the water, see the way they had come, see the tilting masts of the ships and the wind-driven smoke of the fires. It was this view of the tormented camp that made Calchas understand. The distinctness of the water drops, the hiss of the goddess’s breath . . . There was no wind in this enclave, the leaves were still, the flight of the gnats untroubled. He should have known: the author of the wind could not be touched by it—the calm was a proof.

  The light was fading, the summer dark would fall quickly. He sent Poimenos to gather dry sticks. When the boy returned with an armful of kindling, he went and took some fire from the hearth, a small ember from under the ash, holding it between two twigs. He built a small pyramid of twigs around it and blew till the twigs took fire. Poimenos went again for thicker pieces. When he returned the priest told him to sit farther off and he obeyed, though Calchas knew he was afraid and would have liked the comfort of nearness.

  He waited till the fire had a red heart, then raked it over. When the flames had died he took his bag of hemp seed and crushed bay leaf and cast a handful over the embers and sat with his face close above, covering his head with a piece of silk woven with gold stars, which accompanied all his travels, a gift to him from a merchant of Byblos whose future wealth he had foretold, though without staying long enough to see how things turned out. The heavy folds of the cloth hung down on either side, closing off the air. Eyes fixed on the pattern of the embers, he breathed in the scented fumes, striving to empty his mind of all that might obstruct.

  Three handfuls he gave to the embers, feeling the sweat run on his face from the heat of the fire and the deep breathing in that hunched position. Then there was heat no more, he was on the banks of the Maeander, in the land of his birth. The water was clear, he saw the pale shapes of the stones in the streambed as he had seen them in childhood, and the swirls and eddies where the current fretted, and it was autumn because the surface was suddenly covered with bronze-colored leaves and these were borne away swiftly and they trembled and quivered with light, they were not leaves but the bodies of men in armor, it was the river of blood he had glimpsed at Delphi before his mind clouded, but now the water and the drowned warriors were all one color of bronze, Greeks and Trojans mingled together in it, drained of blood, limbs and weapons tumbled helplessly together in the tide of metal that was bearing them away into the far distance, where the stream ran silver and was quite empty.

  It was this emptiness that brought fear. He cried out and flung the cloth from his head and tried to move back from the fire, but his limbs would not obey, they shone like bronze, like silver. He felt hands at his back and spoke some words without knowing what they were. Then nausea rose in his throat and he turned away from the hands and choked up the drained soldiers and the bronze blood; and in the coldness and loneliness after the vomiting no slightest sign or mark of favor came to him from anywhere in this enclave devoted to the Mother.

  4.

  The departure of Calchas and Poimenos was witnessed by one of Chasimenos’s people and reported back to him at once. Little went unnoticed now in this camp, where rumors were rife and spies multiplied by the hour. It was impossible to meet and talk without this becoming known to the chiefs, especially the more powerful among them. However, it was one of the several advantages of association with Chasimenos—and all were well known to the wily Odysseus—that the scribe enjoyed Agamemnon’s trust, was in fact Agamemnon’s chief informer, the one on whom the King most relied. It was Chasimenos who had told him of that intimate talk between Calchas and Ajax of Salamis before the meeting. In this Chasimenos did no more than continue one of his main duties at Mycenae, which was to keep tabs on everything that went on in the palace. Thus, whatever he did now, and wherever he went, it was assumed to be in the King’s interest; and indeed it was in this light that the scribe himself regarded it. No one reported on Chasimenos—not to Agamemnon at least. The suspicions of others did not matter. The camp was a hive of suspicions anyway, as Odysseus pointed out later that day, when the two were discussing Calchas and the reasons he might have for going across the water.

  “No need to worry about Calchas,” Odysseus said. The other was worried, he knew that. “Calchas is a damp squib.”

  “But he must have some purpose, some plan, in going over there. Otherwise, he wouldn’t absent himself at such a crucial time.” Chasimenos was a dedicated planner himself, and long years in the palace bureaucracy had refined this talent.

  “He doesn’t think like that.” Odysseus glanced at the other’s face, which was unpleasing
with its indoor pallor and unsteady eyes—he was tracking insect flight paths again. Chasimenos saw everything in his own terms, he had no insight into honest minds. It was a limitation. “He doesn’t think politically. He’s an intellectual, he spends his time trying to establish what things mean, whereas you and I know that meaning jumps this way and that according to circumstances. Calchas is one who will always be surprised by events.” It was neat, it was pleasurable, to be prophesying the doom of a prophet. “First surprised, then overwhelmed,” he said.

  Chasimenos shook his head slightly, as if the fly had come too close. “I have been making inquiries,” he said. “There is a cave shrine to the Mountain Mother there, on the other side. She whom we know as Artemis. They say it has always been there. The boatman was sent back, so it seems likely Calchas intends to stay overnight.”

  “He will have gone to consult the goddess. Let’s hope she will have words for him.”

  Chasimenos stared. “Why should that be a thing to hope for?”

  “My dear Chasimenos, because it will confuse him further. And the more confused he is, the more he will complicate the matter, and the more he complicates the matter, the less dangerous he will be as counselor. Agamemnon is in deep trouble, he will need simple words, he will not welcome subtleties.”

  “Calchas is close to the King, he has established himself as an authority, his words are believed.”

  “That is true of course, he has had some lucky hits. That is why he constitutes a threat. Normally, what should we do in such a case? We would try to discredit him, sow doubts about him in the King’s mind, reduce his influence, kill his voice, deaden his tongue, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Delegitimize.”

  “Delegitimize him, brilliant. You have a first-rate vocabulary, Chasimenos, you are seldom at a loss for a word. But you should spend more time on the study of character. You don’t mind me saying that, do you? We are both past our first youth and we can speak frankly together, pooling our experience in a spirit of friendship and trust. We don’t need to delegitimize Calchas, because Calchas will delegitimize himself.”

  “How?”

  “Imagine his situation. He is a foreigner, an outsider, totally dependent on the King’s favor. He is not very brave. I saw his face when that madman was gulping out the stuff about the young of the hare. He took it seriously, in some sense he believed it. Now he goes to the shrine of Artemis. His god as worshiped in the lands of the Hatti is a hermaphrodite god. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, the slaves we buy in the markets of Miletus sometimes have knowledge of this god.” Chasimenos’s mouth, normally thin enough, had drawn even thinner. “We have called him Apollo,” he said.

  “I very much doubt whether Calchas does. Now, in the schools of Karkemish or Hattusas no doubt he could debate the matter brilliantly, the blending of the male and the female natures, balance and harmony, but this is not a debating chamber, it is a military camp with a leader at a crisis in his fortunes. Calchas will be driven to complicate things, and at the same time he will be afraid of losing his privileged position. As I say, he is an intellectual, and the fate of the intellectual awaits him, powerless to act, unable to make himself understood, lost in useless speculation, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Paralysis.”

  “Paralysis, brilliant.”

  Chasimenos’s face, relieved for the moment from anxiety, was smooth, with only the faintest of lines in it, the face of a worn child who had never known childhood. “Good thing we have Croton on our side,” he said. “No danger of paralysis there.”

  5.

  Later, when Chasimenos had left, it occurred to Odysseus to go and check up on the Singer, in whom he had small trust. His way led him past the Ajaxes, Larger and Lesser, who were standing side by side shouting at a small group of men that had gathered and at each other.

  Odysseus paused—to watch rather than to listen. He did not expect to hear much of interest but the pair made an amazing spectacle standing there together, the one red-faced and gigantic, always on the brink of violent wrath, the other dwarflike, bowlegged, sad-looking and more or less permanently randy—there was generally a tumescent bulge discernible below the stuff of his kilt.

  “Suppose you are the winner of the footrace,” Ajax the Larger was bellowing. “That is to say, one of the footraces . . .” He floundered here, staring furiously before him, confounded by the bothersome intrusion of detail.

  Ajax the Lesser came to the rescue. “There are three footraces of different distances. The hundred paces, the five hundred paces and the thousand paces. My friend here is asking you to imagine that you have won one of them.”

  “No, first there are the heats.” Ajax the Larger glared at his partner. “Good grief,” he shouted, “you are forgetting the heats. Each of these three footraces will have a certain number of heats, and each heat . . . The winner of each heat goes on to the next heat . . .”

  “No he fucking doesn’t. Everyone is in just one heat and the winners of the heats—”

  “I’ve told him before about this bad language. The winners of the heats get five points for winning the heat and the winner of the final will get a total of fifteen points, no, wait a minute . . .”

  “You are getting it all fucked up again.” Ajax the Lesser stamped a small foot in exasperation. “The overall winner will get twenty points. Ten for getting to the final and ten for winning it.”

  “That’s what I was going to say,” shouted Ajax the Larger at the top of his voice. “Step forward, anyone who is interested in training for these events. There will also be wrestling, jumping, throwing the javelin, weight lifting. Any of you men listening now could be a winner. Think of the credit you will bring to your town, returning after the war is over with twenty points notched up.”

  “Or thirty, or fifty. Think of the success you will have with the ladies. Your fame will go before you. They will line the streets to give you a hero’s welcome.”

  Here the little man, thinking to liven up the audience a bit, did some steps of a jig and made obscene thrusting motions with his pelvis. He was quick on his feet and though lacking in stature very strong in the arms—he always received mention in the Songs when the list of notable rapists was recited. “The man with the fifty-point power pack,” he shouted.

  Ajax the Larger had gone a deeper shade of red. “I’ve told him I don’t like that dirty talk,” he yelled. “I was brought up to respect women. Step forward, men, don’t be shy.”

  No one in the audience made any move in the forward direction, though several, seeing that the entertainment was drawing to a close and some contribution from them expected, began to drift away. Odysseus was about to move on too when he saw a staring fixity descend on Ajax the Larger’s face, and knew that the huge fellow was in the painful grip of an idea.

  “Wait! Don’t go away! Ye gods, I’ve got it!”

  He held up a mighty arm. “Prizes!” he shouted. “Not points, prizes. Points and prizes. I and my small friend here will offer prizes to the winners, handsome prizes.”

  Before turning away, Odysseus had time to notice from the little man’s expression that this joint offer had not been welcome to him. Dissimilar as the two were in every other way, they were alike in their extreme stinginess. All the same, as he proceeded on his way, he wondered what the prizes might be. Both the Ajaxes had come back from raiding in Mysia loaded with booty. He was chronically hard up himself and the crew of his one ship were in arrears of pay. In fact, they had not been paid at all. This poverty was galling to him, aware as he was of outstanding abilities. Few could match him in fluency of speech and readiness of wit, in the subtle stratagems of deceit. He loved falsehood for its own sake, saw beauty in it. But these gifts had not resulted so far in the amassing of wealth or the acquisition of power. And he was approaching middle age, with a wife and son at home.

  This Trojan campaign would change everything of course. From lordship of a few barren acres to an em
pire in the lands of gold, the fertile East. For the moment his only possession of value was the great bow that his friend Iphitus of Oechalia had given him when he was only eighteen. It had belonged to Iphitus’s father, the famous archer Eurytus, and Odysseus valued it so highly that he had not wanted to risk its loss by bringing it with him, but had left it at home in a safe place. While still a very young man and eager to get the best product available on the market, he had traveled all the way to the mountains of Thesprotia, braving many dangers, to get arrow poison from Ilus, grandson of the noted poison maker Medea, heir to all her expertise. Anyone who was anyone got his arrow poison from Ilus, it was quite simply the best. It came in elegant bags with silk strings at the neck and Ilus’s trademark woven on the side, instantly recognizable everywhere. But by the time he got there Ilus had gone mad and spent his days muttering in a corner, possessed by dread of the gods’ disapproval. He had refused to sell any poison, on the grounds that the gods might disapprove. Odysseus had had to be content with an inferior poison from the nearby island of Taphos. Yet another failure, he thought, remembering how he had minded at the time. But Troy would change all that. Troy would make up for everything . . . He thought he could probably win the wrestling, if they were planning to have that as one of the events. He was broad at the shoulder and well knit, a good build for wrestling. It suited his temperament too. There were stronger men in the camp, but he knew how to use the strength and weight of an opponent to defeat and disable him. And a man well oiled, who knew the holds, could slip out of any grasp.