Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon (19 page)

DUST ROSE FROM THE plain in swirling clouds, through which the shapes of the maneuvering chariots appeared and disappeared like images in a dream. The walls of Mykenae, three times the height of a tall man, topped a hillside that already loomed above the sloping plain. From here you could see all the way to the hills that sheltered Argos, which was no doubt why Persaios had chosen it for the site of his citadel.

The area where the chariots were training was closer, just beyond the road that carried the trade through the mountains from Korinthos down to Tiryns by the sea. From his place near the king, Velantos squinted to see their movements, memory imaging the braces and hinges, buckles and bits and all the other hardware that passed through his workshop. When the warriors boasted over their wine in the hall, it had always amused him to reflect that no amount of courage could save a man from being dumped in the dust if he lost a wheel.

“Look at them go!” King Tisamenos leaned over the wall. “We had so much rain this winter, the pastures are still green, and the horses are fat and feisty. They can run rings around any enemy!” He straightened, laughing, a tall young man with wildly curling black hair.

“How can you tell?” Velantos softened the comment with a laugh. “Dust clouds are all I can see—” Folk sometimes wondered how he could stand the heat and smoke of the smithy, but the dust of a battlefield was thicker. And he could strip to his loincloth to do his work while the chariot fighters sweltered in leather coats sewn with plates of bronze.

“Ah, but there are patterns in that dust,” observed the Master of Chariots, “that the experienced eye can see . . .”

That puts me in my place,
the smith thought wryly. The night before they had sat late in council, and the warrior had clearly wondered what Velantos was doing there, much less why the king paid him any attention. It had ended with a bland assurance that Mykenae could not be taken. Tisamenos promised to call for men and supplies to withstand a siege, but it was clear that he did not expect to need them.
To each man his craft,
Velantos thought then.
I can tell when to put the bronze in the fire by looking at the color of the coals, where you would only know not to put in your hand.

“If they send chariots, your men will surely prevail. But they won’t. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” muttered the man from Korinthos as if he didn’t care whether anyone heard him. Thersander was his name. Certainly the king did not seem to have been listening so far.

“Tell
me
—” said Velantos, taking his arm. “And since neither of us seems to be wanted here, perhaps we could go somewhere cooler to talk.”

They made their way along the wall, almost as wide in places as it was tall. The chariots might fail, but when Tisamenos said that Mykenae could not be taken, Velantos believed him. No human force could dislodge those mighty stones. Just past the grave circle from which the spirits of the mighty dead continued to watch over their descendants, a stair led down to the granary.

The guards at the Lion Gate saluted as Velantos passed and Thersander lifted an eyebrow.

“My apologies, Prince—I had understood you were a bronze smith serving the court at Tiryns.”

“Can I not be both?” Velantos decided not to go into the details of his parentage. “In my land, the crafting of bronze is one of the royal Mysteries, and the kings are required to know something of its lore. It is tradition for at least one son in each generation to become a master, and I was the one whom Potnia Athana called.”

“And you are a master of the craft?” the other man asked as they climbed the road, taking the left-hand way that led to the workshops and other buildings on the other side of the palace, where guests were lodged whose standing did not require they be given beds in the xenonas near the megaron.

“They call me so,” Velantos said curtly. It still felt like hubris, to claim mastery when he knew he had so much to learn. “And what is your skill, man of Korinthos, beyond the bringing of news that no one wants to hear?”

That made the messenger laugh. “My father trades in wine and often sends me abroad. I am only a middling hand with a spear, but I have seen a great deal. My kings thought that I might be able to explain what is happening in words that King Tisamenos would understand. They do not expect you to help us, but even if we fall to these barbarians, our people will not be entirely without leadership if the heir of Agamemnon survives.”

That made Velantos stare. The Danaans had not been able to agree on the price of olive oil, much less obedience to an Overking, since Agamemnon led the hosts to Troia.

“Are they really barbarians?” he asked as they passed into the shade of the colonnade that surrounded the courtyard. “I had heard they call themselves the Eraklidae—the Children of Erakles, and speak some northern dialect of our tongue.”

Thersander shrugged. “Who knows?” He eased down on one of the benches with a sigh. “By all accounts, Erakles was a bull who sired as many sons as Diwaz Himself. It was only his legitimate children by Deianeira who took refuge in Athina. Erakles may be a god now, but he made a lot of enemies while he was a man.”

Velantos twitched, hearing an echo of Queen Naxomene’s words.

“I suppose his get took after him. Tiryns was not the only city where his offspring were not welcome. So they went north—some of them, anyway—to the lands where men are as lawless as they are,” Thersander went on.

“Even if they were all as potent as Erakles himself, they could not have bred the hordes you’re speaking of.” Velantos took the other end of the bench and signaled to a passing servant for wine.

“Tell
them
! Don’t you see? This man Aletes who is attacking Korinthos says he’s a grandson of Thestalos son of Erakles. Other cities have been attacked by Shardana from some island to the west of here, or men of the north beyond Olympos. It doesn’t matter who they really are—they have convinced themselves that they are something more than greedy barbarians out for loot—these freebooters have a
story
! They are the Children of Erakles, and they have returned!”

“Like our grandfathers, when they went to Troia . . .” Velantos said slowly. “They swore they went to avenge the honor of Menelaos and recover Helena.”

Thersander nodded. “But they looted and burned the city all the same.”

But they were Danaans,
thought Velantos.
If our warriors could take Troia, so far from home, how much stronger we will be when we are defending our own land!
“They haven’t burned Korinthos—” he said aloud.

“Not yet. I got out just before they laid siege to the citadel. The city below could not be defended, and most of the people have fled. But the akropolis has a good spring, and a lot of stored grain. King Doridas thinks that disease and boredom will make Aletes give up before hunger forces us to give in. King Hyanthidas is less hopeful, but then he was always less bold than his brother.” He sighed. “The thing that your king does not seem to understand is that when they came marching up to the city, we sent out our chariots to destroy them, and they defeated us.”

“They came marching. . . . They were on foot, then.” Velantos frowned. “Every army has some foot soldiers to skirmish in rough country and clean up after the chariots, but how could they get close enough to do massed chariots any harm?”

“They’ve learned a new way of fighting,” Thersander said solemnly. “Even if we survive, we will never make war in the same way again.”

“What do you mean? No warrior on foot can stand against a chariot . . .”

“Separately, that’s so. The runners that go out with our chariots are there as backup, to finish off enemy wounded or help get our wounded to safety. Caught in the open, they can be run down. But Aletes’ men fight in units. Their round shields are big enough to fend off arrows, and one of their heavy javelins can bring down a horse. Then they charge in and hamstring the others with one slash of the sword.”

“I don’t understand—” His brothers carried long swords when they rode in their chariots, but they were meant for thrusting, and rarely used. A disciplined body of chariotry mowed down their foes with arrows, and only the occasional skirmisher got close enough to require fending off with the long spear.

Thersander got to his feet as if he had reached some decision. “I’ll show you. I think that
you
may be able to understand—” The Korinthian man made his way down the colonnade and disappeared. When he returned, he was carrying a long bundle.

“This is what they use—” Laying it on the bench he turned back the leather wrappings to reveal a sword. But it was like no sword that Velantos had ever seen. As long as a rapier, the blade swelled gently from the tip before curving in again, and the edges on both sides were wickedly honed. The smith reached out a tentative hand, let one finger drift along the smooth surface. The hilt was of bone, held by a netting of gold wire.

“The work is good . . .” he said slowly.

Thersander nodded. “Can you make one of these?”

Velantos grasped the hilt and got to his feet, testing the weight of it, the way it balanced in his hand. In a rapier he would have called it point-heavy, but the blade swung easily, as the head of a serpent swings in search of prey.
It hungers for the blood of men . . .
he thought, but surely that was a good sign in a blade.

“With this as my model, I think so. In time.”

Thersander responded with an abrupt bark of laughter. “All I can do is give you the sword. Only the gods can give you time.”

NINE

F
or a while, it seemed that the gods had heard Velantos’ prayer. The bare, bright days of the southern summer faded into fall, the ripe olives gave up their oil, and the winepresses ran red with new wine. The winter wheat was sown, and soon the rains, more abundant this year than ever, brought up the first sprouts in the fields and living green covered the hills. Despite the rumors of war, men looked forward to a good year.

As the grain grew in the fields, the pile of weapons grew in Velantos’ forge. Copying his sample, the smith had carved a blade of wood to make the first mold. But not well enough, for though the blade looked like the model, the balance was awkward. It took Velantos several weeks of trial and error to create a weapon that felt right in the hand. By then it was becoming clear that it would take a very long time to make enough swords for all of Tiryns’ warriors, and supplies of bronze were running low.

Word came that Korinthos had fallen, but the enemy seemed to have settled down to enjoy their conquest. With Mykenae standing in the way of any further push, few in Tiryns were losing much sleep over the danger. Of all Velantos’ brothers, only Aiaison seemed to pay much attention to his warnings. Sometimes Velantos thought the war leader was only humoring him, but Aiaison did take the first leaf-shaped sword that came close to meeting Velantos’ specifications, and began drilling his men in close-order fighting with sword and the new round shield.

So it went as storms lashed the citadel day after dismal day. In the summer, the land was filled with light, but when winter’s clouds closed in they felt cut off from the world. It mattered less in the smithy, but not even the heat of the hearth could cheer the smith when he cracked the clay from his latest effort and found that several flecks of charcoal had gotten into the mold.

He glared balefully at the bronze, then gripped the flawed blade and broke it across his knee. In the past months Woodpecker, hovering now in the doorway, had learned a great deal about smithcraft, including when to get out of his master’s way. But this time the rage that the boy clearly expected did not come. It was too dark, too cold, too impossible a task. The metal clanged as Velantos tossed the pieces on the scrap pile and sank down on a bench, his head in his hands.

A cold breath of wind filtered in around the stout timbers of the door, waking the coals to sudden life and chasing shadows across the familiar shapes of the smithy. The painted lips of the clay image seemed to curve in an enigmatic smile. Velantos’ gaze moved from hearth to bellows, passed unseeing across the smooth granite of the anvil and the small broom they used to brush away the particles struck off by the graduated hammers of stone and bronze. Fire tongs, sharpening stones, bronze swages, the heavy clay vessel of water, each in its place, and every one of them useless, it seemed to him now.

After a few moments, Woodpecker picked up the pitcher that had been keeping warm next to the hearth, poured some wine into a kylix and brought it to him. Velantos stared into the dark surface, cradling the shallow bowl, but saw only his own distorted reflection. He sighed, lifted it by the arching handles, and let the wine slide down his throat. The heat had intensified the flavor so that he could not tell if the wine had been watered. Scent and taste were for a moment overwhelming. He drank deeply. It hardly mattered if he got as drunk as a northern barbarian. He would get no more work done today.