Warriors in Bronze (19 page)

The sun blazed down in fury, dust clouds scarved the
column and gritted your teeth and nettled your skin. I sweated
like a bullock beneath my newly-wrought bronze; Menelaus,
lightly armoured, fluttered his whip and smirked. 'A Com­panion has advantages you'd never suspect in peacetime! I
hope, in the coming battle, you'll order your course in a way
that'll win me my greaves! Where do you think we'll find
Hyllus and his friends?'

'The Lady and, I presume, Eurystheus knows.' I wiped a
dribble of muddy sweat from my chin. 'I'm told we halt at
Nemea tonight and Corinth late tomorrow. Slow progress.
Atreus, herding the Heraclids, did Mycenae to the Isthmus in a
day!'

'So I heard.' Menelaus reviewed the noisy rabble rambling
through dancing dust. 'We could do with a modicum of disci­pline and order. A pity he isn't here.'

Menelaus spoke more truly than he knew.

After a restless night in the open at Nemea - the palace so
small it could house only the king and his sons - the Host
absorbed the Nemean levy (five chariots and fifty spears) and
followed a mountainous road that led to Corinth. The slender
sinuous track which alternately climbed and fell as the bones
of the hills dictated played havoc with the column's brittle
cohesion. Wagons toppled down bluffs, lost wheels and blocked
the way. The vanguard entered Corinth's gates in early after­noon; the last of the stragglers plodded in by starlight. Spies from Attica reported the enemy at Eleusis, the strength
estimated at less than a thousand all arms: the Heraclid band,
detachments from Locris and Athens, a Theban contingent and
various odds and ends. Eurystheus called leaders to a council in
the Hall. There followed a heated discussion under the flicker­ing light of torches amid the debris of a meal, servants clearing
tables, a bard crouched in a corner and crooning to himself.
Gelanor of Asine and Alcmaeon of Midea advised that the Host
remain at Corinth and await the Heraclids' onset, thus fighting
on ground of our choosing with a firm base at our backs. The
king's eldest son Perimedes, supported by Tiryns' captains,
advocated seizing the initiative by an advance across the Isth­mus to catch the foe unbalanced on the Eleusinian Plain.
Eurystheus, normally the most cautious of men, uncharacter­istically resolved on the latter course. (I am sure his greed for
belated glory nurtured a rash decision.) The Host, he stated,
would march at dawn to Megara, encamp there for the night
and advance to battle the following day. He declined to take
the Corinthian levy - which proved a fortunate judgment.

We marched before sun-up and straggled along the Isthmus
track, the most horrible road in Achaea. On one side a preci­pice sheers to the sea, on the other are vertical cliffs. The road
itself gives a goat to think. At a place called Sciron's Rocks the
mountainside in ages past had fallen into the sea, the track
weaves through jag-toothed boulders big as houses. Charioteers
dismounted and warily led their horses. (The pass is named
after a bandit chief whose band of rogues and outlaws, years
before, lived in the crags and murdered solitary travellers; until
a Corinthian warband sent by Eurystheus wiped them out.
Afterwards, happily ignoring dates - the man was a babe at the
time - Athens fostered a tale that Theseus killed Sciron. A
typical Athenian invention to collect some undeserved credit -
but The Lady knows they need every scrap they can filch.)

The Host emerged from Sciron's Rocks in considerable dis­order. Alcmaeon exhorted the king to halt for a while and
allow the column to close. Eurystheus refused; incandescent
sunlight rebounded from the rocks and enclosed his ageing
body in a heat like an over-stoked oven. Megara beckoned, half
a day's journey ahead. The troops rambled on, sometimes
twenty bowshots separating chariots.

Hillsides retreated on either hand, the Isthmus road de­bouched on the Megaran Plain, a featureless scrub-blotched flat-
land patched by cultivated strips and isolated farmsteads.
Menelaus sprung his horses for the first time since Mycenae.
'Slow down,' I told him. 'Give our retinue a chance!' I scru­tinized my sweating spearmen and troupe of slaves and carts -
one missing over a cliff at Sciron's Rocks - the scattered clumps
in rear, each trawling its private dust cloud. We closed on
Eurystheus' bodyguard marching in the van.

Dust plumes feathered the plain in front, came near and re­solved into galloping scouts who reined in a spurt of pebbles
and gestured towards the sun-hazed flats. Eurystheus halted
abruptly, Heroes jostled around him.

'Enemy in sight!'

Menelaus hauled on the bits, the chariot rocked to a stand­still. He mopped his brow and said, 'Blasted scouts can't tell a
spearman from a swineherd. Ruddy nonsense - the Heraclids
were reported last night at Eleusis, a day's march further
on!'

Though Eurystheus likewise doubted the scouts' unlikely
news his innate prudence directed precautions. He issued hur­ried orders: Heroes wheeled about and galloped to hasten lag­gards. All the chariots present - roughly half the total - formed
a ragged line, each with attendant spearmen tramping behind.
Baggage detachments were left where they stood, forlorn blobs
on the tawny plain.

I dubiously watched a scrambling deployment, and told
Menelaus to station the car on a flank. 'There'll be horrible
collisions when this mob starts to move - let's keep clear as
long as we can!' The Host - such as had made their ground -
halted in line of battle and waited for the dawdlers to arrive.

'I hope the king won't keep us extended all the way to
Megara,' Menelaus observed. 'Damned difficult driving in thorn-
scrub.'

I shaded my eyes and stared into the haze. A shimmering
curtain of dust banded the horizon. The sun flicked slivers of
light on the mist like gold-specks scattered in sand.

'Scrub or no scrub, brother, your driving is going to be tested.
The Heraclids have stolen a march and sprung a surprise.
We're only half assembled, and they're closing on us fast!'

Commanders had seen the enemy; orders and counter-orders
rattled along the line. Indecision and argument eddied like
leaves on a flooded stream. The discussion continued far too
long: an elderly palace Hero solemnly quoted encounters from
wars Electyron waged. The majority wanted to stay where they
were till the Host was fully mustered; young hot-headed
Heroes advised an instant attack. Gelanor of Asine - a most
impetuous youth - ordered his chariot forward, his spears
obediently followed. Others copied his example, chariots
bowled from the ranks. Eurystheus shouted commands that
were drowned in the crunch of wheels, struck hand to brow
despairingly and pointed his spear to the sky. Like a wavering
breaker spent on shoals the battle-line advanced.

'Incline to the left,' I told Menelaus. 'Keep well on the flank
if you can.'

I settled my helmet firmly, tested the chinstrap, fronted
shield and hefted the ten-foot spear, scrubbed a sweaty palm on
the warm dry figwood rail. From a throat that was suddenly
dry as a stone I instructed the spearmen to close on the
chariot's tail.

A wheel lurched over a boulder, Menelaus cursed. I re­covered balance and planted my feet on the plaited leather
floor, screwed eyes against the sun-glare. I distinguished garish
helmet plumes, and silvery harness-trappings; a line of canter­ing chariots fronted a rolling dust cloud.

The enemy were nearer than I'd thought.

It is hard to recall impressions on the threshold of your first
big battle. From epics sung by bards I cherished vague concep­tions of chariots charging in rank, thundering hooves and sing­ing wheels, warriors bellowing war-cries and maddened horses
neighing, an ear-splitting clash when they met. Then a furious,
swirling mellay till one or the other broke, a galloping pursuit
and killing, killing, killing.

It was not like that in the slightest.

Companions curbed their horses for fear of outstripping the
spearmen running behind. The line dissolved in fragments be­fore it had gone a bowshot; Heroes examined the enemy ranks
for details of horses and mail, forms and faces - maybe seeking
personal foes in order to settle scores, or fighters famously
formidable to be avoided at any cost - and directed their
drivers accordingly. Chariots swerved, criss-crossed, scraped
hub against hub in flurries of violent language. Panting troops
of spearmen followed the erratic tracks.

The leading cars clashed wheel to wheel, spears lifted,
hovered and plunged.

The combatants dispersed in individual duels. Chariot circled
chariot, Heroes hacked and stabbed, spearmen battled spear­men - holding the ring, as it were, while their principals fought
it out. Companions adopted traditional tactics and manoeuvred
to take opponents in the rear where spears met shieldless backs;
their opposite numbers wrenched on bits to counteract the
moves. Vehicles swirled in circles like puppies chasing their
tails. Dust-towers spiralled from every fight and mingled in a
canopy. Triumphant yells and death-shrieks resounded from
the murk.

Whatever I expected, it was certainly not this.

Menelaus edged far to the wing and overlapped the Heraclid
line. No immediate enemy presented himself in front. I ordered
my brother to halt, and tried calmly to assess the scene. King
Eurystheus gave battle with barely half his troops, and kept no
reserve in hand - an elementary error Atreus had often con­demned. The individual duels ensured a protracted struggle. A
very untidy battle, the outcome most uncertain. Prudent to
hold my hand and see how affairs turned out.

A contest an arrow-shot distant came to a gory end. A
Mycenaean warrior - I recognized Gelanor's piebald horses -
pierced his adversary's guard and skewered him through the
buttock where cuirass jointed brazen skirt. The spearhead
spitted bowels and bladder; the Heraclid lurched from the
chariot and his armour clanged around him. His Companion
dropped the reins and ran; the dead man's spearmen sheltered
his flight and then, their Hero killed, fled like hunted deer.
Gelanor and his retinue stripped the corpse's armour, piled it in
the enemy car and trotted with his prizes briskly from the
battlefield. Similar little scenes were everywhere repeated. Victors in the
duels on either side quickly collected booty while spearmen
stood on guard. Triumphant loot-laden Heroes drove from the
conflict in both directions; the scattered personal tussles grew
noticeably fewer. Did the result, I wondered, depend on the
ultimate duel? - or on which side won the heaviest load of
plunder ? Only round Eurystheus, conspicuous in gilded
armour, did organized fighting continue: he and his sons, a
compact brand, battled a cloud of chariots.