Warriors in Bronze (6 page)

'But... Plisthenes,' I stammered. 'Why have you ...'

'Shut your mouth, and listen. When I was sixteen years old I
married a woman called Cleola, who bore me Plisthenes and
died before she saw him. I brought him up - as I've brought
you up - and taught him all the elements of statesmanship and
war. He was tall and strong, radiantly handsome and, unlike
your typical Hero, extremely intelligent. He was born to be
king - or so I decided. Even Thyestes liked him, and made him
something of a protege.'

A chariot rolled past on its way to the gate. Atreus absently
acknowledged the Companion's salute.

'I looked round to find him a suitable wife, and settled on a
daughter of the Cretan royal House: Aerope, Catreus' child. I
brought her back to Plisthenes, and she bore him you, Menelaus and that girl - what's her name ? - Anaxibia. Then I let
Plisthenes go with Hercules to Thrace to buy horses for Eurys­theus. It seemed a harmless expedition - but I hadn't allowed
for Hercules. Rather than disgorge the ox-hides and bronze the
king had provided for payment he decided instead to raid the
herds, swooped with his ruffians and stole what he could and
fled. Not fast enough - a warband overtook him. Hercules won
the fight that followed and escaped unscathed.'

Atreus paused and bit his lip. 'Plisthenes was not so lucky.
He returned as you saw him, grievously wounded, the wits
bashed out of his head. The years I spent in teaching him were
wasted.'

'Is he quite ... mad?'

'No. Plisthenes has lucid moments when he's apparently sane
as you or I. He has become entirely biddable, and will obey to
the letter any command you give him.'Atreus levered his shoulders from the wall, put a hand
beneath my chin and glared into my eyes. 'Get this into your
head, Agamemnon : I intend one day to rule Mycenae!'

'But,' I gulped, 'you ... we ... are not of the reigning House.
King Eurystheus has five sons. How can —'

'You' re damnably obtuse today, young man! Wake your
ideas up! Don't you see? Backed by the Host and influential
nobles I shall seize the reins of power when Eurystheus dies,
banish his sons
-
I may have to kill them - and rule in his
stead. There'll be a dynastic upheaval: except for the sons and
that villain Hercules - who doesn't count - Eurystheus is
Perseus' last descendant. An alien ruler will take the throne, a
man of Pelops' line. To make the usurper acceptable his suc­cessor - a suitable heir - must be assured.'

'And Plis ... my father is —'

'An imbecile who had to be hidden from the sight and
memory of man. Thyestes was still fond of him and pitied his
condition. I persuaded my brother to accept him in his house­hold; and then re-cast my ideas. My obvious successor was one
of my grandsons, either you or Menelaus, boys just out of
infancy. I kept an eye on you both, and made my choice.

'You
are that heir, Agamemnon!'

I held my head in my hands. An ant crawled over my
sandalled foot, and bit; I hardly noticed the sting. 'And the
centrepiece,' I said, 'of a horrible and dishonourable design.'

'You're talking nonsense! Scrub these stupid scruples from
your mind! Any expedient, any ruse, every crime in the
catalogue justifies the enterprise of kings!'

'And you propose to wed my mother. Why? I don't under­stand. ...'

'It looks better,' said Atreus patiently, 'if a man is married to
the woman who has borne his heir. Besides, whatever you or
anyone else may think, I'm very fond of Aerope.'

Atreus stood, and patted my cheek. The grim expression
faded from his face. He smiled, and said, 'The shock has
numbed your brain; you simply aren't thinking straight. I shall
send you from Mycenae, and give you time to recover.'

briskly
and efficiently Atreus organized the arrangements.
He bent the rules a little and obtained the king's permission to
grant Heroic status to Diores. A Companion, strictly speaking,
cannot become a Hero until he has killed his man in battle:
always a difficult feat because unless a charge is broken and he
has to fight on foot a chariot driver seldom meets a foeman
blade to blade. Although Diores had been a Companion for
several years - he drove for a Hero who held an estate near
Argos - he had not yet won his greaves.

The Marshal also persuaded Eurystheus to grant Diores
Rhipe, an out-of-the-way demesne in the foothills which owed
an annual tribute of three oxen, thirty sheep and a jar of olive
oil. When the king called a levy of arms the holder had to
provide three spearmen, a scout, his Companion and himself
both fully armed and armoured.

The reason for so paltry a tribute lay in the manor's remote­ness : a factor of little account in olden days before the Goat-
men started seriously encroaching. Now they regularly deci­mated Rhipe's flocks. Eurystheus, and King Sthenelus before
him, sent warbands to comb the area: after every expedition
the troubles stopped for a while and then recurred. The Hero
last holding Rhipe had begged the king for a demesne in easier
reach of Tiryns or Mycenae. He was not alone; the majority of
outlying estates suffered similar depredations.

The king granted Rhipe to Diores with injunctions to restore
the farms and make it pay. Being a reasonable man he recog­nized the dangers and drawbacks and, because the holding had
been abandoned for several years, provided breeding stock and
seed com, twenty sturdy freemen and a band of male and
female slaves. With an eye to my safety Atreus added from his
retinue a half-dozen seasoned spearmen who normally worked
on his lands. He also gave me some personal slaves and, un­usually, a Scribe: a youthful, serious fellow named Gelon.
'He'll keep Rhipe's accounts,' the Marshal said, 'and teach you
the economics of husbandry. Gelon's a clever young man; if
you listen to him carefully you may learn a good deal more.'

I took my concubine Clymene. About a year before I had
begun to experience the usual sexual urges. Lightly-clad slave
girls serving in the Hall or encountered in palace corridors
excited fervid pricklings which resulted, on occasion, in hur­ried secret gropings and fumblings in corners. Someone must
have reported these skirmishes to Atreus. I had been allotted a
separate room in the squires' wing - a cubby-hole just large
enough to accommodate a cot - and a lovely seventeen-year-
old whom Hercules took at Pylos and sold in the Nauplia
market. Though still a little shaken by the shock of a violent
sack in which her family perished, Clymene became in time
much more than a sheath for tumescence; she stayed for
years my counsellor and friend. She was the first of a long
procession of concubines, and the only one whose memory I
cherish to this day.

On a windy dawn in spring we departed for Rhipe, a long
column of men and carts and animals. I rode with Diores in a
travelling chariot, for he had not yet chosen a Companion.
'Nice to be made a Hero, though I almost feel ashamed to wear
my greaves. Everything has happened in a rush,' he explained,
smacking his whip at a fly on the offside horse's withers. "I've
barely had time to collect a household, let alone find a decent
driver who's willing to live in Rhipe.' He wriggled his shoulders
beneath a new and shining cuirass. 'Damned bronzesmith has
boxed the job: shoulder plates don't fit. Cost me forty fleeces
and eleven jars of oil. Take me years to breed enough sheep
and press enough olives to pay him.' We followed the road till noon - a military way between
strongholds, and therefore paved - and diverged on a stony
track which led to Rhipe. Derelict byres and tumbledown walls
signified the outer fringes of Diores' new estate. Glumly he
surveyed the evidence of neglect: winter-withered weeds chok­ing the vines, olive trees unpruned, ploughland smothered in
deep rank grass, undrained pastures reverting to marsh.
'Enough work for a multitude,' he declared. 'I'd hoped to teach
you driving, but there won't be a chance for moons. We'll all
be labouring from dawn till dusk.'

Diores touched a sore point. His promotion and my relega­tion to Rhipe had ended for a time my training as a warrior at
a most important stage: the art of handling a chariot in battle.
Any fool can drive on a road; to swerve and turn and check at
a gallop and lock your wheel with an enemy's is a different
slice off the joint. But I was old enough to realize the transition
Atreus ordered likewise belonged to a Hero's education. From
boyhood they herd flocks on the hills, graduate later to care for
precious cattle and learn the skills for tending vines and olives,
ploughing and planting and reaping wheat and barley.

Husbandry is really a Hero's life; to the end of his existence
he spends more time in shepherding than riding battle chariots.
During daylight hours in peacetime it is hard to find a Hero;
they are all away working the land or watching flocks. By
nightfall at any season your Hero, like his peasants, is gobbling
lentil broth in a ramshackle stone-built farmhouse and wonder­ing where the blazes his missing wethers have gone. Royal
household men fare better, of course; they can use the palace
amenities. But this humdrum side of a Hero's career the bards
don't often sing.

Rhipe proved to be an extensive domain. We marched till
sundown before reaching Diores' manor perched on a rocky
hillock protruding from a plain. Forested ranges cleft by val­leys surrounded the plain; beyond them soared the mountains.
A massive wall of rocks girdled a two-storied house hugged by
thatch-roofed hutments like a hen among her chicks. The place
resembled a minor fortress, an appearance common to every
settlement sited far from a citadel.

Diores looked more cheerful. 'Solid defences at least; no one
will break in easily.'

We led our retinue through a gate whose oaken doors sagged
tiredly on the hinges - 'That's the first job,' Diores commented
- and assembled in a crowded mass in a courtyard before the
house. Diores stamped through the buildings and allotted quar­ters. 'Offload baggage, turn the animals out to graze, mount
guards. Clear the place up. Get moving!'