Warriors in Bronze (7 page)

Before darkness fell we were fairly well settled and eating a
meal. Robbers had ransacked every building. All metal articles
the former holder may have left were gone - cauldrons,
tripods, pots and pans - but a scattering of plain wood furni­ture remained. We found some wooden ploughs, hayforks and
the like still littering the outhouses.

Goatmen don't use chairs and tables, nor do they till the
land.

After posting a sentry on the gate tower Diores returned
yawning to the Hall and stretched himself on a fleece-covered
cot his slaves had found. The rotten twine fragmented and
thumped his rump on the floor. He swore like a Hero, snuggled
into a cloak and lay beside the hearth.

'Tomorrow,' he said sleepily, 'we start putting Rhipe to
rights!'

*
* *

At the first whisper of dawn Diores and I rode out to explore
the demesne; freemen appointed as bailiffs followed the horses
on foot. Diores allocated fields to be ploughed for the sowing of
barley and wheat, selected cattle pastures, hillside grazing for
sheep and, on the higher slopes where trees began, foraging
grounds for swine. He defined an extensive tract as common
land where peasants would grow subsistence for themselves
and the slaves and craftsmen - bronzesmiths, weavers, carpen­ters, potters and fullers - who must help make Rhipe self-
sufficient.

It took us all day to ride the whole perimeter. Back at the
manor I found Gelon, using a goose quill dipped in ink distilled
from charcoal, scratching mysterious marks on a sheet of the
paper Egyptians make from reeds. 'I'm working out the daily
ration scales for our workmen,' he told Diores, 'in the pro­portion of five to two to one for men, women and children
respectively.' (A babble of brats accompanied the slaves, and
some of the freemen had brought their families.) 'Do you
approve, my lord?'

'Whatever you think best,' said Diores. 'I've no head for
figures. Tally the supplies we've brought and fix your calcu­lations to make them last till harvest, four moons hence. Then,
if The Lady
is
kind, we'll start living on what we produce.'

'Very well.' Gelon compressed his lips. 'I warn you, my lord,
we shall have to live frugally through the summer.' Intrigued by my first acquaintance with scribal skills, and
remembering Atreus' injunction, I craned over Gelon's figuring
although, like anyone not a Scribe, I had no slightest know­ledge of writing and considered the art to be something ap­proaching magic. Scratching and squiggling busily, tongue be­tween teeth, Gelon assured me the calculations were simple:
he applied to Rhipe in miniature a system which prevailed
throughout the realm. 'Every person below noble rank re­ceives a fixed allocation of barley, wheat and oil based on the
kingdom's total resources divided by the population count.
Achaea, densely peopled, can't grow the food she needs; hence
corn is shipped from Sicily and Crete.'

'I had no idea,' I said in wonder. 'Surely, on a country-wide
scale, a most complicated business?'

'It is. That's what Scribes are for. Without us the economy
would collapse.'

Gelon uttered a simple truth. Scribes are ubiquitous; a coterie
exists in every city and town. They control administration and
regulate the economy; every ruler depends on a senior Scribe's
advice - I remembered King Eurystheus' Curator at Mycenae.
Their power resides in knowledge of writing, a jealously
guarded monopoly whose mysteries outsiders are never al­lowed to learn. (Not that Heroes nurse any desire to master an
art so horridly cabbalistic.)

It is commonly averred that the Scribes' origins are Cretan,
although in appearance and characteristics they are very un­like that good-looking, easy-going race. The distinguishing mark
of a Scribe, besides the long grey robe he always wears, is a
hooked nose dominating swarthy features. They forbid mar­riage outside the sect, and worship a private god whose name,
so far as I can pronounce the throat-stopping syllables - Gelon
told me this - is something like Jahwah. Which worries
nobody: all sorts of obscure divinities are honoured in rustic
Achaea. In urban neighbourhoods the Daughters, not sur­prisingly, severely discourage unorthodox cults: on The Lady's
pre-eminence depend their own estates, granted by kings for
Her worship. They also fight a tendency, mostly in the cities, to
elevate as deities our ancestors: those mighty Heroes of olden
time, founders of royal Houses, Zeus and Poseidon.

But I digress - a tedious vice belonging to ageing men.

Within a couple of days Diores and Gelon between them
organized the running of Rhipe out-of-doors and in. I was given
a hundred sheep and banished to grazing grounds a morning's
march from the manor: my realm for seven moons, a spread­ing river valley ramparted by hills. My companions, besides the
sheep, were two spearmen and a surly-tempered dog: the
spearmen a condition that Atreus commanded; he had told
Diores I was not to be left unguarded while shepherding the
flocks. We repaired dilapidated folds and huts which com­manded grazing areas, rebuilt walls and roofed the huts with
tamarisk fronds on olive-wood rafters.

So began an idyll I gratefully remember, a happy, carefree
interlude never to be repeated. I saw to the year's first mating,
ensured the rams shirked none of their work and favoured all
the ewes. Spring drifted into summer, hot sunlight faded the
flowers - hyacinth and crocus, violet and lily
-
and sucked
aromatic scents from herbs and grasses. I discarded my woollen
tunic, wore deerskin boots and knee-high leggings to guard
against the thorn scrub of Rhipe's rocky hillsides. A short spear
and dagger completed my equipment - everyone, slaves ex­cepted, always has a dagger at the belt: an all-purpose imple­ment for shaving, hair-cutting, carving food and whittling
during idle afternoons.

At every dawn and sunset I inspected and counted my
charges, collected stragglers and rolled silly fat ewes to their
feet. Otherwise I basked in the sun or drowsed under shady
trees. The hillsides' grassy slopes, dotted by white fleeces, fell
from forested heights to a willow-tasseled stream meandering
through the valley: a fragrant sun-drenched kingdom I re­garded as my own. Occasionally I bade the dog - an obedient
creature despite his snarls - to retrieve a wandering wether. I
cut flutes from streamside reeds and piped melodious tunes that
tinkled in the still clear air like raindrops falling on water. I
rolled dice with my guardian spearmen, breakfasted on wheat-
cakes spread with honey, dined on cheese and barley-bread and
figs washed down by rough red wine. At night, cloak-wrapped
against the dew, I lay on a couch of grass beneath a sky black-
purple and counted the glittering stars. Doubtless it rained
from time to time, but my memory pictures days that were
ever bright and golden.

Every seventh day Diores paid us visits and brought baggage-
laden slaves to replenish our supplies. He examined every
sheep, prodded pregnant ewes and ran fingers through their
fleeces. Early in the summer I was warned to prepare for shear­ing, and spent laborious days washing struggling sheep in the
stream. Then Diores arrived with a shearing team and ox-carts
to carry the wool. 'We'll have a good crop,' he said content­edly, sitting beneath a willow and watching the knives at
work. 'In high summer you'll be lambing; send word to the
manor before it starts and I'll send you men to help.' He
paused, and frowned at the forests that canopied the hills.
You've seen nobody in the woods?'

'Nobody,' I said, surprised. 'Why? Whom would you ex­pect?' Diores beckoned a spearman and led him aside. Intrigued
by his question I strained my ears to hear what he said.

'You scout the forests, Echion, as I instructed?'

'Regularly, my lord, and find not a soul. They were there last
winter: you can tell by the bitten-down saplings.'

'Um. They shouldn't be down from the mountains for many
moons yet. Keep a sharp watch, Echion, when the leaves begin
to wither.'

'I will, my lord.'

When Diores and his workmen went I questioned Echion,
who shrugged and muttered something about boar attacking
the flock. I thought the fellow stupid: I had walked every pace
of the grazing grounds and found neither droppings nor slots
which mark the passage of boar.

For reasons of health I journeyed periodically to Rhipe,
leaving the flock for the day in the spearmen's charge. Clymene greeted me ecstatically, and speedily administered the
medicine I sought. Afterwards, lax and satiated, we strolled
around the manor. Diores had transformed the place, thatching
roofs, plastering walls, restoring gaps in the ramparts and
generally tidying up. Workmen had entirely refurnished the
house, providing chairs and tables, cooking pots and gaily pat­terned hangings. Gelon weighed the wool crop and calculated,
quill in hand, the proportion due for tribute and set it aside in
store rooms; weavers worked at looms to convert the rest into
cloth. Clymene informed me proudly she had taken command
of the household, ordered the slaves and kitchen staff and kept
Diores happy.

'Your solicitude stops at his stomach, I hope?'

'How could you say such a thing ? I am yours, Agamemnon,
body and heart and soul. Besides,' she pouted, 'Diores is be­sotted with a fat Euboian slut. How he abides the girl is beyond
my comprehension. She waddles like a pregnant cow and
washes once in a moon.'

During these hasty visits Clymene cooked me a midday
meal: a haunch of mutton grilled on the spit (we never had
meat while herding), gravy and savoury herbs and spices -
cumin, fennel and mint - which Clymene gathered at day­break. Then I gave her a farewell tumble in the little cubicle
Diores granted - a singular privilege; but Clymene, though a
slave, belonged to me, and her blood was noble - and departed
on the long tramp back to the flock.

A midsummer sun blazed high in the sky; the stream
dwindled and the grass turned yellow and brittle. I folded the
sheep in different valleys to alternate the grazing, and idled
away the burning days in the shade of parch-leaved trees.
When the summer lambing started I despatched a spearman for
help and for days was frantically busy. We did well, losing
only twelve ewes and twenty lambs; Diores was pleased. With
the size of the flock near doubled I had to shift ground more
often, and hoped the end-summer rainstorms would freshen the
grass.