Warriors in Bronze (8 page)

Clouds like pale transparent shreds drifted across the sky,
gathered above the peaks, slid lower and misted the hills. Light­ning crackled and thunder rumbled; the deluge fell like spear-
shafts.

'Autumn advances her banners,' said Echion the spearman
while we sheltered beneath a crag. 'We shan't stay here much
longer.'

Diores, on his next visit, agreed. He kicked a clump of grass
and said, 'There's little goodness left in the grazing here. Start
mating the ewes for winter lambing, and then we'll bring you
down to the manor pastures.' Again he scowled at the hilltops,
where rain-mist shrouded the trees. 'Maybe sooner. Here, I've
brought you this : wear it wherever you go.' He handed me a sword in an oxhide sheath attached to a
leather baldric. I protested in astonishment. 'Why? A sword
will clutter my movements and' - I patted my kilt belt - 'I
always carry a dagger.'

'Do as I say
-
and keep it sharp.' Diores turned to the spear­man. 'Anything, Echion?'

'Nothing, my lord.'

'Good. Tell your dog to round that wether, Agamemnon: if
he falls into a gully he'll surely break a leg.'

Diores waved farewell and strode away.

***

I mated the ewes, and wore a cloak while I worked; the days
were growing shorter and the wind had a bite like knives.
Winter's onset turned my charges restless; they wandered far
in search of richer herbage. Dawn and evening counts revealed
sheep gone astray which had to be retrieved with much
scrambling and searching. One morning, dog at heel and Echion
in tow, I followed a missing ram along a steeply slanting
gully which cleft the hill from forest-line to valley. Clamber­ing up the rocks was wearing work; I paused to regain my
breath.

Echion eyed the thick-set trees which crept down the slope a
spear-cast distant. 'Give the ram best, my lord. He'll return of
his own accord.'

The dog sniffed the scree ahead, and whined. 'Look - he says
it's close in front. We'll search in the fringe of the forest.'

We resumed a scrambling climb, the dog panting eagerly in
the lead. I reached for a jutting rock to steady my balance,
heard a sound like the whup of a whip and Echion's choking
cry. I turned quickly, slipped and fell. The spearman writhed
on his back; an arrow transfixed his shoulder.

Hairy creatures closed on me and bayed; my nostrils flinched
from a frightful stench. Wild animals, I thought in panic, and
tugged at my sword. Hands twisted the hilt from my hold,
flung my body over and ground my face on the rocks. I was
dragged by the legs uphill; jagged stones scored gashes on face
and ribs.

The agonizing haul seemed endless; my head struck rocks
which knocked me dizzy; I crashed like a log from ledge to
ledge and the air was slammed from my lungs. I saw nothing
but the ground scraping painfully past my face, heard only the
animal grunts of those who held me fast.

Foliage closed overhead and screened the cloud-smeared sun­light. My captors flung me against an oak tree's bole. Blearily I
wiped away the blood that stung my eyes. I lay in a glade on
level ground, a giant step which nature had carved in the hill­side, and at last saw the enemy clearly. Men in the guise of
beasts, clad every one in goatskins. Thirty or forty in all.
Matted filthy hair and tangled beards, bare furry legs and cal­loused feet. Their stink was almost palpable, a solid essence of
goat.

They gathered round me, babbling. A spear point pricked my
chest. Weakly I thrust it aside. One of the creatures stooped
and shouted in my face; I flinched from a blast of rancid
breath. He spouted a torrent of speech; dazedly I strove to
understand. A word here and there was familiar, the rest in­comprehensible as the bray of the goats they herded. I tried to
vanquish terror, and swallowed the bile in my throat.

They ripped away my kilt and left me naked. Somebody
grabbed my genitals and wrenched; I squirmed and yelped in
agony; the brutes guffawed. A body thumped beside me, an
arrow shaft protruded from the shoulder. Echion, conscious
and in pain, eyes bulging and affrighted in a face like a bloody
mask. A savage trod on his chest, grabbed the shaft in both his
hands and pulled. The barb came free attached to a gobbet of
flesh. Echion shrieked and fainted.

One of the creatures dragged by the tail the carcase of my
wretched dog, squatted on the ground and quickly skinned it.
He used, I noticed dully, a knife of stone ground sharp at the
edges. All their weapons were stone, daggers and spearheads
and arrows. He cast the pelt aside and hacked the corpse in
pieces, tore out liver and guts and handed chunks to his
fellows. Greedily they devoured the raw flesh, tearing with
their teeth and champing, blood smearing greasy beards. The
dog, though large, could not feed all; the men deprived gesticu­lated angrily and growled like hungry wolves. The man who had questioned me before - or so I assumed;
so hairy-featured were they all you could not tell them apart -
vigorously prodded his spear on my breastbone and yelled
unintelligible words. Numbly I shook my head. He reversed the
spear and slammed the haft across my skull. The treetops
reeled in a crazy dance and the day went dark.

Sense and feeling filtered back; I forced my eyelids apart.
The stinking brutes had withdrawn some paces distant; a trio
squatting on the ground rubbed sticks to make a fire, others
filled up waterskins from a trickle that ran through the glade. I
saw clean-shaven faces, blinked away the mist that hazed my
sight and realized they were women, filthy uncouth harridans
clothed in goatskins like the men. A multitude of goats
browsed scanty herbage between the trees and stood erect with
forefeet against trunks to strip the lower branches. There was
also a tribe of rangy, half-starved dogs, yellow-eyed and feroci­ous. Neither they nor the goats strayed beyond the tree-line to
open ground below - whether by chance or training I never
discovered.

A man leaning on an ash stave watched my return to con­sciousness. It is hard to describe him. Withered, stringy, emaci­ated, bent beneath the weight of countless years. Long dirty-
white hair fringed a smooth bald pate. A wispy beard, the
upper lip shaven, the nose a wedge of gristle, sunken violet
eyes in caverns beneath white brows. In contrast to the stig­mata of age the skin of his forehead and cheeks was smooth,
unwrinkled, pale as polished bone. He wore a linen tunic once
dyed green, now sun-bleached, torn and stained; his arms were
sinew-corded stalks, dead ivy clasping twigs. And yet - which
is why I find it difficult to depict him properly - an aura hung
about him of dominance and dread.

He spoke sharply to a spearman standing at his shoulder, a
man different from the Goatmen as he himself - stocky and
blond, hair and beard trimmed short, rocky weather-tanned
features and eyes like burnt black wood. His only garb was a
leather apron; a fold pulled through his crotch was gathered in
front and buckled to the belt like a codpiece of times gone by.
A bracelet of lead-coloured metal decorated a wrist; he grasped
a heavy spear. Stepping smartly forward he wound fingers in
my hair and jerked. The pain brought tears to my eyes and
cleared the fog from my brain.

The old man said, 'You come from Rhipe. Who are you
?’
A gentleman's voice, the timbre deep and clear, the voice of
a man in lusty middle age, the accent indefinable. All the in­flexions of Achaea and lands across the sea overlaid his tones,
as though our tongue was one of many he could command at
will.

He kicked my leg. 'Answer, lad! I have ways of finding the
truth.'

I had realized directly I saw them that these were the
dreaded Goatmen, the scourge of all Achaea and the bane of
civilized men. To me, hitherto secluded in impregnable My­cenae, they were nothing more than a legend, a fairytale
nursemaids told to frighten children. I knew little of their
history, and never troubled to learn. But now, like an icy
douche, I recalled something Atreus had once said: 'Better to
cut your throat than be taken alive by the Goatmen.'

Should I tell this decrepit old cripple my name and rank and
lineage? He was clearly the Goatmen's leader, despite his age
and frailty. Perhaps if I did he would shrink from the reper­cussions - a warband after his head. Or maybe the spilling of
royal blood would simply add spice to his sport. No - whoever
he was, deny him the relish of knowing the prize he held.

I gathered a little spittle from a mouth as dry as a kiln, and
spat. A smile infinitely evil curved the grey cracked lips.

'Turn over.'

Was this to be the death-blow? He carried no weapon; his
spearman lolled negligently on the shaft. Painfully I obeyed,
and rolled on my face. The tip of the stave touched my
shoulder.

'As I thought. The mark of Pelops.'

I wear on my right shoulder an ivory-coloured birthmark: a
heritage borne by every male descended from Pelops of Elis.
(And a wonderful story the bards have concocted to account
for
that!)
Even under the stress of pain and fear I wondered
how this freak, a companion of outcast Goatman, should be
familiar with the fables of Achaea's noble Houses. I turned on
my back, and croaked from an arid gullet, 'Very well. I am
Agamemnon son of Atreus. Who the blazes are
you?’

'Dionysus.'

He uttered the word proudly, like a title borne by kings.
Remembrance stirred: some half-forgotten tale which con­nected the name with Thebes. (The source of everything vexa­tious, Atreus had said.) A legend of olden days when Electryon
still ruled. Surely this crazy creature, ancient though he was,
could not be
that
Dionysus ?

With insolence wefting the words I said, 'The name means
nothing to me.'

'No?' He sighed. 'You youngsters have no memory for fame.
And impertinence, my lad, does not become your situation. In
these two hands' - he held out skinny claws - 'I hold your
life.'