Heroes Read online

  She left him leaning against the wall of the hut, exhausted, walking away with the supple, solemn roll of a mare and the Chnan realized that he had made the best deal of his entire life. Even if she had carried away all the wealth he had laced under his tunic, what he had had in exchange was worth as much as a herd of horses, as a load of cedar wood, as a caravan of mules laden with all the copper in Sinai.

  He entered the hut and by the dim light of a wick stuck in tallow took stock of what was left to him. Oh virtuous woman! The girl had taken nothing but a clasp with three beads of coloured glass, one yellow, one red and one white, streaked blue. In the dark her fingers had recognized what her eyes had desired by the light of sunset.

  ‘Did you see them?’ asked Myrsilus’s voice in the dark.

  ‘I did not see much but I felt the earth shake. .’ answered the Chnan as if talking in his sleep.

  Two hard, woody hands threw him against the wall. ‘I asked you if you’d seen our comrades,’ repeated Myrsilus, and his voice was a low growl.

  The Chnan regained his wits: ‘I did see them and they were dying of cold. Now they’re fine. Better than before, without a doubt. Calm down, warrior, let us get some sleep as well.’

  Myrsilus was placated and lay down once again on his mat, pulling up a cover made of sheepskins sewn together. The warmth was soothing, and sleep descended rapidly on his eyelids, but he was soon saddened by anguished dreams. He realized that he had left his homeland for a cold, muddy place where the sky and the ground were always sodden, as if it had just rained or were about to rain. Even his king was changing; he was shedding his splendour with each passing day. The days of Ilium were distant, as if centuries had passed since they had left the shores of the Hellespont.

  It was the Chnan who woke him, shortly before dawn. They took their things and left without making a sound. At their backs, a pale sun illuminated a group of hills that rose from the plains like islands in the sea. Myrsilus had not noticed them before, and he had the sensation that they had emerged overnight. And perhaps that is what happened.

  They reached their comrades outside the village and they took the road of return towards the sea.

  ‘The Trojans are not alone,’ said the Chnan abruptly. ‘There are others with them, who followed them across the sea.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Myrsilus.

  ‘I had awoken before you. I wanted to say farewell to a girl; I owed her a gift. She’s the one who told me.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘Enet, I think. They’re called Enet.’

  Myrsilus continued on his way for a while without speaking, as if he were trying to recall something.

  ‘Enetians,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ asked the Chnan.

  ‘Perhaps they are Enetians. A nation allied with the Trojans. Fine combatants, both with spears and with bows. They were almost always drawn up on the left wing; they faced the Cretans of King Idomeneus and Ulysses’s Cephallenians. I never met them myself. I wonder what they’re doing here. And I also wonder why they’re with the Trojans. The gods are truly persecuting us; they have cursed us.’

  ‘Don’t you know how many peoples have abandoned their settlements in these past years? Didn’t you ever notice those strange lights in the sky when we were out to sea? No man alive has ever heard of or seen such a thing, I’m certain of it. And I’m sure that all this means something, although I don’t know what.’

  ‘If only the seer Calchas were with us!’ said Myrsilus. ‘He would know how to interpret these signs, and he would know what they meant.’

  They journeyed that whole day without seeing a soul, and towards evening came within sight of their camp. Myrsilus reported to the king, telling him everything they had seen without making mention of the Trojans. He did not want to march back inland and start up a war again that he hoped finished for ever. He could not know that it was only a sign, and that a man can not escape the destiny that the gods have placed on his scale.

  His comrades offered the food given to them by the villagers and someone lit a fire for their evening meal. There were fish from the sea as well, and partridges and teals that some of the men had downed with their bows.

  The sun was setting over the plain and a mist was rising from the ground, looking something like a cloud, a milky foam crossed by whitish streaks. It veiled the sun, and everything that was near the ground was swallowed up within it. The men looked around in dismay. Not even the king, Diomedes the hero, knew what to do or what to tell them.

  After a while, only the tips of the tallest poplars emerged from that shapeless expanse that fluttered like a veil. Sounds were muffled and even the birds called to each other with weak laments. A heron, passing over their heads in slow, solemn flight, vanished all at once into the void.

  ‘What is this?’ the king asked the Chnan. ‘You who have seen so many lands, can you tell me what this is?’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, wanax,’ said the Chnan, ‘but I think it may be a cloud. I have met men who come from the land of the Urartu where the mountains pierce the clouds, and they have told me that it is like this inside a cloud. But I cannot explain why the clouds weigh on the ground in this land instead of sailing in the sky. It is a strange land indeed.’

  When darkness fell nothing could be seen at all, and the men stayed very close together for fear of losing their bearings, and kept the fire burning that whole night. Diomedes thought that that land must be similar to Hades, and perhaps he believed that he had truly reached the limits of the other world, but he neither trembled nor sought to flee. He knew that only heroes and Zeus’s favoured sons can face that which is impossible for all others.

  He lay down on his bearskin and covered himself with a fleece. Myrsilus slept nearby.

  At dawn the next day, Diomedes gave orders to set sail and the fleet began to navigate slowly through the mist that steamed on the surface of the water, amidst the cane thickets on the shore and the little woody islands that cropped up on the sea.

  They advanced in this way for most of the day, when suddenly, they all thought they had heard calls of some sort.

  ‘What was that?’ asked the men at the oars.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s best to stop,’ replied Myrsilus.

  The king agreed and went to the bow to scan the foggy expanse in front of them. The other ships stopped as well and the splashing of the oars ceased. In that complete silence, the calls sounded more clearly and then long rostrated ships emerged from the mist slowly, like ghosts. A standard with the head of a lion stood tall at one of the bows, and a red cloth hung loose on the mast.

  Telephus, the Hittite slave, approached the king. ‘Peleset pirates,’ he said. ‘They must have got lost in this accursed cloud. Let’s hope they don’t attack us.’

  ‘Why?’ said the king. ‘I do not fear them.’

  ‘It’s best to avoid clashing with them,’ said Myrsilus, who had handed the helm over to one of the men. ‘We have nothing to gain, and much to lose. Since they’ve seen us, we must speak with them. The Chnan surely knows their language. Have him come.’

  The king nodded and the Chnan succeeded in arranging an encounter. The Peleset flagship and Diomedes’s ship both left their formations and met half-way. They manoeuvred slowly with oars and helm until they were nearly touching, side to side. The Peleset chief and King Diomedes, both armed and carrying a spear in their right hands, faced one another.

  ‘Tell him to let us pass,’ said Diomedes, ‘and we will do them no harm.’

  ‘The heavens have sent you, powerful lord,’ said the Chnan instead, ‘to free me from indescribable suffering.’

  ‘I am glad you speak my language,’ said the Peleset. ‘We’ll have no difficulty understanding one another. Tell him to turn over everything he has and we will spare your lives.’

  ‘The chief pays you his respects,’ translated the Chnan, turning to Diomedes, ‘and he asks if you have wheat or barley to sell him. They are short on
food.’ Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned again to the Peleset chief: ‘If you want my personal advice, you’d best attack these people immediately, because the rest of the fleet will be here at any moment; thirty battle ships loaded with warriors are close behind us. This is just the advance guard. In exchange for this information, I beg of you, take me as your slave! These people are savage and cruel. They have sown death and destruction wherever they have passed, burning down villages and setting whole cities aflame! They subject me to the worst of torments for the mere pleasure of ill-treating a poor wretch. With my own eyes I have seen my master, this man here, at my side,’ he continued, indicating Diomedes, ‘rip the beating heart out of his enemy’s chest and devour it avidly. Free me, I beseech you, and you will not regret it.’

  The Peleset chief was dumbfounded, and in Diomedes’s stern gaze he thought he saw all of the terrible things that the slave had warned him of. ‘You can die for all I care,’ he said to the Chnan. ‘We’re going our own way.’

  ‘We have no food to sell him,’ said Diomedes.

  ‘Of course, wanax, I took the liberty of giving him this answer, already knowing what you would say. They’ll be off on their own way now.’

  The Peleset ships paraded past them, one after another, about twenty in all. They turned to the right, heading south. The fog was thickening again and the damp chilled them all to the bone. The last Peleset vessel passed at just a short distance from them, but before it was swallowed up into the mist they heard someone shout from the deck: ‘Achaeans! I am Lamus, son of Onchestus, Spartan. I was made a slave in Egypt! Remember me!’ His words were followed by the sound of blows, moaning and then silence.

  Diomedes started: ‘Gods!’ he said, ‘an Achaean like us in such a distant land. . and Peleset. .’

  ‘And Trojans, and Enetians. .’ said Myrsilus.

  Diomedes spun around to face him: ‘What did you say?’

  ‘There were Trojans and Enetians in the village we visited last night.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could make you pay dearly for lying to me.’

  ‘Not a lie, wanax, silence. I waited until now to tell you. If I had told you then you would have launched an attack.’

  ‘Certainly. They are our enemies.’

  ‘Not any more, wanax. The war is over.’

  ‘Only when I say so. Did you recognize anyone? Aeneas? Had he been there, would you have recognized him?’

  ‘Of course, wanax.. But he was not among them. Their chief was an older man with grey hair, but his beard was still dark and his black eyebrows thick. Tall, with slightly bent shoulders. .’

  ‘Antenor,’ murmured Diomedes. ‘Perhaps you saw Antenor. It was Ulysses who asked Agamemnon to spare him the night of the fall of Troy because Antenor had treated him with respect and had given him hospitality when he had gone that first time to ask Priam to give Helen back. But why here? What does he seek in this land?’

  The Chnan drew closer: ‘Something terrible must have happened. Perhaps a war greater than the one you fought, perhaps a gigantic battle, or some cataclysm. The Peleset would never have ventured so far! Those Trojans must have known, and have chosen to seek out a place far away from everything, a tranquil and solitary place.’

  ‘Do you have orders to give me, wanax?’ asked Myrsilus.

  ‘We’ll go forward, but stop as soon as you find a suitable place. If we can, we’ll try to free that wretch. Those ships can’t be too far.’

  They proceeded until darkness fell, without ever sighting the Peleset fleet. They moored their ships on the beach of a sandy island, low on the surface of the sea, and lit a fire. The coast of the continent was very close. The king called Myrsilus: ‘They must be anchored somewhere near here, on the mainland. Go aground with a group of selected men and see if you can liberate that Spartan. Take the Chnan with you; he understands their language and he’ll be useful to you. I don’t want you to suffer any losses; if the endeavour proves too difficult, turn back.’

  As the others went ashore on the island, Myrsilus and the men he had chosen walked to the mainland; since the water was so shallow at that point, they were no more than knee-deep. A breath of wind was picking up from the sea, dispelling the fog and letting a little moonlight through. Myrsilus had never seen such a land in all his days; the coast was a vast expanse of fine white sand that sparkled in the pale glow of the moon. The waves swept across the wide beach and then withdrew with a gurgling sound. Here and there were gigantic trunks, abandoned on the waterline, stretching their enormous skeletal arms towards the sky.

  ‘There must be a great river near here,’ said the Chnan.

  ‘Why?’ asked Myrsilus.

  ‘Those trunks. Only a great river can uproot such colossal trees and drag them to the sea, where the waves wash them back to the shore.’

  Myrsilus was once again astonished at the wisdom of this foreigner that they had rescued from the sea; all he knew must come from having journeyed so far and having met diverse peoples with different languages. They walked and walked, so far that the moon had risen by nearly a cubit at the horizon; finally, at the end of a small bay, they saw the Peleset fleet at anchor. The place was completely deserted and there were only a couple of sentinels standing guard near a small campfire. Every so often one of them would break some dry branches from a trunk lying on the sand to add to the fire. Myrsilus and the Chnan crept close, so close that they could hear the crackling of the fire and the voices of the two sentinels.

  ‘How can we find the man we’re looking for?’ asked the Chnan. ‘We can’t search the ships one by one.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Myrsilus. ‘The only way is to make ourselves heard.’

  ‘But then they’ll all be upon us!’

  ‘No, not if something is keeping them busy.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like their fleet catching fire.’ The Chnan widened his eyes and shook his head incredulously. Myrsilus turned to his comrades: ‘You go that way, to the edge of the forest, and lure the sentinels away from the fire, then kill them. We’ll take firebrands in the meantime and go set fire to the ships. When the confusion is at its peak, I’ll call him out and we’ll all meet up at the big dry trunk. If you are careful and do as I say, none of us will die, and we will have liberated a long-suffering comrade.’

  A small group of men went off towards the woods; soon after there was a sound of branches being broken, followed by the close beating of wings and a loud rustling.

  The sentinels turned and stopped talking, straining to hear. More noise, and the two Peleset each took a brand and headed to where the sounds were coming from; presumably a wild animal was roaming about their camp, since the place seemed completely deserted and uninhabited.

  As soon as they had left the halo of light of the fire, Myrsilus and his comrades seized blazing firebrands and rushed off towards the ships. They ran barefooted on the sand like shadows, without making any noise at all. Each chose his ship and set fire to it. The pitch and caulking pressed into the seams of the planks ignited immediately. Flames licked at the hulls and dense spirals of smoke curled upward. The two sentinels turned back to raise the alarm but they were stricken down at once by the men hiding in the wood.

  In just a few moments, four of the ships were completely enveloped by the blaze. The men sleeping on board flung themselves out through a barrier of flames, yelling for help. Their comrades rushed from the other ships, carrying jugs and buckets of water to douse the flames.

  In that confusion of blood-red light and crazed shadows, Myrsilus raised a cry in the language of the Achaeans, knowing that only one man aboard would be able to understand him. He shouted: ‘Spartan! Join us at the dry tree trunk at the seashore!’ In that chaos of cries and laments, Myrsilus’s words floated like the peak of a mountain above the clouds of a storm and Lamus, son of Onchestus, heard them.

  He jumped ship and began to run towards the burning vessels where, amidst all the uproar, he slipped away from the area i
lluminated by the raging fire and took shelter in the darkness, by the great dry trunk. He looked around, seeking the voice that had called him; he saw no one and feared he had imagined the whole thing. As he was about to return to his destiny, a voice rang out behind him: ‘We are Argives and we heard your voice. We have come to free you.’

  Lamus embraced them one by one, sobbing like a baby. He could not believe that he had escaped the grievous destiny already marked out for him. Myrsilus urged them all to leave that place at once and to rejoin their comrades, but before they started their march, he was seized by doubt. He felt he had to make the freed Spartan understand that the fate awaiting him might be worse than any he had faced up until then.

  ‘Before you join us, consider what you are doing; you are still in time, surely no one will have noticed your escape. You must understand,’ said he, ‘that we shall never again return to Argos and the land of the Achaeans. We fled our homeland where betrayal awaited us, and here we seek a new land where we can settle and found a new kingdom for our king, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, victor of Thebes of the Seven Gates and of Troy.’

  ‘Diomedes?’ said the Spartan and his voice trembled. ‘Oh gods. . oh gods of the heavens! I fought with you in the fields of Ilium. I was with Menelaus.’

  ‘Then think about it, I tell you. If you remain with those pirates perhaps you will return home some day, perhaps someone will pay your ransom. It was a storm that drove them here; they have not come of their own free will. We instead have come here to stay. Forever.’

  The man was struck by those words. He turned towards the Peleset ships and his face lit up with their scarlet glow. Then he turned towards Myrsilus and his face was sundered by the darkness, as were his thoughts.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘For you, I am a man, a comrade. Anything is possible for a free man. I thank you for having faced all this danger for me.’

  They set off in haste and did not notice that behind them a wounded man was dragging himself through the sand; it was one of the two sentinels whom the men had attacked after luring him away from the campfire. He was bloodied, but alive, and he had seen everything.