Текст книги "Heroes"

Автор книги: Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Соавторы: Valerio Massimo Manfredi
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

‘The old woman’s expression changed suddenly; her lips trembled and her hand gripped mine, squeezing it with surprising strength. She said: “Where was the Ponikjoship coming from, son? Where had it been?” Her breath came in short gasps, whistling as it left her bosom.

‘I answered, “I do not know, mother. The Ponikjojourney among all peoples, and cross the sea wherever they please.”

‘The nurse fell back upon the bed but her breathing was becoming more strained, and came in painful gasps. Her eyes were lost in time, as if searching for long-buried images. She made an effort and clasped my arm again: “Where did the Ponikjoship go then? Has it ever returned to our port?”

‘ “I don’t know where it went and we’ve never seen those merchants since. Tell me, I beg of you, what are you thinking? Why is your breath so short? What causes you such distress?”

‘She did not answer. She would not answer, no matter how much I implored her. Perhaps she thought an uncertain truth would do me more harm than not knowing. She closed her eyes and seemed to be sleeping, and I did not want to tire her further with my insistent questions. She never awoke again, and several days later, we placed her on a litter and buried her with rites worthy of a family member.’

‘So you still don’t know who that woman is,’ said the prince. There was an ambiguous expression in his eyes, as though he understood what had passed through King Menelaus’s mind as he buried the queen’s nurse with honours that long ago winter’s day.

‘Who was truly responsible for the war?’ he asked then.

‘We were,’ said the king with a firm voice. He sat opposite his nephew and held his head in his hands. ‘The Atreides were the repositories of a terrible secret that dated back to the time when Euristheus reigned in Mycenae. We knew that the day would come when we would be invaded by the descendants of Hercules who had been driven away many years before by King Euristheus, and we knew that these invaders would destroy the land of the Achaeans. We were responsible for averting this impending threat, for preventing the destruction of our cities, the devastation of our fields, the massacre and enslavement of children and women.’

The prince shook his head: ‘And to ensure that this would not happen, you unleashed a war that lasted years, instead of saving your strength, instead of readying the armies and the fleets? I don’t understand. . I just can’t understand.’

The king drew a long breath, as the outer courtyard rang with the footsteps of the guards who had arrived to relieve their comrades on the first shift. Then he said: ‘What we needed, to ensure that this would not happen, was the talisman of the Trojans. The talisman would make us invincible; only with the talisman in our possession would we be able to gather the strength necessary to withstand the onslaught, but we needed to have it before our time was up. No army can challenge fate. The question was, how to win it from the hands of the Trojans? Well, one day your father told me that he was planning to go to Ithaca to consult Ulysses. The little king of the western islands was already famous then for his cunning, and both Agamemnon and I had good relations with him. His wife Penelope, as you know, is the cousin of your mother and your aunt Helen.

‘Ulysses was against the war, and he opposed our plan for a great expedition against Troy. He did not believe in the honesty of our intentions; he imagined it was a desire for power and conquest that animated us. That was the only way we could explain the answer he gave us. “If it is only that statue of stone that you want,” he said, “much less than a war is needed.” Nothing is more powerful in this world than a woman’s appeal over a man, he claimed. His plan was simple: invite one of the Trojan princes to Sparta and then convince Helen to seduce him and flee with him. Once inside the city she would be able to give us all the information we needed.’

‘I would have killed anyone else who had even hinted at such a proposal, on the spot, like a dog, but I realized the true significance of his words. He meant to say: “If you Atreides want to drag the entire Achaean people into total war, if you want to ask thousands of warriors to suffer and die, thousands of wives and mothers to wail over their fallen husbands and sons for the rest of their days, then you have to prove that you are ready for anything, ready to be the first to sacrifice what you hold dearest.”

‘Now this would have been right, if it were true, as he thought, that the real reason for our seeking war was our desire for power. Ulysses lived alone, you see, and hardly ever participated in the large assemblies of the continental kings. His little island was enough for him, he oversaw the work in his fields like a farmer, he sheared his own sheep and butchered his own swine. He was happy with what little he had.

‘And yet I hated him for what he had said, and I swore that I would kill him as soon as I had the opportunity.’

‘I can’t believe that my father would have dared to repeat such a request, even if Ulysses had suggested it to him,’ said Orestes, shaking his head. ‘My father was a man of honour.’

‘He was. In fact, when he returned he was gloomy and taciturn; he would not speak with me. He simply would not be persuaded to relate Ulysses’s proposal. And when he had finally told me, after my long insisting, he added immediately: “It’s a provocation. He merely wants to say that we can’t count on him, that it’s not his war. We’ll do without his help.”

‘It was then that I conceived of the idea of how I could trick the master of deception, the most astute of men. And so I said: “We won’t need to. I will do as he says.” As your father looked at me, stunned, as if I had gone raving mad, I continued: “Ulysses is right. We are asking the Achaeans to leave their wives and children, to face danger, to suffer wounds, to risk death. We must be the first to show that we are willing to pay the highest price. Tell him I will do as he suggests, on one condition: if war should break out, despite his plan, he must take part in it with his ships and his warriors and he must help us to win it.”

‘Your father looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears, but he could not oppose my words. He had no reason to doubt my good faith.

‘That same evening, I went to the secret chamber and met with the woman who drank with us tonight in this room. She was completely devoted to me; she obeyed me blindly, no matter what I asked her. She must have suffered enormously before I found her, so great was her gratitude. When I had explained to her what she must do, she said that it would be a great joy for her to satisfy my request. There was just one thing she was sorry about, she said, that she would not see me again for a long time, or perhaps ever again.’

Orestes listened, rapt. His long blond hair lay as still as stalks of wheat before a storm. He was hearing things he never could have imagined, was forced to confront ideas that revolted him. King Menelaus let out a deep sigh, rose to his feet and went to the window. The city slept before his eyes, and the earth slept.

‘When Paris fled back to Troy, taking her with him, we sent messengers throughout the land of the Achaeans, summoning all the kings to a war council. The abduction of a queen has always been an act of war, implicating the coalition of all our forces to avenge the offence.’

‘And Ulysses did not know this?!’ asked Orestes.

‘Certainly, but he was convinced that it would be resolved through negotiation. After all, our relations with the Trojans had always been rather good. War assemblies have often been held with the sole aim of inducing the adversary to negotiate. But Ulysses realized that he had been tricked, and then I feared that all was lost. He had come to Sparta secretly to instruct Helen about her mission to Troy. I had arranged everything to ensure that he wouldn’t notice a thing. They met in my presence, at night, by lamplight, in one of the rooms of this palace. Yet, all at once he turned to me and said: “Who is this woman?”’

‘That’s impossible!’ said Orestes. ‘He hadn’t seen Helen for years, the light was dim, the resemblance perfect. How could he have guessed?’

The king smiled. ‘Her scent,’ he said. ‘Ulysses is a sailor, and like all sailors his sense of smell is very keen. That’s how they know they are nearing land, by the smell. They know precisely what land lies before them by the odour that wafts over the waves. One day, long before then, he had kissed Helen’s hand and he had breathed in her fragrance. The woman he had before him was different. ‘I must know everything,’ he demanded. ‘Everything which regards this woman. And everything which regards Helen. You must hide nothing from me if you want our plan to succeed.’

‘I realized that he was not indignant over my deception; on the contrary, that amazing resemblance excited him. It was an irresistible challenge for his mind.’

‘I convinced the kings to entrust him with the task of going to Troy to ask for the return of Helen, and I went with him. He was very sure of himself. He said: “Paris has had what he wanted for many months. King Priam will not want to drag the city into war over the passing fancies of his son. He will oblige Paris to turn Helen over to us, and we will bring her home, along with the talisman of the Trojans.” ’

‘So why didn’t Priam return the woman?’ asked Orestes. ‘Anyone would have done so, anyone in their right mind. Priam was a wise man and a great king, esteemed by all.’

‘I don’t know. No one knows. Not even Ulysses expected a refusal. He grew visibly pale when they gave us their answer, and looked at me in dismay. I believe that Antenor was the cause. He rose up with such passion to demand that Helen be immediately returned, that Priam reacted badly. Antenor spoke in the name of the Dardans, obedient to Anchises and his son Aeneas. To the king’s ears, his demand had the ring of an imposition, coming from a minor branch of his dynasty, and he could not tolerate it in front of us and in front of the assembly of elders. If Antenor had held his tongue, Helen – or rather, the woman they thought was Helen – would have been returned to us. The war would have been avoided.’

Orestes held his head in his hands and drew a long breath: ‘There’s another reason, is there not? A hidden reason, that torments you.’

The king did not answer. He was tense and weary, his eyes were as red as one who had not slept the entire night. His gaze was absent again, his mind distracted. Tumultuous images passed behind his brow, like storm clouds dragged by the wind.

‘You feel, within yourself, that you did not really pay the true price, the highest and most precious tribute, the only one that would have allowed you to ask an entire nation to combat and die. You feel that your trickery turned the benevolence of the gods against you. Everything went badly from that moment on. Everything went out of control. From the hands of man to the hands of fate. Am I right?’

The king’s forehead creased deeply, but not a word came from his mouth. The crackling of flames could be heard from the courtyard, and the soft murmuring of men sitting around the fire.

‘The responsibility was ours,’ he said then, ‘and we acted as we had to act. No one had foreseen the war. Not even the Trojans.’

‘But if Priam had returned the woman, would you have obtained what you wanted? Had she succeeded in learning the secret of the talisman of Troy?’

‘No. Not until many years later, after Paris had been killed, after she had become the legitimate wife of Deiphobus his brother and was thus recognized as part of the royal family. In the end, we did succeed in winning the talisman of the Trojans, but at what a price! The laments of my fallen comrades do not let me sleep at night. Their cries rising from Hades lick at the feet of my bed: Achilles, slain by Paris before the Scaean Gates, Patroclus, murdered by Hector. . Antilochus, son of Nestor; today he would reign over sandy Pylus. Ajax the Locrian crushed between the rocks. . my brother, butchered like a bull in the manger. Ajax Telamon, who threw himself on his own sword; it pierced through his back, running red with his blood. Diomedes and Idomeneus forced to flee, perhaps already dead in some far off, unknown land. And Ulysses. . Ulysses has not come back.

‘We had time to become friends under the walls of Troy but now, now that I need his counsel and his help so badly, he is not here. Perhaps he wanders still over the boundless seas.

‘The other night I had a dream. I was on the seashore, and I could hear the voices of my comrades calling to me from the depths of the nether world. They called me by name; they asked for my help, tormented as they were by cold and by solitude. I tried to answer, tried to speak with them, but my voice did not leave my throat. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Then I suddenly saw the ship of Ulysses emerging from the mist covering the expanse of the waves. I saw him land, and sacrifice a black victim to the infernal gods. And the souls of the dead rose up to him from the depths of the abyss. One of them, a venerable old man with a long beard, spoke to him but I could not hear him, I could not perceive the sound of his words. I could only see Ulysses’s face turn white in dismay.

‘When the old man finished speaking I heard the voices of my comrades again. I saw them all, one by one, passing before the son of Laertes: Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, Eurilocus. . but their voices no longer had the same deep, forceful timbre as when they sent the ranks to battle on the fields of Ilium. Shrill sounds came from their mouths, like the screeching of bats in a cave; piercing cries that contrasted with their weak aspect, with the pale shining of their armour. Oh gods, I saw them all, I saw my companions and my brother in the cold squalor of Hades. .’

Orestes watched him intently and saw terror, panic, emptiness, solitude painted on his pale, sweaty face. ‘It was only a bad dream, uncle. You did as you thought best, and now justice is on our side again. We will win, and restore order to the land of the Achaeans. Do not despair: you have many years of serene life to look forward to, here with your people, alongside your bride and your daughter.’

‘My daughter,’ said the king, lowering his head with a sigh. ‘I have promised her to Pyrrhus, in order to bind him to us and obtain his alliance.’

Orestes suddenly started, but immediately regained his composure. The wind was picking up, whistling softly through the courtyard and the portico, stirring the flames of the torches and lamps. The prince strained his ears as if the wind carried distant whispers. He said: ‘Were you aware of the plotting of the queens?’

‘I was.’

‘What did you know?’

‘Everything. I can tell you everything, if you are not tired, my son.’

‘I am not tired.’

Menelaus began to speak again: ‘It was a night like this one, long and silent, the west wind was blowing. Paris, the Trojan prince, was our guest and he had already fallen into our trap. Ulysses sat on that stool you see over there and he seemed to be staring at the shadows cast by the wavering flames of the lamps. He suddenly said: “Tomorrow I want to see the queen again and speak to her before I go. Then I will return to my island and wait until it is time to go to Troy.”

‘I answered him: “Then you will have to rise at the first light of dawn; the queen will be leaving the palace to visit her sister Clytemnestra. She will stay away for several days.”

‘Ulysses seemed to take no note of my words. His eyes were half closed and his head was leaning against the wall. Then he said: “Did you know that Queen Aigialeia of Argos will be visiting Clytemnestra as well?”

‘ “No,” I answered. “I did not.”

‘Ulysses fell silent again and he seemed to be listening to the wind that whispered light through the courtyard.

‘ “Do you know that the queen of Crete has landed at Mases to attend a secret meeting? No, you don’t know. But I do. I also know that Queen Clytemnestra has sent a man she trusts to Ithaca, taking advantage of my absence. What do you make of all this?” said Ulysses.

‘I was astonished. “How do you know all this?” I asked him.

‘He did not answer. He said: “Send the other woman to the meeting, and have her make sure it takes place in the open, after sunset. We cannot run any risks.” I did as he had told me to do, and we came to learn of their pact. Ulysses and myself. No one else.’

The prince shook his head incredulously: ‘Not even my father? Why? It could have saved his life. .’ The boy’s gaze was murky, challenging again.

‘It wasn’t clear in the beginning. It seemed to be a pact of friendship among the queens, an agreement to meet every year to celebrate rites in honour of the Potinja. Only Ulysses continued to scent danger, and the day the fleet set sail from Aulis he was still tormented by suspicion.

‘Many years later, the night we stopped at Tenedos on our return voyage, he boarded my ship. I was awake, out on the deck, watching the bloody light illuminating the sky to the east: Troy was still burning. . He came close without making a sound and put his hands down on the ship’s railing, next to my own. He said to me: “Do not trust anyone, when you arrive home. Put ashore secretly, at night. Allow only the men who fought with you at Ilium to come close to you. I’ve warned Diomedes as well, but I fear he confides too much in his strength. He has not yet learned that deceit is infinitely more powerful.”

‘He turned towards the curved stern which my companion slept under, exhausted by the emotions and the hardships of those last days and nights. He said: “Send her to meet with the other queens, if they invite her.” ’

‘And why didn’t you return?’ insisted the prince. His eyes flashed with barely restrained ire.

The king lowered his head: ‘I sailed for Delos because I could no longer stay away from Helen. I had forced her into long, bitter solitude. I couldn’t wait any longer. I left the woman who was with me to the priestesses, so they could take her to a secret place in the Peloponnese. And I stayed with Helen.’

‘As you bedded Helen, my father was dying! Downed like an animal, along with all of his comrades!’

The king’s hands trembled, his eyes filled with tears. ‘It is as you say,’ he said. ‘I heard his last breath, distinctly, I felt the knife that cut his throat slash my own flesh, I saw his funeral mask rising like a bloody moon, hovering over the tower of the chasm! Son, my grief for his death bites into me every day and every night, like a ferocious dog. Do not condemn me, for you know not what paths your life may still take! You do not know if your courage will fail you one day, suddenly, if passion will cloud your mind and your good sense. Our destiny is not in our hands, and if the gods grant us a moment of happiness they make us pay for it bitterly, sooner or later. Do not judge me, do not condemn a man who suffers.’

He stood before the young man as if he was awaiting a verdict. Orestes looked up at him: his red eyes held an expression of dazed heartache, his face was deeply creased, his chin trembled imperceptibly and his mouth twisted in agony. Orestes got to his feet as well, and stared into his eyes for a moment, then burst into tears and clasped his uncle close.

They remained thus for some time, both wounded by the same pain, tormented by the same obscure fears. In the end, the youth pulled away and stepped back: ‘For that which they have done,’ he said, and his voice was cold and ruthless, ‘no mercy.’

14

The mountains seemed to have no end in the land of Hesperia, just as one day, long ago now, it had seemed to Diomedes and his men that the plains were without end. The Achaeans managed to avoid the Tereshwho controlled the region to the west by journeying along the crests of the mountains, but they ended up in the land of the Ombro, where they had to struggle to force their way through, although the Chnanat times tried to negotiate with them. Their small communities were very belligerent and mistrustful, and they were scattered everywhere, behind every corner. The Achaeans were often forced to seek shelter in the forests, so that too many men would not be lost. Whenever they neared a town in search of food, Diomedes’s men were often attacked and forced to engage in unsparing combat.

The Ombroinhabited a splendid land, made of gentle hills and valleys full of flowers of every colour, edged with sparkling torrents. But it was a poor land, and very far from the sea; the Picalived in the intervening territory, on the eastern side of the mountains. They were quite similar to the Ombro, cultivating the earth and raising animals in wooden pens. They burned their dead on woodpiles, then put their ashes into clay jars which they buried with a few humble belongings.

The Picawere dangerous because they knew the art of crafting metal, and they made spears, axes and knives and sometimes even laminated bronze vases which the Chnanconsidered with great interest, carrying off as many as he could when they managed to seize a town. Their women were beautiful, with long, smooth braided hair; they wore gowns woven at the loom in bright colours.

In the chiefs’ huts they sometimes found abundant quantities of amber, which certainly came from far away, perhaps from the fabled Electrides islands celebrated by sailors in every one of the Achaean ports.

At the centre of each village, the Picaplanted a pole topped with the image of a woodpecker, their sacred animal or perhaps their god. They took their name from him. Their land was very bare, suited mainly to grazing sheep and goats. Sometimes the sea could be seen in the distance, a sea as green as the meadows and edged with white foam. But the coast was completely uniform and there was not a port to be seen; no promontories from which one could gaze into the horizon, no coastal plains that could be cultivated. Myrsilus claimed that that was the same sea that they had crossed years earlier when they had left Argos to head north, and that if Anchialus had lived, he would be looking for them along that coast. He wondered what fate had befallen their homeland, since Anchialus had surely died in the hands of those bastard Shekeleshwithout ever delivering Diomedes’s message of alarm.

One day, having pushed on in the direction of the eastern sea, Myrsilus returned with little objects of no value, but that he was never to part with; they were small vases and drinking cups that came from the land of the Achaeans. He showed them to the king, saying: ‘See, wanax? Someone from our land has ventured this far. That must mean that nothing terrible has happened to them. If we succeed in founding a city one day, we can make contact with merchants who come from our land and have news of it whenever they come out this way.’

The king had taken those humble little objects into his hands and caressed them, so Myrsilus gave him one to keep for himself.

Diomedes still tried to breed confidence in his men, but he realized as time passed that they were living from hand to mouth. They always ate as though it were their last meal, slept with a woman as though it might be the last time they ever made love. It was sad, and made him sick at heart, but there was nothing he could do to change it.

Ros, the bride from the Mountains of Ice, loved him after all the time they had spent together, but she had not given him a child and this instilled a dark foreboding in Diomedes’s soul; if that woman had been summoned from lands far away to restore life to a dying people, then he must be the one who bore the seeds of destruction and annihilation within him. He realized that Aphrodite’s revenge would persecute him to the very end, to any corner of the land or sea. He had wounded her on the fields of Ilium and she punished him by extinguishing life wherever he now tried to sow it.

At times, in the dead of night, he would awaken suddenly when a wolf or a jackal howled from a mountain top or wood, because he had become convinced that in that land the gods made themselves heard through the voices of the animals. Why else had they so often found signs of animal worship and votive offerings?

One evening he returned to his tent after a raid, covered with dust and sweat. He lay down his weapons and poured a jug of water over his head. Just then his bride appeared, and he saw deep sadness in her eyes, or compassion perhaps. Or pity.

He had not seen himself in a mirror for years, but it was enough to see those eyes and that gaze to understand everything.

‘A goddess once mounted my chariot and fought at my side,’ he said. ‘Do you believe me?’

The girl came closer. ‘If you believe it then I believe you,’ she said.

‘No, you don’t believe me,’ said Diomedes. ‘For the man you see before you is not the same, and this land is not the same and not even the sky is the same. I feel the weight of the end. I passed between the severed heads: did you know that?’

‘Yes. But that will not be the cause of your death.’

‘My comrades follow me because I promised them a kingdom, a city with houses and families. And I’ve given them nothing but hardship, grief and death.’

‘Your comrades love you. They are ready to follow you anywhere. And after all, didn’t they suffer with you when you fought under the walls of that city so far away?’

‘Don’t you understand? This is why my heart aches! Then we knew what our sacrifices were for, then we lived in a world where we knew the rules and the confines. Not any more. I don’t know where to lead them. Years have passed since we reached the mouth of the Eridanus. We have crossed plains and mountains and forests, we have forded swamps and swirling rivers. We have fought with many peoples but we have conquered nothing. This land saps our strength from us day after day, robs me of my comrades, one after another. How many have I buried until now?’ Tears brimmed in his eyes but his voice was firm and strong. ‘I remember them all, each one of them. I remember their names, their families, their cities. But they no longer exist. No one will ever take an offering to their tombs, no one will pronounce their names on the anniversary of their deaths. I had hoped that one day, when I had built a city and a kingdom, I would be able to raise a lofty cairn to them, with many steles of stone, each one carved with a name. Every year I would have offered a sacrifice and celebrated funeral games. Even for the Chetaean slave who died as a warrior to save my life.

‘Perhaps I shall never succeed. One day my strength will abandon me and I too shall fall. Perhaps I will be left unburied. Another man will have you, just as I took you from the man who was destined to have you.’

‘That is not true,’ said the bride. ‘This land could welcome you, if you could only banish the ghosts of time past. One night, while you were sleeping and I was wakeful, I went to the campfire to warm myself. The small, dark man that you call the Chnanapproached me, and he sat down in silence next to me. I asked him: “If you were certain that the king would listen to you, what would you ask him?”

‘He understood my sadness and he had many times seen the despair on your face. This is what he said: “I would tell him, go towards the sea and find a place which is big enough, near a little promontory and a source of fresh water. Build a village by cutting down the wood of the forest. Learn to extract salt from the water and to preserve fish, establish good relations with the nearby inhabitants, exchange gifts and swear to hold to agreements. Take women in marriage and bear children. Live off what the earth and the sea can give you. Sow the fields, graze flocks of goats and sheep, so you will have food in abundance in the winter, when the cold wind blows over the sea and the mountains. You will have wood to warm you, soft fleece on your beds. One day, perhaps, you will plant olive trees and grape vines and you will have oil to fortify your bodies and wine to warm your spirits. No one will ever know you exist, but you will live in peace and die one day, enfeebled by age, watching the sun set on the sea with clear eyes.”

‘This is what the small dark man that you call the Chnantold me, and I think he is right. Why don’t you listen to him? Perhaps you would find peace. You would see life flourish, instead of wandering aimlessly, pursued by death. Finally, I believe, you would become my husband, my man. I could bear you a child whom you would see growing strong as a colt, beautiful as a tree in bloom.’

The king looked at her without speaking, and for a moment, it seemed to the girl that she could see a serene light in his eyes, like a golden sunset, but only just for a moment. Myrsilus came running up, breathing hard. His weapons clanged against his shoulders and the crest swayed on his helmet, stirred by gusts of wind. She shuddered as if she had seen a starving wolf galloping towards her: Myrsilus was the only adviser Diomedes listened to.

‘ Wanax!’ he was shouting. ‘ Wanax!’ He stopped before his king with a mad gleam in his eye, like delirium. The king had him enter his tent.

‘ Wanax,’ he said again when he had calmed down. ‘I was advancing westward with my men as you had advised me, to see if there was richer, more open land in that direction. We found villages populated by an unknown people and we attacked them to take their animals. The Chnansays that they are the Lat, and that they come from the north. They are tough, combative. They venerate a she-wolf as their god and are led by her.’

‘Is this why you are so excited?’ asked the king. ‘We already know that there are many unfamiliar peoples roaming this land.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Myrsilus. ‘But when we burst into the largest house, belonging to their chief, perhaps, we found a prisoner, a man, bound. We’ve brought him here with us. You have to see him. Now.’

Diomedes followed him, directing a fleeting glance towards his bride, as if to ask her forgiveness for not having listened to her, and he went down the slope until he found his armed comrades thronging around someone or something. Myrsilus led him to the centre of the circle and showed him a man sitting on the ground at the foot of a tree. He was unbound, and when he saw Diomedes he leapt to his feet as if he had seen a ghost. He stood still and silent, staring at the king. He was a man of about thirty-five, tall and slim, well built. His face and body showed signs of hardship.