Текст книги "Heroes"

Автор книги: Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Соавторы: Valerio Massimo Manfredi
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

5

The night that Menelaus disappeared, many wondered how such a thing could have happened. Some said that a sudden wind had pushed him south, sweeping him away for days and days, until he was cast ashore in Egypt, or at the mouths of the Nile. But on the other hand, at that very same time, at the end of the summer, Nestor had reached Pylus safely and without difficulty, Diomedes had landed on the beaches of Argos and even Agamemnon had seen Mycenae again, although it would have been better for him to have died in Ilium.

It is hard to believe that only Menelaus met with hostile winds. And it is difficult to believe that none of the sixty ships that accompanied him found their way home. An entire fleet does not disappear like that unless preordained by the gods. Things went quite differently, I believe.

Those years were cursed. Something unknown and relentless, perhaps the will of the gods, perhaps some other obscure force, drove many peoples from their homes. In some places, the land grew dry and the sprouts were scorched by drought before they could ripen, while oxen collapsed all at once under their yokes, dying of hunger and strain. Other animals became sterile or stopped reproducing; if they did bear young, the monstrous creatures they engendered were hurriedly buried at night by terror-stricken farmers and peasants.

Elsewhere, the earth was scourged by storms of wind and rain, flooded by torrents and rivers that overflowed their banks, inundating the countryside with mud that rotted when the sun rose over the horizon. That decay generated an endless number of repugnant creatures: toads, salamanders and serpents that spread everywhere, infesting the fields, the pathways and the dwellings of men. Animal carcasses were abandoned by the rivers to rot along the shore as the waters subsided, attracting crows and vultures which filled the sky with their shrieking by day and jackals which let out their mournful howls by night.

Only the sea seem to be spared these disasters: her clear waters continued to nurture every kind of fish, as well as the gigantic creatures of the abyss. And trade continued as well on the paths of the sea, albeit greatly diminished. Thus, many peoples entrusted their destinies to the sea, preferring to face the unknown rather than wait in their own lands to die of starvation, hardship and disease. Others, who already inhabited the seas, gave themselves over to raiding and piracy.

A sort of coalition was formed, joining the Pelesetand the Shekelesh, the Lukkaand the Teresh, the Sherdanand the Derden, and many other peoples as well. They were warmongers, desperate, ready for anything, and they decided to try their luck against the richest, most prosperous and powerful nation of the earth: Egypt. They did not know that the land of the Nile had been stricken by the same scourges, although there the wisdom of the priests and the architects, the patience of the people, and the strength of their sovereign had managed to attenuate the frightful effects.

They say that a group of Achaeans joined forces with this coalition as well; these were the Spartan warriors of Menelaus that a strange destiny had dragged to those distant regions.

The night in which they had disappeared from sight, Menelaus’s ships sailed in the direction of Delos. His men were told that the queen had convinced him to consult the oracle of Apollo, the god who had protected the Trojans during the war. The king sought to know what sacrifices of expiation he must perform for having taken part in the destruction of the city, in order to escape the ire of the god who would otherwise have annihilated them.

Apollo had answered that they would have to offer a sacrifice in the land of Danaus, and then consult the oracle of the Old Man of the Sea on the deserted shores of Libya. The land of Danaus was Egypt; Menelaus decided to set sail at midday along with his entire fleet, and thus he left the land of the Achaeans behind him, as his brother Agamemnon went to his death.

The gods who know all and see all perhaps allowed Menelaus, lost in the arms of Helen, to hear the last gasp of his dying brother; perhaps they passed on, in a cold shiver, the stab of the sword that cut the throat of the great Atreid. And when the king abandoned himself to the act of love, he was invaded by the same chill of death, by the same terror of infinite emptiness.

The fleet crossed the sea, sailing with favourable winds for eight days and eight nights until they came within sight of the coast, near the western mouth of the Nile. But as fortune or chance had it, in those very days a multitude of other ships were present there. The Peoples of the Sea; the Pelesetand the Lukka, the Derdenand the Teresh, the Shekeleshand the Sherden, were attacking Egypt as allies of the Libyan king Mauroy.

Pharaoh Ramses, the third of this name, decided boldly to counter-attack rather than to wait for the clash with the enemy; he sent out his fleet from the western branch of the Nile and from the eastern branch of the Nile and moved them out to sea on both sides, exploiting the land wind of the early morning. Menelaus’s army, finding themselves in that place by mere chance, were attacked from the west before they could establish any contact, and they were forced to defend themselves. His warriors, accustomed to years and years of fierce fighting, drove back the attackers several times, but a steady stream of Egyptian ships continued to descend from the mouth of the Nile. To their left, a group of Sherdenvessels full of warriors with round shields and conical helmets adorned with ox horns were battling tenaciously against a number of Egyptian ships which manoeuvred with great expertise in the shallow waters along the coast. In the skirmish that ensued, the Sherdenventured too close to the shore and ran aground on the shoals. They were shortly surrounded on all sides and massacred.

Menelaus could not understand what was happening: wherever his gaze fell, the sea teemed with ships and warriors from every nation. But although their number was enormous, they were thrown into confusion because they could not communicate; there was no one giving precise orders that could be heard by all. The Pharaoh’s fleet, on the contrary, moved with supreme skill in those treacherous waters. They separated into squads, only to join back together again like a phalanx on a battlefield. Most of the heavy Egyptian warships continued to fan out towards the open sea; their crews exchanged signals by hoisting cloths of various colours on their ladder masts and by sending flashing light signals using their gleaming copper shields.

His men tried to convince Menelaus to engage in battle with all he had; they thought that if the coalition were victorious they would be able to divide up the booty and return to Sparta with immense riches, but Menelaus feared the loss of his fleet in those dangerous waters and signalled for his crews to get out as soon as it became possible.

Those who could did so, but some of the ships had penetrated too far into the enemy formation, and were forced to fight so as not to succumb. Some ships were set aflame by incendiary arrows and had to be abandoned. Their crews perished or ended their days in slavery, labouring over the construction of colossal monuments in the land of Egypt. Menelaus attempted to break through the encirclement with the surviving ships, but his was a hopeless endeavour. A vigorous sea wind had picked up and it drove his ships, together with the vessels of the coalition, towards the shore and against the sandy shoals. The Egyptian fleet, which had taken advantage of the morning land wind to move out to sea, now had the sea wind aft and closed in on the invaders like a pair of pincers, forcing them into the shallow waters of the delta.

Menelaus managed to save his ship thanks to the strength of his rowers, who struggled against the wind and propelled the ship against the Egyptian fleet. They rammed the side of a great vessel and sank it, then led the surviving ships of their fleet out to sea through the breach. The helmsman, an old sailor from Asine, realized that the sea wind was shifting west, and he had the sail hoisted immediately, as the other crews followed his example. The ships picked up a certain speed and, although they risked capsizing aport, they held their course until they reached an island where they could take shelter.

Meanwhile, the Pelesethad succeeded in breaking through the encirclement on the east side of the formation, and escaping to the open sea. Some ships put out to sea, while others, most of them, retreated to the Chnancoast and settled between Gaza and Joppa. They gave this land the name of Palestena.

But the rest of the coalition fleet found no way out; driven on to the sand and the mud of the delta, the hulled ships ran aground while the light Egyptian craft, nearly all made of papyrus, easily drew up alongside them. The bundled stems used to build the pharaoh’s ships were soaked with water and would not catch fire. Their high prows and high sterns allowed them to navigate the waters of the sea, while their flat bottoms and pliable structure let them slip over the shallowest of shoals with the agile movements of a water snake.

The weather did not change until sunset, when a strong wind picked up from the desert and blasted out over the sea, dragging with it the remaining coalition ships and casting them into the high waves; the Tereshand Shekeleshwere scattered in every direction.

That very evening the pharaoh was already celebrating his triumph over the invaders. He had the great royal parade vessel put out to sea, and he himself, standing at the prow, drew his bow and ran through the shipwrecked sailors still floundering in the waves. His concubines, stretched out on soft cushions, watched with admiration and called out with glee each time his arrows hit their mark. The wretches who sought to escape along the banks of the river were sucked up into the mud or ended up devoured by scaly monsters with webbed paws and huge mouths full of sharp teeth.

The Libyan chieftain, Mauroy, managed to save himself, but his end was no less terrible. They say that once he returned home, his own people impaled him and left him to rot, preyed upon by crows and vultures.

At nightfall, Menelaus walked to the beach on the little island where they had taken refuge and looked out towards the coast. The glow of the fires still quivered on the horizon; from the darkness descending over the water came the cries and laments of shipwrecked sailors whom the wind was dragging into the open sea to sure death. He suddenly perceived, along with the smell of burning wood and scorched bodies, the scent of his queen and he turned. Helen was at his side, staring steadily at the horizon without blinking. The wind pressed the light fabric of her Carian gown to her high breasts and slender legs. She observed the corpses crowding the expanse of sea with the same firm, proud gaze he had once seen on her face as she watched her suitors competing to win her favour.

The moon was rising between the lotuses and papyruses of the delta. The king thought he heard a low groaning; he turned, and saw that it was coming from a man dragging himself on to the shore, bleeding copiously from many wounds. He saw him raise both his arms towards the disc of the moon, he heard him pray, weeping, in one of the hundred languages of the great defeated coalition. And he saw him fall face down with a loud thud. He was no longer the man who had departed from his city or village one day, leaving his wife and his children. He was a dark, shapeless thing that the sea rolled in the mud with its incessant swell.

Menelaus’s fleet was hauled aground by the men for the winter, and for months they all laboured on the ships to repair and restore them, so they would be ready to put out to sea as soon as the conditions were favourable for navigation. They were mistaken about that. They were forced to remain in that forgotten place for nearly three years. First, an epidemic broke out; many died and many ships were deprived of their crews. Then, impetuous northern winds beat down on the sea all the next spring and summer, bringing with them storms and squalls, gales and torrential rain. When the weather gave them a little respite, they attacked passing ships, or fished or hunted in the interior, but they never ventured on to the open sea. When the third springtime arrived, Menelaus departed with his ship and several of his men to sail to a place on the coast where he had heard he could consult the oracle of the Old Man of the Sea. He sought to know his destiny, which seemed more dismal and incomprehensible with each passing day.

The oracle struck dread into the hearts of men. Few had ever seen his face. Sometimes his voice was said to issue from the mouths of animals who lurked in his cave; jackals or foxes or even marine animals that lived in his lair. At other times, the cave was deserted, and his voice came from the flames of the sacred fire that burned in the brazier. For this reason he was known as the ‘ever-changing’ one.

When Menelaus disembarked, he found a deserted beach scattered with the bones of men and animals, and with the remains of shipwrecked vessels.

He left his men at the ship, laid down his sword on the sand and entered the cave alone. The walls were painted with scenes of fishing and hunting; men in long pirogues chasing huge sea cetaceans, others in groups, armed with bows and arrows, hunting fabulous beasts with long spotted necks, and short-maned asses or mules with black and white stripes. A sudden barking startled him and an animal that was half dog and half fish ran off towards the sea, rolling on fins that took the place of his legs. The king had heard say that the Old Man used similar beasts as his guard dogs.

He went forward and found himself before a great basin lit by a ray of sun that entered from a crack in the cave ceiling. At the sound of his steps the water suddenly boiled up and a scaly back emerged from its depths, then a bristling tail and a mouth full of teeth. A monster the likes of which he had never seen in all his life. Along with a stink of rot and putrescence that turned his stomach.

‘Where are you, Old Man of the Sea?’ shouted Menelaus.

‘I am he,’ answered a deep, gurgling voice. ‘I am the dragon who swims in these waters. In this land they call me Sobekand they worship me as a god in a great sanctuary at Nbyt. But beware, do not approach me! Or your human existence may finish up between my jaws.’ Menelaus backed off in dismay and his hand fell to his side, defenceless.

‘I am he!’ screeched another voice. ‘Son of the night!’ and Menelaus saw an enormous bat lazily swinging from a crevice in the vault. ‘I am blind but I can fly through the darkness and see things that no human being can see.’

‘I am he,’ said another voice, soft and hissing. And Menelaus saw a serpent raise his head and swell his neck, darting his forked tongue at just a span from his knee. ‘I am the child of the sun, and the guardian of the night.’

The king of Sparta did not move as the serpent swayed back and forth on his rolls of coils before slipping silently away between the pebbles and the sand. He walked forward then, towards a tunnel at the back of the cavern that seemed to penetrate into the bowels of the earth. He entered and continued at length in the dark, in absolute silence, until he saw a light reverberating at the top of the passage. The light became more intense as he advanced, and he soon found himself in a large grotto invaded by a bright ray of sun which poured in from above, illuminating an old man with his head veiled. He sat on a wide stone seat on the banks of a dark, clear spring. His skin was black and wrinkled, while his beard and the hairs on his arms and legs were pure white.

‘Are you Charon, perhaps, who ferries souls to the under-gloom?’ asked Menelaus. ‘Must I die here? Here, so far from my homeland, forgotten by all?’

The old man raised his head and showed two deep, glittering eyes.

‘I have come to learn my destiny,’ said Menelaus. ‘I have suffered greatly, I have sacrificed my life and my honour. I want to know if this has any meaning.’

The old man did not move. His gaze was locked into a fixed stare. Menelaus drew so close he could touch him.

‘I am a king,’ he said. ‘I was a powerful sovereign, father of a daughter as lovely as a golden flower, husband of the most beautiful woman on earth. Now my life holds naught but poison and despair. My warriors die without glory and I am going mad in this torrid, flat land. Oh Old Man of the Sea, they say that you have the wisdom of the gods. Help me, and when I have returned I shall send you a ship laden with gifts, with all those things that can gladden your heart. Help me, I beseech you, tell me if I will return, if I will escape an obscure death in a foreign land after enduring such pain for so many long years. Shall I ever return to live with the queen in my palace? Will I ever forget the shame and dishonour that keep me awake at night?’

He sat down in the dust and lowered his head like a suppliant.

The old man neither moved nor opened his mouth.

‘I will not go from here,’ said Menelaus, ‘until I’ve had an answer. I will starve to death if you do not answer me.’ And he too fell into silence.

Nothing happened, for some time. But then all at once, the ray of sun spilling down from the ceiling of the cavern touched the surface of the water, and the spring shone with myriad reflections, lightening even the walls of the cave with a pale glow. The old man shook out of his torpor and pointed his finger to a point at the centre of the pool. Menelaus stood and stared at that point, as his soul was invaded by a strange, untried trepidation. He heard the voice that had already greeted him in the guise of the dragon, the bat and the serpent; it was different now, with a deep harmonious sound like that of a song whose words he could not understand. But that melody roused images from the surface of the water, as if it were a mirror. Menelaus saw and heard as if he were present in the events that flowed beneath his eyes, but unable to speak or react.

He saw an impostor seated on the throne of Mycenae along-side queen Clytemnestra, grasping the sceptre of the Atreides. He saw the funeral mask of his brother Agamemnon rising like a golden moon from behind the palace and weeping tears of blood. He saw a maiden escaping from a hidden doorway, dragging behind her a blond boy with terror-stricken eyes. They ran through the windy night, stopping often behind a tree or a rock in the fear they were being followed. And then they ran again, until they found a man awaiting them with a chariot to which two fiery black steeds had been harnessed.

The maiden clasped the boy to her breast in a long embrace, kissing his face and forehead. Her lips moved as if she were imparting warnings, advice, encouragement. And the light which flickered in her eyes blazed with passionate love and with fierce hate. She hugged her brother again and spoke more hurried words, turning often to check behind her. Then the young prince got into the chariot next to the driver who held the reins still; the wind filled his great dark cloak like a sail in a storm. The maiden turned over her charge to him and she cried as they left. The man whipped the horses and the chariot departed swiftly in a white cloud. They were Agamemnon’s children and his own niece and nephew: princess Electra and prince Orestes, forced to hide and to flee, orphaned and persecuted.

He shouted and wept with rage, shame and grief, as he never had before, so loudly that the surface of the water trembled and darkened. His cry shook the walls of the cavern, stirring up hosts of squeaking bats who flitted away and halting the strange melody that had accompanied his visions.

The black-skinned man sitting on his stone throne in the shadows now was roused: ‘Why did you set off the war?’ said his voice. But his lips were sealed and his face was still, like that of a statue carved in wood or sculpted in stone.

‘To divert a river of blood. To ward off the destruction and the end of my people.’

‘What destruction?’

‘It was written that the sons of Hercules driven away by Euristheus would return. . that they would return to annihilate Mycenae and Argos and all of the cities of the Achaeans. There was only one single thing on the entire earth that could save us: the talisman of the Trojans. But how to win it? It was hidden away in Ilium, protected by layer upon layer of inviolable secrets. Our only hope was for someone, one of us, to gain entry to the innermost parts of the city and the citadel by living there for years and years. Only thus could we hope to learn their secrets and penetrate their defences. . we needed someone who could win over the minds and the souls of the princes and the trust of the king.

‘Only Helen could succeed! All women and all goddesses live within her; love and perfidy, purity and deceit. Only she dares wield the infinite weapons that make her more fearsome than a phalanx drawn up on an open battlefield.

‘The responsibility for saving our people fell to the Atreides and solely to us: we bore more grief than any of the other Achaeans, more than Achilles and Ajax, who died under the walls of Ilium. Agamemnon sacrificed his beloved daughter. . and I was asked to sacrifice my bride, the only love of my life, and my honour. We made war to hide our true intent, and we knew that the final attack would not be launched until the last secret had fallen. Until Ulysses and Diomedes had entered the city by stealth and discovered where the talisman of the Trojans was hidden.

‘Useless, all of it useless. My brother is dead. I have seen an impostor sitting on the throne that belonged to Perseus and Atreus, I have seen the young prince and princess, terrified, fleeing in the night. . All useless. .’

He fell to his knees on the banks of the spring and wept, hiding his face in his cloak.

‘You did not do your part! You did not pay the price that was asked of you!’ thundered the voice of the Old Man. Menelaus started. ‘Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?’ he shouted, even more loudly.

Menelaus stood and walked towards him, his eyes filled with stupor: ‘How is it possible that you know this? Your oracle is truthful, then. .’

‘Admit your blame!’ said the voice. ‘Or leave now and never come back.’ The Old Man’s eyes were closed but his forehead and face dripped with sweat. The drops that slid over his dry skin were the only signs of life on that ashen face.

Menelaus lowered his head: ‘All of the kings of the Achaeans would have wanted her as their bride. She was given to me. Can’t you understand? Can’t you understand me?’

‘As you journeyed to Delos your brother was butchered like a bull in the manger,’ said the voice. ‘If you had stayed with the others, this would not have happened. You are to blame. The blood of your brother is on your hands.’

It seemed completely, both in timbre and tone, the voice of his dead brother accusing him; he thought of the persecuted prince and princess escaping in the night, swarms of pursuers at their heels. His heart cramped in his chest, as though pierced through by a spear.

He cried out, weeping: ‘Oh Old Man of the Sea, if you speak in truth, tell me whether I will be granted an honourable death. Because I have nothing else left to hope for.’

‘What do you want?’ demanded the voice.

‘To return, to avenge my brother, if he has been murdered. I will ask for help from the other kings, Ulysses, Diomedes. They will not abandon me.’

But as soon as he pronounced those words, he realized that he was in a different place.

He was walking on the deserted beach of a sunny island. The warm air was fragrant with pine and myrtle and he felt a powerful, invisible presence hovering about him. The water of the sea lapped at his ankles, the sand slipped between his toes like a rough caress. A rock jutting out into the sea blocked his way, and he clambered on to it, so as to descend on the other side and continue his walk. But when he was at the top, he looked down and saw a man sitting on a stone, a white cloak wrapped around his bare limbs. He recognized him: it was glorious Ulysses, son of Laertes. He looked out over the horizon, eyes glazed with deep sadness. And a female voice called out: ‘He is mine, for seven years!’

‘Oh lady hidden in the air,’ shouted Menelaus, ‘allow my friend to depart! Allow him to take to the humid paths of the sea. He is needed in the land of the Achaeans; we need his wits, his invincible mind!’

‘He is mine, mine for seven years,’ sang the voice again. And her words hit him like a gust of wind, making him spin like a dead leaf. He fell into the sea, sinking into the cold embrace of the abyss for the longest of times, until he emerged once again from the centre of a dark lagoon, under a sky laden with low clouds. Before him was a miserable camp, with shelters made of reeds and swamp grasses. The men were emaciated, livid with cold and hunger. Among them was Diomedes, son of Tydeus. His beard was long and unkempt, his hands were dirty and his cloak was soiled with mud. Menelaus turned away from that pitiful sight and then found himself immersed in the waters of the spring, under the vault of the immense cavern, standing before the black-skinned man, the Old Man of the Sea.

A noisy laugh exploded under the great vault: ‘Have you seen your companions? Do you still think they can help you?’ asked the voice. Menelaus covered his head with his cloak.

‘Old Man of the Sea,’ he said, ‘I cover my head and deliver myself to the infernal gods. I recognize my guilt and I am ready to suffer my punishment. But one thing you must tell me, and I will do the rest: where is the talisman of the Trojans now? Did Queen Clytemnestra take it from Agamemnon after killing him? Is she hiding it somewhere. . or has she destroyed it? Tell me only this, I beg of you. I alone remain; I alone can stave off the misfortune that weighs upon the Achaeans.’

‘Who else, besides you, knows your secret?’ asked the Old Man.

‘No one ever suspected anything. . except for Ulysses.’

‘All was born in deceit and in deceit it is destined to end. But you can turn the evil you have done into good. Ulysses can help you, far away as he is. Use his mind. Carry out what he has imagined,’ said the voice. ‘No more than this can I tell you.’

The ray of light dimmed until it nearly disappeared and the hiss of the wind issued ever stronger from the top of the cavern.

The Old Man of the Sea seemed to have dozed off on his stone throne. His limbs hung limply, his mouth fell half open. The king of Sparta turned back, traversing the tunnel and the great chamber until he found himself once again in the open. The wind had become very strong and his men struggled to secure the ship’s lines to the ground so that the sea would not steal it away.

Menelaus watched them through the swirling sands that obscured the light of day, and he hardly recognized them, as if they were foreigners pushed there from distant lands by the force of the sea and the wind.

Only the next day were they able to return to their island in the delta. The queen saw the ship coming to shore, and yet he tarried. After a long wait, she walked to the beach and found her king sitting in silence, watching the waves. She asked him what the response of the Old Man of the Sea had been and Menelaus, without turning, said: ‘His response was quite auspicious, for me and for you, my queen. The old man said:

Menelaus, it is not your destiny to die in the bluegrass land of Argos,

but in the Elysian fields where the gods will send you,

there where life is lovely for mortal men.

No snow, nor chill, nor rain there,

but always the gentle breeze of Zephyr blowing

sonorous from the Ocean, soothing and refreshing.

For the gods hold you, as Helen’s lord, a son of Zeus.

‘One day sorrow and wounds and death will end, my queen. We shall live in a happy place, far from all others, for ever.’

He fell still again, watching the foam of the waves that died at his feet, and then said: ‘We must return.’