Heroes (formerly Talisman of Troy) (2 page)

It was rumoured that he had returned, in the deep of the night, to the shore where the Achaeans had raised a cairn over the bones of Ajax. Driven by remorse, while the heavens were rent by lightning and the mountains shaken by thunder, he had laid the weapons of Achilles on the votive altar. Too late, even if this were true, because the actions of the living are of no help to the dead. They mourn endlessly their life lost, and wander in the dark chambers of Hades longing for the light of the sun which they will never see again.

What I think is that Ulysses realized that he had been deceived, and this realization was intolerable. No possible doubt could cloud the mind of the astutest man of the earth. And thus he defied the wind and the waves of the oncoming storm.

I know for certain that the other companions, those who had remained behind with the great Atreid on the shore of Ilium, never saw them arrive, neither Ulysses nor his Cephallenian warriors. When he landed Agamemnon had already set sail, and Ulysses never succeeded in reaching him later. Perhaps he waited too long to return out to sea and was forced to fight the hostile winds of winter. Perhaps a god envious of his glory pushed his ship towards the Ocean without wind and without waves, or was holding him prisoner somewhere.

The first of the Achaean leaders to pay for the excesses committed on that cursed night of the fall of Troy was Ajax Oileus. His ship was taken by a storm, run aground on the Ghire`an cliffs and rent in two. His comrades were immediately engulfed by the waves of the storming sea, but Ajax himself was a formidable swimmer. Clinging to a wooden crate, he fought off the billows and managed to save himself, hoisting himself on to a rock. Sitting on that crate, he berated the gods, claiming that he was invincible and that not even Poseidon could defeat him. The god of the sea heard his words and rose from the depths of the abyss, clutching his trident. With a single blow he shattered the hard rock: Ajax fell between the crumbling splinters and was crushed like wheat under a millstone. For a moment, his screams of pain could be heard over the din of the storm, before they were scattered by the wind.

The others had managed somehow to brave the storm. Having reached Lesbos, they held council to decide whether to sail north of Chios towards the isle of Psiri`a, on their left, or south of Chios, rounding the Mimantes promontory. In the end they decided to cut through the sea in the direction of Euboea, by the shortest route. But although the sea had calmed and the temperature was mild, Menelaus disappeared during the voyage, on a moonless night with all of his ships. I will tell you more about him, and what happened to him, later.

Nestor reached sandy Pylus with his men, his ships and his booty after having rounded Cape Malea. He reigned for many more years over his people, honoured by his sons and their wives.

Quite a different fortune befell Diomedes, son of Tydeus.

He berthed his ships on the beach of Temenium while the night was still dark. He had sent no herald to announce the fleet, and no one knew of his homecoming. He had Ulysses’s warning in mind: ‘Don’t trust anyone,’ his friend had told him, ‘upon your return. Too much time has passed, many things will have changed. Someone may have taken your place and be plotting against you. Above all, no matter how grievous this may seem, do not trust your queen.’

Diomedes set off with Sthenelus, his inseparable friend, and reached his palace in Tiryns under the cover of night. He hadn’t seen it for ten years. It seemed changed, although he couldn’t say how. He was deeply moved as he contemplated the walls of the citadel, walls which were said to have been built by the cyclops. The gates of his palace were posted with armed guards. He recognized them: mere children when he had left, they were now in the prime of their youth and strength.

He left Sthenelus out of sight with the horses to wait for him, and entered from a passage known only to him. He found the postern on the southern side of the walls, obstructed by the mud brought by the rains and by the roots of the trees which had invaded the passageway over the many years in which no one had used it. It joined the outer fortification to the palace walls and had been used, in times of war, for surprise attacks on the enemy. As Diomedes advanced he felt choked by emotion and by the sense of oppression created by the narrow conduit. He had envisioned his return much differently: his people in celebration, running to greet him along the road, the priestesses of Hera scattering flowers to welcome his chariot. And above all, Aigialeia, his bride, meeting him open-armed and taking him by the hand to their fragrant bed to make love with him after so many years of longing and of separation.

Aigialeia . . . how many nights he had dreamed of her, lying under his tent on the Ilium plain. No woman, not even the most beautiful of his prisoners, had ever satisfied his passion. The women captured in battle are only full of hate and of despair.

Aigialeia . . . her breasts were white and hard as cut ivory, her womb always burned with desire, her mouth, flushed with fever, could cloud his mind and drive him out of his senses.

Perhaps this was why he was approaching his own home so furtively, stealing into the palace from a hidden subterranean passage. A thousand times in war he had faced death by the light of day. But now an unknown and much greater fear made him crawl through the darkness. The fear of having been forgotten. Nothing is more terrible for a man.

He had reached the point where a narrow tunnel branched off from the postern passage; it ended up directly behind the niche in the throne room which housed an effigy of the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus. This most ancient simulacrum had always adorned the wall opposite the throne. The jewel which embellished the statue’s breast was a translucent stone of clearest quartz; it looked black when seen from inside the room but, when looked through from behind the statue, if the throne room was lit, it was as transparent as air. His father Tydeus had had it cut by the artificer Iphicles, who had set it with great expertise. No one could have guessed the trick unless they knew about it. And sounds flowed perfectly through the well-modelled ears of the statue as well.

The throne room was empty but still illuminated although the hour was late, and the hero remained concealed behind the statue, wary that something was about to happen. He was not wrong. An armed man soon appeared and sat down; from another door entered the slim figure of a veiled woman. She uncovered her face only after she had closed the door behind her: Aigialeia!

She was in the full prime of her beauty, more seductive than when he had left her, more desirable. Her shoulders, soft and round, had lost the cold purity of adolescence, her eyes were deeper, darker and bigger, and her mouth was like a ripe fruit, moist with dew. Two lines creased her forehead between her eyebrows, making her gaze both harsh and sorrowful. Aigialeia . . .

The man said: ‘They’ve pulled aground at Temenium in the dark near a pine forest. They evidently don’t want to be seen. They’re hiding, as if they were afraid.’

‘And you’re sure that it’s them?’ asked the queen.

‘As sure as I’m alive. I recognized the emblems on their ships and on their weapons.’

‘And . . . him?’

‘He’s surely on his ship, the one with the royal emblem and the polished shield at the stern. His best warriors are on armed guard all around the ship. They’re on their feet, in the dark, in two rows: the first facing the ship and the second, back-to-back with the others, facing the sea and the countryside.’

Aigialeia’s face lit up with joy and Diomedes, from his hiding place, felt his spirit fill with immense happiness. He was on the verge of revealing himself to the woman who seemed so joyous over his return. He hadn’t even felt such elation the night Troy had fallen after years of siege.

Aigialeia said: ‘No. They’re not for him, the guards and the double row of warriors. He never protects himself. No one could ever surprise him in his sleep, not even by stealing up in bare feet on the sand. And no one could hope to save his skin after having roused him and challenged him to combat. If what you say is true, on that ship are the spoils of war. All the treasures that he took from the city of Troy. And, perhaps, something more important still. We must eliminate him before the people find out. We’ll say that the ships were full of pirates who had landed to sack the fields and to steal slaves and livestock.’

The man answered: ‘The army is ready. Nearly all of his men are sleeping, exhausted from the voyage. We’ll wipe them out in their sleep and then it will be easy to crush the guards around the king’s ship. And when I have seized the treasure I will bring it to you.’

‘You fool,’ said Aigialeia, ‘you can’t defeat him with weapons! The din of the battle will infuriate him; he’ll leap out of bed with all his armour and mow you down like heads of wheat. Only I can sway him. I shall go to the ship wearing the dress of the ancient queens that bares my breasts. I will paint the tips of my breasts red, and when he has taken me, again and again, only then will he sleep in a slumber so profound that he won’t feel the air parting for my dagger as it plunges into his back. You will attack then, and you will not spare a single one of the comrades who fought with him under the walls of Ilium.’

The man trembled and sweat poured down his face. He said: ‘And will you wear the dress of the ancient queens for me as well, the dress that bares your breasts? And will you paint the tips of your breasts red for me?’

Aigialeia stared at him with her harsh, haughty gaze. ‘Perhaps. But now do as I’ve commanded.’

Diomedes felt his heart splitting in his chest. For an instant he wanted to break into the room and slay them both, but fear stopped him. He did not know if he could plant his sword between the breasts of the woman he had dreamed of for years as he slept under his tent on the plains of Ilium. He realized that he would never be able to sit on the throne of Argos without her, nor sleep in his empty bed without going mad.

He thought, in those moments of acute pain, that he had to reach his comrades and save them from the attack.

His men were all that were left of his kingdom and of his family. There was no one in Argos who desired his return if his own queen were prepared to kill him. And if his own army was prepared to spill the blood of those who had fought for so long far away from their homeland and who had finally returned to embrace their wives and their children.

He made his way back through the secret passageway at a run, and found Sthenelus silently waiting for him in the shade next to their horses.

‘We must return to the ships,’ he said. ‘The queen is plotting to kill me and to kill all our men by sending the army out against us.’

Sthenelus did not move. He grasped Diomedes by the shoulders and said: ‘They’ll never win. We will wake our comrades and march against the city. You have conquered Thebes and Troy: no one can challenge you and get away with it. And when we have won you will choose a just punishment for the queen.’

But Diomedes was no longer listening. ‘I wounded Aphrodite,’ he said. ‘I thrust my spear through her delicate hand as she stretched it out to protect Aeneas her son, and now the goddess of love has twisted Aigialeia’s feelings; she has filled her with hate for me. The gods never forget. They have their revenge, sooner or later.’

‘It’s better to die fighting, even against the gods, than to flee,’ said Sthenelus. ‘Tell me what you saw in the palace.’

Diomedes told him everything, without holding back. ‘Do you understand now why I have to go? This is no longer our homeland! I left my queen in the royal palace when I departed for the war. I held her in my arms that morning, and kissed her. And she swore that she would make a statue in my likeness and lay it in our wedding bed and sleep alongside it until I came back. Now I find a monster who only looks like Aigialeia . . .’ He bowed his head. ‘Yet even more beautiful, if such a thing is possible. Even more desirable.’

They mounted the chariot; Sthenelus grasped the reins and urged on the horses. They galloped swiftly over the dark plain towards the sea, towards Temenium where the ships had been berthed and the comrades slept waiting for dawn.

Diomedes woke them and called them to assembly. They were expecting him to announce their triumphal return to Argos, the city that they had left ten years before. Instead their ears heard bitter words, words they would never have wanted to hear.

When the king finished, he asked them to forsake Argos and to follow him: he would bring them to a new homeland, to a distant land in the west where the memories of a futile, bloody war could not follow them. To a place where they would meet other women and father other children, where they would build a city destined to become invincible.

‘The world,’ he told them, ‘is very big, much bigger than we can imagine. We will find a place ruled by other gods, where our gods cannot persecute us. I am Diomedes, son of Tydeus, conqueror of Thebes of the Seven Gates and conqueror of Ilium. Together we shall conquer a new kingdom, a hundred times bigger than this one, and we will have plenty of everything we desire. We will drink wine and feast every night to drive away our memories.’

Some of them, the youngest, the strongest and most faithful, went right to his side, swearing to follow him anywhere. Some pleaded to be allowed to join their wives and bring them along. Others, most of them, stood in silence, their heads bowed. And when the king asked them what they intended to do, they answered: ‘Oh lord, we have fought at your side for years without ever sparing our courage. Our chests and our arms bear the scars of many wounds but now, we beseech you, give us our part of the booty and let us go. It is only right that you leave the wife who would betray you, but we are not kings. We want to return to our houses, to reunite with our wives and with the children we left in swaddling when we departed with the other Achaeans to follow the Atreides under the walls of Troy. We want to grow old in peace, to sit in front of our homes in the evenings and watch the sun go down.’

Diomedes entreated them: ‘You mustn’t stay behind! I supplicate you, leave with us. Either all of us should remain or all of us should go. If we stay, I will have to kill the queen and then live the rest of my days persecuted by her Furies, and all together we will have to combat against the Argives, against our own blood. And there will be more bitter mourning and more, infinite pain. If only some of you remain, you will certainly be overwhelmed and slain as soon as they realize that I am not there to defend you and guide you in battle. An evil spirit has taken possession of the palace and of the city. If this were not true, my wife, who adored me, would never have dishonoured my bed and my home. She would never have plotted my death.’