Читать книгу Jason (Mycenaean Greek Trilogy) - Henry Treece - Страница 11

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I had almost forgotten the woman who called herself my mother and had made me swear that dreadful oath. My right foot was at first raw, but was then covered with callouses so thick that they seemed like a sandal-sole, as I dragged my foot over the hard dry ground. My right hand, at first blistered from finger-tips to palm, with the twist that must be given to the spear as it is thrown, had become as smooth and leather-like as a well-worn saddle. It was of the same colour, too!

Under the sun, hour after hour, day after day, Cheiron made me practise. The other boys rode their horses over the hills out of sight but I must always practise, alone, almost like a leper shunned by men. That was Cheiron’s command. He wanted me to be undisturbed.

Under the growing heat of the sun as summer came to its maturity, I lost all sense of self, of reality.... I was only a man who flung two javelins into a long sack of sand, in the region of the stomach or the heart; then, as the second javelin struck, drew my long bronze sword and ran forward to slash at the sandbag where, in a man, the base of the skull, or the spine, might lie.

That was the drill. Melanos, who had once been a javelin master in Laconica, saw that I got it right.

‘Look, Diomedes,’ he said, ‘the first thing to learn is to act swiftly. Get your spears into your man before he knows what you are about. If the first one hits him he will be so shocked that he will not think of replying. Then, as he stands still, put the second spear into his belly. He will double up or perhaps swing away, sideways, with the pain of it. At this moment you must be at him like an arrow! That’s where your unshod foot will give you a good start. And as you take your first stride, whip out your sword. It must be at the ready when you reach him. That is, in four paces. You can only rely on placing a javelin accurately at four paces; that is, to be quite certain of its effect. Good, say he doubles over by the time you get to him; then your next move is to strike downwards at him. Don’t thrust! Use the edge. It is more certain. The point can go into all sorts of unimportant places but if you use the edge right you’ll get him with two blows at the most. Hit the spot just above his buttocks. That will lay him out, useless. But if you have time to take good aim, hit just where his head joins his neck. That will finish him. Do you understand?’

We practised together with two sticks instead of javelins and a heavy lath instead of a sword. I got so that I could reach Melanos three times out of five—and he was considered to be a very agile fighting-man. Then when the pace grew too hot and I was hurting him so much that he could not ride his horse for Cheiron, I was put on to the long sandbag. It was not so interesting but it allowed me to use real weapons and not sticks and laths.

Once old Cheiron was standing watching me with a few selected boys, mainly the older ones.

When I had been through the movements a number of times the old man turned to the boys and asked, ‘Will any of you go in with Diomedes now?’

They all shook their heads, even though Cheiron had meant only with the sticks.

‘I’ll fight him with fists,’ called out Polydeuces, ‘but he has the better of me with edged tools.’

Others offered to wrestle with me or to jump over chasms on horseback against me—but no one would take me on at javelin and sword-play.

When they had all gone, old Cheiron came to me and said, ‘It is getting towards the time when you must kill Pelias, my son. He will be no more bother to you than that sack of sand, though for one reason or another I would like to see you try your hand at a real man before you go down to Iolcos. I should feel more content then that your heart would not fail you. For it is your heart I am afraid of, not your hand. That I know to be hard enough!’

Three days after he had spoken these words I was at my practice when I heard talking and laughter behind me on the hill-side. I turned to see a group of perhaps a dozen men, standing beside their horses and watching me with interest.

They were strangers. Each one wore a short horse-hide tunic plated with strips of bronze, and a little kilt of wool. Many of them had hide-helmets fringed with the manes of mares. All carried javelins and either short Mycenaean dirks or leaf-bladed swords.

From the square cut of their beards and the way they had chopped off their light hair at shoulder-length I knew they were Spartans. A company of foragers scouting the countryside to see what they could pick up—for in those days the men of Sparta were great rogues and thieves.

One of them called out to me in his clipped dialect, ‘Pretty boy! Pretty boy!’

This made me angry and I flung a javelin right into the heart of the sandbag. They all began to laugh then, especially when I went through my motions of chopping down the bag with my sword.

A big man with a red beard and one eye called out, ‘Quick! Quick! It will get away!’

Something happened in my head then like a hide thong snapping. I swung round and found that all the world was red, except that man with the one eye who leaned against his black pony grinning, his beard jutting out stubbly before him into the sunlight.

I must have been eight paces from him and for a brief instant I recalled what Melanos had taught me about the effective range of the javelin. But that thought passed as quickly as it had come.

I bowed my head in a quick movement, the motion one makes to deceive one’s enemy, then let fly with the first javelin. It took the man in the thigh. I had meant it for the heart but the distance had caused the spear to fall. No one said a word. I waited a little longer before I sent the second, aiming high this time. I saw it go between two plates of bronze in the region of his navel.

Then I was over the dusty ground and at him as he began to spew, bent double. My blade shore through the last three inches of his thick red hair at the nape of the neck and then he lay at my feet, his hands clenching upon the sandy soil as though he wished to possess it.

I stood bewildered at what I had done, not even thinking about the men who clustered around me. Then I slowly became aware of them. They were all smiling grimly but not one had drawn his sword.

I said to the tallest of them, a man whose hair was as white as bleached flax, ‘Well, what now, stranger?’

He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the dead man with eyes as unfeeling as agates.

‘He spoke unwisely,’ he said. Then he bent and touched the dead man so that a little of his oozing blood came on to his finger-tips. This he brushed across his own thin lips and said, ‘Fare you well, Parados! Next time, mouth shut and sword out!’

Cheiron was standing behind me now, a short Scythian horn-bow in his hand with an arrow fitted. His face was grimmer than I had ever seen it. He was ripe to kill an enemy.

‘I saw it all,’ he said. ‘My boy was not to blame. He did what any warrior would have done.’

The man with the light eyes smiled down at him. It was a sneering smile but had something of warrior-warmth in it.

‘Put your bow away, Grandad,’ he said. ‘No one here complains. Parados was a born talker. He got his due.’

I had never heard Spartans speaking before and I was amazed at the way they chose their words—each one as short as it could be. This was the way for warriors to talk, I decided. After all, warriors were fighting-men not poets and orators. I was also impressed by their cleanliness and the plainness of their dress. They smelled like fresh hay.

I said to the man with the pale eyes, ‘I am sorry. I meant no harm!’

At this they all began to laugh and to slap their thighs, or each other’s backs, even their ponies’ rumps.

‘Meant no harm!’ they echoed until Cheiron and I began to think we were dealing with a crew of madmen.

Then the one with the pale eyes, who seemed to be their captain, swung his leg over his pony and said to Cheiron, ‘A man for a man. The lad rides with us now.’

But Cheiron raised his bow and pointed the arrow at the leader’s chest, drawing the string back to his breast.

‘He is the chosen of Hera,’ he said. ‘He may ride with no man, stranger.’

The man on the horse did not flinch but swung his great pony round and said, ‘Good luck to him, then. He needs it! We shan’t trouble you any more, Grandad.’

They rode over the hill, laughing, towards I know not where. Cheiron and I stared after them. They were like creatures from a dream.

At last I said, ‘If ever I joined a troop of warriors I would like it to be the Spartans.’

Cheiron seemed angry as he answered. ‘Go and get a spade. This one must be buried before the flies come. Spartans are just thieving dogs, no more. You are to be a king, do not forget that.’

But although he spoke gruffly I felt that he was satisfied at last that I had had a real man to try my skill on.