Читать книгу Jason (Mycenaean Greek Trilogy) - Henry Treece - Страница 12

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I was sorry about killing that Spartan, for I had never killed a man before and I was not yet used to the idea of it. Besides, he had looked very brave as he leaned against his pony laughing and it is never pleasant to think that you have killed a brave man who was unprepared for the kill. I was also a little worried that the second of my javelins had hurt the horse in the side, for its point had gone a hand’s width beyond the Spartan’s backbone.

But Melanos would permit no thoughts of that sort. ‘What’s a horse?’ he said. ‘They heal all right if the wound is clean. And from what I hear you made a clean job of the killing. As for the Spartan, he deserved it. Anyone would have done what you did. Besides, Mother Hera was behind it all. She made you see red; she directed the shafts. Perhaps she even made the fellow taunt you, who knows? It is all a part of the will of God. Forget it now. You can’t change the past!’

But it was not so easily forgotten. For a week, each night, I dreamed of that Spartan lying in foreign ground with the worms going at him. I even began to imagine what he must be looking like and thought a time or two of getting a spade and digging down to find out. But something stopped me—fear, I think.

Old Cheiron’s attitude was quite different. He never mentioned the Spartan again but, instead, had all the young horses rounded up and placed in a corral near the encampment in case the Spartans called back. The stallions he was not afraid of leaving unpenned, for they would kick a man’s brains out unless they knew him. Cheiron also made the boys come back into the tents after dusk so that he could keep an eye on them. He always looked after them well.

‘Melanos and Diomedes are in charge of you,’ he said. ‘They are the battle-leaders now. I’m too old. If the Spartans return, do as they bid you; put up a decent fight. After all there were only a dozen of them and you are a hundred.’

Polydeuces and Castor, who had both been born in Sparta, rather scoffed at this and said secretly that one Spartan was the equal of any ten other men. Of course they did not say this when Cheiron was about for he was proud of his Minoan stock. Nor did they say it without a smile to me—though to tell the truth I was at that time very attracted to the plain glamour of those Spartan fellows I had met. I liked their style, their unconcern, their obvious bravery. And from that time onward while I was in the camp of Cheiron on the hill I did my best to imitate the Spartan way of speaking—the laconic style, as it was called, from their settlement of Laconica. I never said more if Yes or No would do. And most often I just shook my head or nodded without speaking at all. It was one of the phases young fellows go through. It did not last long.

But the band of Spartans did not come back. Some time later we got news from a shepherd who came down into the camp that they had tried to steal some goats outside Pherae, and had been set upon by the townsfolk, who had hanged as many of them as they could catch. The pale-eyed leader had got away after putting his javelin into four citizens—and secretly I was glad about that. He was the sort of man I wanted to meet again—a good bad man....

I am running in front of the hare, however. I must go back and tell of the next fateful meeting upon the mountain about a month after I had killed the Spartan.

I was sitting under a rock alone, having gone through my day’s exercises, with the hot sun beating down on my bare back, and burnishing a javelin-head, when I suddenly heard footsteps above me. I crouched against the rock and got my hand on to the hilt of my sword so that I could be ready if necessary. I will say this, I have never gone looking for a fight in my life; though I have never run from one that was put upon me.

I lay there waiting and at last the footsteps grew slower and lighter, as though the man who was coming knew about me, knew where I was. Then his shadow came round the rock and stayed still for a while, lying across the red earth before me. It was a very big shadow and for an instant I was afraid. It crossed my mind that it was the big Spartan I had killed, come looking for me again from under the ground.

But when I looked up from the shadow to the man, I saw that this was not so. The person who stood before me was no Spartan, judging by his dark brown hair and his curling beard; he was of Minyan stock—but only a little less tall than I was, and broad, very broad. I had not seen so square a fellow in my life—and he was no older than I, that is, about seventeen or eighteen.

What struck me first was the fact that he was wearing woman’s clothes—the blue bodice and the pink flounced skirt, but very stained and tattered. Then I saw that his brawny forearms were heavily tattooed. On each of them a tattooed snake curled down from elbow to hand, round and round the bulging muscle of his forearm. It was as though the snake’s head lay in the palm of his hand and that every time he clenched his fists, which he often did, he crushed the creature’s head. He even twitched the muscles of his arm so it appeared that the snake moved in agony.

When I looked up into his face I was even more startled. It was a very flat face and tanned a deep brown. The lines which cut across his forehead and down his cheeks were like the ravines that water cuts into the ancient sun-dried limestone on the far side of Mount Ossa. But it was the eyes that almost caused me to drag my sword out and go for him in a sudden rush—though, as far as I could see, he carried no weapons himself. You can’t in woman’s dress. It is not made for edged weapons.

Those eyes were light brown, blurred, and bloodshot about the irises. They did not seem to focus on any one thing but swung round from left to right all the while, as though searching for something that was not there and never would be there.

They were the eyes of a madman, it seemed to me.

Fumbling for my sword I said, ‘Greetings, stranger! How goes it with you?’ This was the sort of thing one said. Anything to keep the other man occupied for a little while.

But he paid no attention either to my greeting or to my movements in freeing my sword. Instead he squatted on the sandy ground before me and mumbled in a drunken sort of voice as though I was not there at all.

‘I am from Tiryns where they breed men. The Mother came into my head and told me to kill my woman and her child. And when I had done this the Mother sent me here to find Diomedes the Bastard. I am to conduct him to the Feast of Poseidon at Iolcos.’

I shuffled slowly to my backside and then on to my feet. I said to him, ‘And will this Diomedes not go unless you take him there?’

I was then ready to slip out my sword and to strike at this squatting madman. So I took my time waiting for his answer.

He grabbed up two handfuls of sand and seemed to stare at them as though counting the grains. He was as mad as that.

Then he said, ‘This Diomedes is called upon to kill someone named Pelias. The Mother is afraid that Diomedes may not be equal to the task. She fears that he may be as treacherous as his mother, Perimede, who swore to uphold the faith but then allowed it to die in Iolcos.’

This was all I wanted to know. I stepped forward and swung my bronze sword so fast that its blade made the air whistle past my ear. Then at the top of its stroke I brought it skimming down again.

It should have split the madman’s skull clean down the middle. But he was not there. He had leaned over to the side and with the same movement had flung both handfuls of sand into my eyes. I felt the bronze blade plunge into the sandy ground and then I staggered blindly, trying to get my eyes clear once more.

I do not know where the fellow hit me. I seemed to feel pain all over my body. It was a big shock, like an earthquake, that goes on all about one; or like a thunderbolt which strikes so that a whole village or grazing field is swallowed up at one blow.

I was lying on the ground and he was standing over me, still staring about him with that half-blind look.

He said, ‘Diomedes, I have found you then! I may not kill you because the Mother has told me to see that you get to Iolcos on your own two feet. Also because she has told me I am to be your twin and travel with you to far places. If she had not said those things I should now take your head between my fingers and thumb and squeeze it until the brains came out of your ears like oat porridge.’

He lifted me up as though I had been a small child and even shoved my sword back into its sheath on my belt. Then he put my two javelins into my hand. And all the while I was shaking with fear and hurt pride.

I said childishly, ‘There are two at the camp who will take you on at this fist-fighting—Polydeuces and Castor. They will beat sense into your thick head, I promise you. They are Spartans!’

But the young man in the flounced skirt only laughed deep down in his hairy chest and said, ‘I can hit a war-stallion on the nose so hard that he sinks to his knees, Diomedes the Bastard.’

He clenched his fist and held it out before me. The knuckles were scarred and broken so that it seemed as if he was holding out a piece of ancient rock for me to look at.

I knew then that what he said was true. It was the biggest fist I ever saw though he was shorter in height than I was.

I said, ‘It is my wish, to go to Iolcos and gain a kingdom there. I shall do it without your help, my fat friend.’

I felt a fool to speak such words but my pride had got the better of me, I am afraid.

He took me by the shoulders and began to push me down the hill towards the encampment and I had to go.

‘Whether you like it or not,’ he said, ‘I shall take you to Iolcos. I have been told to do that and I shall obey the Mother. I have walked a long way from Tiryns to do this, and I shall not be thwarted by a yellow-haired fellow whose beard has only just started to grow. Keep walking, Diomedes, or I shall have to carry you back into camp.’

I did not dare disobey him then for he had a strange wild authority in his thick madman’s voice.

I said, ‘The Mother seems to choose some strange helpers. I would as soon pick a wild wolf as pick you. Tell me at least what your name is, if you have one; for, to be sure, you look to me like some fatherless thing that was found on the hill-side.’

He gave me a clout that sent me staggering forward a dozen paces before I could halt myself. I was so infuriated at this, I tried to pull out the sword, once more; but he was beside me holding both my arms to my sides without any effort.

‘In future,’ he said, ‘learn to keep your mouth shut unless you know your enemy. That is good Spartan advice, my friend. They told me you were learning to be a Spartan so you should know better!’

I gasped, ‘Who told you that?’

He gave me another push and said, ‘Never you mind, Bastard! I hear and see things that don’t concern anyone else. Now ask your question in the proper manner, Spartan-wise.’

Like a whipped lad I said meekly, ‘Name?’

He nodded and smiled. Then he said, ‘Heracles, or the Glory of Hera! It seems the old woman stuck her teat in my mouth when I was born. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but I was born with teeth complete. They say I nearly bit her nipple off—but that’s just a way of speaking. Anyway she seemed to take a liking to me after that and gave me my name. Women are strange; you can’t account for their tastes!’

I glanced at his own curious dress and said, ‘You seem to like women by the way you clothe yourself, Heracles.’

To my surprise he did not take the insult or even offer to hit me. Instead he nodded and said, ‘Yes, Bastard, I do. Sometimes I even feel like a woman myself. It’s very strange.’

And that was how I came to meet Heracles, who was said later to be the strongest man in the world. But you can’t believe all you hear. They used to say I was the craftiest one, but I can tell you honestly I had a lot of luck. Most of my tricks came to me on the spur of the moment, as though Mother Hera put them into my mind. I’d never have thought them out myself.

Indeed if I had my time again, to control my life according to reason and serious thought, I should have acted very differently. I should, for instance, have kept away from women. I get on better with men, with warriors. What’s more, I should never have sailed a ship. I hate the sea! I am always sick! Nor should I have tried for a kingdom. I’d have been much happier on the horse farm with Cheiron. A horse-breeder, a herdsman.