Читать книгу Jason (Mycenaean Greek Trilogy) - Henry Treece - Страница 15

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How to describe the wonder of it all! I who had lived all my life on the hill-side was staggered beyond belief.

Before me in the line stood an old fellow who kept hawking and spitting as though this were an ordinary thing and no godly festival. He carried two half-dead cocks under his arm and stank vilely. He had an affliction of the eyes which made them water all the time. When I told him to keep quiet on such an occasion he made a rude noise and muttered about barbarians who were impressed by any sideshow. I stood away from him as far as I could because of my anger and the smell of him and took a good look about me to keep my mind occupied until it was my turn.

The javelin shafts burned my hand in those moments. And I kept wondering if my long sword had jumped out of its scabbard and fallen to the ground but I dared not look down. I am always nervous like that before I kill anyone. I can’t help it. But there is this to say, once I am on the move I am as firm as a rock.

I must tell you: it was a marvellous place. The white rock sloped steeply upwards towards the deep blue sky. And the little square houses, whitewashed and with red roofs, seemed to cling to the rock as though they wanted to reach the sky itself. There were small garden plots between the houses, in which olives grew and tall dark cypresses.

And before me, oh the wonder of it! A white stairway so broad that four chariots could have come down it abreast. This stairway had three flat landings on it and at each level the courtiers stood, watching us common folk below. I had not been to Athens or Cnossus or Colchis at this time so I was greatly impressed by the stairway of Iolcos. If I went back now, it might be different; but then it was sheer glory to my young eyes.

And at the very top, as though the sky rested on its gilded roof, was the Palace of Pelias—tall and steeply-gabled, with a host of great columns to support it, columns which tapered to their base after the Cretan style and were painted alternately black and blue, the clan colours of Pelias himself. To me at that moment it was like the gates of Heaven. I could not imagine myself mounting those steps and looking back towards the deep blue sea, Poseidon’s sea, which rolled at the foot of the white chalk cliff on which the palace was built....

But there was another thing to think about just then. Pelias had a bodyguard—but not what I had expected. They numbered about two hundred and were all immense black Libyans, naked as the day they were born, save for the polished leather sheaths between their thighs and their horse-head helmets. They carried broad-bladed throwing-spears, three to each man. I did not like their fierce white eyes and the way their lips curled as they gazed across the square at us all, as though we were rubbish, sacrifices to Poseidon like the goats and lambs.

One nod of the head from Pelias and we could all lie dead ... That was clear.

Seven steps up the great stairway stood the man I had come to kill, the offerings piled below him; squawking hens, faintly bleating lambs, wheezing goats. They lay on the hot stone steps and would be thrown into the sea for Poseidon’s meal by the end of the day.

I could see, standing beside Pelias, my uncles, the Kings Pheres and Amathaon, tall fair-haired men like myself; but I did not know which was which since I had never met them before nor had even known of their existence until Hera told me. I felt that too much had been kept from me in the past and decided that there would have to be some accounting for it when I came into power and stood, as King of Iolcos, on those same steps. But that could wait; there were other things to consider. Pelias, for instance.

He was a very impressive man, I will allow him that. Every inch the tyrannos, the king who gained his kingdom by strength and kept it by cruelty.

He was no taller than I, but appeared so because of the great black fleece which covered the top and sides of his head and hung down his broad back. His face itself was half-hidden by a mask of old ivory which had eye-holes and a hooked eagle-nose but left his thin mouth free to speak what words it would. About his neck, and broad enough to cover his shoulders and his breast, was a gold frill made of bars of that metal linked with silver threads. It gleamed in the sun very nobly and even tinkled as he moved to accept the various offerings. His middle-body was bare and streaked with blue, perhaps woad from Lemnos, in vertical stripes. It was easy to see why he was called ‘the Black and Blue’ now—because of the fleece and the woad.

A broad belt plated with bronze studs pulled in his waist, after the Minoan style, to the size of that of a girl. Below that his leather breeches flared out, hardly more than a wide-legged kilt, but fringed with gold wire and decorated here and there with gold stars. His lower legs and feet were bare but striped faintly with blue, this time in rings, as were his arms from shoulder to wrist.

He was a magnificent-looking man indeed; and equally magnificent was the great sword of Poseidon that he carried across his arm for the occasion. It was as long as my own but twice as broad in the blade. The handle was of gold fashioned in the shape of a fish with a curling tail. Its eyes were of amethyst. I could see that even at a distance of twelve paces.

I looked beyond him and upwards to the first great landing. My mother was there but looking much older now. She had seen me and had held up her hands a little so that I might observe the chains that bound her wrists. Beside her stood a frail old fellow, bald and nearly blind, but wearing his long robe with a certain dignity. Whenever he seemed to falter and to be about to topple down the steep steps my mother would edge her body round as though to support him. This must be Aeson, my reputed father. Looking at him and then at Pelias, I was not surprised that the tyrant had taken over the kingdom. One was a man—the other a scarecrow.

Suddenly I came out of my dream for the old man in front of me had made his offering and stepped aside. I heard one of the Libyans call out something, and then I stood face to face with the man I was pledged to kill.

I think that if I had been alone then I might have turned and run; my legs were shuddering, my heart thumping so desperately. But old Hera, sitting in the dust ten feet away from me, began to cough in such a way that I felt she was speaking to me, urging me on. I did all that I was to do because of that cough—nothing more. It is strange what reasons men may have for their fame! For me it was an old woman’s dry cough.

There was a great silence about me; only my blood drummed in my ears. Then I saw that Pelias was gazing down at me as though he had seen a ghost. I heard him mutter to one of my uncles, ‘So my oracle did not lie about the youth in the leopardskin who would carry two spears!’

And the uncle said, ‘Are you afraid, Pelias? This is only some shepherd from the hills, dressed up for the festival.’

Then instead of giving the sign for the Libyans to close in about me Pelias did a very brave thing. He drew a deep breath of that hot summer air and walked down three steps so that he could look at me more closely. The eyes behind the ivory mask were so light that I felt I was staring back through the holes in a skull.

At last Pelias the Black and Blue spoke to me but the words seemed strange though they were in my own dialect of Greek. I knew then that something had gone wrong for he did not say the words Hera had promised he would; Hera, who sat swaddled in black so close to me that I could have reached forward and pushed a javelin into her before anyone could stop me.

Pelias said, ‘Who are you, fellow? And what is your father’s name?’

All about me, like the rustle of locusts in a cornfield, I heard the hard soles of the Libyans’ feet shuffling in the dust until I was alone, cut off from all other men. I was trapped by the Black Guard.