Читать книгу Oedipus - Henry Treece - Страница 3

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I was ten years old before I saw my first horse. Of course, up in the sheep-pastures on Mount Cythaeron, I had heard the men talk of horses, but we were a poor folk, we shepherds, and always went on foot; and because we lived among the high, steep rocks, no lord from the valleys ever came up to our eagle’s nest on his horse. I was lame in both feet and could not go with the men down the sharp rocks and the treacherous, sliding scree-slopes to sell at the sheep-market held outside the walls of Thebes on feast days. So I did not set eyes on a horse until, at the age of ten, I was better able to scramble about and strong enough to swing myself, by the branches of dry bushes, over the rocky ledges to fetch back any light-headed ewe or stubborn ram which might break from our flocks and try to cheat us of the market-price.

What I had heard of horses, among the sheep-folk, was that they were terrifying beasts, whose nostrils spouted smoke and whose thunderous hooves caused the great plains to quiver and tremble as though Old Earth-shaker Poseidon had laid his hand on the soil, as he often did on the sea, and had stirred it to throw men off their feet. I had also heard that the mask of a horse’s skull was the secret, inner face of the god, meet to be nailed on trees to remind men of the god’s nature. Once, a travelling merchant told me that a rutting stallion could bite off a grown warrior’s hand, if meddled with at the wrong time. And my own father, old Nomius the shepherd, swore that the god of horses had such great eagle-wings that he could fly to his stable in the highest mountain-top of Thrace.

But the horse I saw, when I was ten and driving our brown-fleeced herd into the market outside Thebes, with my mother, Rhene, beside me, weighed down by her baskets of goat-milk cheeses, was not at all what I had expected. It was a simple, fat-bellied beast with shaggy hair all over its body, and a black mane that hung down, all coarse and tangled, like a peasant-woman’s hair. No smoke came from its nostrils. Its movements were measured and docile, like an old man’s, and it did not thunder down the rocky stream-bed that led out between the mud-huts from the city to the rough market-stalls and pens where we sold our cheeses and sheep.

I saw the sweat glistening on its hide, and the black swarm of flies that followed it and clustered about its rump and I said, ‘What! That thing a horse? It cannot be!’ I was about to laugh at the creature, to point my crook at its deformities, so that the other hill-folk should share my jokes: but my mother set down one of her baskets hurriedly and put her hard hand over my mouth, as though she was in great fear.

Then, looking up, now silent, I saw what made her afraid, and I forgot all about my first horse. It was the man on the beast’s back who frightened Rhene, my mother. He sat, squat and heavy, his cloth-bound legs sticking out straight before him, a black wolf-skin wrapped round his thick body, and a horse-hide helmet pulled well down over his great head. But, for all the tall red crest of the helmet, and its jutting peak and its smothering cheek-flaps, I saw his face. It was flat and brown and covered with old white scars. His eyes were narrow and grey, and his nose was set sideways, as though someone had struck it with a heavy stick. His greyish-black hair hung down to his breast, as rough and tangled as his horse’s mane; and his beard went right up his cheeks to his lower eyelids, grizzled and bare in places where the scars showed through, all puckered and white. He was much like a bear sitting on the horse, except that he bore a great round ox-hide shield on his back, and held a thick ash-shafted javelin in his left hand. Across his thighs as he rode lay a broad bronze sword, with a short handle of some black wood or other, whose name I did not know then.

As I saw him coming down the dry stream-bed towards us, I said to Rhene, my mother, ‘Who is this man, then? He seems to think well of himself.’

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them; though I do not think it had been in my head to say them until that very minute. I heard the dark-skinned market-folk about us draw in their breath, astonished; and I saw some of them, the old men and the women, move back, away from me, their black eyes wide and full of shocked reproach.

I saw the horseman’s grey eyes widen a little and felt a sudden shuddering of the skin down my neck and back as his glance fell across me like a whip-lash. I knew, from such chill crawling of the flesh, that this rider could be no ordinary man.

Then, in my horror, I saw that his horse was coming towards me, guided by his square brown hands, and I knew that he meant to tread me down for the foolish words I had let fly from my mouth. Now I was most truly afraid, with my mouth open and dry and my heart thumping and trying to escape out of my throat. All my life, because I was a lame boy, the village-folk up in the hills had treated me kindly, even when I had deserved harsh words or even blows: but now, here in the hard white sunlight, between the brown-mud beehive huts, a man was going to ride me down, on the first horse I had ever seen.

No one moved to save me, and I would have cried out for mercy if I had had any voice at all. Instead, like a crippled bird, I shuffled among the rocks on the stream-bed, hoping to get away, then, suddenly darkness fell upon the hot stones and I saw the rough brown hoofs coming closer and closer, until they looked bigger than anything else in the world.

And when I had given up all hope of escaping, Rhene, my mother, let both her cheese-baskets sink into the dust, and moved towards the horseman, her black shawl falling behind her and her grey hair tumbled down her back.

‘Great king, Shepherd,’ she said, holding out her hands.

And suddenly I heard the market-folk gasping, ‘Oh, save us, Mother! Look, she has touched the Shepherd’s bridle! Look, she has dared even that!’

There was such terror in these words, that I rolled sideways then, out of the horse’s path, and looked up to see what was happening.

My mother was kneeling, with her hair all over her face, and her arms outstretched, pleading. A woman in the crowd screamed out, ‘She is dead!’ It was almost as though this woman had seen a vision, her voice was so sharp and sure.

I wanted to call her a fool, and to command the horseman to turn aside: I wanted to order all the people to come down and protect us, my mother and me, but I was so young and powerless, so helpless, despite my shoutings and taunts which had brought on this disaster.

Suddenly the horse saw my mother and snorted and moved aside with a start, as though it had come out of a dream, and for a moment my heart was light like a bird. It was, to me, as though the god had answered me. I moved towards my mother, meaning to lift her up, when all at once the rider leaned over and I saw his eyes open, and his mouth snarl like an old lion when he is disturbed in the sun. He drew back his bearded lips and showed his yellow teeth, also like an old lion. Without a word, he struck downwards, once, at my mother, with the wood of his javelin-shaft and then rode on.

It was almost as though he had done nothing, had seen nothing, had meant no harm. But I heard that awful dull blow and my mother’s cry, that ceased almost as soon as it began, and left her rolling on the dusty ground and holding her hands to her breast, weeping.

I took up a stone, blind in my fury, meaning to knock the man from his horse. But a black-haired shepherd ran at me and almost broke my wrist, preventing the cast.

‘What, you fool!’ he said. ‘Would you have him turn back and butcher us all!’

The peasant women were gathered round my mother now, soothing her, wiping her lips and tidying her grey hair. I fell to my knees beside her and said, ‘Dear mother, I swear I will avenge the blow you took for me. If I have to wait a lifetime, I will make that man sorry he raised a finger against you!’

But she only smiled a little, crookedly and in pain, and said, ‘Silly boy! Silly boy! This was meant to be. We have come lightly out of it. Now go and pick up the cheeses from the dust; they are covered with flies and no one will want to buy them if they stay there any longer.’