King in Splendour Page 4

  My patience began to fray. ‘I don’t understand you. The Lady is Achaea’s supreme deity; to Her alone we sacrifice and pray. Everyone knows,’ I added irritably, ‘that in forests remote from civilization ignorant peasants worship spirits they invent: denizens of trees and streams, Artemis and others. Are you subscribing to rustic superstition?’

  ‘No, sire--I’m stating facts. Many among your townsfolk revere Zeus, bring offerings to his tomb, seek his intercession.’

  ‘Some are people like ourselves, besides freemen, peasants and slaves.’

  ‘Damn your eyes!’ I exploded. ‘Do you expect me to countermand the wall because a slave dislikes it?’

  ‘Slaves don’t matter. We do, in our humble way. I beseech you, sire, to think again. Your defensive measures restore the people’s trust: there’s no more talk of quitting Mycenae. But in demolishing the tomb you destroy a reviving confidence.’

  ‘In effect,’ I said roughly, ‘you’re encouraging faith in a new religion. Have you considered the insult you offer The Lady, the vengeance She’ll exact?’

  The greybeard spread his hands. ‘For myself, The Lady rules transcendent. I voice, as duty compels, the majority view of your subjects.’

  Completely perplexed, I examined the obstinate faces. A wholesale desertion of artisans which a vast defensive programme had barely averted stared me again in the eyes. Over the years I had not been blind to the growing reverence accorded Zeus, to the offerings--clay images, platters of corn, dead doves--which everlastingly littered the slabs surrounding his sepulchre. I had not, however, realized the inroads made on Mycenae’s official beliefs. The problem demanded thought.

  ‘I’ll consider your petition,’ I conceded. ‘Attend me again tomorrow.’

  The deputation shuffled from the Court. I closed the audience, briefed a spy--a cunning rascal banished from Laconia for raping a herdsman's daughter--telling him to rove the town and confirm or controvert the goldsmith’s allegations. His report next day attested that Zeus’ worship permeated the commoners; his divinity accepted, he was honoured as a god. Weighing all the factors I decided, highly annoyed, to yield gracefully as I could.

  The artisans heard my decree with unconcealed relief.

  Altering the layout was damnably inconvenient. I pegged an arc in the course of the wall to include the controversial tomb, increasing in sum the citadel’s area by more than a third. A steep gradient between old wall and new had to be levelled, which could not be done without obliterating the tomb. After consulting Apisaon I resolved the quandary by felling the oak tree surmounting the mound, dismantling the sculpted slabs and piling earth on top. My ancestor gained for his coverlet an extra fifteen feet of soil. We re-erected the slabs, and everyone seemed satisfied.

  Or so I thought.

  * * *

  Clytemnaistra, declaring her time drew near, refused me her bed for over a moon. No tremendous hardship--I kept my concubines busy. (A Carian bought in Miletos proved herself a prize: some of her gymnastics would make a Theban catamite blush.) She was brought to bed and gave birth to a boy: a bonny gurgling infant fair-haired like his father. I leaned over the cradle, poked a finger in his chest and felt a curious emotion--a mingling of joy and happiness quite foreign to my nature. (I am, so Menelaus told me during one of our brotherly squabbles, forbidding and arrogant in mine, in character harsh and ruthless. A most unkind depiction, exaggerated grossly.)

  Apart from paternal pride the birth of a son is important to kings, providing a firm successor. Kingdoms lacking heirs to the throne became stewpots for palace plots; factions form round Heroes of royal blood, ambitions nourish treachery and intrigue.

  ‘He’s a beautiful baby,’ I observed, ‘robust and healthy. A firstborn child is often sickly. Congratulations, my lady.’ Clytemnaistra sent me an enigmatic look. ‘Can’t you count, Agamemnon? We have an elder daughter.’

  I said quickly, ‘A slip of the tongue. How shall we name him?’

  ‘The privilege is yours.’

  ‘Let me see. He was born on Mycenae’s mount. I shall call him Orestes.’

  ‘ “Man of the Mountains”. Very suitable, my lord.’

  ‘This little mite holds in his paws the sceptre of Mycenae. There’ll be a splendid banquet in the Hall to celebrate his birth,’ I said jauntily, ‘chariot races and games on the Field of War!’ Iphigeneia toddled from an adjoining room. Lank dark hair, sallow skin and vacant, idiot eyes. A dribble of spittle coursed her chin. She peered into the cradle, dabbed at Orestes’ face. Sharply I pulled her away. She mouthed unintelligible noises, and started to cry.

  ‘Surely Iphigeneia should be able to talk by now?’ I asked. ‘She’s over two years old.’

  ‘A backward child,’ Clytemnaistra sighed. ‘Come here, my love.’ She opened her arms; Iphigeneia tottered to the bedside and nestled, sobbing, upon her shoulder. ‘She finds your presence alarming, my lord.’

  The misbegotten brat will find me far more alarming when a chance arrives, I thought to myself. Bestowing a final pat on Orestes’ downy head I said, ‘Then my unpleasing person shall be removed. Take good care of our son, Clytemnaistra.’

  * * *

  The alterations to the new wall’s course, and the reasons enforcing them, unexpectedly embroiled me in a hot theological quarrel. I received a delegation from The Lady’s Daughters: a privileged band of noble virgins who in every Achaean city administer the official religion. Kings grant the Daughters considerable estates, but wealth alone does not explain their influence. Nobody likes to offend the Daughters, servants of the Deity Who gives everything on which mankind exists. They exercise powerful sanctions, calling down on offenders The Lady’s wrath in the form of plagues and famines and other unpleasant afflictions. Although in my younger days I was something of a sceptic an experience during Atreus’ reign bred a healthy respect for Her powers.

  The Daughters dress in long white robes, and never paint their faces like other noble ladies; garlands of myrtle crown unbound tresses. Far too important to attend a routine audience, they bearded me in the Throne Room after a Council meeting. The senior Daughter, an imperious white-haired virago, opened the attack.

  ‘What’s all this,’ she demanded, ‘about saving Zeus’ tomb?’

  I explained the circumstances and emphasized the serious consequences of demolishing the grave.

  ‘Nonsense! Don’t you realize, sire, the harm you’re doing to belief in our Gracious Lady? For years that mound has been a shameful focus for heresy! You had an excuse to remove it--why did you recant?’

  I waggled my hands, and repressed a shudder. The Daughters, years before, forced Atreus--a most unpliable man--on an exhausting pilgrimage to Dodona. I felt no urge to travel. Nor did I fancy a swingeing fine--thirty barley-fed bulls at least--whose proceeds swelled the Daughters’ inflated coffers.

  ‘I hold responsibility for the well-being of our city which, with the tomb’s destruction, would also be destroyed. We’d find it hard to live if all our craftsmen left!’

  The argument warred back and forth; I won’t chronicle the details. At last I said wearily, ‘The building is done and can’t be undone. Surely we may reverence the ancestor of our race?’

  ‘Reverence and worship,’ the harridan snapped, ‘are two quite different matters. Sire, you must find a means to mitigate the damage you’ve done!’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  The Daughter adjusted a wreath her forceful gestures had knocked askew. ‘I shall consult my sisters.’

  They gathered in a group and debated in vehement whispers, hissing like a gaggle of furious geese. I watched the debate morosely, dreaded the outcome. My tormentor approached the throne and bobbed her head--the only respectful token Daughters accord a king. ‘We have decided, sire, that the wall you build must bear The Lady’s emblem, so proclaiming dedication in Her Name. You are constructing a new gate?’

  ‘Yes--on the north-west corner.’

  ‘A monument will surmount the gate, carved from
the hardest stone. The sculpture will depict The Lady’s altar supported on either side by two magnificent lions. Topping the altar you’ll place Her particular symbol: a dove delicately chiselled from green Laconian stone. Then strangers entering Mycenae will know The Lady rules supreme. They’ll barely notice,’ she concluded spitefully, ‘that miserable tumulus crouching within the gate.’

  I felt relieved to escape so lightly. ‘Very well. A skilled sculptor shall be brought from Crete--such monumental work is beyond our artists’ scope.’

  ‘The entrance.’ the woman said triumphantly, ‘will be known hereafter as The Lady’s Gate!’

  Her prophecy proved false. The work was duly done, the monument stands today--an impressive piece of statuary--and is called by the world the Gate of the Lions.

  * * *

  Before I took Mycenae’s throne my dealings were mostly with Heroes, reasonable types on the whole, men of noble blood who behaved and thought as I did. Kingship, I realized mournfully, compulsively expanded one’s education, enforcing intimate contact with people of a different outlook--commoners and Daughters--who each in dissimilar ways manipulated the levers of power as Heroes never could.

  A salutary lesson.

  Chapter 2

  Some years before he died Atreus decided to bring the southern shores of the Corinthian Gulf under Mycenae’s dominion. His object was twofold: to increase Mycenae’s wealth through the annual tribute subject cities paid; and, equally important, to check Dorian infiltration along the Corinthian shore. The plan--a long-term project that Atreus estimated would take three years or more--meant reducing six main cities between Sicyon and Dyme.

  A swift campaign seized Sicyon and Pellene; in the following year he forcibly laid Aegira under tribute. Thyestes, after usurping the throne, attempted no further conquests. Therefore, to complete my grandfather’s original design, three cities remained to be captured.

  Because the outlay involved in making war can be expensive a wise ruler consults his Curator before mustering the Host. I found Gelon in the austere room he used as an office for accounting the kingdom's finances--walls painted white, stark elmwood tables and three-legged stools. Scribes busily scratched on papyrus or sheepskin. He heard my intentions in thoughtful silence, and said, ‘It is not for me to advise on strategy, sire--but I don’t like military adventures. You aim to expand Mycenae’s supremacy in Achaea. Her true dominion lies overseas, protected by her navy, in the settlements your merchants found wherever they land to trade.’

  ‘Trading posts!’ I snorted. ‘They bring us raw materials--and very welcome too--but no authority or power.’

  ‘With respect, sire, you are mistaken. Your years as Marshal of the Host and later as an exile in Sparta have kept you out of touch with our expansion overseas. We have penetrated lands no Achaean trod before, established posts and markets where Mycenae wields authority and government. Colonies, in fact.’ Contrary to Gelon’s supposition, my time as Master of the Ships had made me well aware of Mycenae’s foreign acquisitions. Achaea is over-populated; so Heroes whose estates no longer supported them, merchant venturers, freemen searching for wider horizons and craftsmen wanting outlets for their wares ail sought fortunes overseas. Compelled by economic necessity they tapped markets beyond our mainland realms, a process which had accelerated over the years until those markets became virtual Mycenaean monopolies, while our navy effectively discouraged competition from alien traders. The settlements they founded increased in size and scope until they attained the status of colonies under Mycenaean rule. People from Mycenae and her subject cities followed the original venturers and settled in Miletos, Rhodes and Cos and Cyprus and many other islands, thus providing sources of raw materials for our industries and outlets for our exports. Unfortunately none supplied the vital imports--wheat and gold--denied to us in different ways by Troy and Thebes.

  A pity, I reflected sourly, these adventurers hadn’t also colonized Troy--and solved a lot of problems. For despite the naval blockade Mycenae tried to impose on Priam’s overseas commerce our merchants still traded with Troy, whose midsummer fair provided a market for them and Troy’s allies: Thracians, Carians, Phrygians and the rest. This anomaly arose from a policy that King Atreus decreed and I had decided to continue. Therefore, while the Master of the Ships sank every Trojan vessel he could find Periphetes had no authority--nor enough galleys--to prevent merchandise being carried to Troy in our own or foreign hulls because in harassing the seaborne trade of hitherto friendly realms--Rhodes, say, or Lycia--we could easily start a costly and unnecessary war.

  I said, ‘Commercial considerations alone do not dictate a conquest along the Gulf.’

  I told Gelon my second reason for conquering the Corinthian shore. My executioners, Thracian slaves skilled in extracting truth from reluctant men, had taken prisoners captured in the Goatmen raid to a chamber near a wine-store remote from living-rooms. I attended the inquisition--a process involving knives and tongs--and confirmed suspicions concerning the Dorians’ activities. Four of the captives were Goatmen, crude savages who knew nothing and could disclose nothing and died raving. Disappointed, I told the executioners to treat more slowly, far more carefully but no less painfully the two remaining Dorians. One, either ignorant or brave, expired without disclosing anything important--he had emigrated from Doris long before and lived for years in Arcadia. The other, a recent arrival by ship across the Gulf, lost fingernails, genitals, eyes and ears before revealing the Theban connections.

  Emissaries from Thebes, he moaned, encouraged the Iron Men in Doris, lived in their uncouth villages and supplied the means--bronze and cloth and jewellery, even gold--for hiring ships to cross the Corinthian Gulf. Moreover certain Theban Heroes accompanied the emigrants and, themselves staying well in the background, incited and directed attacks on Achaean settlements: an expanding strategy aimed primarily at Mycenae.

  Satisfied the prisoner had told all he knew I ordered a Thracian to cut his throat and left the blood-slimed room. After summarizing his disclosures for Gelon’s benefit I added, ‘So you’ll appreciate, my friend, that a sound strategical motive impels Mycenaean expansion along the Corinthian shore.’

  ‘Strategy and politics are beyond my provenance, sire.’

  ‘You’re not being very helpful, Gelon. However, I take it you raise no objections, economically and financially, against operations to reduce the cities far as Dyme?’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Two years, three at the most, during successive campaigning seasons.’

  Gelon frowned. ‘May I remind you, sire, that Mycenae’s--and indeed all Achaea’s--paramount need is for corn? I cannot see that the wars you intend will relieve the shortage at all.’

  ‘No--they’re a step on the way. Thebes will be next.’ I grinned at his shaken surprise. ‘We lack corn: Thebes has it. To fight against Thebes you need a firm base--no Dorians skulking around to stab you in the back. Are you getting the idea, Gelon?’ The Curator said solemnly, ‘You plan a grand and ambitious design, sire.’

  ‘That,’ I said cheerfully, ‘is what kings are for. I’ll send messengers to mobilize the Host. Take up your pen--let’s calculate the wheat and wine and wagons we’ll need, based on a sixty-day war. Tiryns will send three hundred men, Nemea a hundred …’

  * * *

  Summonses went to Tiryns, Midea and Asine, to Corinth and Nemea, Sicyon and Pellene and all my tributary cities. I appointed Corinth as the mustering place and, mindful of narrow cliff-hung roads, directed each commander to move on different days. (I vividly remembered the confusion and congestion when King Eurystheus’ Host marched to defeat at Megara.) I ordained stringent regulations concerning followers and baggage. Instead of the customary draggle-tail of concubines and slaves which usually trailed gentlemen on campaign I restricted every Hero to half a dozen slaves, no women, and a wagon-load apiece.

  I took leave of Clytemnaistra who, prattling with her ladies, stood on the North Gate’s tower to watch the warri
ors leave. She wore a green gold-spangled bodice engirdling naked breasts and an apron studded with jewels; a red skirt touched her heels in seven graceful flounces. A fillet of twisted golden wires bound hair that shone like moonlit water. Nipples and lips were rouged, a carmine star adorned each cheekbone. Clytemnaistra dressed in splendour whenever she walked abroad. ‘A queen,’ she always averred, ‘must outshine her ladies, a star above guttering rushlights.’

  ‘I expect to be gone no more than a moon. Meanwhile,’ I assured her, ‘Mecisteus will conduct Mycenae’s day-to-day affairs; and I’ve told Gelon to keep an eye on general administration. Look after yourself, my lady.’

  ‘I shall need to.’ Clytemnaistra craned over the tower’s parapet and contemplated workmen building the new west wall, the rock-slab courses, twenty feet thick, already high as a tall man’s chest. ‘You leave us with defences barely quarter-built and strip the citadel’s fighting men. Are you so confident the Goatmen won’t re-appear?’

  ‘Of course not. Who can foretell what savages may do?’ I swept an arm around the ramparts’ circuit. The walls that kept them out still stand; Mecisteus holds in garrison thirty stalwart Heroes and a good four hundred spears. All our citadels likewise are sufficiently strongly manned.’

  ‘So? Forgive my ignorance, but you haven't confided to me your plans.’ She sauntered to the inner parapet, beyond hearing of the ladies listening avidly to our argument. ‘I’m your wife and queen, Agamemnon, and daughter of a king descended from Poseidon. The blood of fifty monarchs runs strongly in my veins. Can’t you entrust me with Mycenae’s rule in the short time you’re away?’

  I stared at her in horror. ‘You? A woman? You must be mad!’

  ‘I can rule men, and therefore govern a kingdom.’ Her words were hard and cold as hailstones dropping on stone. ‘You could, without misgiving, appoint me Regent of Mycenae in your place.’