Odysseus: The Oath by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Tydeus dragged himself with a final spurt of energy to where Melanippus lay and then he beheaded him with a single stroke of his sword. He smashed the skull on a stone until it split open and then he gulped out his enemy’s brains. Athena was so outraged and disgusted that she took flight, vanishing into the air, leaving Tydeus to the jaws of the Chaera of death.
I jumped as if hit by a thunderbolt at the sight of so much horror and I found myself awake and covered with sweat on my bed of leaves. Silence all around me; the air was undisturbed by any breeze, and yet I felt her close to me. Had she flown here from the city of the seven gates?
‘O goddess of the cerulean eyes that witnessed this atrocious act,’ I prayed, ‘do not reveal yourself to me in your true form, a mortal cannot bear the sight of a god. But guide me, please, assist me and I promise to think only of you. I will have no one but you in my thoughts and in my heart.’
I looked up and saw the owl perched on the highest branch of the enormous ash tree. She was looking at me. I was certain that the goddess had heard me.
I wandered back to the fire without even knowing where I was going, as if I were walking in my sleep. My father was sleeping with his hand on the hilt of his sword, as always. Eumelus was curled up next to him and he finally seemed serene, deep in an untroubled sleep as if he were home next to his parents. I was still completely shaken by the vision I had had in my dream, no less horrifying than what Eumelus had seen in Eurystheus’ house. I was certain that this hadn’t happened by chance: the goddess had carried these visions with her in her flight from the city of the seven gates, brought them to me. Why?
I finally understood the true purpose of my journey: I had to experience the wide world, so different from the peaceful island where I had grown up. I had to learn what lengths a human being will go to in order to achieve power or to maintain it and how hate can drag a man straight to the bottom of the abyss.
I tossed another piece of wood onto the fire, gathered some dry grass and lay down upon it, covering myself with my cloak. In the end I let the peace of that place seep into my head. I realized that the images of horror would not be back, not that night anyway, and that I could abandon myself to sleep near the fire, under the stars, next to my father.
THE LIGHT of day awoke us and I watched the moon grow pale until it faded into the glow of dawn. Our horses, free of their yoke, were grazing on the woodland underbrush. Sparrows hopped between blades of grass and mountain flowers while flocks of starlings rose from the treetops. They sought a direction at first, then followed their instincts and veered down towards the plain. I didn’t have the courage to tell my father what I had dreamt because, now that the sun had risen, I was confused, and couldn’t have said whether what I remembered was real or not.
We set off, driving along the ridge of the mountain for as long as we could. When the path seemed to come to a dead end in the middle of a wood, we began our descent, searching for a road wide enough for our chariot. Once we had found our way again, we continued at a much faster rate and before evening we saw the walls of Argus appear with the palace on Larissa Hill. Argus .. . how often had I heard that city spoken of! The sight of it was no less than I expected. A mighty citadel, with high walls and towers covered with slabs of white stone. These had earned Argus the name of ‘bright city’, famous in all of Achaia. But as we drew closer an ominous sight appeared before our eyes: banners of black wool were hanging from the bastions and towers in a sign of deep mourning.
We didn’t have to wait long to understand why: the body of a warrior in full armour, wrapped in a red cloak, was being carried on the shoulders of six of his comrades up an earth ramp to the top of a tall pyre made of pine trunks. The bier passed quite close to us, and from my elevated position on the chariot, I could see him quite clearly.
‘That’s Tydeus,’ said my father, ‘an Argonaut, the son-in-law of King Adrastus. He returns from an unsuccessful expedition, as you can see.’
‘That’s the man I dreamt of last night,’ I whispered. The man that the goddess, horrified, had abandoned to his death. Why had she come to me with those visions? Why?
‘Look,’ said my father again, ‘see that boy with the blond hair and the black cloak following the bier? Tydeus’ son. He’s just a bit younger than you are, and he could become the king of Argus one day.’
‘What’s his name, father?’ I asked.
‘His name is Diomedes. As young as he is, he’s a formidable fighter, I’ve heard.’
‘I can tell,’ I answered. I watched as he followed his father’s bier up to the pyre. Diomedes walked with a firm step, his back straight, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, crafted from bright bronze. His colours were black and gold. It was he who went to the base of the enormous heap of wood and set it ablaze. Immediately it was wrapped in a vortex of flame. And it was he who ritually bent Tydeus’ sword and handed it to the priests so they could put it in his tomb when they buried the ashes.
I caught his eye when he passed in front of me and bowed my head as a sign of respect. He barely gave me a glance, but I knew he’d seen me.
We slept under the portico of the market square, on the straw they used for the animals because we had arrived at a very bitter moment for the city and the family of the king. What was more, had we appeared at the palace, everyone would have noticed that the king and prince of Ithaca were travelling with the boy sought by the king of Mycenae. The next morning, as soon as the market filled with people, my father learned what had happened to Tydeus and the six other great Argive warriors who had laid siege to the city of Thebes with seven armies.
And I learned that I had dreamed the truth or maybe I only know that now in this play of mirrors that is my mind every real thing is reflected a thousand times like an echo on the sides of a rocky valley.
We also learned that young Diomedes, along with six friends and comrades, had sworn to dedicate every day of their lives to training for combat, so as to be ready for the moment when they would return to the gates of Thebes to avenge their fallen fathers. I thought that I would never see him again; I didn’t know that the gods had a different destiny in store for us.
We started out again on our journey after buying food and blankets for the night. We journeyed northward for four days, until we saw the great rock of Corinth and then, finally, the sea.
That same evening we met up with our travelling companions, who we found waiting for us in a wood sacred to Poseidon, lord of the Isthmus.
Mentor came first to welcome us. His beard was bristly, his hair dry and tousled by the sea breeze and the sun. ‘We were in such distress,’ he said, ‘we’d heard such terrible things! I thank the gods that brought you here safe and sound, wanax.’ He kissed my father’s hand. ‘Seeing you arrive was like seeing the sun rise.’
‘We’re very happy to see you as well. Appointments of this sort almost never end well. But you acted judiciously and all went for the best. Tell me, then, what news have you heard?’
‘Hercules has been seen in Crete, where he is pursuing an enormous, invincible wild bull that has been devastating the countryside, destroying the crops and then eluding capture. It has evaded the best hunters and killed many of them. One man alone succeeded in wounding him, but that very same night the bull charged into his house, trampling everything he found in his way. All those inside were crushed under his hooves, gored by his horns . . . No one but Hercules can find him and take him on, but he will surely meet his own death in doing so.’
‘It is death he seems to be seeking,’ replied my father. ‘But even though he doesn’t know it yet, he has a reason for living. What else?’
‘Seven kings laid siege to Thebes of the seven gates, where Oedipus’ sons Polynices and Eteocles had supposedly agreed to take turns reigning over the kingdom in alternate years. The attackers were defeated . . .’
‘I know. We saw Tydeus’ body being placed on the pyre, his sword being plucked from the blaze and bent in two.’
‘The two brot
‘I don’t know. Neither mortals nor gods can stop fate from taking its course. But it is in our power, at this moment, to save an innocent child. You’ll board a ship with the boy and sail as far as Iolcus. There, get yourselves a couple of mules and disguise yourselves as merchants until you reach Pherai. You, Mentor, will be responsible for everything. Your escort will carry arms, but keep them hidden; no one is to know they are warriors. Once you are in Pherai, make it known to the king that you have important news for him. If he agrees to receive you, you’ll take the boy to him.’
‘What if he won’t receive me?’
‘You’ll take Eumelus to the palace door. He will know how to make himself recognized and how to bring you into the presence of the sovereigns. Then you will tell them, and them alone, about what happened, and the boy will be your witness. Let them know that you were sent by Laertes, who reigns over Ithaca and other islands. Go now. May the gods lead you down safe paths.’
We watched him leave. We hadn’t spent a single night together eating and drinking wine by the fire and recounting everything that had happened to us in the time since we’d left each other. My father and I left before dawn as well, after stocking up on food and water, following the seashore westward at first and then heading inland, where steep rocky gullies awaited us.
‘Atta,’ I said, ‘wouldn’t it have been better to return to Sparta, where we can rely on the friendship of King Tyndareus?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘because we’re going to Arcadia.’
‘Arcadia? But I thought that . . .’
‘That it wasn’t true? That I’d invented it all just to scare off Eurystheus’ guards?’
‘Yes, that is what I thought.’
‘I was telling the truth,’ he answered. ‘We’re going to the Sanctuary of the Wolf King.’
11
THE MOUNTAINS. They certainly weren’t any higher than those I’d seen in the kingdom of grandfather Autolykos, but they were rockier, steeper, more inaccessible. Many of the peaks were whitened by snow.
‘Will I be able to see it up close, father?’ I asked. ‘The snow?’
‘No, we won’t have time to go that high, nor can we leave the chariot and horses unguarded. You’ll see snow when you go back to Acarnania to visit your grandfather. Ask him to take you up to Mount Parnassus; you’ll be able to touch it there. It’s like sea foam, but it’s very, very cold: if you sink your hands into it they become red and then purple and after a while you can’t feel them any more. Your grandfather doesn’t fear the gods. He’ll be delighted to take you up to the peak and he’ll say to you: “See? There’s no Apollo, no Muses, none of those other false creatures.”’
The snow . . . so much of it. . . infinite, cruel. Even then it was in my dreams, nightmares.
They were wondrous, actually, those glittering silver spires that rose to the left and right of the deep gorges. Beneath us the river gurgled and sparkled over multicoloured gravel, boulders, stones, pebbles, sand which was red or grey or as green as a meadow. We travelled on the banks, sometimes fording a passage from one side to the other. For a long time, we saw no men. But we did see eagles. A group of deer. A wolf. I would use a sharpened stick to capture crayfish, or impale fish on my arrows. We were accustomed to eating fish on the island and my father knew which of the aromatic herbs growing alongside the river were best for roasting with them.
‘Was it like this, the world after the great flood?’
‘I think so. When the mud had been washed away by the rains, the rocks shone, the rivers ran clean and clear, the trees were radiant with green and silver. The bodies remained where they had found rest, on the bottom of the sea.’
Long silences between us. I would remember them one day in the heat of battle, my mind fogged with the terror of lying unburied. Golden silences, translucent, sparkling, scented with mint and rosemary. Words came too, when the mysteries of those rocks and woods touched me with fear.
‘Father, you were serious, then, when you said we’d be going to the Sanctuary of the Wolf King in Arcadia.’
‘We are going to Arcadia, my boy. You have nothing to fear. We will perform the rituals as tradition wants and nothing terrible will happen.’
‘But why must we carry out any rituals at all? I’m absolutely certain that grandfather doesn’t believe in such things. So why should they be true?’
‘No one can say with certainty what is true and what isn’t true. That which really exists and that which doesn’t. And so we shall go.’
‘Just because grandfather has that name?’
‘Yes, because he has that name. And because your mother believes, even if your grandfather doesn’t.’
Arcadia was even more beautiful. Hills and mountains, ravines and forests, wild flowers and sunsets, the disc of the moon streaked with thin clouds. The sanctuary, my father said, wasn’t too far off, but it was best to rest in a peaceful place before approaching it. We prepared to spend the night at the mouth of a big cave where a spring delivered up its waters into a mountain torrent.
‘What do you think? Will Mentor and the boy have arrived at their destination, with our men?’ I wondered.
‘Mentor is sensible and cautious. He’ll find the right roads and he’ll manage to return the boy to his parents. I would have liked you to meet them, Admetus and his wife Alcestis. She is the daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus. She was very beautiful and very proud as a girl; everyone desired her but only Admetus, another glorious Argonaut, was able to win her as his bride.’
‘How did he manage it?’ I asked. I couldn’t help but think of Helen, of the words she’d said to me in Sparta.
‘By proving he was the best, I believe, although I’ve heard singers tell extraordinary and incredible tales of what happened, as is their custom. Perhaps only the king of Pherai himself could tell you the truth. If he wanted to. But there is one story I’ve heard told time and time again; there was awe in the voices of my comrades when they would whisper it, as we were stretched out on the benches of the ship on the nights we were awake at anchor, along the route for Colchis.’
‘What was it?’
‘One day, a handsome young man, a stranger whom no one had ever seen around before, showed up at Admetus’ palace asking for work. The king hired him as a herdsman for three years. He grew quite fond of the youth; he treated him with generosity and esteem because the boy did his work conscientiously, and since he had begun taking care of the herd, it had grown greatly, had almost doubled in size.
‘The youth had also become quite fond of his master and did everything he could to please him. Until one fine day, before the contracted time was over, in the same sudden way as he had originally appeared, the boy decided to go . . .’
My father interrupted his tale, straining to hear something.
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t you hear it?’ he replied. ‘Can’t you hear that long call? It’s a wolf.’
I could hear it. A baying, getting louder and closer. The horses were frantically trying to free themselves from their hobbles. ‘Atta, do you suppose he’ll try to attack? That howling is enough to chill a man to the bone.’
The voice of the wolf still wounds my heart.. .in another place covered with snow . . . in another time I cannot measure . . .
‘This is a region of flocks and herds. Where there are sheep, there will be wolves. But you mustn’t fear. We are not sheep, we’re warriors and we have our weapons.’
The wolf fell silent, taking warning from the words of King Laertes.
?
‘Well, before leaving, the youth wanted to say farewell to wanax Admetus. It is said that in order to repay the king for his affection, he left a gift, a great and terrible one . . .’
‘What was the gift?’
‘What you’re about to hear is a tale that poets sing to instil men’s hearts with wonder, when they wander from palace to palace to entertain the kings and heroes at the banquet table. No one can say whether any of it is true . . .’
‘What was the gift, father?’ I insisted.
‘A gift that only a god could give. Apollo, some say. His gift was this: he told the king that he had convinced the Moirai, the three Fates who spin the thread of life for every mortal man, to allow Admetus to escape death, but only once; and only if, when his time came, he found someone willing to die in his place: then he would be spared.’
‘And did this ever happen?’
‘Not yet, at least from what I know. One thing is certain: the gods are always putting us to the test and imparting lessons. We can rarely recognize them by the way they look, because they are always disguising their true appearances, but they leave signs . . .’
He sighed and then began speaking again: ‘Who but a god could promise you the most precious gift that exists: life . . . living for even a single instant more than the time you’ve been allotted . . . but, at the same time, pretend that you pay with the life of another? And not just any other; that of a person who loves you so much he is willing to give up his own life in order to prolong yours.’