Warriors in Bronze (48 page)

Surveying these diversions I once jokingly twitted Menelaus on the subject of dirty old men. (Unjustly; he was barely thirty- two.) My brother was not amused. 'Keep your filth behind your teeth,' he snapped, 'or you and I will find ourselves at odds.'

Into this charming idyll Theseus swooped like a vulture hunting carrion. He flattered Helen, showered her with gifts - gold bracelets, necklaces and earrings - and ousted from her company and favour a coterie of Heroes and Companions. In­hibited by the knowledge the Athenian was a guest from whom Tyndareus wanted favours, they could not snub the intruder as he deserved. Menelaus, likewise a guest relying entirely on the king's benevolence, raged impotently and was rude as he dared be. Helen, the fickle hussy, cold-shouldered her fuming followers and wantonly encouraged her admirer who, I must admit, had thoroughly mastered the methods of winning a woman's heart. What motivated the man is hard to say. I can only conclude he was so frenetically over-sexed that anything in skirts became a goal to be attained whatever the cost.

The price, in the event, soared high for all concerned.

In the midst of these commotions I married Clytemnaistra. After the celebratory banquet I led her to a bridal suite the king had bestowed, allowed my squires to undress me and impatiently awaited my bride's arrival in bed. When at last her ladies were gone I entered the bedroom stark, and hot as a stag in rut. Clytemnaistra lay naked, coverlet cast aside, her magni­ficent ivory body a vision to animate stones.

I curbed my ardour, stretched beside her, kissed her lips and caressed her breasts. Thence, gently and excitingly, to belly and loins. She stayed still as a marble image. I used every art to arouse her, every provocation my concubines had taught. I might as well have tickled a corpse. Unable any longer to control my frenzy I straddled the inert form and forced her thighs apart. She shifted her buttocks and made herself com­fortable, sighed a little and inspected the ceiling. Vigorously plunging and heaving, I won not the slightest response. Nettled by her lethargy I braided my energies and, before dawnlight paled the windows, pierced her four times more. Clytemnaistra passively submitted.

Bewildered and exhausted, I summoned slaves and squires and went to have a bath.

It was all most disappointing.

* *
*

Events a few days later swamped marital frustrations. Theseus and his Heroes failed to appear in the Hall for noonday dinner. Somebody suggested they might have gone hunting independ­ently: a breach of manners unsurprising in Athenians. A search of the palace environs disclosed followers and spearmen still in quarters, but not a Hero or Companion anywhere in the city. Nobody could say where they had gone. The king testily opined, since their retinues remained in Sparta, his errant visitors would reappear next day.

Then a frantic lady in waiting, weeping and wringing her hands, announced Helen was nowhere to be found. Apparently the child had gone with Theseus in his chariot: a not unusual occurrence, for he had displaced Menelaus in the little hoyden's favour. Although the sun was sinking the king instantly ord­ered charioteers to hunt his missing guests. Nightfall ended the quest; the search parties returned home. Tyndareus confidently asserted that Helen's disappearance was simply a thoughtless escapade. At dawn the seekers went out again.Castor and Polydeuces, quartering the countryside, uncovered the quarry's tracks. The lord of a small citadel a day's foot- journey north from Sparta told them Theseus and a retinue, driving fast, had passed his gates the previous day on a road that led to Tegea. He had noticed in their company a young and pretty girl.

The Twins returned to Sparta at a gallop.

'Theseus will have passed Tegea by now, heading for Mantinea,' Castor told his father.

'Then he'll strike to Argos across the mountains,' Polydeuces surmised.

'Kidnapped Helen.'

'Taking her to Athens.'

'Can't catch him before he's bolted into his burrow.'

'Got too long a start.'

Tyndareus, in a flaring temper, mustered an armoured war- band from every Hero present in the palace, put the Twins in command and ordered a chase. 'This is war,' he said. 'If necessary you'll pursue to the walls of Athens. I'll mobilize and send the Host in support, but while it's on the march your chariots must fight alone. Whatever happens,' he ended grimly, 'don't show me your faces again until you've recovered Helen.'

Menelaus insisted on accompanying the Twins; afterwards he described to me the Spartan war in Attica. Fifty chariots headed north on Theseus' trail and halted the first sundown in a coppice near Tegea. A shepherd who bartered mutton for their supper related an infuriating tale. A band of Heroes stop­ping to water horses in his pasture had drawn straws for pos­session of a girl-child in the party. The leader, whom he accurately described, had won.

'Sodding bastard Theseus,' Menelaus gritted.

Before sun-up they yoked horses, galloped through Mantinea, traversed laboriously the winding mountain passes and de­scended into the Argive Plain. At Argos they again night- halted; Diomedes gave the travel-worn Heroes shelter and food in the palace and seven Venetic horses in exchange for animals lamed by the hectic pace. On the third day, by-passing My­cenae, the warband reached Corinth. The Twins passionately urged they press on across the Isthmus; Menelaus, more provi­dent, refused to attempt the fearsome road past Sciron's Rocks in darkness. The Warden (Bunus' replacement) said Theseus was a full day's march ahead and going like a hunted hare. A laughing girl in his chariot seemed to be relishing the headlong ride.

Menelaus tore his hair. The Twins muttered joint obscenities.

After crossing the Isthmus they journeyed till dark and camped near Eleusis. The band was now in Attica, a land assumed to be hostile. They leaguered chariots, mounted guards and counted the cost of a whirlwind drive over bonebreaking roads and rugged mountains. Forty-two chariots remained in harness; the rest had been left at the wayside with broken axles, wheels and poles. Limping horses disposed of a couple more.

The Twins debated plans.

'Failed to catch the turd,' Castor said despondently. 'Holed up now in Athens.'

'Can't take the place with forty chariots,' Polydeuces com­plained.

'Have to wait for the Host.'

'Won't arrive for days.'

'We can't sit here doing nothing,' Menelaus declared sav­agely. 'We've numbers enough to ravage the land, burn villages and crops, kill cattle. By harassing his property we may tempt Theseus out.'

The Twins cheered up; Menelaus' advice accorded with their own impetuous natures. For the next three days the Spartans wreaked an orgy of destruction, moving fast from village to village and setting the fields alight. They avoided fortified citadels, but audaciously raided a harbour right under Athens' nose and burned fishing boats and galleys. Daily they expected warbands hurtling from the citadel seeking vengeance, daily they were disappointed. Theseus stayed firmly behind his walls.

Commanded by Tyndareus' warlord Marathus, the Spartan Host, chariots, spears and baggage, reached Eleusis. The opera­tions thenceforth assumed the character of a war of extermi­nation. Smoke clouds smeared the heavens above Attica, a stench of death and burning soured the air. Marathus attacked citadels the Twins perforce had spared, razed walls and mas­sacred garrisons. A tardy Athenian warband was driven helter- skelter from the field. When little was left to destroy the Host surrounded Athens, blenched at the daunting citadel towering on its rock, and sent heralds to demand Helen's surrender.

"Don't know what the blazes we can do if Theseus refuses,' Castor said.

Tricky,' Polydeuces agreed. 'Athens is quite impregnable.'

The heralds brought back the surprising announcement that Theseus, days before, had taken ship and sailed for an un­known port. A certain Menestheus, a sprig of the royal House, now ruled Athens as Regent. Menestheus swore ignorance of Helen's whereabouts; Theseus before he fled had despatched her secretly to some hiding place in Attica. Would the Spartans please find her quickly, the Regent implored, leave Athens' ter­ritory and allow her population to repair the havoc wrought.

'I'd like to try an escalade and teach the swine a lesson,' Polydeuces said, eyeing the precipitous mount.

"Not a hope,' said Castor. 'Let's start a thorough search.'

The hunt concentrated on the few settlements still intact. Menelaus, roaming with a warband in the neighbourhood of Aphidna, rounded up some peasants and put them to the question. (A routine practice involving gouged-out eyeballs.) A screaming victim revealed that a recently arrived young lady lived in Aphidna in charge of an elderly matron: he knew not who they were or whence they came. Menelaus cut the goat­herd's throat, ransacked the village and found his quarry in one of the better houses. He levelled Aphidna, and took her away.

My brother told me that Helen, though unharmed, was serious and subdued, her merriment missing. A short captivity had transformed her from girl to woman. She was reticent about her experiences and refused to speak of Theseus. The matron who looked after her turned out to be Aithra, Theseus' mother. She had clearly become devoted to her charge; Helen tearfully pleaded she remain as her serving woman. Menelaus saw no harm; and the mother of an Athenian king quitted her native land as a Spartan slave.

Castor and Polydeuces persuaded the bellicose Marathus to rally his widely dispersed Host and march to Sparta. (Marathus, deceived by easy victories over cowardly Athenians, boasted he would demolish Thebes before returning home. Luckily for Sparta's fortunes the Twins - not normally famous for prud­ence - declined to step beyond Tyndareus' orders.) Within two moons of Helen's abduction she returned to her father's em­braces; her scatty mother was scarcely aware she had been away. I thought the girl looked pale and unhappy, inclined to fall into brooding silences. Menelaus devoted himself to restor­ing her spirits.

The episode lost Theseus his throne. I learned later that his Heroes, led by Menestheus, blamed their ruler's licentiousness for the calamities Athens suffered and forced him to fly for his life. He intended to find sanctuary in Crete; a storm blew the ship off course and swept him ashore at Scyros. He died there a year or two later, murdered, according to rumour, by the lord of the island. Theseus was an unsavoury character, but I have no doubt the Athenians will magnify his deeds and construct around his memory an unmerited reputation. Athens has little to boast about, and dredges credit from dunghills.

So bewitching, beautiful Helen sparked a devastating war from which Athens had not recovered by the time of the Trojan campaign. She is also given the doubtful credit of launching the fleets against Priam. Already the bards are romancing that Paris' later abduction drew vengeful Achaeans to Troy; but that was merely the pretext, and never the genuine cause.

* * *

King Tyndareus granted his son-in-law an extensive estate at Therapne, a pleasant little settlement a morning's stroll from Sparta. I removed with Clytemnaistra to a spacious manor sur­rounded by vineyards, fields and pastures whence, by careful husbandry, I garnered ample revenues. My precarious life as a landless Hero came to an end.

Clytemnaistra outwardly was all that a wife should be: dutiful, obedient, a model mistress of the household. We estab­lished a companionable relationship which made slight de­mands on affection, let alone love. In bed she remained com­pliant and torpidly unresponsive despite my strenuous efforts to fire her passions. At last I acknowledged defeat, abandoned a pointless battle and paid periodical homage to a body which failure and frustration made all the more desirable. Perhaps if I got her with child she might become less frigid; but she showed no signs of pregnancy. I began to wonder whether I bedded a barren sow: misfortune for any husband, calamity for kings who must breed sons to preserve the royal succession.

To cool my blood and preserve my health I brought Maira to

Therapne: she compensated - almost - for the raptures I'd expected from my wife. While perfectly aware I bedded other women Clytemnaistra never reproached me or betrayed any signs of jealousy, reserving her vindictiveness for the unfortu­nate concubines themselves. Pretending Maira had neglected some petty household chore she had her whipped. When Maira, sobbing, showed me the weals I quietly informed Cly­temnaistra that the woman, my personal property, was beyond her jurisdiction.

She said, 'The slut was insolent. Am I to accept impertinence from slaves?'

'If she gives you cause for complaint tell me. I'll ensure she doesn't transgress in future.'

I sternly reprimanded my bedmate, who denied she had ever offended Clytemnaistra. 'I keep well out of her way because I know she wants to hurt me,' she said tearfully. 'I hate the bitch - a dangerous, vicious harridan!'

I slapped her across the face. 'Hold your tongue. If you speak of my lady like that again I'll have you beaten to death!'

Such domestic frictions were transitory irritants in an other­wise tranquil existence. I busied myself with ploughing, sowing and harvesting, pruning vines and breeding cattle and sheep; and tried to forget Mycenae and the throne that I had lost. I once gingerly reminded the king of his promise; he recom­mended patience, declared the time unripe. Thyestes, said Tyndareus, was like an apple rotting on the tree; when a harsh wind shook the branches the fruit would fall of its own accord. A fire smouldered in Mycenae; when it began to glow Sparta would fan the flames.