Warriors in Bronze (24 page)

'Of course. You can't grab an enemy's armour unless you kill
him first. You've got to be good or you don't win loot.'

I reflected dismally on the bitter cynicism clouding Atreus'
outlook, so unlike his satirical good-humour before he went to
Pylos. He had indeed changed. 'At Megara,' I admitted, 'booty
seemed everyone's main object. The Scavengers had different
aims.'

'Theban bugger-boys!' the king snorted. 'Uncontrollable
fanatics! Tactics based on theirs will lose nine battles out of
ten!'

The Scavengers' aggression, control and discipline had won
the Battle of Megara. I kept the thought to myself: the king's
demeanour discouraged dissent.

'The affair was a shambles,' Atreus continued, 'because
spearmen crowded on chariots as they did in Perseus' day.
Fatal. Always, when I led the Host, I ordered spears and
chariots to manoeuvre as separate bodies. When I saw the
enemy I advanced my mobile armour, spearmen in rank a
bowshot behind, a reserve of both in the rear. If our chariots
broke the enemy line spears followed and exploited. Were the
armour repulsed it rallied behind a spearmen screen.
¹

'Which,' I murmured, 'is the sort of sensible tactic I had in
mind. You have never lost a war, so it must have worked.'

'Not once. Directly the chariots began to move the spearmen
broke into separate squads which followed their personal lords.
Exactly like Megara. They share in the plunder, you see - and
nobody in Achaea fights for anything else. It's hard to break a
tradition dating from Zeus' time.'

Except the Scavengers. From this depressing discussion was
born a resolve to form, whenever the means arrived, a body of
disciplined charioteers bent on winning battles before they
scrambled for booty.

* * *

I had buried the bits of Clymene's body Thyestes' murderers
left. He had sent Stymphalian axemen, men notorious for their
pitiless ferocity. (Fifteen years later I burned Stymphalos,
slaughtered the men and enslaved the women and children.) I
shifted from my ruined house to quarters in the palace, but
seldom set eyes on Atreus. He immersed himself in work and
travelled extensively, visited Corinth where Heraclid raids had
ceased and husbandmen rebuilt burned-out manors; and in­spected demesnes he had granted to newly made Heroes. Be­cause he had not appointed a Marshal he personally supervised
training on the Field of War, and led a warband to Arcadia to
chastise cattle thieves. Curator at heel he scrutinized store
rooms, tallied enormous jars of olive oil and corn, checked
fleeces, hides and bales, counted sacks of gold and brazen ingots
stored in musty basement chambers that contained Mycenae's
power, the wealth that she imported and the goods she traded
abroad, all centralized in the citadel, directed by the king and
inventoried by Scribes.

The bribe delivered to Pylos, Atreus once grumbled on return
from probing the treasury, had made somewhat of a hole in the
realm's resources. None the less, he conceded, Eurystheus had
judged rightly: the gifts and the Marshal's diplomacy per­suaded King Neleus to abandon his intention of raiding My­cenaean shores.

'Neleus is failing,' Atreus told me. 'Sixty if he's a day, and the
Hercules raid quite broke him up. Nestor, his only surviving
son, is running Pylos.
He's
no chicken, either - twice your age.

Dogmatic and full of bounce, but an intelligent man with un­usual ideas. He is rebuilding the palace and citadel on a differ­ent site inland on a hill overlooking the bay - and is leaving the
place unwalled. Nestor declares that fortifications didn't, save
old Pylos from Hercules' destruction; and in future his navy
replaces walls.'

'Like Cretans in olden days,' I ventured.

"You know that much history? I suppose you're picking
Gelon's brains. Nestor may be right, but Achaeans conquered
Crete despite King Minos' ships. A long time ago: Acrisius, I
believe, commanded that invasion.

'Pylos,' the king continued, 'can never be allowed to black­mail us again. Far too expensive. So our navy must be more
than a match for theirs. I visited Nauplia's yards a fortnight
ago and sacked the harbour master - an idle layabout. Now
nobody is properly in charge, and I'm sending you to supervise
the shipwrights.'

Atreus surveyed the sculpted bulls' horns cresting the palace
building - we were sauntering in the Great Court - and added,
'There's another question. Since
..
. Thyestes went, Tiryns lacks
a Warden. I considered Copreus, my most experienced noble­man, an outstanding warrior, holds a lot of land - and is bent
as a bowstave. I need a strong administrator: he'll be re­sponsible both for Tiryns and the whole shipbuilding pro­gramme.' (That hesitant reference to Thyestes was the nearest
he ever came, until Aerope's end, to mentioning the disgrace
that burned him like searing brands.)

Atreus entered the portico and sank on a marble seat. His
escort - a Hero guarded the King of Mycenae wherever he
went and sentried his chamber at night - leaned against a pillar
discreetly beyond earshot. I said, 'You need a Hero who can
think - rare enough, I allow - and a Scribe to keep his records.'

'Quite so. You and Gelon. I'm proposing your name to the
Council tomorrow. A formality, of course.'

'Your older Heroes will make me a target of jealousy. Is it
wise to arouse enmity?'

'Do you care? You're unscrupulous, ruthless and tough,
Agamemnon, and one day you'll be king. You'll have enemies in
plenty before you've finished: better start learning to cope
with them now. You'll take over Tiryns and Nauplia before the old moon sets, so make your preparations.'

(I disagreed, then and afterwards, with Atreus' brisk assess­ment
of
my character. All Heroes in these hard times have
to
be
tough
to
survive, and some are perfidious crooks.
I
do not
believe I
am worse than most.
A
forbearance afflicting
my
nature - as,
for example, tolerating Achilles'
tantrums
during
the
Trojan siege - has often proved pernicious. In politics and
statecraft
-
the
dirtiest of games -
I played the
hands
as I found
them,
and who can blame me for that? In
war I obeyed the
prevailing
rule: no mercy for those who
resisted - why
should
I
be condemned for behaving as
everyone
does ?
I have come to
the conclusion that
a frightening reputation
rests largely on
my appearance
: from Atreus I inherited
an impressive stature,
eagle features,
blazing blue eyes and
a cruel
mouth.
And for
one who became the
most
powerful
king
in
all
Mycenae's
his­
tory it was fortunate
indeed
that very few men - perhaps
Menelaus
alone - have ever discerned the kindliness
a forbid­ding exterior
hides.)

I duly
informed
Gelon,
who was
gravely
enthusiastic.
We
strolled the
ramparts by the north-west postern and
discussed
the problems
arising from assessing
and accounting the
revenues
of Tiryns: a much more complicated
matter than
auditing
Rhipe's receipts. As for the shipyards, he
confessed his
inexperience
in maritime accounting, hazarded a guess
that
affairs were
in a muddle and asserted a belief
we
could
sort the
business out. I confided my scheme of raising
a
chariot squad­
ron,
and asked him whether systematic payments
were a
feas­ible
alternative
to dependence on battle-plunder.

Gelon
rested elbows on parapet and gazed across
the sun-
soaked valley. 'You mean a force of paid professional soldiers ?
It
has never been done in Achaea, my lord, although
his fore­
fathers' - he pointed his chin at Zeus' tomb in the foreground
-
'kept
a
standing army in Egypt.'

I stared,
astonished, at the ancient oak
tree
shading
the
mound. The
usual offerings that peasants
deposited
-
dead
doves,
small pottery figurines, wheat-cakes - littered
the
ring
of
standing
slabs. 'Zeus, the first of the Heroes? An Egyptian?'

Gelon looked equally surprised. 'Didn't you know, my lord?
Zeus'
family certainly came from Egypt, though
not of
Egyp­tian breeding.'Leaning on the wall while a sentry paced behind us he re­lated a history I suppose I should have known; but nobody
bothered to tell me and, a man of the moment, I seldom delve
in antiquity. Moreover I doubt whether many Achaeans out­side the Scribal sect learn more of the past than their pedigrees.
Four hundred winters ago - for me an unimaginable aeon, to
Gelon as but yesterday - a dynasty of foreign kings, sprung
from nomadic shepherds, governed the lands of the Nile until
the Egyptians rose and expelled them. Some of them crossed to
Crete: the Cretans, a peaceable race, unwisely allowed the
refugees to land. They promptly fortified a place called Gortys,
which to this day remains the island's only fortified city.