The Songs of the Kings: A Novel Page 11

  “His father lived by wrecking ships and taking off the cargoes,” Agamemnon said. “Everyone knows that. He and his gang lit beacons on the headlands of Caphareus to lure ships onto the rocks. If they found any sailors still alive, they—”

  “Palamedes is free of blame, that’s the point.” Odysseus spoke brusquely. He saw now that Agamemnon, though fully aware of why they had come, was playing for time, trying to wriggle off the hook by slithering into irrelevancies. Despicable. “He is and you’re not,” he said. “It’s got nothing to do with anybody’s father.”

  “I will have him killed.”

  “Far from easy. He is well guarded. And then, as we have said, he is popular, the consequences might be dangerous, unpredictable in any case. No, the remedy lies elsewhere, it was pronounced in your hearing not long ago in this very—”

  “You can’t kill them all.”

  No one knew for a while who had spoken, where this clear and deliberate voice could have come from. It was as if the wind had suddenly found human language. Then, from the look of dismay on his sons’ faces, they realized it was old Nestor, until then silent except for occasional low mutters and chuckling sounds. “When there is division among the people,” he continued in the same clear tones, “there will never be any shortage of leaders. You put one out of the way, others come forward. It is analogous to the problem encountered by Heracles when he was trying to kill the monster with the hundred heads. But in this present case the monster is not rival leaders but our own discord, the conflicts that divide us. This began, as we all know, with the ill-considered gift of the golden apple by Paris to the goddess of love.”

  There were some moments of stunned silence while all regarded the ancient counselor, who now was dribbling a little. His sons wore a look of total consternation, as if their worst fears were being realized. Even Odysseus gulped and swallowed. The old fool had found his voice again—and quite the wrong message. The only one not to seem surprised was Agamemnon, who nodded and said, “Wise words, we thank you for them. What is this story you refer to? Refresh our memories.”

  “Story?”

  “Yes, this apple that—”

  “Apple? They tried to stop us, they couldn’t stop us, no one could stop us, we were unstoppable, it wasn’t a javelin, it was a sword, we got away with a hundred cows . . .”

  “There, there, father, shush, shush,” the sons said, speaking together in visible relief.

  “Agamemnon,” Odysseus said, “I won’t mince words with you. My kingdom is Ithaca, as you know. You probably haven’t been there but I can tell you it’s very rocky. I love the place, I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else, but there is no denying that it is rocky. People who grow up there, they come to resemble the rock. A bit on the rigid side perhaps, possibly lacking in finesse, but absolutely incorruptible. You can’t corrupt rock, can you? We are people that speak our minds.”

  He paused here, savoring the moment. The King was suffering, it was in his face. Odysseus had seen that look before, in his courtroom at home, on the faces of convicted malefactors awaiting his sentence while he deliberately delayed. Agamemnon knew he was being played with, but he could do nothing, he was helpless. Seeing the King’s stricken face, Odysseus felt pleasure gather in his mouth, so that his next words came more thickly. “We do not make pretty speeches or go in for poetic figures or false comparisons. The leaves of the trees change color and fall, the flowers of spring deceive us with their promise and sadden us when they wither and die, but the face of the rock endures forever.” He paused briefly to swallow down the excess saliva. “I am the king of these people, I am Ithaca, I am rock personified. So do not expect anything from me but plain speaking and the blunt truth.” Slow down, he told himself, take care, you’re enjoying this too much.

  He had a mannerism, a way of inclining his heavily muscled shoulders forward as he spoke, as though putting his physical weight behind the point he was making, then drawing his head back sharply to look his interlocutor in the eye, with a great effect of openness and sincerity. Chasimenos’s style was quite different; pale-faced and peering, still in his narrow-fitting tunic of a palace bureaucrat, he was continuously shifting his behind on the cushion and shuffling his feet, as if the honesty of his thoughts and words were making things too hot for comfort. Together these two, while still remaining seated, performed a sort of dance before the reclining Agamemnon, a pattern of movements that seemed to keep time with the flapping of the canvas, the wavering shadows cast on the wall behind them by the thin bars of the lamp guard.

  “If it hurts you, I can’t help it, that’s the way I’m made,” Odysseus said. “This concerns your daughter, as you know.”

  Chasimenos gave him a straight look. “No one will harm my king while I am standing on my own two feet and able to prevent it.”

  “My faithful Chasimenos, you will be rewarded,” Agamemnon said, and the words came with just the hint of a sob.

  “I ask for no reward but to be there by your side at the conquest of Troy, making a detailed inventory of the booty that falls to Mycenae.”

  “This is all very well,” Odysseus said, “but it isn’t getting us anywhere. It certainly isn’t getting us any nearer to Troy. Agamemnon, you heard the words of the priest of Zeus. We all did. Those words are all over the camp, on everybody’s lips. Croton is widely respected for his upright character and he is known to have the favor of the god.”

  “He was contradicted by Calchas.”

  Chasimenos squirmed on his cushion.“My lord king, what is Calchas? He is a foreigner, an outsider, priest of a god unknown to the Greeks. He has no loyalty to our great cause, he has no idea of patriotism or honor or—”

  “Worst of all, he is effeminate,” Menelaus said. “I noticed that from the start.”

  “The facts are not in dispute,” Odysseus said. “Croton has firsthand testimony, eyewitness accounts. Iphigeneia exalts the mother over the father, she dances with her attendants at the time of full moon, she denies that Artemis is the daughter of Zeus, or any younger than he, she pours libations of milk. In short, she has been possessed by Hecate and has become a witch.”

  Chasimenos practiced his straight look again. “Odysseus, take care, a little respect, you are talking about a princess of the royal house of Mycenae, you are talking about a daughter of great Agamemnon.”

  “Faithful servant, I will give you five measures of lapis lazuli. Write it down somewhere.”

  “I am talking about what the army believes, rightly or wrongly. That’s the only thing that matters. The army has accepted this as the explanation for the wind. If you don’t do something about it, or promise to do something about it, the command of this great enterprise will slip from your grasp.”

  “The promise would be enough,” Chasimenos said softly. “A significant future event. Something dear to your heart, offered up for the common good.”

  Odysseus gathered himself. The moment had come. Agamemnon knew, it was written on his face, but the words still needed to be said. “It is not only Croton now. Why should I be the one to bring your anger down upon us only because I am honest and speak as a friend?”

  A brief silence followed upon this. The wind had dropped for the moment to little more than a harsh sigh, the sound that a man might make with open mouth in relief from pain, or endurance of it; and this quietness seemed strange, and was remembered, coming at such a moment.

  The King rose and his shadow loomed on the canvas behind him, blotting into one dark shape the wavering shadows cast by the lamp guard. Then he moved to his chair and seated himself and raised a haggard face. “Let me hear,” he said.

  He had addressed Odysseus, but it was Chasimenos who spoke now, shuffling forward and coming to his knees before the seated figure of his master. He said, “O King, I would give my life for you at any time it was required.” A lump came to his throat at the trueness of this. “Take my life now if you need it, kill me as I kneel here. I have only your good at heart. The conquest of Troy w
ill give Mycenae, as the most powerful member of the alliance, rule over the shores of western Asia and all the Green Water. It will secure for us the trade in amber from the Baltic, in copper and tin from northern Anatolia and in the gold that comes down through Thrace. Control of the straits will fall into our hands, we will be able to levy dues on all the shipping that passes through into the Euxine Sea.”

  He kept his eyes to the ground as he spoke, not venturing to look up. He felt the presence of anguish above him, near and far, in the King and beyond the King, an anguish that rose into the night sky, where the wind had again become clamorous. “Iphigeneia must be sent for,” he said. “She must be brought here. You must announce your intention to have her sacrificed on the altar of Zeus before the assembled army. Only in this way can the expedition be saved.”

  The voice of Odysseus came from behind him. “An immediate announcement is necessary. They will believe it. Instead of waiting for an end to the wind, which is maddeningly uncertain, they will be waiting for the arrival of Iphigeneia, a definite event. It will do wonders for their morale.”

  Raising his eyes at last, Chasimenos could discern no particular change of expression in his master’s face. “It will save us,” he said. He got up awkwardly from his kneeling position and bowed and went back to his cushion.

  “Why not Menelaus?” the King said. “He has a daughter. It was his wife that was seduced. It was for his sake that I embarked on this expedition, not my own, to redeem the honor of the house of Atreus, to show the people of Troy and the whole world that when a blow is struck against us we will strike back with double force. We have the men, we have the ships, we have the gold. We did not seek this war, but by all the gods . . .” He broke off and a sound like a groan came from him. “Menelaus has a daughter,” he said again.

  “I must say, brother, I did not expect this from you,” Menelaus said. “Haven’t I got trouble enough? Must I remind you that my Helen is currently in a Trojan dungeon, being violated on an hourly basis? And I’ve told you before, she wasn’t seduced, she was kidnapped.”

  A terrible sneer distorted Agamemnon’s face. “Paris bound and gagged her, did he?”

  Chasimenos said, “Menelaus has a daughter, Lord King, but in the first place he is not the Supreme Commander, and so, secondly, he does not bear the responsibility. Thirdly, Hermione is only nine years old and so a bit on the young side. Fourthly, she is not a priestess of Artemis, and so, fifthly, she has not incurred the wrath of Zeus.”

  “Bravo, Chasimenos, well said.” Odysseus gazed admiringly at his fellow advocate. “You are always very good on the detail.” It was all going much better than could have been expected. Agamemnon was making speeches already, easing his soul with rhetoric, a very good sign. The more speeches the better. Words were what was needed now, words and more words. Words would take the life of Iphigeneia before ever she set out from Mycenae, long before the knife touched her throat; and the words that would kill the daughter, the same words, would swaddle the father, make a warm wrapping for him. He said, “Whether Helen went willingly or not, it is the same just cause that inspires our arms, the same concern for honor and justice that has brought this great army together, united in the sense of what it means to be Greek, yes, Greek. Our ancestors came from the north under the guidance of Zeus to occupy this land. A common origin, a common language, that is what makes a nation. But this nation does not yet know itself, it turns upon itself in division and strife. This is a nation waiting to be born, and Zeus has chosen you to be the one to give it birth. On the plains of Troy we shall fight under one banner. But before that, before we set out from here, we shall be a united force, confident in your leadership, your care for the common good, because you will have given us full proof of it at the altar of Zeus.”

  “It is a high destiny,” Chasimenos said, “and a heavy burden, but my king is fitted for it, he carries the burden for us all.”

  “Burden, there you go, brilliant. The heavy burden of command. ” Odysseus felt again that gathering of saliva, threatening to obscure his speech. “The knowledge that others depend on us, the sense of obligation that comes with high office, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Responsibility.”

  “Responsibility, absolutely brilliant. That is the heavy weight that those who are born to high command have to suffer, have to endure.”

  “Yes, yes, to endure,” the King said, speaking so low that the others could hardly hear him. “Responsibility, the burden of command, yes.”

  “And you are responsible several times over, which makes the burden even heavier,” Odysseus said.

  Agamemnon’s head had slumped forward and down, as if under a physical weight. He raised it now to give Odysseus a look in which ferocity mingled with bewilderment. “How is that?”

  “Chasimenos will explain, he is always very good on the detail.”

  “Pardon me, Lord King, but you are firstly responsible for Iphigeneia’s offense, and secondly responsible for accepting the responsibility for the conduct of the war when you were already responsible for the aforesaid offense, thereby becoming, thirdly, responsible for the wrath of Zeus, and following upon this, fourthly, for this hostile wind which is destroying the morale of the army.”

  “More responsible than that, it is hard to see how any mortal man could be,” Odysseus said. “Think of the consequences of refusing. You could not serve under another leader, it’s probably too late for that anyway. The army would break up, the expedition would be abandoned, you would return to Mycenae with all credibility gone for good, together with the chance to get your hands on all that Trojan gold. As the strongest power, Mycenae would be entitled to the biggest cut. Think of it, the lion’s share passing through the Lion Gate. Think of the people who have gathered here, who have put their faith in you. From the Pindus and Pelion they have come, from Aetolia and Locris, from Achaea and Arcadia, from the islands of the Aegean to the shores of Messenia, from the Saronic Gulf to the farthest headlands of the Peloponnese, from the wheatlands of Thessaly to the rugged slopes of Epirus. Greeks, yes, Greeks, our fellow countrymen.”

  “Odysseus, do you really think my king is going to let these faithful people down?” demanded Chasimenos.

  “By the gods, no.” Agamemnon raised his head again and glared about him. “I will not betray that trust. I have a sacred duty. This is a nation waiting to be born, I am the one chosen by Zeus to bring it forth into the light.”

  Thinking the issue decided, Chasimenos sank to his knees once more and lowered his head. “What god-given wisdom my lord speaks,” he said.

  However, from above there came a deep groan and from behind the sudden voice of Nestor, whom the groan must have startled. “Is Agamemnon in pain? All this sitting around is bad for the digestion, we should organize a boar hunt, I remember one boar hunt I went on, in Laconia, a huge boar, it stood higher than a man, it had already killed half a dozen dogs, I remember it had the giblets of one of them hanging from its right tusk, no, it was the left, no, wait a minute . . .”

  Chasimenos remained kneeling while the aged counselor was shushed into silence by his sons. Then Agamemnon groaned again, less loudly. “She is only fourteen,” he said. “She was always my favorite. And in public too. If it were in private, for some stain on my honor, in that case, yes, tragedies like that can occur in the best of families. But to have her lifted up in the gown of the victim, through which her limbs can be seen, to make a public display of her before the dregs of humanity we have got here, this bare-arsed scum from Locris and Aetolia, this beastly rabble from Boeotia and Attica, these rapists and butter-eaters from Epirus, these turds from Thessaly who come to take part in a military expedition armed only with hay-forks, is it for this I raised her?”

  “These Thessalians are degenerate, into the bargain,” Menelaus said. “They fuck their own goats, it’s a habit they have picked up from the Asians.”

  Chasimenos got slowly to his feet again. He was visited by a sense of discouragemen
t. He was getting old, his joints felt stiff. “This is your raw material,” he said. “This is the clay that awaits the potter’s hand. It is in the nature of raw material to be, initially at least, raw. That is the challenge.”

  “Challenge, that’s it, you have hit the nail on the head there, Chasimenos.” Odysseus was scenting victory now. A little fellow feeling, a suggestion of intolerable shame . . . “Think of it this way,” he said. “For you as a father there is a certain point of view, no one would deny it. But a father is only one individual. As Commander-in-Chief you are responsible for a thousand individuals. What about the massive collective pain that would follow from the collapse of this expedition, the frustration of all our hopes? Have you the right to be so selfish? I know you are a family man, with a belief in traditional values. I am like that myself, but there are times when we need to be alive to changing circumstances, responsive to the requirements of the moment, ready to yield a little so as to achieve our goals, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Adaptable.”

  “Adaptable, brilliant, there are times when we need to be adaptable. Do you want to go down to posterity as a man who was so hidebound that he passed up on his patriotic duty and neglected the opportunity to forge a nation? I can just see what the Singer will make of it, I can hear those verses rolling out through generation after generation. Once things get into the Song you will never entirely succeed in getting them out again. Think of the shame. I wouldn’t care for it myself, that’s all I can say.”

  “What will they sing about me?”

  “They will sing that you lacked resolution, honesty, courage, patriotism, ambition.”