Heroes

The chirping of the birds had ceased; they were sleeping in their nests under their mother’s wing. The dark valley now sounded with the hoots of the birds of prey and the howls of the jackals which roamed the darkness to rob the dead of the offerings left by the pious living. Electra pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders and started her walk back. As she was leaving the valley, her gaze flew to the citadel and the high walls of the palace. She thought she saw, for just an instant, a solitary figure dressed in black on the tower of the chasm. Then the wind carried the echo of a wail coming from a house near the road. A babe crying for fear of the dark, consoled by his mother’s singing.

Electra listened to that lullaby and it called up lost images, forgotten long ago. A knot tightened her throat and an aching nostalgia filled her soul.

Then the baby’s crying stopped, and the mother’s song as well. Electra began walking.

11

Anchialus journeyed at length amid steep mountains and thick forests, living on what he could find. When he came upon a village, he would remain and work there for some time, in exchange for food and shelter. He pushed on this way until one day, having decided that it was time to move on, he realized that the choice was no longer his to make. The people whom he lived with had come to consider him their property and intended to keep him as a slave. His sword was taken from him, and an iron collar was put round his neck, with a ring they used to chain him up at night. He remained in that state for a long time, without understanding where he was or who the people who held him prisoner were, until one night the village was stormed and sacked by a people coming from the north. The Dor.

He was spared because he was a slave and that day he traded one master for another. He saw that the Dor community was divided very rigidly: there were the warriors, those who did manual labour, and the slaves, nearly all plunder of war, like himself. The slaves had to attend to the animals and take the flocks to pasture.

He had never managed to learn the language of the people who had first kept him slave, but he realized that it was much easier for him to understand the language of the Dor, which sounded strangely familiar to him, similar somehow to his own.

He could not fathom the reason for this, and he tried to remember the traditions and stories that the elders of his people would tell when he was just a boy in search of an explanation, but he found none. At night when he dropped on to his mat of dried grass, he could not sleep, exhausted as he was. He thought of the comrades whom he had let die at sea, he thought of the others who had stayed with Diomedes; he thought of his king, to whom he had made a promise it would be very difficult to keep.

He implored the gods to free him, to remove the yoke weighing on his shoulders, to restore his shield and his spear. But much time passed before anything happened.

The Dor settled for nearly three years on a plain near the shore of a lake encircled by tall mountains, and he with them.

One day they gave him a woman, a slave like he was, so they could generate more slaves, but when he lay with her he spilled his seed on the ground so that he would not be bound to that life, so that he would have no wife and no children. Every day, at the break of dawn and at the setting of the sun, he repeated to himself: ‘You are Anchialus, son of Iasus, and you fought with the son of Tydeus, Diomedes, under the walls of Troy. No one can keep you in their thrall.’

He feigned docility and cowardice, he pretended to tremble in the sight of his master, he grovelled and whimpered when they threatened punishment and soon no one had any more regard for him than for the sheep and goats they raised in their pens.

And so one night he strangled his master in his sleep, took his weapons and his horse, and escaped. He descended the banks of a river, leaving no traces, and he continued on day and night without ever pausing, never eating and never sleeping. When he was certain that he had put enough distance between himself and his enemies, he stopped to look for a little food so he could gain the strength to go on. He set traps, as he had learned from his first masters, and caught some game. He dug in the ground for tubers and roots with his sword, and he gathered wild fruit from the trees as he had done after surviving the pirates’ attack.

When he felt strong enough, he took up his journey once again, keeping well clear of villages this time. Nearly two months passed in this way, although he could not say how much ground he had covered. He knew only that he was walking southward, leaving the darkness and night behind him.

One morning, just as day was breaking, he finally reached a rocky peak from which he saw an expanse of waves that shone like polished bronze. A strong salty odour was carried on the breeze and his heart swelled in his chest. ‘The sea,’ he murmured aloud.

Along the coast he found a village of fishermen who spoke his language. He asked them what land he found himself in, and they told him it was Epirus, ruled over by Pyrrhus, a youth just seventeen years of age. The fishermen told him that their young king had come by ship after fighting at length in Asia. It was said that he was the son of a fearful warrior who had died far from his native land. ‘The son of Achilles!’ thought Anchialus. ‘Achilles’s son, here. . how could that be?’ He was more convinced than ever that the accursed war had ruined them all, overturning kingdoms and dynasties, procuring no less trouble for the victors than for the vanquished. So the son of Achilles did not reign in Phthia and over the plains of Thessaly as would have been his right, but over a poor, primitive place at the edge of the land of the Achaeans!

He asked the fishermen where he could find the king’s house, and they answered that he must continue along the coast, never losing sight of the sea, proceeding south until he reached a place called Buthrotum. There lived the young king, surrounded by his warriors, with a foreign bride, older than he, beautiful but very sad. No one had ever seen her smile, but neither had anyone ever seen her weep. Those who had known her said she looked like a statue, with skin pale as marble and lovely, lightless eyes.

Anchialus thought and thought of who that woman might be, but he could not remember anyone who fitted that description. He was pleased nonetheless; he thought that he would finally meet one of the kings who had fought under the walls of Ilium, and that he could report to him as Diomedes had ordered. He would ask for a ship, and he would set sail west once again. Sooner or later he would find Diomedes and the comrades he had left, and he would join them in their new kingdom, in their new homeland.

He walked for two days before he found a fisherman who was going by boat to the city to sell his catch of fish; he asked if he could go there together with him. They talked at length while the boat slipped calmly over the clear waves, under a brilliant sun. He felt as though he had never left those lands. They could see islands rising from the sea on one side and, on the other, the steep, rocky coastline with its low sandy stretches bordered by lush trees and thick bushes of fragrant juniper and myrtle.

Buthrotum appeared towards evening, walls reddish in the twilight, standing out against the deep green of the surrounding woods. Dogs were barking; gulls screeching over the jutting cliffs. Epirus seemed an untamed land.

Anchialus reached the palace and entered the courtyard to announce himself to the guard at the gate.

‘I am Anchialus, son of Iasus. I once fought at Troy with my king Diomedes, son of Tydeus, the lord of Argos. Tell your king that I am here and must speak with him as soon as possible. A grave danger threatens these lands, and he must know of it.’

The man studied him carefully and only then did Anchialus realize what he must look like: his hair was long and unkempt, his hands rough and calloused, his fingernails black. ‘I know, I seem a beggar, but you must believe me. I was enslaved and forced to put sheep and swine to pasture for years. I finally succeeded in liberating myself and I resumed my journey so I could keep my promise. I want nothing, although I am tormented by hunger. Just allow me to speak with the king.’

‘The king has departed,’ said the guardian.

‘Departed? Where has he gone?’

‘King Menelaus has asked for his help.’

‘King Menelaus? He is alive then?’

‘Yes. He is asking for help from all his allies to put together a large army and attack Mycenae, which is in the