The Oath

9

I took him by the hand and pulled him in.

‘Was it you making that noise? With what?’

He showed me a nail stuck in a piece of wood.

‘Who’s there?’ asked my father from the other room.

‘It’s just a little boy. . What’s your name?’

‘Eumelus.’

My father approached and our little visitor backed up to the door, clearly frightened.

‘We don’t want to hurt you,’ he said. ‘We’re friends. Where do you come from, Eumelus? And what are you doing in this place?’

‘I’m from Pherai, in Thessaly. .’

My father turned towards me: ‘This isn’t just any child; look at his clothing. He’s a young guest of this palace, a prince, most likely. A guest, perhaps, but more likely a hostage. .’

Then, turning back to the boy, he said: ‘Why have you come here? Is there something you have to tell us?’

The boy was struck dumb, and I motioned to my father to step away: his presence was too intimidating. He understood without me saying a word and he went back to the other room. I looked in my knapsack for something the child might like; I found a little wooden horse I’d carved with my knife and showed it to him: ‘Look, I made this myself. It’s pretty, isn’t it? Would you like to have it?’

Eumelus nodded. I stretched out the open palm of my hand with the little horse. He hesitated for a moment, then snatched it up and put it in his belt.

‘This is my gift for you: remember Odysseus of Ithaca whenever you take it out of your belt to play with. Do you know what that means? It means we’re friends. Friends exchange gifts.’

‘I don’t have anything to give you in exchange,’ the boy replied.

‘Your friendship is the best gift. And then, who knows, maybe some day you’ll receive me in your palace and you’ll give me a gift to remember you by. But now, tell me why you were scraping the floor under the doorway. You wanted me to hear you and open the door, didn’t you?’

Eumelus nodded again. I came close, took his hands between mine and looked into his eyes: ‘What did you want to tell me?’

Eumelus started to speak, very quietly, without ever changing the tone of his voice or the expression on his face, and to describe what he’d seen one night some time in the past in the very hall we found ourselves in. He’d been awakened that night by strange noises and then by moaning and gasping. He’d got up and followed the direction that the noises were coming from, opened the door a crack and had then seen something so horrible that he turned and ran back down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him, desperate to get back to his room and jump into his bed before anyone saw him.

When he’d finished talking he just stared at me with those eyes: so big, so black, so open, as if he wanted to let me look all the way into his heart.

‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’ I asked him.

He shook his head: no, he hadn’t been dreaming. Then he showed me what the nail stuck in the piece of wood was for. He scraped between one stone and the next on the floor and gathered the dirt that had collected in the cracks. He poured some into the palm of my hand and then he showed me that the little sack hanging on his belt was full of it.

‘You have to leave with us, tomorrow. We’ll take you back to your parents. They can’t have imagined what a situation you would be in.’

I beckoned for my father to come close, certain now that the child trusted us, and showed him the dirt. ‘He uses the nail to scrape at the cracks in the floor: look, this isn’t dirt, it’s dried blood. The floor was cleaned but not everything was washed away.’

My father sniffed at the specks in my hand and nodded solemnly. ‘It’s blood, no doubt about it.’

‘We have to take him with us,’ I said. ‘We can’t leave him alone in this place with this secret in his heart. It’s too much for him.’

‘They won’t let me go,’ said Eumelus, ‘and there’s not enough room on your chariots for you to hide me. If they found me, they’d kill all of us.’

‘You are Admetus’ son, aren’t you?’ said my father. ‘I’ll tell him what we’ve seen here and the state you’re in.’

‘He can’t do anything either, not even if he wanted to,’ protested the boy. ‘There’s only one man who can free me from this prison.’

None of us said a word because we were all thinking of the same person: Hercules.

The next day, at dawn, we went down to the palace courtyard. Eurystheus was already waiting, surrounded by his warriors. Two men bore his gifts for the king of Ithaca: a bearskin and an antique ceremonial sword whose burin-engraved blade was inlaid with gold. It had a gilded hilt as well, its pommel ending in two lion heads. I’d never seen such a wondrous thing. We reciprocated with a bronze and amber staff that my father had taken as booty in Asia.

As we were leaving I happened to look up and then caught my father’s eye. I said, softly: ‘Up high, third window.’ There was a child leaning out slightly and seemingly waving his hand.

Eurystheus’ gaze shot to the window and his mouth twisted into a smirk. Perhaps he wanted to make sure that his young guest was staying put.

My father dropped his head, I think to hide his impotent outrage. Leaving a child in such a place, in the grip of such a ruthless, ferocious man, was against his nature. The heart inside his chest was certainly howling like a dog. We passed under the gate of lions, still shrouded by darkness, then continued down the ramp until we reached the fork in the road. We turned left, towards Argus.

‘Go slowly, now,’ I said to my father. ‘Set the horses to a walk.’

The time had come for me to tell him everything the child had said.

‘There was a great banquet in honour of Hercules. Eurystheus had sent him word that he wanted to make peace and restore good relations. He wanted his cousin to bring his whole family to the palace, and Hercules accepted the invitation. As the evening wore on, his wife Megara and his children retired to their chambers, while Eurystheus insisted that Hercules and the other table companions remain to enjoy the feasting and revelry. Hercules drank and drank, until he lost consciousness. Perhaps his wine contained a drug that caused him to lose his senses. They carried him into his room and left him there.

‘The palace sank into silence.

‘But late that night, Eumelus, who was sleeping in a room at the end of the corridor, heard screaming and moaning, ominous thuds, objects being overturned. He strained to hear, imagining that cries of alarm would soon be filling the corridors, expecting to hear the pounding tread of the guards on duty rushing by. Instead, nothing. No one moved, no one called out. What was happening could not be interrupted. The child got up from his bed then and made his way, barefoot, down the whole corridor until he found himself in front of the room where all the noise had been coming from. Now he could hear them distinctly: the horrendous sounds of slaughter.

‘He pushed the door open a crack and saw what was happening. Hercules lay unconscious on the floor and three armed men were finishing off the members of his family who were still breathing. His wife and his children. Then one of them put a sword in Hercules’ hand. Eumelus fled back to his room, terrified that the three killers would leave the room and discover him. He didn’t close an eye for the rest of the night. At dawn, the shrieks of a woman woke everyone. The palace resounded with cries of horror, groaning and weeping.’

My father was turned to stone by that story. He asked me: ‘Why do you want me to go so slowly?’ The thread of his thoughts always ran in the direction that he wanted, not in the direction that anyone else would expect.

‘Father, do you remember seeing the boy at the window?’

‘Yes, I saw him. It was Eumelus.’

‘He was sending me signals.’

‘What? What kind of signals?’

‘Like the ones shepherds use to communicate at a distance. We use them on the island too.’

‘Of course we do. And what did he say?’

‘Two cypresses.’

My father pulled on the reins and stopped the chariot. Mentor, behind us, and the others of our escort did the same.

‘What does that mean?’

‘A place, I think, along the road we’re taking. He knows where we are headed. A place marked by two cypress trees.’

‘A tomb, perhaps. And something might happen there?’

‘I think we’ll understand when we get there.’

We started up again, at a slow pace. We reached another fork: left to Tiryns and the sea, right to Argus. We looked around: no one was following us, no one was ahead of us.

The fields were full of farmers already at work, reaping the barley and gathering the hay. The herdsmen and shepherds were taking their animals to pasture. Behind us rose Tiryns, at the top of a rock towering over the tilled fields. I turned to see it better, white and blue in the middle of the green countryside, so beautiful. And I saw the two cypress trees.

‘There they are, father! Look!’

‘Open land, and we’re not very far from Mycenae. . what shall we do?’

‘I’ll go alone. If all of our chariots turn in that direction, we’ll be visible from a distance. I don’t think anything escapes Eurystheus’ men. If the boy is there, he and I will return together. If he’s not there, I’ll wait until the sun is two spans above the horizon and then I’ll come back alone. You wait for me here, behind those trees, so you won’t be seen; it will look like we’ve stopped for a rest. In the meantime, tell Mentor what I’ve told you.’

I set off on foot, keeping up a good pace, towards the two cypress trees. A path led through the fields, planted with crops that I didn’t recognize. The cypresses were two big trees, visible at quite a distance, rising alongside an ancient burial mound which perhaps marked the tomb of some ancient hero. I approached warily, looking all around, but the place was deserted. I let some time pass, checking every now and then how far the sun had risen from the horizon. My father and his men were well hidden in the forest and even I couldn’t see them at this distance.

I found him suddenly at my side, as if he’d appeared from nowhere.

‘Where were you?’ I asked.

The boy pointed to the entrance to the tomb.

‘There? Weren’t you afraid the dead would pull you underground?’

He shook his head. He wasn’t afraid. He knew that he had much more to fear from the living than from the dead.

‘How did you get here?’

He pointed at a path that snaked through the fields in the middle of high rows of elms and poplars. From a distance no one would have been able to pick him out. He must have got out of some window at the back of the palace, dropped down and taken a shortcut to get out to the fields.

‘Let’s go,’ I told him. ‘Once they discover you’re missing they’ll be looking for you everywhere.’

He nodded and let me take his hand and lead him to where my father was waiting.

The time he’d spent in the palace must have taught him to keep his thoughts to himself, for he avoided talking whenever possible.

‘Listen,’ I told him, ‘when we’re with the king my father you’ll have to tell him everything you know: he’s risking a lot to help you and so am I. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know,’ replied Eumelus. Enough said, in his mind.

My father emerged from the forest as soon as he saw us crossing the road. ‘We’ll leave immediately,’ he said, ‘but we’ll split up. You and I will go to Argus with the child on a byroad. Mentor and the others will continue along the main road, but they’ll split up again as soon as possible. We’ve already discussed it. We’ll meet up on the isthmus in six days’ time, at dusk. This way we won’t attract undue attention. Now let’s get moving.’

We said goodbye and separated. Each chariot left a long wake of dust behind it, racing off down the main road. We took a lesser road that wasn’t heavily trafficked. In no time, our route became a mere footpath that climbed up towards the hills. Eumelus seemed to be having a lot of fun, and he wanted to hold the reins and drive the chariot himself.

‘This boy is full of spunk,’ said my father, letting him have a go. ‘He’ll have a chariot of his own one day!’

In the meantime I was thinking: Eurystheus would be more or less certain by now that the boy had somehow managed to join our party. We’d taken this byway, counting on the fact that Eurystheus and his men would see the wake of dust from the other chariots heading north and would decide to follow them in an attempt to catch us. It was also reasonable to assume, however, that Eurystheus would credit us with a bit of cunning, given our family tradition. It would make perfect sense, then, for them to search for us on the less busy and less practicable thoroughfares, which was the way we’d logically choose to go if we were trying to hide the child. Actually, they would most likely decide to go both ways, and then we would truly have no way out. We needed another stratagem.

The first time we stopped, I asked Eumelus to repeat everything he’d told me about the night of the massacre to my father, leaving nothing out. He agreed. He told the story with a wealth of details, and even told us that the bodies of Hercules’ wife and children had been dumped in a common grave outside the city walls. That’s why he had decided to scrape up the blood that had dried between the cracks in the flooring, so that he could bury the little leather sack in the shade of a pine tree overlooking the sun-drenched valley.

‘A better place for them.’

‘What were you doing at Mycenae in the first place?’ asked my father.

‘The king had asked my parents. Why would they refuse? It’s customary for a prince to spend time as a page in another king’s court.’

As they were speaking I had wandered off to check the path that climbed up from the valley and I’d spotted Eurystheus’ men. I returned to my father. ‘They’re on their way,’ I said. ‘We could have expected as much, right?’

‘Yes. But now what would you do, you who are so clever?’

‘We have two choices: try to make them believe that we never came this way at all. .’

‘. . By wiping away every trace of our passage. Gather the horses’ dung, take apart the chariot, hide the pieces and hide the horses. Find a hiding place ourselves. Until they’ve gone on.’

‘Complicated, time-consuming and difficult. Perhaps we don’t have the time. If they’re coming this way it means they’ve seen us and if they find us in hiding, things can only get worse. Easier to hide him,’ I said, turning to Eumelus. ‘Do you see that pine down there, halfway down the hill?’

The boy nodded.

‘Are you good at climbing?’

He nodded. ‘That’s all I did when I was little, living on Mount Pelion.’

‘Good. Run as fast as you can. By the time they get here, you must already be at the top, and you’ll stay there until I come looking for you.’

Eumelus disappeared into the woods.

‘He’s Thessalian,’ said my father. ‘Their land is covered with forests: they learn to climb trees even before they learn to talk.’

I opened the bag with our provisions and gave some food to my father. ‘Let them find us here sitting calmly and enjoying a meal, but we’ll be ready for anything. The first thing they’ll be asking themselves is why we separated from the others. So, what shall we say?’ This time it was me soliciting the inventiveness of Laertes’ mind.

‘Because we’re going to Arcadia,’ he replied instantly. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of the Sanctuary of the Wolf King? Your grandfather’s name strikes fear into everyone’s heart. Let me do the talking.’

There were a dozen of them, well armed, on five chariots. We’d seen them at the palace and we greeted them.

‘Has something happened?’ asked my father.

‘We’re searching for a child. A young prince, entrusted to the care of the palace.’

‘And you’re looking for him here?’

‘That’s right. He disappeared when you left. Why have you separated from the rest of your party?’

We exchanged a glance, King Laertes and I, and our heart laughed because we’d foreseen everything.

‘Why, we’re going to Arcadia. To the Sanctuary of the Wolf King. .’

The smiles were wiped off the faces of our pursuers.

‘It’s a family matter, I’m sure you understand. My son’s grandfather, my father-in-law, of whom you will have heard speak, has the blood of the wolf mixed with his own, and I want to avoid a similar curse for Odysseus. No one wants to see his own son turning into a wolf once a month, only to surprise and slaughter lonely wayfarers in a deserted place late at night.

‘We would happily join forces with you searching for your precious guest but, you see, we’re in a hurry. We have to make it to the sanctuary before the full moon. If we don’t arrive in time the consequences could be very unfortunate indeed; not only for us, but for yourselves as well. Trust me.’

That was all that was needed. They took a hasty look around and went back to where they’d come from. I waited until I could see them back at the start of the path on the plain before going to Eumelus, but only to tell him to follow us without leaving the forest.

Until night had fallen.