The Oath

6

In the days that followed Euriclea took care of my wound, applying an ointment that she had made herself, and as time passed the scab grew softer and fell off; even the redness faded until it was completely gone. It left a scar, but my knee showed no sign of damage. I could walk and run for days on end as I always had down the woody paths and trails that criss-crossed my island. Damastes, my weapons instructor, never left my side: he ran alongside me, forced me to scale the steepest slopes and descend from the rockiest cliffs. He would have me dive from the top of a bluff and swim for hours along the coast. Between one activity and another, he taught me to handle a spear and to use a bow until my aim became sharp, clean. Perfect.

‘A bow is a powerful weapon: it allows you to take shelter and kill from a distance. Many think that a true warrior should use a sword and confront his adversaries in hand-to-hand combat. They believe the bow is the arm of a coward.’

‘Isn’t that so?’

‘Not at all. In battle, the most important thing is to win. All weapons are equal if they serve their purpose: taking your enemy’s life. If you win, you survive; if you lose you die or end up as a slave for your whole life. The bow is a noble weapon. An arrow flies whistling through the air, faster than the wind, swifter even than a bird, even without their wings. It strikes your target at a great distance and allows you to procure food for yourself in situations where any other weapon is inefficient or useless.’

We stopped only once a day. Damastes would take some bread and goat’s cheese from his bag, we’d drink water from a spring and then continue until dusk. When we got back to the palace, we would report to my father about the progress I’d made.

Last of all, Damastes taught me to use a sword.

‘This is the most terrible of weapons,’ he said. ‘To strike you have to be close enough to the enemy to look into his eyes, to feel his breath on your face. When you deal the blow you will run him through from one side to the other; his blood squirts out at you, his bowels burst out of the wound, the smell is nauseating. The screams of battle become overwhelming, the clanging of bronze deafening. And that’s what men call “glory”. That’s what the poets sing of when they celebrate the deeds of heroes, accompanying their words with a lyre.’

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. It seemed however that the toll of my passage into manhood was learning about all the ugliest aspects of life and of other human beings.

Sometimes we slept out in the fields or in the forest, wrapped up in our cloaks, on a bed of dry leaves. Before I fell asleep I would watch the stars glittering between the leaves on the trees and ask myself what they really were. Had they been put up there by the gods to guide sailors on their route home? Mentor had taught me to recognize the constellations: the Bear and Orion and the Pleiades and even more, and I knew that one day I would have to use that knowledge out at sea, to navigate a crossing or make a long voyage.

One night I saw the owl again: for a moment it was only her eyes with their golden reflections staring at me, and then the goddess emerged from behind a trunk. She wore a dress the colour of the moon, her bare feet skimmed the grass of the field. Pale flashes danced across the tip of her spear. A fragrance accompanied her, a scent of forged metal, of olive and cedar and wild flowers. I hung on to those notes that I could barely perceive and became inebriated. I wanted to call out to her, but nothing came out of my mouth: mortals are not allowed to address a god unless they will it. And yet she turned as if she had heard me; she smiled and disappeared. The owl left her perch on the branch and flew off through the sweet-smelling night.

‘You were talking in your sleep last night,’ Damastes said to me in the morning. ‘What were you dreaming?’

‘I wasn’t dreaming anything,’ I replied. ‘I was too tired to dream. I was sleeping, that’s all.’

ALL THAT YEAR, for as long as the season held out, my father went to sea for voyages of fifteen, twenty days; sometimes with a few trusted friends, at other times with his warriors. I suppose he was going to the nearby islands that constituted our kingdom: to Same, Dulichium, Leucas, maybe even to Zacynthus, to meet with the noblemen who provided spears for our army and ships for our fleet. Black, shiny ships, superbly crafted. Once, I believe, he went out for plunder and took his warriors with him. They returned with the signs of combat on their bodies and faces, and brought back coppery-skinned slaves, jugs full of wine, timber, richly coloured fabric and hundreds of beautiful glass beads. The booty was split up after the king had taken his share.

Some of the slaves wept, surely thinking that they would never see the day of their return. It upset me to see their despair. My father put his hand on my shoulder: ‘This is the law of life. The same thing could have happened to me or my comrades — to become the slaves of worthless men, of merchants or fools, or to be exchanged for a handful of coloured glass beads. And no one would have taken pity on us. Save your feelings for people you love, if one day they should suffer ills or lose their lives or their freedom.’ Having said that, he walked off without waiting for me and headed to the palace, where the women were waiting for him with a bath and clean robes taken from the cypress chest.

I followed him and watched while he was bathed. ‘Father,’ I asked him, ‘what happens to a king if he is captured; does he become a slave?’

‘A king has a good chance of being freed because he can pay a considerable ransom: gold, silver and bronze, weapons, livestock, precious fabrics. No one would want to hold on to such a slave when they could buy themselves dozens of slaves, just by sending him back.’

‘But what if it did happen?’

Laertes paused thoughtfully for a few moments and when he spoke again his face had an enigmatic expression, as if someone else were talking through his mouth: ‘He would become a slave like the other slaves; he would obey his master so as not to be beaten and he would try to please that master in order to have better clothes and food.’

‘Anyone else,’ I insisted, ‘not you.’

‘Who can say? When a man loses his freedom he loses everything. There’s only one thing worse than losing your freedom: losing your life.’

I went out into the corridor, climbed to the upper terrace and waited for night to fall.

Once the autumn had arrived and the season for voyaging at sea was over, King Laertes had the heavy steering oar removed from his ship and hung over the hearth so it could absorb the smoke and harden in the heat.

We often had visitors and guests. Some of them, not many to tell the truth, had come from afar, on ships which sought shelter in the port. My father felt these were the most interesting, because they had sailed through bad weather and that made them brave or desperate or both things together.

One of them brought us news of Hercules.

The king of Mycenae, Eurystheus, not daring to take on Hercules directly, had ordered him to cleanse his guilt by carrying out a number of impossible tasks. Hercules made no objection and departed forthwith. No one had seen him since. I asked my father what these tasks were, but he didn’t know or he didn’t want to tell me. He wasn’t even sure that Hercules had ever owned up to killing his whole family. I could tell that my father still refused inwardly to believe his friend had been responsible for such a heinous act. He did tell me that Eurystheus was capable of any iniquity and that anything could be expected from a villain like him.

I would have liked to know what my father was referring to but I didn’t insist any further. I imagined Hercules with his club in hand wandering through desolate and deserted lands to seek out an adversary who was worthy of him, be it man or god or monster, for a fight to the death. Perhaps the only way for him to find peace.

‘I imagine that next summer we’ll learn more,’ said my father. ‘We’ll be making a voyage.’

‘A voyage?’ I said. ‘And you’ll take me with you?’

‘Yes. It will be something you won’t forget.’

‘Can’t you tell me more?’

‘In time,’ replied my father, and that meant no more questions.

With the return of the good weather, we took the oar down from its place over the hearth and fitted it back in position. The ship needed work to make it seaworthy again. The servants had to clean away all the encrustation and pull at the ropes that held the planks together to tighten them. I watched them using pumice to scrape and smooth the stern, the bow and the hull, and then oil to buff and polish all the wood.

We departed one day at the beginning of the summer. I said goodbye to my mother and my nurse, who kissed my eyes again and again and wept as she always did on these occasions, calling me ‘my child’, until my father made his voice heard, meaning that it was time to go. I grasped my spear and walked out alongside the king. We crossed the mountainside on foot as the sun was rising and brightening thousands of yellow and blue flowers in its clear, dazzling light. Turning towards the coast we were confronted with a sweep of asphodels crossed by the same slanting light that made them translucent and incredibly luminous. I asked myself why such lovely white flowers were planted on tombs and considered the flowers of the dead.

We descended to the main port and set sail. The wind was in our favour and we put out to sea at a good speed. The ship creaked under the force of the wind and the sail was full and taut. Mentor was with us this time and I was happy about that. He knew so many things and he enjoyed my father’s trust. He and I sat down on the rolled ropes to talk, conjecturing about where we were bound. Not even Mentor knew, but one thing was certain: we were distancing ourselves from the mainland and heading out to the open sea.

I asked Mentor what lay in that direction.

‘There’s another land covered with forests, inhabited by savages who do not respect guests or fear the gods: it is the land of dusk and darkness, and few dare to journey there.’

I didn’t ask any more questions but I could see that behind us the coast was getting lower and lower until it vanished as it if had been swallowed by the sea and I felt flooded by a sort of dismay I had never felt before. The horizon was empty in front of us, and yet my father was intent on keeping to the course. Mentor had got to his feet and was holding on to the rail behind the bow; it looked to me as though he was trembling. Time passed until the sun was smack in the middle of the sky and our shadows had shortened until they were practically under our feet. It was then that my father ordered the sailors to strike the sails and cast the anchor; it was so heavy it took four men to drop it overboard into the sea. The sea was calm, almost motionless, and patches of light undulated in the water, blinding us.

Nothing in any direction. The horizon was an empty circle.

There were no longer any birds hovering above us and the wind had dropped as well. No one said a word. I was left alone with my thoughts for what seemed like a very long time. Would we stay there until darkness fell? And then how would we find our way back if all the paths of the sea were darkened?

‘Mentor. .’ I whispered, ‘Mentor. .’

‘Your father wanted this. He wants you to know what nothingness feels like. Infinity. . bewilders us. Leaves us hanging between the sky and the abyss. Do you know how many sailors’ bones are lying on the bottom of the sea? Do you know how many of them have drowned? Their spirits find no peace because they haven’t been buried. .’

‘Stop,’ I told him, ‘I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want. .’

I didn’t dare say another word and I let myself sink into silence. I thought of how I would feel if the ship were destroyed, if I found myself submerged in the water, amidst the raging waves of a storm, alone, no land in sight, no bearings, no strength. And yet, instead of feeling anguished, I found myself becoming enthralled by that boundless, shapeless expanse. I imagined the sea creatures crossing it, traversing impossible spaces, risking encounters with the monsters of the depths or the blue gods with their hair of seaweed, liquid themselves. Transparent. One day I would defy the shoreless sea, the boundless space, I felt it. I, the son of an Argonaut.

My father finally gave the order to lower the oars into the sea and to alter course. The bow was pointed eastward. We spent the night at sea and I heard the breathing of the blue god as he shifted on the bottom of the sea. He must not be wakened.

We beached in a little bay in an unfamiliar land.

‘Where are we?’ I asked.

‘This is the land of the Eleans,’ replied the king. ‘At a day’s sail from here we will find ourselves in Messenia, the kingdom of Nestor. You will meet him. His greying temples reflect his wisdom, and he is respected by all the Achaian kings. I have brought gifts for him and his wife which you yourself will set before them. The time has come for you to be recognized as the man who will one day become the king of Ithaca. Nestor has a palace that overlooks the city of Pylos and a vast bay protected by a long island, providing a safe, ample port for all the vessels that seek shelter there. The king has many sons, some begotten by concubines and others born of Queen Eurydice. Some are almost my age, others, the youngest, are as old as you are. Befriend them — one day one of them will sit on the throne. It’s good for the kings and princes to be friends and allies as long as we all respect the confines and dominions of the others, because if a common enemy were ever to challenge us, we could face him together.’

Sandy Pylos stood at the foot of a hill and Nestor’s palace was similar to our own, although it was much bigger, because it had no walls or fortifications. From such a vantage point, they’d seen our ship and its standards at a great distance. We donned our best clothes. When we berthed we were met by a squad of warriors commanded by Prince Antilochus, who was a little younger than me; they had been waiting to welcome us and escort us to the palace. We followed them and climbed the steep path, the bay opening beneath us, bordered by a long wooded island.

It was my first visit to a king.