Warriors in Bronze Read Free

Four fluted wooden columns frame the hearth and support an opening in the ceiling which a gallery surrounds, all roofed by a clerestory whose windows admitted light and air and allowed the smoke to escape. A single massive portal closed by brazen- plated doors led to the vestibule and portico beyond.
    Brilliant painted patterns blazed from every handsbreadth of the ceiling; lions hunted stags along one wall, the figures large as life, colours flaring from the plaster. On another men in chariots drove to war, armour yellow-gold, horses paired in white and black. Winged dog-headed monsters flanked a red- veined marble throne and headed twin processions of birds and beasts and butterflies: an iridescent riot which seemed to live and move.
    Torchlight shivered stars from crystal and silver and gold; the air was scented with charcoal smoke, roasting meat and wine. Squires filled silver flagons from a wine store adjoining the vestibule and threaded a way through tables and gesticu­lating men: two hundred bare brown bodies gleaming with perfumed oil, bedizened with golden bracelets and necklaces and gems - a job that required a dancer's poise and a steady hand. You also had to dodge the foraging dogs: fast, heavy Molossians which Heroes kept for hunting, willing to tackle anything from a stag to a charging lion. Meanwhile Diores, from a seat near the door, watched like a falcon and counted each drop we spilled.
    Nobody noticed the squires except when he wanted a drink. I kept - my primary duty - the Marshal's goblet abrim; but any lord, as I passed, could demand I filled his cup. Edging between outer tables on a journey from the wine store I felt fingers pluck my kilt and paused to do the bidding of the owner: a man whose body was white as a woman's. I saw his face in profile, hollow-cheeked and thin, features finely cut, a short fair beard. A Hero or Companion - no lesser mortals dined in the Hall. A resemblance to someone I knew flitted across my memory and escaped in the general din.
    He tapped his empty cup, and smiled.
    I stooped to obey his order, and glimpsed the opposite side of his face. From jawbone to temple the cheek was smashed and sunken, the skin grey-white and crumpled. His right eye, fixed and glazed, stared blindly from deep in the socket. The beard straggled limply across this frightful scar, like grass struggling to survive on barren ground.
    I averted my gaze and filled his cup, a crystal goblet en­graved with running hounds. He said, A paler wine than I last was served. What is the vintage?' He spoke softly and slowly, and hesitated between words as though he had to drag them from deep recesses in his mind.
    'From Attica, my lord, and ten years old.'
    He sipped, and rolled the liquid on his tongue. 'Full and mellow, perhaps a trifle sweet.' I waited, flagon in hand - according to Diores' lessons I could not go till he gave me leave - and wondered who he was. I knew by sight the household nobles and nearly all who lived outside the citadel: they con­stantly came and went within the palace. Not this one; and I could hardly have failed to notice his ghastly appearance.
    He said, 'What is your name, lad?'
    'Agamemnon, my lord.'
    The good eye widened, a spasm twitched the unmarred side of his face. 'Indeed ? An uncommon name. Surely I know it... you must be ...' His fingers stroked the pitted scar; furrows creased the forehead above the eye that searched my face, the other brow stayed smooth, unwrinkled - a most disturbing phenomenon. 'Impossible,' he muttered. 'You're too old. Or too young. So hard to remember. The years run together like streams in spate, the waters flow so fast I see no more than a blur. You should have a brother, boy, a brother. Tell me...'
    'Yes, my lord: Menelaus.'
    'That's the name, that's it! All is coming back!' He spoke feverishly, stuttering, groping for words. His hand reached out and gripped my knee. Diores had warned me that amorous gentlemen heated by wine often tried to fondle