The king did not turn and continued on his way.
They marched along the crest of the mountains all day, until dusk, leaving behind their lost companions, leaving behind Telephus, the slave who died as a warrior, as the commander he had always been.
The king advanced with his head low, the first of the entire column, and for the first time he looked small to his men against the immensity of the mountains and the sky. He looked lost, in that labyrinthine, wooded land where every valley might conceal new threats. As far as the eye could see, there were no places that could sustain a city, no fields where crops could be grown, no plains that led to the sea, to a port from which ships could depart, making contact with other peoples, striking up trade. All they saw, few and far between, were villages of huts inhabited by shepherds who withdrew fearfully into the forests upon their approach.
Some of the men began to envy those companions who had remained in Argos. Perhaps nothing had happened to them; they had certainly rejoined their families and were sitting at table now with their wives and children, eating fragrant bread and drinking strong red wine. And when they awoke in the morning their eyes beheld the walls and the towers of Argos, of all cities the most beautiful and gracious.
It even seemed to them that their king had been abandoned by the gods. Where was Athena, who was wont to appear to him in human form, or so they said, and speak with him? Where was the goddess who had been at his side in his war-car on the plains of Ilium, guiding his horses like a charioteer?
The king advanced alone, head low, as if he had lost his way, as if he no longer had a goal. Some said that perhaps by walking among the severed heads, he had unknowingly surrendered his inner strength, his indomitable courage.
They camped in a little valley, wedged between the forests, near a clear-watered lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake, connected to the shore by a thin, partially submerged isthmus. The island was bare, save for a single, gigantic tree. Diomedes reached the shore of the lake and sat on a stone; he seemed to be contemplating the huge tree that extended its boughs to cover the island.
The bride from the Mountains of Ice joined him. She had a name now, Ros, and she had learned the language of the Achaeans.
She stepped up lightly behind him. He heard her but did not turn. He said: ‘I stole you away from your husband because I thought I could found a kingdom in this land for myself and my comrades. I thought I could build a city and make it invincible. I thought, when I saw you, that only you could erase from my mind and my flesh the memory of the wife who betrayed me, Aigialeia. . But now my strength is abandoning me, the road has become endless. I abducted you from your promised husband. . for nothing.’
‘Nemro,’ she said. ‘I saw him but once, and I held his hand only at the moment when I was to become his bride. I cried when you killed him, but perhaps. . perhaps I would have cried over you if he had killed you. I cried for his youth cut short before its time, for the day that darkens before it reaches noon. I could do nothing anything else; a woman cannot choose to whom she will bind her life. But you are my destiny now, you sleep beside me every night.’
Diomedes turned and looked at her in the moonlight. She was young and perfect even in the shabby clothing that covered her. If she had been able to dress in royal finery, she could have sat on the throne of a powerful kingdom in the land of the Achaeans.
‘I want to be the man you wait for with longing in your bed. After making love, I want to feel your arms holding me, your body warming me. The cold seizes me when I leave your womb and you turn away to sleep. I’m cold, Ros. .’
‘But the season is warm and the nights are mild.’
‘It is the cold that grips men who fear death.’
‘You are not afraid of death. I have seen you fight, time and time again, as if your life was worth nothing to you. There is a pain inside of you that you cannot overcome, a wound that will not heal. Was your queen so very beautiful? So lovely her breasts and so ardent her womb? I turn away from you because it is she you are thinking of, it is she you dream of at night. It is beside her that you would like to awaken. Forget Argos, and forget her if you want to conquer this land and begin a new life. Forget what has been, or you will lose everything: your comrades, this land, and me, if you care about me. Your nights will become colder and colder, until one day you will be terrified even to fall asleep, to close your eyes.’
The king reached out his hands and the girl felt him tremble. ‘Help me,’ he said, and his eyes blazed, in the shadows, with fever and pain.
They marched on for many days, leaving the territory of the Ambron behind them. They could sometimes hear the wail of their horns in the distance, as if they were still observing them from on high, without daring to face them again.
‘So you have a name,’ said Myrsilus to the Chnan one evening as the men were setting up camp. ‘I heard you talking to yourself up on that pass we took.’
‘I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to my Hittite friend who died to save the king.’
‘Malech. Why didn’t you ever say so?’
‘Why should I have? It wouldn’t have changed anything. I won’t be living the rest of my life with you. When I’m gone, you’ll just keep calling me “the Chnan” no matter what my name was, and you’d be right. My name doesn’t hide anything important. I’m not like Telepinu, whom you called Telephus; he was a commander of a squadron of war chariots in the land of the Hittites before he was made a slave. In my land, everyone is like me; we go to sea, transporting goods to be exchanged with other goods. In Keftiu, in Egypt, in Tarsish, everywhere. Our kings trade as well, with other kings, and they haggle over the price when they buy and swindle when they sell. The Achaeans of the islands call us the Ponikjo because the sails on our ships are red. That’s everything. We never go to war unless we absolutely can’t avoid it, and we hold on to our poor little land pinched between the mountains and the sea.’
‘A place to return to. . we’ve lost that. But our king will give us a new homeland. These steep mountains will end, and we’ll find before us a fair, flourishing plain, rich with pastures and surrounded by hills, with one side open towards the sea. There we will build a city and gird it with walls.’
‘You’re looking for Argos. The place you’ve described is Argos.’
‘Have you seen it?’ asked Myrsilus, and his eyes sparkled like a little boy’s.
‘Yes. I’ve seen almost all your cities. But you must forget it. You’ll never find anything here that resembles it.’
Myrsilus scowled. ‘I’m going to draw up the guard,’ he said, and he moved off towards a hill that overlooked the valley. On the other side of camp, Diomedes was taking his horses to pasture; they followed him docilely and ate grass from his hands.
Myrsilus walked along the slope, to see what lay beyond the wooded hillock that limited his field of vision to the east; when the territory opened into view on that side, he dropped to the ground immediately, hiding behind a stone.
A long line of warriors was crossing the valley, followed by carts and pack animals. He pounded his fist on his thigh; they were headed towards a valley which the Achaeans would also have to cross, heading south. It was not a route that the two groups could share. He remained at length to observe them, and tried to count them. There were many of them. Too many.