Read Online Warriors in Bronze by George Shipway - Free Book Online Page A

to the yoke end of a single pole and supports the weight. Four-spoked bronze-tyred wheels are naved on a beechwood axle centred beneath the body.
    Battle chariots are gaudy vehicles, painted blue and yellow and crimson, frames gilded and inlaid with ivory and decorated by silver plaques. Ivory medallions sometimes adorn the reins - stupid and risky, Phylacus growled, shaking a grouchy head.
    A Companion has to master more than driving. I learned the art of selecting horses by make and shape, the blood-lines, breaking and training, grooming, feeding and stable routine - every aspect of horsemanship. I spent more time in stables then racketing round the Field of War behind two pulling Kolaxians, and soon acquired the distinctive smell which hovers around Companions. Aerope, when I visited her, ostentatiously nosed a phial of scented oil; Atreus sniffed and laughed. A fine healthy reek, Agamemnon. No matter - Phylacus allows you'll make an exceptional driver: you have the gift of hands. And so you should, with your pedigree - Pelops gained his kingdom by winning a chariot race!'
    My instruction continued throughout the stormy winter months; neither cold nor rain nor sleet deterred a hardy, waterproof Phylacus. With the coming of spring he put me through the aspiring Companion's test: a narrow serpentine course marked by fragile earthenware jars which culminated in a low mud bank and the Field's twin watercourses raging in spate. I took it all at a searing gallop, broke two jars and finished triumphant, chariot and horses intact.
    'You'll do’ Phylacus said. 'Not bad at all, after only five moons' training. Some take as many years to pass the test. Don't think,' he continued grimly, 'you know it all. There's a lot to learn yet, which only battle can teach you.'
    I was eager to be appointed Companion to some Hero, preferably at Tiryns or Corinth - I longed to see new faces and taste a fresh environment; Mycenae had cloistered me too long. Atreus, when I broached the matter, shook his head. 'You're an important person, Agamemnon, and likely to become more so as time goes by. Unfitting you should serve a petty lord. No - I shall make you one of my Companions. What greater honour' - a wide grin - 'than to drive the Marshal of Mycenae into battle? Sooner than you think, perhaps. You never know with that Hercules mob in Tiryns. They behave worse when their leader's away - drowned by now, I hope - than they did when he was Warden.'
    Atreus explained. Thyestes had sent him bitter complaints about the conduct of Hercules' followers. Since all were land­less men they subsisted on Tiryns' resources and drained the citadel's store rooms. Thyestes quoted a list of offences: they entered the palace precincts unbidden, demanded the choicest meat and oldest wine, became uproariously drunk and invaded the ladies' apartments - one ruffian had been killed by an out­raged husband, and a full-scale riot barely averted. They looted merchants' shops, raped the peasants' women and stole their sheep and cattle. Finally, a few days since, a gang commanded by Hyllus raided a herd of horses on one of the Argos estates. King Adrastus of Argos threatened reprisals. Thyestes humbly apologized and sent to Mycenae for help.
    'It seems fantastic,' Atreus commented, 'that a scant two hundred rascals can stir up so much trouble. Of course they're tough and ruthless, desperadoes to a man, every one recruited by Hercules himself for just those nasty qualities. A mistake to treat them lightly - but they have to be removed.'
    When the Council discussed Thyestes' tirade Atreus recom­mended a punitive expedition be sent immediately to Tiryns, there to join the garrison in exterminating the Heraclids - as Hercules' kin and followers were generally called. King Eurys- theus demurred. He felt the bonds of service and the obliga­tions he owed Hercules forbade killing his relations while the man himself was away on the Arga venture: an act of shock­ing treachery the