They dragged him off to a solitary place, not within view of his companions or the Achaean camp.

‘Do you understand my language?’ asked the Chnanin Canaanite. The prisoner nodded his head.

‘Good,’ continued the Chnan. ‘I know that you understand us, even if you sometimes pretend not to. You will have realized that these friends of mine will cut your throat if you try to make yourself heard by the others. But if you tell us what we want to know, we’ll keep you with us for a while and then we’ll set you free. We don’t want your sorry bones.’ The prisoner let out a sigh of relief.

‘Well then, where do you come from? Libya, or the island of the three promontories?’

‘From Libya. We fought under King Mauroy against the king of Egypt but we were defeated and the wind pushed us to the northern gulf.’

The Chnangestured to the man holding the dagger to ease up so that the prisoner could speak a little more freely.

‘Where are you headed now?’

The Shekeleshseemed to hesitate a moment, but as soon as he saw the Chnangesturing to the man with the knife, he hurried his reply: ‘We have built a city on the coast, near a place called “the Elbow” but our chief wants to know if the island of the three promontories can be reached from the interior.’

‘The island of the three promontories? But it is very far from here, very far south!’

‘Perhaps not so far. .’ said the Shekelesh, twisting his neck a little.

‘And why do you want to reach the island of the three promontories?’

‘Because our people are there. Here we don’t know if we can manage to survive. But we had no choice. We had crossed the sea when we ran into a storm; almost all of our ships were destroyed on the shoals and the rocks. We lost all our tools, our provisions. We could not rebuild the ships, or even repair them.’

‘The Borrha,’ said the Chnan, as if speaking to himself; it almost seemed as though the thought gave him a strange satisfaction.

‘What were you doing in the northern gulf in the first place?’ he insisted.

‘I told you; the wind pushed us there after the great battle, and we were sailing up the eastern coast looking for food.’

‘Did you find any?’

The Shekeleshshook his head: ‘Nothing. Only empty villages inhabited by shepherds who ran off to the mountains with their sheep as soon as they saw us. The only ship we met before the storm was nearly empty as well; only water, dried fish and a little wheat.’

‘I understand, my friend,’ said the Chnanwith a confidential tone, aiming to put his guest at ease. The man looked relieved, and cracked a half smile. ‘ Peleset, I imagine. We met some of them ourselves around those parts.’

‘No. Ahhijawa,’ he said, still smiling. Myrsilus quivered at the word but the Chnangrabbed his arm to warn him not to speak or make a move.

‘Ah,’ said the Chnan, ‘those bastards. We ran into some of them too and they tried to attack us. They must have been famished. I hope you gave them a good lesson. Were there many of them?’

‘You’d better believe that we gave them a good thrashing! No, it was just one ship alone; they tried to slip off to the south, but we caught up with them. Not a single one of them survived, if I remember correctly. But they put us to a lot of trouble, for nothing. They put up quite a fight. Good at using their fists, too. Warriors, that’s what they were, and tough ones at that, no merchants, that’s for sure.’

The Chnanturned towards Myrsilus and said something under his breath.

‘So, what do you know about the land that lies before us?’ asked the Chnanthen, indicating the mountain chain that extended south as far as the eye could see.

‘Little or nothing. I think that further on there must be some Teresh, up ahead of us. We’ve run into them here and there in the villages. The inhabitants of these valleys captured some of them while they were out hunting or putting the horses to pasture, and they’ve kept them as slaves.’

‘ Teresh!’ murmured the Chnan, astonished. ‘ Tereshin the Land of Evening.’

The Shekeleshseemed relieved and looked at his questioner as though waiting for permission to return to his camp. ‘Why don’t you let me go?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more to tell.’

‘No,’ said the Chnan. ‘I think not.’ He looked at Myrsilus. The eyes of the Achaean warrior were full of ire and his hand gripped the hilt of his sword. The Chnanturned away as Myrsilus’s sword cut the prisoner’s head clean off.

‘I had promised him that we would spare him,’ said the Chnan, getting to his feet.

‘I didn’t promise anything,’ said Myrsilus. ‘He killed our companions. . he killed Anchialus! The king’s message will never reach our land. The invaders will arrive without forewarning. . it will be a massacre. Our cities. . our land. .’

‘You can’t be sure,’ said the Chnan. ‘You can’t be certain. It might be an incredible trick of chance. Perhaps there were other Achaeans in the northern gulf. . perhaps. You don’t think that there may be other madmen of your race wandering those inhospitable seas? There are Tereshhere as well, can you believe it? Tereshin the Land of Evening.’

They walked slowly towards camp, still keeping an eye on the valley behind them.

When they were close, Myrsilus stopped. ‘They say that the Trojans even asked the Tereshfor help when they were forming the great coalition of Assuwa.’

Evenus, who was right behind them, said: ‘But they refused. They feared that we would devastate their cities on the coast. That’s what I heard.’

The Chnanstopped as well and turned back in the direction of the valley, motioning for everyone to stay quiet. Not a sound was coming from the valley. ‘It’s true,’ he said after a while. ‘And yet they were forced to join a much bigger coalition, under King Mauroy of Libya, against Egypt. Hunger was their real enemy, a dearth of crops, one bad harvest after another. But the coalition lost, and the Tereshnation was destroyed. The group ahead of us are probably as desperate as we are. . as the Shekeleshare. They say that after the defeat, when the king of the Tereshreturned to his homeland in Asia, he found it ravaged by famine. He decided then that one of his two sons would leave with half of the surviving population. They drew lots, and his second-born, whose name was Tyrrhens and whom the king loved dearly, was chosen to go. That is what people were saying the last time I sailed from the port of Tyre with a favourable wind. .’

‘Everyone is fleeing,’ said Myrsilus. ‘But from what? From what?’ He watched the pale clouds crossing the sky.

‘From death,’ said the Chnan. ‘What else?’

When night had fallen, a chariot with the insignia of the Mycenaean Atreides stopped in front of the atrium of the king’s house and the grooms came forward at once to take the reins of the two Argive stallions. The horses pawed the ground, still excited over their long race through the dark, and the charioteer, noble Pylades, calmed them by stroking their muzzles. In the meantime, Orestes got out of the chariot and entered the vast dark courtyard surrounded by a great colonnade dimly illuminated by lamplight. His slight figure seemed swallowed up by the big empty space that echoed with his rapid steps.

At the entrance to the palace, Hippasus, the master of the house, awaited him, accompanied by one of his sons. The old man had been the lawagetaswhen Atreus reigned over Mycenae, and Menelaus had restored him to a place of dignity in his palace. Next to him was the king’s nurse, Marpessa. She was a woman of great age, but she had always run the household. She still had authority over the handmaids and the servants and she managed them with a steady hand.