Helen of Troy (86 page)

He stood up and began to walk about the room. I saw cuts on his legs and started to get a bowl and cloth to clean them, but he waved me away, annoyed. “What matter these little cuts?” he cried. “Achilles came charging out of the Greek lines and pursued her. She drew him out onto the plain, where they would be alone and could have room to maneuver. She managed to drive him back and put him on the defensive. The great Achilles, retreating and shrinking away! But her success made her overbold; she came too close to her enemy with her shield open, leaving a tiny part of her body unprotected. Perhaps the horse gave her too much courage. She spurred him to run Achilles down, thinking to cut him to pieces under the hooves—for even Achilles cannot withstand the weight of a horse or its sharp hooves.” He shook his head. “The horse reared up like a wave of Poseidon, and Achilles swerved. But he kept his spear poised, and as she passed, he—he thrust it into that place on her side the shield did not cover. She slumped forward and the horse stopped. Horribly, slowly, Achilles approached the animal, speaking sweetly to it to calm it and keep it from bolting. Then, just as calmly, he reached out, took hold of the spear, and pulled her off the horse. She hit the ground with a thud.” He winced in remembering it, and I winced as well, picturing it.

“He crowed with victory and went to take his trophy, the armor. He pulled the helmet off and then cried out as he saw her face for the first time and realized it was a woman. He kept kneeling and holding her head; she was still alive and trying to speak. He stared at her dumbly, held there as if under a spell. Then—and this is so unlike Achilles—he let her head down gently. Then he removed the armor, almost tenderly. He kept hovering over the body.”

I encircled his shoulders with my hands, which were trembling. “Do you think he did not know the Amazons had come?”

“Unless the Greeks have very good spies, how could they know? And it is true, in armor they look like men. As he was kneeling before her, a disgusting little man came up and taunted him, saying she was a whore and best left to the birds and dogs, and was Achilles to make love to a corpse? Achilles turned on him. I have never seen such anger. Suddenly I knew what the Trojans trapped at the river had encountered, and what Hector had faced. His anger was like fire, like lightning. He snarled at the man, snarled like a beast, and then with one blow of his hand he hit the man’s face, knocking out all his teeth, and then again, smashing his skull. The man fell, a bloody-faced pulp, alongside Penthesileia, deader than she was, as she still faintly stirred.

“Ignoring the man as if he were carrion, Achilles fell back to his knees and stayed with Penthesileia until she died. Then he turned to us—he had not hindered our approach—and said, ‘Take her. Give her all honors. And take the armor.’ ”

“Why didn’t you kill him then?” I said. He had been within range, easy to hit.

“I—I was too stunned,” he said. “And it seemed a dishonorable thing to do at that time, as if it would insult Penthesileia.”

“Insult her? It was what she wanted, what she had come to do. Oh, it would have been justice at that moment.”

“It seemed wrong to slay a man who was perhaps for the first time showing kindness.” He shook his head. “It sounds foolish, and now I regret it. I was carried away by noble feelings. A mistake.”

“The gods rarely give us a second chance,” I said. As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. It was done. He had missed his opportunity, failed to fulfill his vow. But he did not need me to tell him that.

LXI

A
silence fell over Troy after the death of Penthesileia, as if a giant voluminous shroud had dropped from the sky to cover us all. We spoke in whispers, so it seemed; we treaded quietly in soft-soled shoes through the streets, empty of the clatter of carts and horses. Only wheeling crows dared to make raucous noises. The pallor of doom was upon us; by bringing us hope that was so quickly extinguished, Penthesileia had shattered Troy as much as an enemy could have.

Locked in the crumbling box that was Troy, stripped of its grandeur as so much was sold off or hidden, we had little hope of reinforcements now. Our allies from far and near could send no more fighters. The Amazons, the Thracians and the Lycians had lost their commanders, and all of them many soldiers. We would have to fight on with what was left to us.

In the Greek camp, the wounds of Agamemnon, Odysseus, Machaon, and Diomedes had presumably healed and they had returned to the field. We had killed many soldiers, but somehow their ranks seemed as large as ever, as if they regenerated like sown dragon’s teeth.

* * *

Days passed, months, seasons, each seeming longer and longer as our spirits sank lower. The world was static, and we were held in a black grip of time-lessness, captives in our own refuge. It protected us; it entombed us.

Then, like a sudden bolt of lightning, another ally arrived: Memnon, a prince from Ethiopia, and his contingent of shining black warriors. It had taken him all this time to travel here, and why he had come, to throw his lot in with faraway Troy, was a mystery. But we asked no questions, only welcomed him with glad cries.

Like Penthesileia, like Achilles, like Aeneas, like Sarpedon, he was the son of an immortal. (So many children of gods fighting around Troy, for yet another child of a god.) His story was more interesting than theirs, though, as his mother was the goddess of dawn. She it was who had fallen in love with a mortal and asked Zeus to grant him immortal life; Zeus, cruel as he was (for well he knew what she had forgotten to ask), granted it but did not stay his aging. He grew older and weaker until Dawn had to shut him up in a room, where his piteous chirps, coming from his withered old throat, sounded like a dying cricket.

But their son was absolutely splendid—a glowing warrior with a soul of courtesy. Too much like Hector, perhaps . . .

Our joy was short-lived. As he had killed the others, Achilles slew Memnon on the field. It was said each man’s goddess mother hovered just behind him, striving to protect him. Perhaps they each canceled the power of the other. In any case, Achilles once again broke our hearts and even the heart of a goddess.

Another funeral, another time of mourning. I did not think Troy could have become more despondent, but she did. At this last feat of Achilles, Paris became obsessed with killing him, berating himself for his missed opportunity when Penthesileia fell. He cursed himself for his hesitation and scruples, calling himself weak and womanish, all the names his enemies flung at him. In vain I sought to soothe him, to remind him that to show momentary mercy was not to be weak, but that this mercy had been misplaced. Achilles himself had never shown mercy except in that one instance, and it was that which had confused Paris. But would he be an Achilles? Who would want to be such a man, a man whose heart was that of a ravening wolf? Still Paris claimed that that was what he intended to become, a man as merciless as Achilles, if that would serve his purpose. To kill Achilles, he must become Achilles.

A golden, still day in autumn, and suddenly a glistening army of Greeks rushed toward our walls. Did they mean this as the final attack on a weakened foe? Their chariots raised whorls of dust on the plain, their soldiers were massed like hordes of devouring rats. And out in front—Achilles and Agamemnon in their chariots.

I watched from the high tower as they came closer. Inside the walls the Trojans were massing under the command of Deiphobus and the few remaining allies under Glaucus of Lycia. Priam was standing over them, giving them his hopeless blessing—hopeless because he had no hope they could prevail.

Agamemnon. I squinted, trying to bring his face into focus, but all I could see were the dark shadows of his eyes, and the grim slash that was his mouth. Leading his Myrmidons on the left flank, Achilles turned his head this way and that, looking at Troy as if it were a carcass to be dismembered. His armor gleamed—Priam later described it as bright and ominous as the Dog Star—and caught the sun as he bounced across the bumpy plain in his chariot.

Paris had been standing beside me in the tower lookout. He had refused to join the troops led by Deiphobus. He knew what he must do.

“They will fight.
I
will employ the best means of killing,” he had said. At last he was at peace with his difference from his brothers. Now he stroked his bow, the finest in Troy. He looked down at the approaching enemy. “It is time,” he said. He touched my shoulder lightly. I turned to him.

“May the gods guide your arrow,” I said.

Trembling, I took my place in the tower with the guards. All I could do now was look. Should I have clasped Paris to me, taken what might have proved a last embrace? But selfishly, I rejoiced in the knowledge that the wife of an archer need not do that. An archer might miss his target, but that did not mean certain death.

Agamemnon wheeled his chariot around and threw the reins over to his charioteer. He jumped out and stood, beating on his shield, yelling insults. But, tellingly, he looked to Achilles to actually do something.

Obligingly, as if to offer a target, Deiphobus and his men rushed out, war cries resounding. Now the Myrmidons surged forward to engage them. Achilles dismounted and advanced on foot. His every step betrayed his utter disdain for his enemy. He even bared his vulnerable spot, craning his neck above his protective armor and making a show of scouting for adversaries.

“Come out, come out!” he called. “What, is there nobody? Was Hector all you had? Oh, pitiful Troy, to have only one champion!”

He strutted up to the very gate—closed now—and called out, “All shut up, are you? Huddling, cowering! We shall break you down soon enough; we shall lay every defender in the dust and trample you!”

Paris darted out from the base of the tower where he had lain in wait. “Die, liar!” was all he said. Before Achilles could wheel around, before he even saw him, Paris let loose an arrow that struck him in the exposed part of his body.

The expression on Achilles’s face—I shall never forget it. It was not anger, not fear, not even surprise. It went beyond that, to utter astonishment. He clawed at his throat, silenced, while Agamemnon gaped.

He fell forward, and Paris fired another arrow, this time into the back of his unprotected calf. Then another, into his heel, crippling him.

Achilles writhed on the ground. He was whimpering and crying, clawing at the dust. His companions rushed forward, but they were useless to do anything besides ward off more arrows.

No more were needed. The first one in the neck had severed his life’s blood, which poured on into the dust.

It did not take long. He died quickly. Too quickly, for one who had killed so many. On the walls, we stared in disbelief at the still, sprawled figure, expecting it to leap up and taunt us. But it did not.

The usual battle ensued over his corpse. The hulking Ajax carried it off, after spearing Glaucus, who had attempted to secure it for the Trojans. Ajax wounded Aeneas as well, and hit Paris with a huge rock, knocking him to his knees. Odysseus appeared from nowhere and fought to cover Ajax as he retreated; they managed to secure the armor and take it back to their camp. The Greek army retreated with them, and soon the plain was empty, save for the carpet of corpses littering it, fallen like leaves.

Troy threw open the great doors of the gate, but everyone was so stunned by what had happened that silence greeted Paris as he drove Hector’s horses inside. The slayer of Achilles received no tumultuous cheers, betraying the fact that the Trojans as well as the Greeks had thought him invulnerable and had never truly considered the possibility, had never dared to dream that he might ever lie dead at a Trojan hand. The unthinkable had happened and they could only stare dumbly.

I alone rushed forward; I leapt into his chariot and embraced him, my head spinning. He was safe. He had killed Achilles. I was more thankful for the first than for the second. Even I could not comprehend that our scourge was gone.

“I am in awe,” I whispered. “You have delivered Troy!”

He tightened his arm around me. He seemed unable to speak. Perhaps he had stunned himself. He looked out, searching the crowd, watching for Priam and Hecuba.