The Armour of Achilles (11 page)
Odysseus would sometimes join the others around the campfire, though he rarely stayed for long. Since the return of the ships from Ithaca, he had been unusually sombre and withdrawn. But the question of Palamedes remained, and almost two weeks after the king had made his suspicions known, Eperitus took him aside one evening and asked him how he intended to prove the Nauplian was a traitor. Odysseus replied the answer lay with the gods, and that he had the beginnings of a plan.
The next evening, after the day’s training was over and Eperitus was about to start on the meal Astynome had prepared, Odysseus appeared with a wineskin hanging from his shoulder.
‘Come with me,’ he said in a low voice.
He set off without waiting and Eperitus was forced to ignore the wooden dish in Astynome’s hand and set off after the king. Odysseus was weaving a meandering path between the sprawl of tents and huts as Eperitus caught up with him. The camp was a small city, temporary in its nature and yet almost permanent in the length of time it had existed within the crescent of hills that overlooked the bay. Tens of thousands of soldiers from every Greek nation lived there with the wives, concubines, children and slaves that they had accumulated during the long years of the siege. Though their commanders had huts of wood or even stone, the tents of the soldiers were no less homely – like intricate beehives where whole communities worked, ate and slept in close company with each other. And just like the cities they had left behind, the camp was filled with smithies, armourers’ shops, bakeries, covered stalls from which merchants traded their wares, stables, livestock pens, communal latrines and even the altars and crude temples that were vital to any metropolis. Odysseus did not pause in his course, and in the failing light of day managed to dodge skilfully between guy ropes and washing lines and through the constant traffic of soldiers and the numerous dogs, sheep and goats that wandered freely through the camp. At first Eperitus thought he was planning to visit one of the other kings, but as they passed the well-built huts of Menelaus, Nestor, Tlepolemos, Idomeneus, Menestheus and several others, eventually climbing the surrounding hills to the earthwork and ditch that defended the camp, he began to understand who it was Odysseus was seeking, and why. At the top of the ridge, from which they could see the myriad fires of the Greek camp behind them, and the darkening plains towards Troy ahead, they could hear him among the trees on the other side of the ditch. After Odysseus had spoken briefly with the guards, they crossed one of the causeways and followed the mournful sound of drunken singing.
They found him crouched against the crooked bole of a wind-blasted plane tree. His black robe was pulled tightly about his thin body and his hood was pulled over his face. As they approached, he threw back his hood to reveal pale, skull-like features and a head that was bald but for a week’s growth of stubbly black hair.
‘Odysseus?’ he hissed, leaning forward inquisitively. ‘And Eperitus with him. What urgent need brings
them
to my little kingdom, I wonder? Has Agamemnon sent for me? But no, he only ever sends his slaves. Then they must have come for reasons of their own. I wonder what they might want.’
‘I was hoping you might already have known, Calchas,’ Odysseus answered him, sitting on a rock and laying the wineskin between his feet.
The seer’s dark eyes fixed greedily on the leather bag. He staggered to his feet and took a couple of faltering steps towards the king, his black cloak falling open to reveal the grubby white priest’s robes beneath. As he came closer both warriors could detect the mingled scent of wine, stale sweat and urine. Eperitus’s nose twitched in disgust, but it was nothing compared to the revulsion he always felt in the presence of the renegade Trojan priest, who at the command of Apollo had forsaken his homeland to join the Greeks. It was Calchas who, ten years before, had prophesied that Eperitus’s daughter, Iphigenia, must be sacrificed before the Greek fleet could sail to Troy, and who had led her to the altar to be murdered by Agamemnon.
‘Might already have known what, my lord?’ the priest asked, fixing his bloodshot eyes on a spot just above Odysseus’s head. His left arm was hanging limply at his side, while his right dangled before his chest, the fingers constantly clutching at something that was not there. ‘Might have known some dark secret of the future? Some omen of Troy’s doom, or maybe even . . .
your own
?’
He laughed and then belched, before dropping heavily on to his backside and crossing his legs with clumsy awkwardness.
‘Sit down!’ he snapped, frowning at Eperitus. The Ithacan captain remained standing and a moment later the priest’s sudden anger drained away to leave him sullen and depressed. ‘Oh, do what you like – nobody else respects me any more so why should you? A seer whose gift of prophecy has abandoned him and left him with a taste for wine. I should have stayed in Troy, serving my god. You’d have listened to me then, a priest of Apollo! Damn your stubborn, warrior’s pride.’
‘But the gift hasn’t left you, Calchas,’ Odysseus said, his voice slow and calming. ‘Or so I hear. Agamemnon still sends for you, even if the rest of the Greeks shun you. It’s said the King of Men asks you to interpret his dreams and that he confides all his plans in you, and that sometimes –
sometimes
– Apollo lets you see things. Have I heard wrong?’
Calchas gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
‘I thought not,’ Odysseus continued, picking up the wine and nonchalantly sniffing at the neck of the skin.
‘But the gift’s weak and fitful at best,’ Calchas protested. ‘I see so little now, and then nothing but glimpses of shadows. Apollo has turned away from me . . .’
‘Apollo has ordered you to serve the Greeks,’ Odysseus countered sternly. ‘It was at your own insistence that Eperitus and I took you from Troy to the gathering of the fleet at Aulis. And if you’ve renewed your old liking for wine since then, we aren’t to blame for that. Now, tell me truthfully, do you know the identity of the traitor in the council?’
Calchas opened his mouth to speak, but the words fell away and he frowned in confusion. ‘Traitor?’
‘Yes, a traitor,’ Eperitus replied. ‘Has Apollo told you who he is? Is it—’
‘Enough, Eperitus,’ Odysseus ordered, holding up his hand. Then he picked up the wineskin and stood. ‘Answer me, Calchas. Do you know anything about a traitor?’
The priest looked longingly at the skin dangling from Odys-seus’s fingertips, then shook his head and turned away.
‘Then forget we ever came here,’ Odysseus said, and with a nod to Eperitus began to walk in the direction of the camp.
‘Wait!’ Calchas called, leaping to his feet. ‘Wait. I think—’
He gave a cry as he stumbled over the rock on which Odysseus had been sitting. The two warriors turned to see him sprawled on his stomach, clawing pathetically at the dust and sobbing with sudden despair.
‘We shouldn’t have wasted our time on him, Odysseus,’ Eperitus said, looking with disdain at the fallen priest. ‘I understand why you came here – the proof you seek – but any powers he once had left him long ago, destroyed by wine and too much self-pity.’
‘Wait,’ Odysseus said, holding up a hand.
He took a step towards the priest, who had stopped crying and was now arching his back with his arms pinned to his sides, as if straining to get up but without using his hands. His whole body began to shudder, quivering from head to foot as if shaken by an invisible attacker. Then he turned his face towards them and they saw his pupils had rolled up into the top of his head to leave only the pink orbs of his eyeballs. A white spume had formed about his lips and was rolling down his chin in long gobbets.
‘What’s happening to him?’ Eperitus asked, shocked.
‘I’ve heard about this,’ Odysseus replied. ‘It’s a prophetic trance.’
‘He’s faking it. You shouldn’t have brought the wine – he’s putting on a show to—’
Eperitus fell silent. Though Calchas’s body remained arched and quivering, something was happening to his eyes. They were changing, filling with an intense light that came from within. Suddenly beams of silver shot out from each eye, feeling through the darkness like antennae, pulsing, growing in strength until the eyeballs glowed like heated bronze. Eperitus and Odysseus instinctively clutched at the swords in their belts, horrified at the seer’s face as he looked up at them, mocking their fear with a broad grin.
‘Your swords will not protect you,’ he said in a deep, powerful voice that seemed to emanate from the plane trees above their heads.
An instant later the handles of their weapons were searing hot, forcing them to pull their hands away. The voice merely laughed.
‘What do you want of me?’
‘We want to know who’s betraying our plans to the Trojans,’ Odysseus replied, flexing his hand and rubbing the unharmed flesh of his palm.
The amusement on Calchas’s face changed to a frown as the glowing pupils flicked towards the king.
‘Your instincts are correct, Odysseus, son of Laertes,’ the voice hissed. ‘The traitor is Palamedes. But the proof will be less easy to come by. Nauplius’s son is as devious as you are and your cunning must exceed his if you are to catch him out.’
Odysseus shot a victorious glance at Eperitus, but the captain’s expression remained sceptical.
‘Hear this also,’ the voice continued. ‘Great Ajax blasphemes the gods with impunity, but the day is coming when we will seek to punish his arrogance. When Ajax sets his jealous heart on the armour of Achilles, the Olympians will look to you, Odysseus, to prevent him from taking it.’
Odysseus’s look of triumph was replaced by confusion. Eperitus turned to Calchas and saw the demonic eyes now staring directly at him.
‘As for you, Eperitus, son of Apheidas, know this: you were unable to defeat your father in my sister’s temple because a part of you still loves him. To kill him now will be even harder, after what has passed between you. But if that is still your wish then you must give up all restraint and turn your energy to savage hatred. If you do not, or cannot, then your only choice is to die at his hand. Or to join him.’
T
O
C
ATCH A
T
RAITOR
O
dysseus and Eperitus returned to the camp with barely a word said between them. Then, as they crossed the causeway over the ditch and passed the guards, the king stopped and turned to his friend.
‘What did Apheidas say to you in Lyrnessus?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you better than that, Eperitus – you’ve been struggling with something ever since you faced him. I saw it in the way you fought at Adramyttium and Thebe, as if you’d lost your killing edge. At first I thought it was because Apheidas had beaten you, or you’d missed the chance you’ve been wanting for so long. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? When Calchas said something had passed between you—’
‘Calchas is a drunkard,’ Eperitus replied, a little more sharply than he had intended. ‘His visions are guided by wine more than they are by the gods.’
Odysseus raised a hand.
‘We both know that wasn’t Calchas speaking. You saw the eyes, heard the voice. If there’s something you need to tell me . . .’
Eperitus shook his head. He knew he could not share Apheidas’s revelation about his Trojan ancestry, not even with Odysseus. It was a secret he would have to bear alone.
‘Apheidas told me something about my family’s past. Something I’m trying to forget.’
‘Keep it to yourself, then,’ Odysseus said, patting Eperitus on the shoulder. ‘But now my suspicions about Palamedes have been confirmed, you
will
help me get the proof I need.’
They returned to their huts without another word. Eperitus’s thoughts were so full that he was almost surprised to find the tall, slender form of Astynome waiting for him. She had made a good fire in the hearth at the centre of the hut, over which she had suspended the large pot of thick stew she had cooked earlier, keeping it warm for his return. The rich aroma of meat and herbs filled the tent.
‘You must be hungry, my lord,’ she said in her heavy accent, lifting the ladle from the bubbling liquid and touching it to her lips.
‘Ravenous,’ he answered.
He unfastened his cloak and folded it roughly over his arm before tossing it on to his bed. His sword and scabbard followed, but as he stooped to remove his sandals his eyes were drawn to the girl who it had been his good fortune to rescue. She wore a white, knee-length chiton and had washed the day’s dirt from her limbs and bare feet; with the firelight playing on her brown skin she looked more beautiful than ever.
‘I kept some of the stew I had made earlier, before Odysseus called you away,’ she said, pouring some of the soup into a wooden bowl and handing it to him with a spoon. ‘It was a fight to keep the others from eating it all.’
He took the bowl and sat at the rudimentary table where he sometimes ate his meals. A basin of clean water was already waiting for him, and after he had washed his hands Astynome replaced it with a basket of fresh bread and a krater of wine. He ate in silence while she moved around the hut with a familiar, busy ease, lending it a sense of homeliness it did not deserve. How different, he thought, to when she had first entered two weeks ago. Then her eyes had fallen at once on the captured armour that hung from the walls, glinting in the darkness. She had walked over to the breastplates and helmets and studied them in reproving silence, running her hands over each piece and placing her fingertips against the holes where spear or sword had punctured the bronze and brought death to her countrymen. Eperitus had taken them from the Trojan nobles he had defeated in battle – men worthy of having their armour stripped from their corpses – but as she touched each piece of crafted leather and bronze he had felt suddenly and for the first time ashamed of these testaments to his skill and courage in battle, these glorious trophies of his own savagery. Then, in answer to her unspoken accusations, he began naming the former owners of each set of armour she touched, describing how they had looked in life, recalling how well they had fought, and declaring that he would not forget their bravery. Even though their souls had gone down to the Chambers of Decay, he was telling her that they were remembered, that they had not died in vain. And he felt that she forgave him for taking their lives.
He dismissed the memory and sat back in his chair, as Astynome removed the stew from the fire and replaced it with a pot of fresh water.
‘That was wonderful,’ he declared, washing down the last of the meal with a mouthful of wine. ‘I haven’t tasted anything as good as your cooking in a very long time.’
‘That’s because I’m not a clumsy Greek soldier, but a woman who knows about food,’ she replied, wrapping a cloth around her hand and removing the pot from the fire. ‘And a woman who is grateful to her rescuer.’
She poured the water into a large basin, threw the cloth over her shoulder and knelt before his chair. Taking his feet in her hands, she lifted them into the warm water and began to wash them, gently massaging the tired flesh with her fingers. Her hair was tied back to reveal her long brown neck and smooth shoulders, and as she looked up at him he could see that the anger that had marked her face when they first met was now completely gone. Instead, she looked content and at ease.
‘I should get a bigger table so you can eat with me in the evenings,’ he said.
‘In the day, too, I hope,’ she said, removing his feet one at a time and resting them on the cloth in her lap as she dried them. ‘Surely you won’t be training these replacements for ever?’
‘That still wouldn’t be long enough for some of them. But Achilles is expected back any time, and when he’s around things are never quiet for long.’
‘You mean you will have a war to fight.’
‘Yes.’
Astynome dried his feet in silence and withdrew to the pile of fleeces around the hearth, where she pulled her legs beneath her and turned to look at the fire.
‘Why are the Greeks such a murderous people?’ she asked, the flames reflecting in her eyes. ‘Why do they stubbornly cling to this small patch of Ilium, spreading misery and death?’
‘If we are murderous, then it’s the gods and the length of this war that have made us so,’ he answered. ‘But it isn’t in our nature. At heart we’re an honourable people. Perhaps you’ll find that out for yourself, one day.’
‘Then you intend to take me back to Greece with you?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘Though you
are
a useful person to have around.’
‘I am,’ she agreed. ‘But it is not my desire to go to Greece. Do you . . . do you have a wife there?’
Eperitus shook his head.
‘But you need a woman to look after you. Perhaps you could remain here with me, when the war’s over?’
‘In Troy?’ he echoed with a small laugh, pushing aside the empty bowl and taking a swallow of wine. Astynome had only added a little water, leaving it strong and potent. ‘Whatever the outcome of the war, Troy’s no place for a Greek. Besides, what of your own husband? You said . . . you said you weren’t a virgin.’
‘My husband is dead, my lord.’
‘Because of the war?’
Astynome shifted around to sit cross-legged, facing the fire. The hem of her dress rode back over her knees to reveal the smooth flesh of her thighs.
‘I was sixteen when we married, just after the Greeks arrived. He wasn’t a soldier then, but it wasn’t long before all young men were given a shield and spear and sent to fight. He died in the first year of the war, before I could bear him children . . .’
Eperitus left his chair and knelt before her. Her eyes were wet, but no tears had escaped to glue together her long eyelashes or stain her beautiful cheeks.
‘Did you love him?’ he asked.
‘Very much,’ she whispered. Then she looked into his eyes. ‘You have also lost someone close, haven’t you? My instincts tell me you have.’
He nodded. ‘My daughter. A storm was bottling up the fleet at Aulis, so King Agamemnon sacrificed her to appease the gods.’
Astynome’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. ‘That’s
barbaric
! And yet you still fight for such men?’
‘I fight for Odysseus,’ he said. ‘And for my own honour.’
He touched her on the shoulder and she turned to face him, as if obeying an unspoken command. As she looked into his eyes he felt almost overwhelmed by the power of her beauty, and yet as he placed his other hand on her arm he could feel her trembling. Her eyes fell to his mouth as inevitably their faces moved closer. There was a moment of hesitation in which he could feel her nervous breath on his lips, and then they were kissing.
Eperitus woke to the sound of voices beyond the walls of his hut, but they were only the low murmurings of men greeting each other as they moved around the camp. It was the light of early morning seeping in beneath the entrance that had woken him – that and the unfamiliar warmth of Astynome’s naked body close against his own. They had fallen asleep facing the wall of the hut, with his arm beneath her neck, and her back and buttocks tucked into the curve of his body. Long strands of her dark hair were spread across his face and her feet were laid flat across his, the soles and toes soft and comforting. His other arm was across her abdomen as they lay beneath the furs, his fingers curled up in a fist beneath the smooth mound of a breast, which rose and fell gently as she breathed.
For a while he thought of their lovemaking, how awkward it had been at first and then how quickly they had learned to respond to each other. For him the experience had been rich and unexpectedly moving; Astynome had not reacted with the emotional detachment of a slave, but with passion and tenderness. Perhaps she had been thinking of her husband (she told him there had been no other since his death, a confession by which she had unwittingly revealed the depth of her love for the man), or, perhaps, to be touched intimately after so long had released a deep-seated need in her, expressing itself in an ardour that was both fiery and gentle. But his instincts told him otherwise. The desire she had shown was so much more than the rekindling of a distant memory or a longing for physical contact. She had wanted
him
, not the ghost of a dead husband, but him – his lips upon hers, his body against and within hers. The thought pleased him and for a while, as she lay in his arms, he did not think of Apheidas or the grim warning of Calchas’s words from the night before.
The voices outside grew a little louder as more men woke and rose. Eperitus cursed them silently, hoping they would not wake the girl, but something seemed to be happening and the noise increased until Astynome’s eyes flickered open. She rolled on to her front and raised herself on her elbows.
‘It isn’t always this noisy,’ she said in a hoarse, croaky voice.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he replied. ‘I don’t normally sleep this long.’
He looked at her face, half lost behind thick lengths of mutinous hair and with her eyes squinting against the growing light. She was sleepy and vague, her skin flushed and hot to the touch, and yet he thought her as beautiful now as she had been last night, when the firelight had played on her sweat-damp skin and a fierce passion had burned in her eyes.
She looked at him beside her and broke into a tired smile.
‘And I should have been up long ago,’ she said, leaning over and kissing his bearded cheek. ‘As your slave I should have had your breakfast ready before first light.’
Eperitus returned her smile and moved his hand down to rest on the raised mound of her buttocks. The experience of waking each morning to a breakfast made by Astynome was about to be superseded by the happiness of waking to Astynome herself. It struck him then that his life was about to change for the better. Up to that point, the only pleasures of his hard existence had been the company of his comrades and the prospect of battle – to achieve glory and slowly erase the dishonour his father had brought upon him years before. But now he had Astynome to return to at the end of each day and the thought of her presence thrilled him. Men without women were too prone to savagery – the evidence of that had been around him for years – and now, suddenly, he realized why Odysseus had desperately wanted to return to Penelope for so long.
‘You’re not my slave, Astynome,’ he reminded her. ‘I agreed to take you under my protection, that’s all.’
‘Then I’m free to go whenever I wish?’
Eperitus felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. ‘Yes. You can do as you please.’
‘Then it pleases me to stay,’ she answered, stroking his hair. ‘I would only want to go back if you came with me, so until I can persuade you to do that I must masquerade as your slave. And now, perhaps, my lord would like some water?’
‘The wine last night
has
left my throat dry.’
Astynome threw back the fur and stepped over him. He watched her cross the fur-covered floor to the other side of the hut, where a skin of water hung from the wall. At that moment, the flax curtain that covered the entrance was swept aside and Odysseus walked in. He looked at the shocked girl as she tried to cover her nakedness, then picked up the cloak from her unslept-in bed and tossed it to her.
‘It’s been too long since I’ve seen a naked woman,’ he said as Astynome caught the cloak and threw it around herself. Then he frowned and turned to his captain with a purposeful air. ‘Achilles is back. I’ll wait outside while you get dressed.’
