The Armour of Achilles (14 page)

P
alamedes awoke to the sound of barked commands and the stamp of approaching feet. He swung his legs out of bed and pulled on his tunic. As he found his sandals and pulled them on he heard the sound of voices raised in challenge followed by a scuffle. A man cried out. Then the flap of the tent was jerked aside and Agamemnon walked in, followed by Menelaus, Nestor and Odysseus. Eperitus was the last to enter and dropped the flap shut behind him.

‘My lords,’ Palamedes said uncertainly, bowing low before them.

Agamemnon said nothing. He was a tall, imposing figure dressed in a pure white tunic and a blood-red cloak, fastened at the left shoulder by a golden brooch of wonderful craftsmanship. He threw the cloak back to reveal an ornately decorated breastplate, the gift of King Cinyras of Cyprus, which he wore at all times for fear of an assassin’s knife. Its different bands of gold, tin and blue enamel shone in the filtered sunlight, and the finely worked snakes that crawled upward on either side glittered as if they were moving.

Despite his rich garb, Agamemnon’s long brown hair and auburn beard were shot through with grey and his fine features had lost their youthful arrogance and self-confidence. The eyes were dark-rimmed, as if sleep was a luxury that his great wealth and power could no longer command. He stood with his hands locked behind the small of his back, staring at Palamedes in forbidding silence, his cold blue eyes revealing nothing of what he was thinking.

Menelaus stood beside him, his forehead and thick eyebrows puckered together in an angry frown. With his bear-like physique, thinning hair and careworn face he bore little resemblance to his older brother, and it was clear from the way he was clenching and unclenching his fists that he did not share Agamemnon’s capacity for calm detachment.

‘The letter, Nestor,’ he said after a few more moments of silence. ‘Show him the damned letter.’

Nestor was the oldest of the four kings, a greybeard whose battered face spoke of a lifetime of hardship and battle. He stepped forward and pulled something from inside his purple cloak and tossed it on to the furs at Palamedes’s feet. Palamedes frowned in confusion, then stooped to pick up the tablet.

‘Read it,’ Agamemnon commanded.

Palamedes glanced at the King of Men, then lowered his eyes to scan the marked clay.

‘What is this?’ he asked, looking back up at Agamemnon with an incredulous frown.

‘Read it aloud,’ Agamemnon ordered.

‘But it’s ridiculous.’

‘
Read it!
’

Palamedes blinked in surprise and fear. He glanced at Odysseus, whose face was passive and unreadable, then looked back down at the letter.

‘To Priam, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. Greetings! Your generous offer of gold is gratefully received. The sacking of Lyrnessus, Adramyttium and Thebe was regrettable, but as ever, I remain in Agamemnon’s closest confidence and will send you details of his battle plans for the rest of the year as soon as I can. Your faithful servant, Palamedes.’

He read the letter haltingly, almost unable to say aloud the words that bore his name, then shook his head and looked at Agamemnon.

‘But this is a nonsense, my lord,’ he protested. ‘By all the gods of Olympus, I swear to you I did not write this.’

‘The letter was found on the body of a Trojan spy,’ Nestor informed him. ‘Not far from the boundary of our camp, where he had fallen in the dark and broken his neck. It bears
your
name, Palamedes. What do you say in your defence?’

‘It’s obviously a forgery.’

‘How long have you been in Priam’s pay?’ Menelaus demanded, suddenly stepping forward and grabbing Palamedes’s tunic. ‘How long have you been betraying our strategies to him?
Tell me!
’

‘Let go of him, Menelaus!’ Agamemnon commanded. ‘If he’s a traitor, I want him to confess freely, not have it beaten out of him. Now tell me the truth, Palamedes: have you been betraying us to the Trojans?’

Palamedes ran forward and fell at Agamemnon’s feet, throwing his arms around his knees.

‘I swear the letter has nothing to do with me. I would
never
betray you for gold, my lord. If you don’t believe me, search my tent. This is an elaborate trick thought up by Odysseus to destroy me, I know it.’

Agamemnon looked at the other kings and nodded. Immediately they began pulling apart the contents of the tent, turning over tables and chairs, tearing open Palamedes’s mattress and throwing his clothing into the air. Water skins were slashed open with daggers and boxes were opened and their contents poured on to the ground and searched. Eperitus, still standing guard at the entrance, had by now worked out Odysseus’s plan to convict Palamedes and watched with mixed feelings as the traitor’s belongings were ripped apart. Then the inevitable happened, as Eperitus knew it would. Odysseus kicked aside the remains of the fire and began to pull up the furs and fleeces that lined the floor of the tent. It was then that Menelaus gave a shout of triumph and pointed to the place where Odysseus had just thrown aside a large oxhide. Every eye in the room fell on the patch of ground where the soil had recently been dug up and replaced. Although smoothed again by the hide that had been placed above it, the surface had gained a slight bulge and was darker than the earth around it. Menelaus grabbed Palamedes’s sword from where it hung on the wall of the tent and began to scrape away at the soil. It was not long before he was able to reach down and pull up a heavy leather bag, which he upended to release a cascade of golden ingots.

Nestor knelt down beside the gleaming pile and examined it closely. ‘These weren’t cast in any Greek smithy, my lord,’ he told Agamemnon. ‘They’re Trojan. I think we have all the proof we need.’

‘But they’re not mine, I tell you,’ Palamedes insisted, looking in wide-eyed shock at the blocks of gold spread across the floor of his tent. ‘Someone else put them there . . .’

‘Silence!’ Agamemnon snapped, glaring at the Nauplian prince. ‘I’ve seen enough. You will remain under guard here, Palamedes, while the council decides your fate. I shall send for you shortly.’

The sun was midway in its passage to the Aegean by the time the council sent Eperitus, Arceisius and Polites to fetch Palamedes. The Mycenaean guards who ringed his tent stepped aside at their approach and inside they found Palamedes kneeling before a crude altar, his head bowed before the clay figures of his household gods. Two were missing heads, irreverently broken off during the ransacking of his possessions earlier.

‘What’s to happen to me?’ he asked as the men entered, his eyes still fixed on the painted figurines.

‘You’re to be stoned to death,’ Eperitus answered.

Palamedes looked at him in horror.

‘Stoning! Was that Odysseus’s influence?’

‘No. The manner of your death does not concern him, just so long as you
are
dead.’

‘But it was Odysseus who buried the gold in my tent, wasn’t it? And Odysseus who planted the letter on the body. Did he have to kill the man in cold blood too?’

‘Odysseus did what he had to,’ Eperitus replied. ‘And what is the death of one man if it exposes a traitor and shortens the war, saving the lives of thousands?’

‘But you don’t approve of his methods, do you? I know you better than that, Eperitus.’

Eperitus took a deep breath. ‘
My
opinion counts for nothing; I’m just a soldier, whereas Odysseus is a king. And what about you? Do you deny you’re a traitor, Palamedes?’

Palamedes turned away.

‘Odysseus thought it was you the moment we realized someone had told the Trojans of our plans to attack Lyrnessus,’ Eperitus said. ‘Then he fed you false information about the raid on Dardanus, and that night he and I followed you to the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. We saw you meet with Apheidas.’

Palamedes looked at him in surprise, then his shoulders slumped as if a great weight had been placed upon them.

‘Then what’s the point of denying it any longer? For years I’ve lived a dual existence, and now I’m glad it’s over. My betrayal has stretched this war to an unnatural length and perhaps I deserve death, but in the end I’m just a puppet of the gods, a plaything that no longer amuses them. But is anyone else any better? Do any of us command our own destinies? Does Achilles? Or Hector? Or Odysseus? Or even you, Eperitus?’

‘What I don’t understand,’ Eperitus said, ‘is
why
you did it. You’re a Greek; why would you betray your country to foreigners?’

Palamedes stood and picked his robe up from a chair, throwing it across his shoulders.

‘You remember the first time we came to Troy, on the peace embassy? You were surprised to learn I could speak the language of the Trojans and I told you it was because my nursemaid was a Trojan. I lied. It was my
mother
who taught me. She was a Trojan slave captured in a raid by my father and taken as a concubine, but when I was eight she escaped and gained passage back to Troy on a merchant ship. I came here more with the intention of finding her again than any notion of honouring my oath to protect Helen. Then, in the first year of the war, I received a message from Apheidas saying Clymene, my mother, was a servant in his household and demanding I meet him in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. How he discovered her or found out she was my mother he has never said, but he told me that unless I gave him regular information about Agamemnon’s plans and strategies then Clymene would die.’

‘So you betrayed your country for the sake of your mother?’ Arceisius sneered. ‘You’d have done better to have let her die and kept your honour.’

Palamedes laughed derisively. ‘Why should I have allowed my own mother to die for the sake of a meaningless oath, taken under circumstances that should never have led to a ten-year war in a distant land? And as for betraying my country, I think you’re missing the point. If my mother was Trojan, then what does that make me? I’m as Trojan as I am Greek, and I can pick my loyalties as I please.’

Eperitus looked at him in silence for a moment, his disapproval of Palamedes’s treachery undercut by the revelation that he, too, bore the burden of a divided heritage. But Palamedes had chosen Troy, whether rightly or wrongly, and now he had to pay the price for that decision.

‘We’re wasting time,’ he announced, pointing to the entrance.

‘Promise me something, Eperitus,’ Palamedes said, his eyes wide and his face suddenly pale as he realized death had taken a step closer. ‘Promise me that you will save my mother’s life when Troy falls.’

‘And why should I promise you anything?’ Eperitus returned.

Palamedes drew nearer and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Because, for all our differences, you and I have something in common. Apheidas told me you’re his son, and that you’re half Trojan like me.’

‘No, Palamedes, I’m not like you. The difference is that you love Clymene, whereas I hate Apheidas. Do you think I could want to be like the monster who has kept your mother under threat of death for so long? I’m Greek, Palamedes, and as far as I’m concerned, my father’s blood counts for nothing. But if it makes your death easier for you, then I promise to do all I can to save Clymene when Troy falls.’

‘Thank you, Eperitus,’ Palamedes said. ‘You’re a rare thing in these times: a man of honour. But don’t deceive yourself that Greeks are more honourable than Trojans, or Trojans more honourable than Greeks. You’ll understand what I mean as this war draws to an end.’

They did not follow the slope down to the beach, where debates and trials were normally held. Instead, with Polites and Arceisius standing on either side of Palamedes and the Mycenaean guards following, they climbed to the top of the ridge and crossed the ditch to the rocky ground beyond the border of the camp. Here, every king, prince and commander of the Greek army was assembled in a great crescent around a tall wooden post. At their centre was Agamemnon, seated on a heavy wooden chair plated with beaten gold and beset with jewels; his blue eyes were as dispassionate as ever as he watched Eperitus escort the traitor to the wooden post. Menelaus and Nestor stood either side of the King of Men, while flanking them were the very greatest men in the army: Achilles, young, handsome and proud; Patroclus, cold and disapproving; Great Ajax, so confident of his own strength that he snubbed the aid of the gods; Teucer, twitching constantly as he skulked in his half-brother’s shadow; Little Ajax, driven by spite and the joy of violence; Idomeneus, second only to Agamemnon in wealth and power; Menestheus, the handsome and powerful king of Athens; and Diomedes, his hurt at Palamedes’s betrayal clear in his eyes. Other faces were ranked behind them, men of high birth and great honour, their bearded jaws set with hostility, but it was Odysseus who caught Palamedes’s eye. The king of Ithaca stood between Diomedes and Tlepolemos of Rhodes, his clever green eyes regarding the Nauplian impassively.

‘Odysseus!’ Palamedes sneered. ‘You rank coward. I know you planted that gold in my tent. But if you think you’re the victor in our rivalry, think again. The gods see everything, Odysseus, and they remember. Your base tricks won’t go unpunished.’

Eperitus pulled him back against the post. A short cross-spar had been nailed just below shoulder height to the back of the post and Eperitus tucked Palamedes’s elbows behind this before binding his hands together with a piece of thick leather rope, which he then looped several times around Palamedes’s waist until he was held upright and secure.