The Armour of Achilles (15 page)

E
peritus was woken by a gnawing hunger. Palamedes’s execution the day before had robbed him of his appetite and he had retired without any dinner, but as he dressed and exited his tent to be greeted by the smell of cooking fires he felt as if he could eat a whole goat by himself. He ordered Omeros, who was passing, to fetch him something to eat, then returned to his tent to be alone for as long as possible. But when the flap was pulled aside again, it was not Omeros who entered.

‘Come on,’ said Odysseus, staring at him with tired eyes that looked as if they had not slept all night. ‘The council is about to meet. We have a visitor – one who might interest you.’

‘Who is it?’

‘You’ll see. Now, come on.’

Eperitus looped his baldric over his shoulder, fastened his cloak around his neck and followed the king back out into the daylight. They nearly collided with Omeros, who was carrying a bowl of porridge.

‘Your breakfast, sir,’ he said, hurriedly passing Eperitus the bowl.

Eperitus lifted a spoonful to his mouth then pushed the bowl back towards the young Ithacan.

‘You have the rest,’ he mumbled, following in the wake of Odysseus.

‘But where are you going?’

‘To the Council of Kings.’

‘Come with us, Omeros,’ Odysseus added, pausing. ‘Only kings and princes are permitted to speak, but there’s always a sizeable crowd from among the ordinary soldiers.’

Omeros nodded eagerly and followed the two veteran warriors, still clutching the bowl to his chest. They joined a great stream of men, leaving their tents and campfires to see what the cause of the impromptu meeting was. Soon they were crossing the soft sand to where the Mycenaean ships lay ashore in double rows, the weathered props beneath their hulls testament to the length of time since they had last been at sea. Gathering before their high black prows was a great crowd of men, all talking at the same time and sounding like a throng of seagulls. Odysseus shouldered his way through, and as men turned and spoke his name the press of bodies began to open up before him, allowing him and his companions access to the heart of the assembly. Soon they were met by a circle of guards, dressed ceremonially in the now defunct armour of an earlier era: banded cuirasses of burnished bronze with high neck-guards that covered the chin and arched plates to protect the shoulders; domed helmets covered with a layer of boars’ tusks, with black plumes that streamed down from sockets at the top; tall leather shields covered in a gleaming layer of bronze; and a fearsome array of deadly weapons that were nothing to do with ceremony and everything to do with keeping the horde of onlookers at bay. These were Agamemnon’s personal bodyguard, hand-picked warriors who were ruthlessly loyal to their king. At the sight of Odysseus and Eperitus they raised their spears and stepped aside, moving quickly back again to bar Omeros’s progress.

‘No commoners,’ ordered one of the guards. ‘You’ll wait here.’

Without a backward glance, Odysseus and Eperitus joined the kings, princes and high-ranking captains who were already seated on benches around an unblemished circle of silver sand. They sat at their usual places next to Achilles, Patroclus and Peisandros. Although there was no defined order of seating other than the gold-covered throne of Agamemnon – which always faced inland with its back to the sea – the council members had decided their own order over the years, any contravention of which had become unthinkable. As Eperitus sat beside Peisandros, he could see that all the great men who had taken part in the stoning of Palamedes were present, even Agamemnon, Menelaus and Nestor, who usually arrived last. Only Palamedes’s place was empty.

Standing alone at the centre of the gathering was an old man. He was cloaked and hooded in black and leaned upon a tall staff, decked with woollen bands that marked him both as a priest of Apollo and a suppliant. Though his back was bent with age, his eyes were fixed firmly on the King of Men. Agamemnon paid him no attention, preferring to lean back into his throne and pull his red cloak around him to keep out the early morning breeze. He was chatting with Menelaus and only looked up briefly as Odysseus arrived, as if to mark his lateness, before resuming his discussion. After a while the chatter among the hundreds of onlookers and the circle of leaders began to ebb, until only the voices and laughter of the Atreides brothers – Agamemnon and Menelaus – could still be heard. Eventually, Agamemnon turned his gaze from Menelaus to the bent figure waiting patiently at the centre of the circular arena formed by the benches. He eyed the old man for a few moments, then stood and held out his hand towards a slave, who hurried to bring him his golden sceptre.

‘It is not often we receive Trojans in this camp, unless they are our captives or our slaves,’ he began. ‘But you come to us as a suppliant and bearing the signs of a priest of Apollo, so we will suffer you here. Speak: tell us your name and put your request before us.’

The old man tipped his hood back to reveal a bald head, suntanned and deeply creased with age to the texture of worn leather, then swept his cloak back over his left shoulder to show the white priest’s robes beneath.

‘My name is Chryses, priest of Apollo on the island of Chryse,’ he announced in a voice cracked with age. ‘I have received a message that my daughter was taken captive at the sack of Lyrnessus and that she is held here in the Greek camp.’

Eperitus gripped the edge of the bench as he realized the old man standing before them was Astynome’s father.

‘What of it?’ Agamemnon asked, hiding a yawn behind his fingertips.

‘What of it, my lord?’ Chryses repeated. ‘Astynome is my daughter, an innocent girl caught up in a savage war, and I love her. I want her back and have brought a generous ransom for her release.’

The old man raised his arms and turned to the circle of kings and the hundreds of soldiers on the sloping beach behind them. More men were still arriving, clambering on to the decks of the ships or lining the grassy bank that divided the beach from the mass of tents beyond. To these commoners, as well as the kings, he looked, and in a loud voice that belied his age implored their support: ‘Great lords, mighty warriors of the Greek army, show your respect to Apollo and accept the ransom I bring. Give an old man back his daughter and in return I will pray to all the gods of Olympus that the gates of Priam’s city fall to you this very year!’

A great shout of agreement rose from the ranks of kings and commoners alike as Chryses slowly turned full circle to face the King of Men once more. Eperitus added his own voice to the cheers all around him. As a mere captain he was powerless to argue for Astynome’s return, and his oath to Clytaemnestra, not to kill Agamemnon, prevented the other options that his instincts preferred; but with the appearance of Chryses and his offer of a ransom there was hope that she might yet be saved from the clutches of the man he hated. Standing with the rest of the assembly, he caught the eye of Odysseus and knew in an instant that it was his friend who had somehow sent the message to the old priest. Odysseus nodded and Eperitus smiled back.

As the roar of applause rang from the hillsides, Agamemnon’s impassive expression turned cold and stern.

‘So Astynome is your daughter, is she?’ he said stiffly. ‘Then know this: she pleases me greatly, too much for me to let her go in exchange for the trinkets of an old man.’

‘I have brought all the wealth I possess as a ransom for my daughter, and it is not a paltry sum – gold and copper ingots, tripods of—’

Agamemnon held up his hand.

‘Your wealth means nothing to me, Chryses. I intend for your daughter to return with me to Mycenae as my slave, where she will serve me in whatever function I choose, including as my lover. As for you, you will leave immediately and take your beggar’s ransom with you.’

Chryses’s lined face became suddenly stern and he pointed an accusing finger at the Mycenaean king. ‘Dismiss me now and it will be to the loss of you and your men. I cannot be blamed for what happens if—’

‘Silence!
’ Agamemnon commanded. ‘Leave the camp now, before I decide you are one of Priam’s spies and have you executed.’

‘So be it!’ Chryses replied, and without a further glance at the King of Men he turned and marched from the now silent arena.

Agamemnon’s treatment of the old man received widespread disapproval among the ordinary ranks of the army as well as many of their leaders. Whatever increase the King of Men’s standing had gained from the recent victories at Lyrnessus, Adramyttium and Thebe was reversed, and as the Greeks streamed away from the gathering they were already muttering solemnly about the consequences of offending a priest of Apollo. And their superstitions were soon fulfilled.

By nightfall of that day, scores of men throughout the camp were suffering with different combinations of fever, shaking, vomiting and diarrhoea. By noon of the next the number was in its hundreds and a feeling of concern bordering on panic began to creep through the army. By the fourth day the healers Machaon and Podaleirius, the sons of Asclepius, were still unable to identify the strange new plague or find effective ways to treat it. Soon great pyres of the dead – a dozen or more bodies at a time – were sending thick palls of black smoke up into the cloudless sky from every point in the Greek camp. Cries of mourning mingled with chanted prayers and the screams of slaughtered animals, as kings and leaders led appeasing sacrifices to the gods. Most prayers were offered to Apollo, whom many suspected of taking his revenge for the snub to Chryses, but by the tenth day the mysterious plague that was ravaging the army showed no signs of abating. It was then that Achilles called for an urgent meeting of the council.

Once the leaders were seated in a circle on the wide beach, surrounded by a great sea of worried soldiers from every nation in Greece, Achilles rose to his feet and silence fell. He walked over to Agamemnon and received the golden staff from the king’s hand. Then, striding out into the centre of the arena, he looked around at the thousands of hushed, attentive faces.

‘My lord Agamemnon,’ he said, though his back was turned to the Mycenaean king, ‘perhaps the cries of the dying have not penetrated the walls of your tent, or the acrid stench of the funeral pyres has failed to reach your royal nostrils, but let me inform you that your great army is being decimated by plague while you sit idly on your throne and do nothing. Would you do the same if Hector and all his Trojans were attacking our camp?’ There was a dissentious murmur from the onlookers as Achilles turned his dark gaze on the King of Men. ‘I have lost more Myrmidons in the past nine days than I did in the attacks on Lyrnessus, Adramyttium and Thebe combined. They were all good men who deserved to die fighting their enemies, not convulsing in their own vomit!’

Agamemnon regarded Achilles in silence, his blue eyes devoid of emotion as he stroked his beard.

‘Then what do
you
propose we do, son of Peleus?’ asked Menelaus, compelled to speak by his brother’s silence.

‘To me the solution is clear,’ Achilles replied. ‘We’ve angered one of the gods and yet our prayers and sacrifices are going unheard. We have to discover the nature of our offence before this plague destroys us altogether. Fortunately, there is one among us who claims to have the answer.’

The mumblings of the crowd grew louder, forcing Menelaus to raise his hands for silence while Agamemnon continued to stare icily at Achilles.

‘Very well,’ Menelaus said. ‘I, too, have lost many good men and want to see an end to this murderous plague. Who is it that claims to know why the gods are angered?’

Achilles crossed to the benches and hooked his hand beneath the arm of a man hooded and cloaked in black. He lifted him up and placed the tall staff in his hand, then pushed him into the arena and sat down again. The man shuffled uncertainly to the centre of the circle of kings, his back stooped and his face hung low, and many thought Chryses had returned. But when he lifted his hood over his bald head it was the starkly white face of Calchas that blinked round at the ring of shocked onlookers.

‘My . . . my lords,’ he began, his voice weak and slightly slurred as his dark eyes were drawn inevitably towards Agamemnon. ‘My lord, the gods . . . I have seen . . . terrible things.’

‘What have you seen?’ Agamemnon demanded, sharply.

‘I have seen Phoebus Apollo, seated on the high ridge above the camp.’ Swaying slightly, Calchas pointed to the surrounding hills and many followed the direction indicated by his long finger. ‘I have seen him, the archer-god, seated on the earthen ramparts with a great quiver of golden arrows at his side, drawing the string of his bow back to his cheekbone and launching missile after missile down into the camp. I have watched him from behind stumps of trees and tussocks of grass, firing arrows from dawn until dusk, each one finding its target in a warrior of Greece and bringing him down to a slow and painful death. He is up there now; I can hear the singing of his bow again and again – a dozen times, at least, since this council began. The plague comes from him as a punishment . . . a punishment for—’

He raised a trembling hand towards the king, then turned his face imploringly to Achilles.

‘My lord Achilles, I fear to speak. What am I but a priest without a temple, an outcast whose devotion to the gods has earned him nothing more than scorn and resentment from the Greeks? Will you protect me against the wrath of men greater than myself, if my words stir their anger?’