The Armour of Achilles (38 page)

M
entor wrapped his double cloak more tightly around himself and pressed on up the steep path that led to the top of Mount Neriton. The wind was howling and the sun had already sunk beyond the rim of the western ocean, making it difficult to find his footing in the deepening twilight. Behind and below him he could see the glow of lamps and fires starting to show in the windows of the town, and over to his right similar clusters of lights were winking out at him from the dark-blue flanks of Samos.

Why Halitherses should want to meet with him in such a remote place as the top of Mount Neriton, he could not be certain. But he could guess. Eupeithes had an uncanny ability for finding out bits of information he had no right knowing, and Halitherses had often warned Mentor to be careful of spies. Clearly, his old friend wanted to discuss Eupeithes and he did not want eavesdroppers. And, if Mentor’s own concerns were anything to judge by, Halitherses probably wanted to talk with him about the way power was being slowly wrested from their fingers.

Not that either man blamed Penelope for allowing Oenops on to the Kerosia. Mentor knew from years of experience how persuasive Eupeithes could be, and the only men he had ever known who seemed totally immune to his arguments were Laertes and Odysseus – Laertes through sheer hatred of his old nemesis, and Odysseus because no man knew his own mind better than the king. And how Mentor wished his friend were back on Ithaca to put things back in order: having to face the combined forces of Eupeithes, Oenops and Polyctor in the Kerosia was now a regular struggle, but one on which the well-being of Ithaca depended.

By the time he reached the top of Mount Neriton, the first stars were peppering the sable sky and the chill of a cloudless spring evening was biting at his toes and fingertips. The lookout post – a thatched canopy on four stilts that gave protection from the sun but not the wind or rain – was deserted. The lookout had passed Mentor on his way back to the town after sunset, but Mentor had expected to find Halitherses there waiting for him. Something must have delayed him, he told himself as he stamped his feet against the cold and looked out at the dark mass of the Peloponnese in the distance. As he often did whenever he came up to the lonely peak, he wondered what Odysseus and the other Ithacans were doing at that moment, far off in Ilium. Had it not been for a traitor’s sword severing his hand twenty years ago, he would have been there with them, winning glory on the battlefield rather than fighting a political war where enemies were undeclared and masqueraded as friends, biding their time for the right moment to strike.

Mentor suddenly stopped stamping his feet and froze. Something at the unconscious extremities of his senses told him another human presence was with him. And maybe more than one.

‘Halitherses?’ he asked, turning about and looking into the darkness. ‘Speak up, man. What sort of time and place do you call this to meet up?’

There was no reply, but by the light of the bloated moon that was rising slowly in the north-east he saw a tall figure rising up from the stones at the edge of the small plateau on which he stood. Sensing more movement, he turned to his right and saw another, equally tall figure rise up. A naked blade gleamed in his hand.

Mentor felt for the sword hanging at his hip and slid it from its scabbard. As he balanced it in his one hand, he saw a third figure standing to his left, ensuring he was now trapped on all sides.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’

The only answer was the dull, menacing scrape of swords being drawn. It was answer enough: the men were there to kill him, doubtless sent by Eupeithes to reduce his opposition in the Kerosia. Halitherses’s summons was false, of course, and had merely been the bait to draw him into an ambush, delivered by a palace slave who had been deceived into relaying the message. It was a well-laid trap and Mentor’s chances of survival were thin: he had no armour and had not used his sword in anger for two decades. As his opponents drew nearer he could see they were Taphians, among the most ruthless enemies a man could face. Mentor instinctively flexed his knees and prepared to meet the first attack.

It came quickly. The man to his left rushed at him, grinning with malicious confidence. Mentor sidestepped the move and retreated so that he was now facing all three assailants. His heart beating fast, he withdrew to the edge of the plateau. Behind him he could hear the sea crashing against the rocks below, but at least now the Taphians could not run a sword through his back.

‘Jump and save us the trouble,’ one of the assassins suggested, his voice husky and heavily accented.

‘Jump yourselves.’

The man spoke to his comrades and advanced, intending to finish the Ithacan himself. He leapt forward and their blades clashed, glinting in the moonlight. Mentor was barely able to react in time to the Taphian’s rapid cuts and fell back, feeling the ground fall away sharply behind his heel. The man smiled at him, confident of his superiority, then lunged with the point of his sword at Mentor’s chest. Mentor turned aside at the last moment and lashed out blindly with his own blade, finding by grim chance the angle between the Taphian’s jaw and neck. If Mentor had not used his sword in a long time, it did not mean he did not keep a keen edge on it; the bronze opened up his enemy’s throat and he fell back, choking as he died.

His companions now raised their blades and came at the lone Ithacan together, but Mentor knocked the first attacker aside and ran through the gap towards the top of the path that led back down to the town. The remaining Taphians ran after him, cursing in their own dialect. Mentor reached the path quickly enough, but his pursuers were close behind and their legs were longer and faster than his. He paused briefly as the land fell away before him to reveal the sharp, boulder-strewn slope and the lights of the town below. Ignoring the meandering path, he gave a shout and jumped, landing in a heap some way down and rolling for a short distance until he was stopped by a large boulder. Bruised and disorientated, he staggered to his feet and reached for his sword where it had fallen in the long grass. A moment later, he heard a thud and a cry as one of the Taphians fell awkwardly only a few paces away.

The man had chosen to take the same risk as Mentor – leaping down the hill instead of following the safer, slower path – but had not enjoyed the Ithacan’s good fortune and appeared to have injured himself. Looking up, Mentor saw the man’s companion shuffling in a direct line down the slope, avoiding the boulders while trying to prevent his momentum from taking his legs away beneath him. In that split moment Mentor had the choice to continue fleeing in the hope that he would reach the town before his pursuers, or to attack while his enemies were momentarily divided. He gripped his sword and with a shout ran at the nearest man. The Taphian struggled to his feet, weapon still in hand, and turned to see the Ithacan charging at him. He lunged clumsily and died with Mentor’s sword in his chest, but not before his own bronze had pierced his assailant’s thigh.

Mentor cried out, more in surprise at the sudden, burning sensation in his leg than at the pain of it. But before he could give it another moment’s thought the last Taphian was upon him, leaping down from the slope with his blade in both hands above his head. It narrowly missed Mentor, who twisted aside at the last moment, and struck a boulder, sending a flash of sparks into the darkness. Mentor’s instinct was to run, but his wounded leg gave way and all he could do was turn as his attacker bore down on him again. The sword passed beneath his arm, where Mentor trapped it with his own in instinctive desperation. Together, the two men fell into the grass and the Taphian cried out as Mentor brought the hilt of his sword down into his face. He was too close to stab and Mentor felt himself weakening from loss of blood, so he brought the hilt down again, and then again, continuing until the man’s face became so disfigured that it no longer looked human. Eventually, the muffled groaning of his victim died out and he stared at Mentor with dead eyes. Mentor felt exhaustion overcome him and he let his sword slip from his hand before he passed out.

Eperitus leaned back in his chair and stared across at the wide bay. The hulls of the ships stood black against the sparkling ocean, while in the foreground was the barrow that had been built over the ashes of Patroclus’s funeral pyre. Its sun-baked sides were bare but for the prostrate figure of Achilles, who lay there in mourning for his lost friend.

‘When will he give up this excessive grief?’ Diomedes asked in a strained voice, clearly annoyed. ‘Doesn’t he care what the rest of us think, or even the effect he’s having on his own Myrmidons?’

‘You forget we’ve known him much longer than you have, Diomedes,’ said Peisandros, whose broad abdomen was tightly squeezed between the arms of his chair. ‘We Myrmidons
expect
Achilles to be excessive, whether it’s in war, anger, love or grief. We suffer with him for the loss of Patroclus and our loyalty to him is as strong as ever.’

Odysseus finished his porridge and dropped the wooden bowl on to the ground by his feet.

‘Yes, but it wavered during his feud with Agamemnon, when he refused to fight,’ he said.

‘A few disgruntled comments,’ Peisandros countered with a dismissive flick of his hand. ‘Would you expect anything less of warriors being kept back from battle?’

‘Soldiers will be loyal to their leaders, for the most part,’ said Diomedes. ‘But Achilles shouldn’t expect to get away with everything. Thersites was a distant cousin of mine; it’s not a fact I’m proud of, but what Achilles did to him was nothing short of murder. The gods will hold him to account for it.’

‘The gods care more for Achilles than Thersites, my friend,’ Odysseus said, leaning across and patting Diomedes’s shoulder. ‘Besides, the hunchback had it coming. He’s crossed us all in his time – you and me included – but he should’ve known better than to keep goading the likes of Agamemnon and Achilles. After all, even I wouldn’t dare accuse Achilles of wanting to commit necrophilia!’

He gave Diomedes a smile, but the Argive king continued to stare across at Achilles stretched over Patroclus’s barrow. As silence fell between them again, Eperitus took a mouthful of wine and let his thoughts wander to the night before. With the defeat of the Amazons, he had returned to his hut to find the hearth ablaze and Astynome lying naked in his bed. This was the third time she had smuggled herself into his hut, since Priam had taken Hector’s body eleven days before, and Eperitus’s joy grew with each unexpected appearance. After they had made love she had rested her head upon his chest and, with her long fingers tracing the lines of his rib muscles, asked him whether he had thought any more of Apheidas’s offer.

‘I won’t betray my oath to Odysseus,’ he had replied flatly.

‘But the Aethiopes will arrive soon,’ she had sighed. ‘Some say they’ll drive the Greeks back into the sea and bring victory to Troy. Others claim they’ll breathe new life into our defences and prolong the siege for a few more years. Either way, isn’t it better to have peace now? If your father thinks he can negotiate an end to the war, why don’t you put away your anger and speak to him? I can’t bear to be apart from you for much longer; I want the fighting to stop so that we can be married.’

Eperitus thumbed a tear from her cheek and stroked her hair. ‘So do I, my love. But my hatred for Apheidas is irrelevant now. These Aethiopes that Priam puts his faith in will never set foot in Troy; we’ve set an ambush for them in the hills about the road to Troy. And so long as Achilles is still fighting and Helen is held prisoner by Paris, there’ll never be peace between Greeks and Trojans, whatever my father might say.’

They had talked a little while longer, about the war and whether it would ever end, but Astynome said nothing more about Apheidas’s offer. Instead, her tone had become increasingly depressed as she convinced herself that she and Eperitus would never now be together and find the happiness they sought. She had dripped tears on to his chest and wound her limbs tighter about his body, while he had tried to assure her the city was prophesied to fall before the end of the year and that they could then be married. But the prospect of Troy’s destruction had only made her more tearful. Eventually they had drifted into sleep, and when Eperitus awoke with the first glimmer of dawn Astynome had already gone.

Peisandros lifted the wineskin from the sand beside his chair and poured a little in his cup before offering it to the others. Diomedes refused, but as Odysseus took the skin a series of horn calls rang out from the gates. Recognizing the alarm, all four men jumped up from their seats and looked to the walls that lined the slopes above them. The rest of the camp had also burst into life and men were already hurrying to and fro, pulling on armour and retrieving weapons as they wondered what new threat could be calling them to arms. Then, through the middle of the chaos, a single horseman came weaving his way between the tents and campfires, cutting a path down towards the beach. Eperitus recognized him as one of Nestor’s captains, who should have been with the expedition that had set out that morning to ambush the Aethiopes. He ran to intercept him, closely followed by Odysseus, Diomedes and Peisandros.

‘Whoaa!’ Eperitus called, holding up his arms. ‘Where are you heading and what’s your hurry, man?’

The rider heaved back on the reins and looked down at the four men. His face was caked with blood and dust and his eyes were wide with fear and urgency.

‘I have a message for the King of Men and for him only. Many lives depend on me getting it to him, so I beg you not to delay me any more than I have been already.’