The Armour of Achilles (41 page)

E
peritus lay on his side, supporting his head on his fist as he watched the shadows moving across the walls of his hut. Astynome was beside him, her breathing barely audible as she slept. He looked down at her chest as it gently rose and fell; the skin was orange in the firelight and every dimple and line was carefully picked out by the soft, wavering glow. Her face was turned away from him and he spent a few moments admiring her profile – the straight line of her jaw, the small nose and the closed eyes with their long, black lashes. A few strands of dark hair were stuck to the thin film of sweat on her forehead, while the rest of it lay tousled across the rolled-up furs that pillowed her head. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear, half hoping she would wake, but she did not.

It was now seventeen days since Paris had shot Achilles before the Scaean Gate, his hand guided by Apollo. After the battle there were many who claimed to have seen the god standing atop the battlements. None had, of course, but it was beyond doubt that the Olympian archer had finally avenged the death of his son, Tenes, whom Achilles had killed ten years before in the first battle of the war. Tomorrow the period of mourning set by Agamemnon would be over and the great warrior’s body burnt. And it was about time, Eperitus thought. Unlike the divine protection that had preserved and restored Hector’s body during the days of abuse by Achilles, the Phthian prince’s own corpse had been afforded no such blessing. Despite every effort of the Greeks, the process of corruption was well advanced and the white sheet that covered the body could not disguise its foul stench. Only the faithful Myrmidons who guarded their prince could endure the smell, while the rest of the army said the rapid decay had been sent by the gods in revenge for Achilles’s impious treatment of Hector.

Eperitus did not agree with them. Neither did Odysseus. Despite his excesses, Achilles was too great a warrior to earn the loathing of the Olympians. Few men could boast an immortal mother or a full set of divinely made armour, and none could claim to have killed as many famed opponents as Achilles had. Nor would the Trojans have fought with such savagery to claim the body of any other man. With Paris urging them on, they had pursued the Greeks back across the fords of the Scamander and up the slopes beyond it to the plain above. Warriors had died in their hundreds on both sides, giving their lives for possession of a single corpse, devoid of its precious spirit. While Ajax had carried Achilles’s lifeless body across his massive shoulders – oblivious to the deadly hail of arrows and the shouts of the victorious Trojans – Odysseus and Eperitus had fought like trapped lions to protect his retreat, assisted by the strength and size of Polites, the bow of Antiphus and the spear of Eurybates. Finally, as Paris prepared his troops for another attack, Zeus himself intervened in the shape of a sudden storm, darkening the skies with clouds and calling on the winds to drive sheets of rain into the faces of the Trojans as the Greeks slipped away.

Astynome had come to his tent that same night, desperate to know that he had survived. She had treated his wounds then made love to him – tenderly, so as not to reopen his many cuts, but with a strong passion driven by relief at being in his arms again. The fierceness of the fighting and the inescapable closeness of death had given their relationship an urgency that neither had experienced in love before, making Eperitus hate the times when she had to leave him and return to her master in Troy. But until the war was over he knew this was how they would have to live – furtive meetings at night, spending their short time together in his bed until dawn, when she would seek out her friends the farmer and his son, who would take her back to the one place Eperitus could not join her. Not, that was, unless he gave in to her pleading and accepted his father’s offer of a meeting to discuss peace – an offer she had reminded him of on the evening after Achilles’s death and again tonight, as she lay in his arms after making love. And again he had refused.

‘But there’s no other way to end this war,’ she had protested, slapping his chest in frustration and looking even more beautiful in her anger. ‘Troy can never be victorious, not with the Amazon queen dead and what’s left of the Aethiope army in full retreat back south. But neither can the cursed Greeks, now Paris has killed Achilles. It’s a stalemate. Surely if your father can bring about peace then you have a duty to listen to him – a duty to Odysseus, to me, and even to yourself.’

‘I don’t trust Apheidas, for one thing,’ he had replied, ‘and I will not allow him to think I’ve forgiven the things he did, or that my shame at being his son is in any way reduced. The answer’s no, Astynome, now and every other time you ask me.’

‘Then I will ask you no more,’ she had said, brushing the tears from her eyes as she lay down next to him.

But as he listened to her rapid breathing gradually slow down until sleep overtook her, he knew that she was right. There was a growing sense of frustration among the ordinary Greek soldiers, bordering on open rebellion as they began to think that the war would never end and they would not see their homes and families ever again. Achilles’s very presence was worth an army in itself, and now that he had gone down to the halls of Hades, the camp seemed empty and subdued. Whatever men may have thought about the ruthless Phthian and his excessive pride, none would deny that he had been the fighting soul of the army. And now that he was dead the army’s hope had died with him. Despairing soldiers were daring to defy their captains, while some even deserted, preferring to brave the hostile lands about them in a hope of finding a way home than spend any more time under the doomed command of Agamemnon. On one occasion an angry mob of Cretans caught Calchas sneaking away from Agamemnon’s tent and threatened to kill him unless he confessed he had lied about the war ending in the tenth year. The priest had refused and only the arrival of Agamemnon’s own bodyguards saved his life. The King of Men had one of the Cretans strung up as an example to the rest of the camp and a resentful peace had followed.

But it was more than the despair of the Greeks that convinced Eperitus the war would not be won by either side. As he lay staring into the twitching shadows cast by the fire, he could not help but think of the boy soldier he had faced in the battle before the Scaean Gate. Any city that was prepared to arm children with daggers and throw them against seasoned warriors would not give in until every man who could hold a weapon was dead. And as Astynome never ceased to remind him, all the Trojans needed to do was wait behind their god-built walls until the Greeks found a way to break them down, or gave up and sailed home.

He thought of the boy again and was consoled by the knowledge that he had not killed him. Achilles would not have thought twice about hewing that young head from its shoulders in his all-consuming rampage towards glory – the same glory that Eperitus had once hankered after with all his heart. But no more. All he wanted now was to take Astynome back with him to Ithaca and let his name be preserved by their children rather than his deeds on the battlefield. He kissed her on the shoulder and lay down to sleep.

Odysseus was dreaming of Ithaca. He was in the bed he had made for Penelope and himself, with its four thick posts that rose from floor to ceiling and which were inlaid with patterns of gold, silver and ivory. One of the posts was the bole of an old olive tree that had been there before he had extended the palace, and which he had played in as a child. Staring up at the smooth ceiling, he could see the stars that had been painted there, the constellations positioned just as they had been in the month when the bedroom had been finished, forever a spring evening. And beside him he could feel the presence of his wife.

He turned to look at her. She was naked beneath the furs and in his dream he could feel the warmth emanating from her body. But her handsome features were sad and regretful.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I tried to keep the thieves from your house, Odysseus, but you were gone too long. Now Eupeithes’s son is king in your place.’

‘
Antinous?
’ Odysseus exclaimed, propping himself up on one elbow.

‘Yes, Antinous,’ Penelope had replied, rolling over so that her back was turned to him. ‘My new husband.’

Odysseus reached out to touch her and woke, his arm half-stretched out from beneath his furs. He pulled it back and took a deep breath, unsettled but relieved to realize it was only a dream. He stroked his beard and closed his eyes, trying to recall Penelope’s face. But she was gone.

And then his senses told him he was not alone in his hut.

He flung aside his furs and leapt from his bed, reaching for the sword that hung in its scabbard from the wall above.

‘That wouldn’t do you any good, if I had a mind to harm you.’

He turned to see Athena, sitting in his own chair by the hearth. She was dressed in her white chiton, her shield, helmet and spear absent, and her large eyes seemed unconscious of his nakedness as they stared at him. Odysseus blinked in surprise for a moment then knelt and bowed his head.

‘Am I still dreaming?’ he asked, looking up slightly.

‘No.’

‘Then things must be coming to a climax. This is the third time you’ve appeared to me in just a few weeks, Mistress.’

‘Come closer, Odysseus,’ she commanded, rising from the chair and reaching out to take his hand. Her touch was cool and smooth, not at all human, and there was a tender, almost pitying concern in her grey eyes. ‘Things are indeed coming to their end and you are likely to see more of me as this war reaches its conclusion. But – strange as it might seem to you – the plans of the gods cannot be fulfilled without human intervention.’

‘Is that what brings you here from Olympus?’

She reached out and stroked his red hair. ‘You haven’t forgotten what I said at the river?’

‘No, Mistress.’

‘Good, because the time is nigh. Tomorrow, Ajax will lay claim to Achilles’s armour. You must challenge him and stop him from winning it.’

Odysseus frowned and let his hand slip from hers.

‘When you spoke before, I thought you meant Ajax would seek the armour by treachery. But now Achilles is dead, Ajax has a blood right to his possessions. What right do
I
have to make a claim?’

‘Have you already forgotten Achilles’s last words?’

‘But Achilles thought I was the only one who had come to save him. And without Ajax’s great strength his body and armour would never have been saved from the Trojans at all.’

‘And did you not fight off the Trojans while he carried his cousin’s corpse?’ Athena said, her face growing sterner at Odys-seus’s protests.

Odysseus looked down at the flames.

‘I did, and I don’t deny part of me wants the armour, my lady. Ever since I laid eyes on it I felt the pull of its enchantment. And I haven’t forgotten how Palamedes called me a poor king of a poor country, with nothing to speak of my greatness.’

‘The armour would give you that,’ Athena said, softly once more.

‘But it’s not right. The armour should go to Ajax, not me. His pride won’t stand it going to someone else.’

‘Do you think we immortals care what
you
think is right or wrong, Odysseus?’ Athena warned him, angrily. ‘Ajax will be punished for his constant blasphemies and unless you want yourself and your family to face our fury you will do as we command – and you will do it alone, without telling Eperitus or anyone else. Claim the armour and make it your own, by whatever means you can!’

As she spoke, the hearth blazed up, forcing Odysseus to shield himself from the heat. But a moment later the flames died back down, and as Odysseus took his hand from his face the goddess’s harsh expression had softened again.

‘There’s another thing you should know. If Ajax takes the armour he will keep it to himself. But Zeus has decreed it should go to another, one even more worthy of it than Ajax. Unless that man joins the army and takes Achilles’s place, Troy won’t fall. And unless Troy falls, you will never see Ithaca, or Penelope, or Telemachus again. Human intervention, Odysseus.’

‘But who is this man you speak of?’

Athena shook her head, her form becoming insubstantial. Like smoke in a breeze, she drifted into nothing before Odysseus’s eyes.

That will be revealed in its own time,’ her fading voice replied. ‘But if you want to go home, my dear Odysseus, win the armour.’

The king of Ithaca wetted his finger and held it up in the air. It was all for show, of course: the wind always blew from the northwest and he could tell its direction from the way it fanned the sweat on his naked body, not to mention the fact that the pall of smoke from Achilles’s funeral pyre was trailing away towards the south-east. But the funeral games were as much a spectacle in respect of the dead as they were a competition for rich prizes and the honour they carried with them, so Odysseus went through all the required motions before the eyes of the thousands of soldiers who were crowded along the edge of the beach.

He stretched his arms behind his back, interlacing his fingers and locking his elbows so that the muscles of his back and arms tensed. After a few moments he let his arms fall to his sides and began to roll his shoulders in forward circles, loosening the muscles there while at the same time tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the bright midday sun. Finally, he placed his fists on his hips and, keeping his back straight, bent his knees several times in succession as the crowd clapped or jeered, depending on which of the competitors they supported.