The Armour of Achilles (47 page)

H
elen woke to the first light of dawn and found herself alone. Without calling her maids, she dressed hurriedly and set off towards the walls of Pergamos. The streets were already alive with a mixture of merchants, tradesmen, slaves and soldiers, all going about their business but none too busy to spare the daughter of Zeus their glances. She ignored them all, well used to the mixture of longing and loathing that followed her every departure from the palace. Soon she was climbing the broad steps that led up to the battlements, where her husband stood with his hands palm-down on the cold stone, staring south-west in the direction of the unseen Greek camp.

Despite the cool morning air and the fresh northerly breeze that whistled over the rooftops and between the crenellated teeth of the parapet, Paris wore nothing more than a thin, knee-length tunic of green wool, belted about the waist. Helen paused, admiring the broad set of his shoulders and the splendid muscles of his arms and legs that held such strength and enduring stamina. For a fleeting moment, as his back was turned to her, she recalled the man she had first fallen in love with: brave, powerful, self-assured – even handsome, in his rugged manner; he was a warrior with a strong sense of duty, but with the courage to sacrifice his honour for love’s sake. And as she watched his black hair strain and twist in the wind she knew that she loved him now as much as she had then, when he had stolen her away from Sparta. Only one thing overshadowed their passion for each other – the guilt of what their love had done to Troy.

She climbed to the top step and saw him stiffen slightly, warned of her approach by the tiny particles of stone crunching beneath the leather soles of her sandals. Ignoring the sideward glances of the guards – boys or old men, mostly, since the heavy fighting, interspersed with experienced soldiers too badly wounded to fight in the battle lines again – she placed her hands on his upper back and pressed against the thick layers of muscle with her thumbs, gently kneading the tense knots that lay beneath his skin until she felt his resistance give and his shoulders relax. But moments later he reached back and, without turning to look at her, brushed her hands away.

‘What is it, Paris?’ she asked, moving beside him and looking up at his face, the familiar scar a bright pink in the clear morning light.

‘A horseman,’ he said, deliberately misunderstanding her question as he pointed his chin towards the plains. ‘Maybe two.’

Helen turned and looked. Her eyes swept over the rooftops of the lower city, skipping over the arc of the impenetrable walls and crossing the pastureland beyond to where the silver line of the Scamander wriggled down towards the bay. As her gaze touched upon the fords she saw a horse picking its way through the swirling waters and the slippery stones beneath, with what were almost certainly two riders on its back. She watched them closely, trying to discern whether they were Trojan or Greek as they reached the near bank of the river and struggled up into the swampy, flower-filled meadows.

‘Who are they?’ she asked, reaching out and placing her hand on his.

‘Apheidas and a girl,’ he answered, pulling away. ‘One of his household servants, I think.’

Helen felt a sting in her heart as his fingers slipped from hers, sensing that his need of her was slipping away with them. They had not made love since Hector had died, and even killing Achilles had not alleviated the responsibility and guilt he felt for his brother’s death or the sense of doom it had brought to Troy. He was punishing himself too much and would not allow her to console him with either her words or her body. But if she lost him, what hope would there be for her in a city full of enemies?

She turned away so that he would not see the tears rimming her eyes.

‘Apheidas? What’s he doing outside the city walls?’

‘Committing treason.’

Helen and Paris turned to see Cassandra at the top of the stairs, a glum expression marring her naturally beautiful features as she stared down at her bare feet. She wore a sable cloak over her pale grey chiton, and with her ashen complexion and her dark hair and eyes she reminded Helen more than ever of Clytaemnestra.

‘What do you mean, Sister?’ Helen asked, inadvertently adopting the voice she used for children or those who struck her as simple-minded. Paris had already switched his gaze back to the plain before the city walls, where the horse was now approaching the Scaean Gate.

Cassandra shrugged and moved to the battlements, continuing to peer down at her feet as she dropped back against the rough stone.

‘I saw it. You know, in here.’ She tapped her temple with her finger, sparing Helen a sheepish glance. ‘He met with his son in Apollo’s temple. Offered to open the city’s gates to the Greeks if Agamemnon would give him the throne of Troy. I’ve always said he can’t be trusted, but no one ever believes me anyway.’

Helen narrowed her eyes quizzically. ‘So he’s going to betray us all?’

‘No. He and his son argued, nearly killed each other. There’ll be no traitors’ deal, and right now all Apheidas is worried about is how to explain what he was doing outside the city walls.’

Paris sighed audibly and leaned his forearms on the parapet.

‘Apheidas is a commander in the Trojan army, Sister. He’ll have his reasons for going out – a spying mission or a patrol of some kind, most likely.’

‘With Astynome, his
maid
?’ Cassandra asked, giving him a tired but resentful look.

‘Then maybe he’s heard the rumour she’s sleeping with a Greek in their camp – his own son, by the account I heard – and went to catch her on her return,’ Paris replied tersely.

Cassandra returned to the top of the steps, brushing Helen as she passed.

‘I shouldn’t expect you to believe me, Paris – that’s the curse I have to live with – but you don’t have to be so wretched about it. At least Hector was polite in his disbelief! But one day the whole city will regret not listening to me, and by then it’ll be too late.’

She trudged down the stairs and was gone, but Helen was hardly aware of her passing. As Cassandra had moved by her, their bare arms touching for the briefest of moments, her mind’s eye had been filled with a terrible image. The whole of Troy was a mass of fire, from the lowest hovel to the highest palace, the flames towering over the blackened walls to lick at the night sky and fill it with billowing columns of spark-filled smoke. There were screams and the clash of weapons; women were being raped by warriors drunk with victory, while their children were being hurled from the battlements. But at the centre of the inferno, standing tall and black, was a giant horse, a beast so terrible that Helen could sense the evil that had consumed Troy was emanating from it. Then the image was gone as quickly as it had come, so that Helen’s mind was left scrambling to pick up the fragments and piece together some memory of what she had imagined. She failed and was left with nothing more than a consuming sense of doom and the image of the horse.

The news of Ajax’s suicide reached Odysseus shortly after the skulking Eurylochus had informed him that Eperitus was going to meet with his father in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. The disbelief he had felt at his captain’s treachery quickly turned to remorse over the death of Ajax. Though he had only been a pawn in the vengeance of the gods, Odysseus had acted of his own free will and knew he was as guilty of the great warrior’s death as if he had plunged the sword in himself. He also guessed that his actions had been partly responsible for Eperitus’s decision to meet with Apheidas, and he was seized by the urgent need to go after him and explain his motives – something he was free to do now that he had carried out the deed. Above all, he had to stop Eperitus from joining his father, if, as Odysseus suspected, that was what he had been driven to.

Later, as they rode slowly back from the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, Eperitus asked the question that had been pricking at him since he had watched his father and Astynome escape.

‘What happens now, Odysseus? When I met with Apheidas I betrayed you and the rest of the army, and the punishment for treason is stoning.’

‘You said you were trying to end the war so I could go back to Ithaca,’ Odysseus said, stroking the oiled mane of his mount. ‘So there
was
no betrayal. You knew my heart’s desire was always to go home to my family, but you thought I’d forgotten it in some mad desire for the armour of Achilles. I couldn’t tell you the real reason why I had to keep the armour from Ajax – though you know now – so you were just trying to save me from its curse. And I forgive you.’

They rode on in silence for a while, then Eperitus turned and looked at the king.

‘In that case, am I still captain of the guard?’

‘If you want to be. I can’t think of anyone better.’

‘And I can’t think of anyone better to serve. Even if you had wanted Achilles’s armour for yourself, Odysseus, you never needed it. You’ve enough greatness in you to make your own glory, whatever Palamedes might have thought. Besides, even a simple soldier like me can see that Troy isn’t going to fall to brute force alone – we’ve tried that for ten years and failed. It needs brains, the sort of cunning and intelligence the gods blessed you with. And if you can use your wits and determination to bring an end to this war, then your name will be the greatest of all the men who fought at Troy, including Achilles.’

‘I’ll try,’ Odysseus answered. ‘With your help. And then, gods willing, perhaps we can go home.’

On their return they found the Greek camp in uproar. Soldiers who had once shouted Great Ajax’s name in triumph were now cursing him for the destruction of the army’s livestock. Fights had broken out and a few men had been killed, though the violence was rapidly quelled after Agamemnon had sent his Mycenaeans out to keep the peace. He had also summoned the Council of Kings to discuss what to do with Ajax’s body, and as Odysseus and Eperitus entered his tent a fierce debate was already taking place. Fighting to master his twitch, Teucer was demanding in an angry stutter that Ajax be given the funeral his heroic deeds had earned. But Menelaus was furious at the slaughter Ajax had caused, as well as the additional shame of his suicide, and was insisting his body should be hurled into the sea or left as carrion for the birds. The majority of the commanders made their agreement known with shouts and energetic gestures at Teucer. To Eperitus’s surprise, Little Ajax was among them.

Odysseus strode into the middle of the debate and snatched the staff from Menelaus’s grip. He raised his hands for calm and waited for Teucer and Menelaus to move aside before turning to the King of Men, seated in his golden throne.

‘What should you care, my lord, if Ajax killed a hundred or even two hundred beasts?’ he asked in a soft voice. ‘Ten times that number and more have been sacrificed in thanks for the victories Ajax has brought us over the years. And do you think he’d have carried out such an act if the gods hadn’t first robbed him of his senses?’

Despite their surprise that Odysseus had spoken in defence of Ajax, there were a few consenting grunts from the circle of onlookers and a firm nod of agreement from Diomedes. But not all were so quickly persuaded.

‘If the gods turned his mind, then he brought it on himself,’ Nestor contended. ‘He always claimed the glory for his own deeds and never gave the gods their dues. He was asking for trouble.’

‘No suicide deserves proper funeral rites!’ Little Ajax added, stepping forward. ‘Feed his body to the fish!’

His single eyebrow was contorted with anger and his fists were clenched, but beneath his fury Eperitus could see that he was hurt. His namesake’s act of self-destruction had been a betrayal that the Locrian was struggling to understand. When Odysseus turned his piercing green eyes on him, though, his head dropped and he retreated back into the crowd.

‘A suicide cursed by the gods,’ Odysseus said. ‘Maybe so, but there was another factor in Ajax’s death – the part played by me. If I hadn’t been awarded Achilles’s armour he would be alive now, and so would your precious livestock.’

‘Are you blaming me?’ Agamemnon asked, lifting his chin a little from his fist.

‘I blame
myself
, Agamemnon, although I was just an instrument in the revenge of the Olympians. My victory – or the dishonour of his own defeat – was too much for Ajax’s proud mind to bear. For that reason I beg you, my lord, to employ the greatest power available to any king – the power of mercy. Forget the errors of Ajax’s sickness and remember how he always fought in the forefront of every battle, killing many of Troy’s greatest men. He was the stalwart of the Greek army, a man that even Hector could not defeat. Indeed, it seems the only man capable of defeating Ajax was Ajax himself! So I ask you to permit Teucer to cremate his half-brother with full funeral rites, which he earned in life by his deeds as a warrior. And if Teucer will forgive
me
, then I would ask him to accept my help in performing the rites.’

There was a murmur of approval and Diomedes demanded that he, also, should be permitted to help. But Agamemnon did not reply at once. He rested his chin back on his fist and stared at Odysseus with a cold, unwavering gaze, taking his time to weigh the arguments as well as to remind the council that he was their leader and all decisions lay ultimately with him. Then he sat up and leaned back with a sigh.