The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘And so your father lived and died, Neoptolemus,’ Odysseus said, turning at last to the young man seated beside Lycomedes. ‘But as your mother and grandfather have already guessed, we did not come here solely to bring you news of Achilles’s death. You’d have heard eventually, and the message didn’t need two kings to carry it. No, we’re here at the will of the gods: an oracle has predicted that Troy won’t fall until you’ve taken your father’s place in the army.’

At this, the hall broke into uproar. Men leapt to their feet, sending shouts of denial up to the rafters. Neoptolemus stood also, while Odysseus advanced to the hearth and pointed at him through the heat haze.

‘You are your father’s heir, Neoptolemus. Will you honour his memory and return to Troy with us, or will you bring shame on him and yourself and stay here?’

‘Guards!’ Deidameia shouted, standing and moving to the edge of the dais. Several armed men emerged from the shadowy corners of the hall and surrounded the visitors. ‘I said I would not stand by and let you rob me of my son, as you did my husband. Neoptolemus will marry Phaedra tomorrow, and in time she will be the mother of his children. He will not follow his father to Troy, but stay here and inherit the throne of his grandfather. Do you understand?’

Her last words were to Neoptolemus, who remained silent, though there was rebellion in his eyes. Then Diomedes moved to Odysseus’s side.

‘Time to let go of your mother’s chiton, lad,’ he said, raising his voice over the commotion. ‘The gods have said Troy cannot fall without you, and so you must decide between hardship and everlasting glory, or comfort and obscurity.’

Deidameia waved the guards forward. Spear points were pressed against Odysseus and Diomedes’s stomachs, while the cold edge of a sword was lifted to Eperitus’s throat.

‘Take them back to their ship,’ she ordered, ‘and if they resist, kill them.’

As they were forced towards the doors of the great hall, pelted by pieces of bread and meat from the surrounding nobles, Lycomedes had to pull Neoptolemus back into his chair.

‘Wait!’ Odysseus cried. ‘Wait! By all means send us back to Troy, but not before Neoptolemus has received the inheritance his father left him.’

Such was the power of his voice that the guards stopped and looked to Deidameia for what to do. She turned to Lycomedes with doubt in her eyes, but it was Neoptolemus who answered.

‘What is this inheritance?’

‘Beware the gifts of Odysseus,’ Lycomedes warned. ‘They snared your father, and they will snare you.’

Neoptolemus ignored the old man and stood.

‘Speak, Odysseus.’

Odysseus pushed the spear point away from his stomach and looked Neoptolemus in the eye.

‘There’s one thing I haven’t told you about, though you may have pondered it already – the fate of Achilles’s splendid armour. After your father’s death, Great Ajax carried his corpse back to the Greek camp, while I fought off the Trojans that pursued us. That gave us both a claim to the armour, though Ajax’s was by far the greater because he was Achilles’s cousin. But Ajax had also angered the gods with his arrogance, and to get their revenge they told me to stake my claim on the armour and deny it to Ajax by whatever means possible.’

Here he paused and looked at Diomedes and Eperitus. Eperitus knew that the guilt of Ajax’s suicide was still upon him and must have realised what was coming next.

‘And so I cheated – I bribed some prisoners to declare that I was the one the Trojans feared the most, and by their false testimony Achilles’s armour was awarded to me. That evening, Ajax lost his mind and killed himself, just as the gods had known he would. Ever since then, even though I was driven to what I did by the command of the immortals, I have known the armour could never be mine. And neither could it ever have belonged to Ajax. It has only one true heir – you, Neoptolemus.’

As he finished, he called to a slave and spoke to him in a low voice. The slave ran to the doors and opened them. A moment later, Polites, Eurybates and Omeros entered, carrying their burdens. Polites laid the large wooden box on the floor and threw open the hinged lid, revealing a flash of gold that caused a stir among the onlookers. At a nod from Odysseus, he pulled out the red-plumed helmet and lifted it in one hand above his head, turning in a half-circle so the whole hall could see it. The mirror-like finish of the gold blazed in the light of the hearth and torches and earned a gasp of disbelief. After sweeping the platters and cups from a table with a crash, he placed it down and plucked out the tin greaves, holding one in each hand as he showed them to the hall in the same fashion. Laying these beside the helmet, Polites returned to the wooden chest and retrieved the bronze cuirass that the smith-god had shaped to exactly mimic the perfect torso of Achilles.

‘By all the gods!’ Lycomedes exclaimed as Polites raised it high above his head.

Neoptolemus brushed past his mother and moved to the edge of the dais, his mouth wide open.

‘Behold, your father’s famed spear,’ Odysseus said, taking the weapon from Omeros’s grasp and raising it in both hands above his head, before leaning it against the table where the rest of the armour sat. ‘This was the spear that killed the great Hector and countless other Trojans of great renown. Yet all these things are as nothing compared to this.’

He beckoned Eurybates forward and untied the strings that held the sail cloth in place. It fell to the floor, revealing the great shield of Achilles in a flash gold and silver. A shout of wonder echoed through the great hall as every eye seized on the shining disc. Its boss depicted the Earth and Sea, surrounded by the Sun, Moon and stars. Four more concentric circles showed different scenes from human life, the figures within moving and dancing and fighting as they had done ever since Hephaistos had first animated them. At the sight of the shield, Neoptolemus stepped down from the dais and skirted the hearth to be near it.

‘These are mine?’ he asked, looking fleetingly at Odysseus before returning his gaze to the collection of armour.

‘They were your father’s, and now they’re yours, regardless of whether you come to Troy or not.’

But there was no longer any question of whether Neoptolemus would take up his father’s mantle and go to war. He lifted the shield from Eurybates’s shoulder and slipped it onto his own arm. Odysseus fetched the helmet and lowered it slowly onto his head, while Diomedes placed the great ash spear in his hand. Neoptolemus lifted it above his shoulder with familiar ease, revelling in the feel of the heavy armaments that fitted him so well. He turned to his mother, whose tears were glistening on her cheeks as she leaned her weight against Lycomedes’s throne. Phaedra had lowered her pretty face into her hands and was sobbing loudly. Then he looked back at Odysseus and the others with a smile.

‘When do we leave?’ he asked.

Chapter Twenty-one

THE GREEKS AT BAY

Agamemnon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His arms and legs felt like stone and his mind was fuddled by a night without sleep, but a new morning was upon him and he was still the leader of what remained of the Greek army. The King of Men, he mocked himself with an ironic smile.

Then he forced his lids open again and pushed aside the heavy canvas flap of his tent. As he stepped out, the top of the sun was peering over the battlements to the east, framing the figures that stood watch there. Grey smoke crept across the blue skies above them, twisting up from the smouldering bonfires that had burned great holes in the blackness of the night before. Beyond the walls were more trails from the many pyres of their enemies on the plain. The morning air, though freshened by a breeze from the sea, still reeked of burnt wood and roasted flesh.

‘My lord,’ said Menestheus, the Athenian king, greeting him with a small bow.

King Idomeneus was beside him, but the Cretan remained standing stiffly and only acknowledged Agamemnon with a slight narrowing of his eyes. Both men were dressed in breastplate, helmet and greaves, with swords slung in scabbards beneath their left arms. Their armour-bearers stood behind them, holding their shields and spears.

‘What is it?’ Agamemnon asked, too tired to bother hiding his annoyance. ‘Are they preparing to attack again?’

‘Their camp’s astir, but they’re in no hurry to renew battle,’ Idomeneus answered. ‘Perhaps they won’t need to.’

Agamemnon shot him a stern glance. ‘Meaning what?’

Talthybius appeared from the tent before Idomeneus could answer, carrying Agamemnon’s shield, helmet and spears. The Mycenaean king was already wearing his greaves and the cuirass gifted to him by Cinyras of Cyprus, though its bands of gold, blue enamel and tin were still dinted and spattered with gore from the previous day’s battle. He took the helmet from his herald’s hands and crammed it onto his head.

‘If you’ve got something to say, then say it,’ he snapped, glaring at the two kings.

‘We’re worried for the morale of the army,’ Menestheus said, stepping toward Agamemnon and looking him in the eye. ‘The Mysians are fresh and eager to fight. Their king – this Eurypylus – is like another Hector, riding across the battlefield and bringing death wherever he goes. The Trojans have taken new heart from his presence, while yesterday we were fortunate just to reach the safety of the walls with most of our force still intact. But the men won’t take much more. Even if Eurypylus and Deiphobus don’t breach the walls today and destroy us, there’s talk that some men are planning to slip away at night – push the galleys into the sea and just sail home. They’ve had enough.’

Agamemnon’s brow furrowed. ‘We’ll see about that. Where’s my brother?’

‘Up by the gates, with Nestor, Little Ajax and Philoctetes.’

Agamemnon tossed his blood-red cloak over his shoulder and strode up the sand towards the countless sun-bleached tents that filled the land between the shore and the sloping ridge above it. Here, the walls and gates they had built just a few weeks before were the only thing that now stood between the Greek army and annihilation. On the other side were Deiphobus’s victorious Trojans, replenished by new allies under Eurypylus. For days both armies had battled each other across the plains at the cost of thousands more men killed and maimed, but once again the fickle gods had sided with Priam and brought his warriors to the very edge of the Greek camp. And this time when the assault was renewed there would be no brooding Achilles to come to Agamemnon’s rescue.

The King of Men felt his anger rising. The weakness of the kings under his command had brought them to this point, and now their fools of men were threatening to desert back to Greece. It was something he had feared more and more as the years of war had dragged on, but as he walked between the grimed and bloodied soldiers who sat or stood in dispirited groups about the mouths of their tents, he could see it in their faces. Then, as Idomeneus, Menestheus and Talthybius caught up with him – their armour clanking about them – a wounded man leaned across and spat in the dust at the Mycenaean king’s feet.

Agamemnon grasped the handle of his sword and the soldier drew back. His right hand had been severed above the wrist, but to Agamemnon’s shock and disbelief the men around him reached for their own weapons and leapt to the protection of their comrade.

‘Don’t be fools,’ Menestheus warned, standing between them and the King of Men.

Agamemnon felt Idomeneus’s hand on his, pushing his half-drawn sword back into its scabbard.

‘Now do you believe us?’ he whispered, and with his other hand on Agamemnon’s shoulder kept him moving forward. ‘A few more outbreaks of indiscipline like that and we’ll have a full blown mutiny on our hands.’

‘I’ll send a detachment of men and put them under guard until the fighting’s over,’ Menestheus said, joining them. ‘If we’re victorious they can be punished as an example to the rest of the army; if we’re not, then I don’t suppose it matters.’

Agamemnon said nothing. The shock had passed quickly and left him in no doubt that this situation was more dangerous than he had anticipated. Only one thing would save them from destruction now – the arrival of Neoptolemus and the fulfilment of the oracle – but for all he knew Diomedes and Odysseus could still be on Scyros or in the Peloponnese, or have already perished on the long voyage there or back.

They joined the main path that led up to the walls and found Menelaus waiting for them, with Nestor, Little Ajax and Philoctetes the archer at his shoulders. Huge companies of spearmen sat in ranks by the walls, awaiting the order to stand and fight, while behind them many hundreds of bowmen were busily standing their arrows point-down in the dust, ready to fire blindly over the walls into the packed Trojans when the inevitable attack came

‘They’re forming up,’ Menelaus growled as he walked to meet them. ‘Our army can hold them, but there are plenty more men still scattered among the tents whose units were destroyed in the fighting. We need to organise them and the lightly wounded into a strong reserve, just in case the –’

‘Has there been any sign of Diomedes and Odysseus’s sail?’ Agamemnon interrupted, casting a glance over the Aegean.

Menelaus frowned and bit at his bottom lip.

‘A ship has been spotted, approaching from the west. For a while we thought it was them returning, but then it changed course northward – towards Troy.’

‘It could still be them. Why haven’t the galleys we keep ready on Tenedos been sent to intercept it?’

‘When the badly wounded were sent over yesterday I ordered every able-bodied man on the island to return to the camp. That includes the crews of the galleys –’

‘You deliberately disobeyed my orders!’

‘Damn your orders,’ Menelaus snapped. ‘Don’t you realise we need all the men we can get here, not at sea waiting for a galley that’s probably still on the other side of the world? The sail belongs to a merchantman and nothing more. And if you’d kept your mind on the battle, rather than this fantasy over Achilles’s son, perhaps the Trojans would have been pushed back behind their walls again, not us behind ours!’

‘Are you suggesting I’ve led us into this situation?’ Agamemnon hissed, drawing up to his brother.

Every eye was now turned to watch the argument.

‘I’m saying Helenus led us all into a fool’s trap. The oracles he fed us were a lie, designed to have us looking back homeward while all the time Troy was being reinforced by thousands of Mysians. Thanks to him, two of our best fighters are off on a wild rabbit hunt across Greece and we’re pinning all our hopes on a mere boy – whatever his ancestry – rather than believing in our own prowess in battle.’

‘Helenus wasn’t lying,’ Agamemnon retorted. ‘But if you want to assemble your reserve of cowards and cripples, then go ahead. I’m going to the walls.’

Leaving Menelaus fuming with rage behind him, Agamemnon marched over to the gate. Nestor followed him up the wooden steps to the ramparts and together they looked out into the morning sun at their amassed foes. There was a stretch of empty grassland that had been cleansed of the dead during the truce of the previous evening; beyond this, little more than a bowshot from the battlements, stood the ranks of the Trojans and their allies. Thousands upon thousands of infantry waited with their spears and helmets glinting in the sunlight. Before them were dense lines of archers, their bows fitted with arrows and held in readiness, while behind were scores of chariots and row upon row of cavalry.

It was reminiscent of the scene only weeks before, when Hector’s army had laid siege to the Greek camp. Shortly afterwards, they had succeeded in scaling the walls and throwing down the gates before pouring through the Greek tents to threaten the beached galleys. For the first time, Agamemnon wondered at how fruitless the loss of life had been between then and now: thousands of lives expended just to come full circle. The only difference, perhaps, was that the awe-inspiring figures of Hector and Sarpedon had been replaced by Eurypylus and Deiphobus. Agamemnon looked over at the Mysian king standing boldly in the front rank and saw the confidence in his grim face, a confidence justified by his fighting ability. He had brought down many Greek champions in the terrible battles of the preceding days, and none of the surviving kings were able to overcome him. If the oracles were true and not the fantasy that Menelaus claimed them to be, then Neoptolemus would have to be more than a mere shadow of his father to defeat such a warrior. But unless the gods delivered Achilles’s son on to the shores of Ilium before the day was out, it would be too late anyway. For the war would likely be over, and the Greek army slain or taken into captivity.

Then a flash of white on the Aegean caught his eye. He looked westward across the waves and saw the smudge of a sail shining against the blue waters as it steered towards land. For a moment his heart leapt with joy. Then he saw the ship was not heading towards the Greek camp, but north to Troy – the same galley Menelaus had already spoken of. Almost certainly a merchant, as his brother had guessed, chancing the blockade of the city to bring much needed luxuries at extortionate prices. And with every Greek now waiting behind their walls, the daring captain was sure to make his destination and reap a rich reward.

There was a movement on the plain and Agamemnon watched Eurypylus raise his hand and motion towards the camp. With a great shout, the swarm of archers surged forward to within range of the walls. Behind them, the spearmen began to advance and the tramp of their sandalled feet shook the air. Eurypylus’s voice called out a command and hundreds of bows sang out in reply. Agamemnon and Nestor dived down beneath the parapet as arrows whistled overhead, followed by cries of anguish and despair from the men behind the walls.

The battle had begun.

Chapter Twenty-two

THE SHADOW OF ACHILLES

What does it mean?’ Omeros asked, leaning against the bow rail and staring at the thin columns of smoke twisting up from the shores of Ilium.

‘There’s been another battle,’ Diomedes answered.

‘Is it Troy?’ Neoptolemus said, shouldering through the crowd of men gathering at the prow of the galley. ‘Are we too late?’

He seized hold of the bow rail and glared at the dark crust of land, his face filled with concern that the war might be over and his chance of emulating his father gone.

‘Perhaps we are,’ Diomedes said, ‘but not because Troy has fallen. That smoke’s coming from the Greek camp.’

Eperitus put a hand against one of the leather ropes that threaded down from the mast, steadying himself against the roll of the ship. They had sailed through the night, with Odysseus and Sthenelaus navigating their course by the stars as they hurried back to Ilium, and the early morning sun was now rising full in their faces as they forged east across the waves. He shielded his eyes against its glare and tried to make out what the source of the smoke was. Unlike his comrades, to whom the far shore was but a strip of grey cresting the blue of the Aegean, he could see the walls and towers that guarded the Greek camp and the hundreds of black-hulled ships drawn up on the beach behind them. He could see the mounds of burnt wood on the upper reaches of the ridge that hemmed in the camp, from which the dark spires of smoke were rising. And he could see that more columns drifted up from the plain beyond the defences of the Greeks.

‘The camp hasn’t been destroyed. There’s been a battle, though; the smoke is from the funeral pyres of the dead. Some are inside the walls, but some are outside, and that can only mean the camp is under siege.’

Odysseus, who had been at the helm with Sthenelaus, now joined them.

‘You’re right, though where Priam found enough soldiers to launch another attack at this late stage in the war I don’t know. But if the Trojans are laying siege to the walls, then we’ll be of more use landing further up the coast, beyond the camp, and seeing what we can do from there.’

Diomedes gave him a questioning look.

‘With sixty Argives? We’d be better landing in the camp and bolstering the defences.’

‘You seem to forget I am with you,’ Neoptolemus said. ‘The son of Achilles is worth more than sixty Argives, or even six hundred. If there’s a Trojan army before the walls of the camp, we should attack them from behind and drive them in panic and slaughter back to their own city.’

Diomedes looked at him for a moment, but despite his greater rank, age and experience decided to concede the point.

‘The gods themselves chose you, Neoptolemus,’ he said, giving him a slight bow, ‘and who am I to question their judgement? If you’re ready to stand in your father’s footprints, then it will be a pleasure to fight beside you.’

Neoptolemus smiled and gripped Diomedes’s hand.

‘Then let’s arm for battle.’

He set off towards the helm, where his splendid armour was kept hidden beneath drapes of sailcloth. Eperitus looked at Odysseus, who shrugged and turned on his heel, shouting orders for a change of course away from the camp and towards Troy.

As the ship’s crew burst into a brief period of high activity, Eperitus went to the bench where his armour was stowed and pulled on his breastplate. Omeros joined him, helping him with the buckles that held the two halves together. Eperitus glanced across at Neoptolemus, who was struggling to fit the bronze cuirass that Hephaistos had crafted in exact mimicry of Achilles’s muscular torso. An Argive offered his help – doubtless keen to lay his hands on the beautiful armour – but Neoptolemus refused sharply and struggled on. Not for the first time, Eperitus found himself wondering how Neoptolemus would perform in battle, whether he had inherited Achilles’s prowess, pride and thirst for glory, or whether he would wither beneath the great shadow of his father. The only thing Eperitus felt certain of was that Neoptolemus would be a lone warrior, suited more to the heroic duels between champions than the close press of the battle lines, in which each man’s life depended as much on his neighbour as himself.

By the time the crew were armed and ready to face whatever lay waiting on the plains of Ilium, the shoreline was close enough for them all to see the beached galleys of the Greek fleet to the south-east, the sprawl of tents beyond them and the defensive walls that had been erected on the ridge above. Long trails of smoke still fed upwards from the pyres of the dead, leaning at diagonals with the prevailing westerly wind. But of a besieging army there was no sign, until the moment the galley began its approach towards a small cove a short march north of the Greek camp. Then they heard the familiar hum of massed arrows and saw the sky above the cliffs to the south-east darken as thousands of missiles filled the air. A sense of haste took hold of the galley as the sail was lowered and the oars thrust through their leather loops into the water. The crew rowed the vessel silently into the cove and the anchor stones were cast into the shallow sea. Then they leapt overboard and splashed towards the narrow semicircle of sand.

Neoptolemus was first to reach the shore and left deep footprints behind him as he sprinted up the beach. He gained the shelf of black rock at the edge of the sand and stopped, waiting, it seemed, for the others to join him. But as Eperitus reached him he realised Neoptolemus’s hesitation had been nothing to do with his comrades. He stood with his feet at the lip of a shallow rock pool, staring down at his reflection on its still surface. Eperitus saw the image in the circle of water and frowned in disbelief. The figure was not Neoptolemus but Achilles, with his distinctive golden hair and beard and the unforgettable face that was both terrifying and wonderful to look upon. As the others gathered around, an awed silence fell over them.

‘It’s the ghost of your father,’ Odysseus announced, standing beside Neoptolemus. ‘The gods have placed his image in the pool as a sign to you. You must complete the destiny they denied him, Neoptolemus, and bring about the end of Troy.’

‘I have no memory of what he looked like,’ Neoptolemus said. ‘He was just a shadow, flitting about in the furthest corners of my past. And yet I’ve never been able to escape that shadow. My mother, my aunts and my grandfather were always encouraging me to be like him. And now even the immortals want me to replace the man whom they destroyed.’ He set the toe of his sandal against a smooth black pebble and flicked it into the pool, shattering the image in the water. ‘Well, we shall see whether I’m worthy of his legacy or not, and whether I can also make a name for myself. And the place to begin is atop that ridge.’

He sprang across the pool, seemingly heedless of the weight of his armour or the great ash spear that most men could barely lift, and ran towards the grassy ridge that led to the plains beyond. The others followed, spreading out into a line as they topped the ridge and looking across at the sun-bleached walls of the Greek camp and the dark mass of the Trojan army that lapped about them. They were still some way to the north-west of the raging battle, but they could hear the roar of thousands of voices and the ringing of weapons. Hundreds of ladders were visible against the battlements, where indistinct figures struggled for mastery over each other.

Neoptolemus, who had instinctively knelt down in the high grass to observe the battle, turned as Odysseus, Diomedes and Eperitus joined him. His young eyes were alive with excitement.

‘The Trojans are already on the walls. It’ll be a fair sprint if you’re up to it, but we haven’t a moment to lose.’

Diomedes shook his head and pointed at the crowds of Trojan cavalry waiting impatiently behind the mass of attacking spearmen. ‘They’d spot us before we could cover half the distance. We’d be cut to pieces on the open plain.’

‘We’ll follow the gulley,’ Odysseus said, indicating the dried up stream that fed down into the cove from the plateau. It curved eastward in a thin line that swept behind the waiting cavalry, reaching to within a spear’s throw of them before veering off to the north. Though the water had disappeared with the summer sun, the tall grasses that marked its course would provide them with reasonable cover if they kept their heads low.

Neoptolemus clearly disliked the notion of sneaking into a fight, but gave a reluctant nod and followed Odysseus at a stoop along the shallow gulley. The rest trailed after them, over sixty in all, and the clatter of their armour and weapons earned stern rebukes from Diomedes and Sthenelaus as they brought up the rear. Last of all was Eperitus, who had lingered as long as possible while his sharp eyes swept the ranks of restless horsemen in search of Apheidas. His father was the commander of the Trojan cavalry, and though Eperitus knew he had to be somewhere on the battlefield, he was unable to pick out the hated figure from among the multitude of the enemy. Clutching his spears in his hand, he followed Sthenelaus into the narrow defile.

Fortunately, the din of the battle covered the sound of their approach and the hundreds of horsemen did not spot them through the tall brown grass as they traced the course of the dead stream to a point behind the nearest squadron. As the line of spearmen halted and lay down in the grass, Eperitus could see the backs of their enemies’ helmeted heads as they watched the battle raging on the walls. Then there was a shout of excitement and the Trojan cavalry followed it with a cheer. Eperitus dared to raise his head above the cover of the grass and saw the dust shaking from the timbers of one of the gates as it opened from within. But no force of Greeks came sallying forth. As the horsemen had guessed, the gates had been captured by the spearmen who had scaled the walls and now a flood of their comrades were pouring in through the breached defences.

Neoptolemus chose that moment to rise to his feet. Despite the dust, his armour gleamed in the morning sun and Eperitus could see the figures moving within the concentric circles of his shield. The red plume of the helmet was like a river of blood flowing over the nape of his neck and down the back of his bronze cuirass. As he stood the other Greeks joined him, climbing awkwardly to their feet beneath their unwieldy armour. The line of warriors moved their shields onto their arms and readied their spears. Odysseus strode forward through the grass, raising his hand high above his head, and still the Greeks had not been noticed. Eperitus pressed his fingers to the picture of a white hart on the inside of his shield, a reminder of his daughter Iphigenia, the first victim of the war against Troy. Cupping a spear in his right hand, he took aim at a horseman who was unnervingly close now that he had emerged from the protection of the gulley.

It was then that one of the Trojans turned and saw the newcomers. Confused as to why a group of spearmen were behind the cavalry and not in the thick of the fighting, he reined his horse about and trotted towards them for a closer look. An expression of alarm spread across his features and he pulled up sharply, turning his mount to the left. He shouted a warning to his countrymen, just as Neoptolemus ran forward and hurled his father’s spear at him. The bronze point drove clean through his leather cuirass and pulled him bodily from his horse, sending him crashing to the ground. Neoptolemus yelled in triumph and ran to retrieve his spear from his first kill. Several cavalrymen turned at the commotion behind them, their faces instantly transformed with fear at the sight of the enemy warriors. Then Odysseus dropped his hand and sixty spears flew through the air towards the startled Trojans.

Chapter Twenty-three

NEOPTOLEMUS AND EURYPYLUS

The volley of spears was followed by the anguished cries of men and the whinnies of dying horses. Panic tore through the orderly ranks of the Trojans as mounts crashed to the ground in clouds of dust and riders struggled to control their startled beasts. Eperitus’s weapon had hit the base of his target’s spine, sending him twisting in bloody agony from the back of his horse. Gripping his remaining spear, he joined the Argives and Ithacans as they rushed the confused cavalrymen. Odysseus and Diomedes led the charging Greeks, but ahead of them all was Neoptolemus, his father’s spear retrieved and held out before him. A Trojan noble, resplendent in his cuirass of overlapping bronze scales and his boars’ tusk helmet, dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and came out to meet him. Neoptolemus’s spear found his chest with stunning speed and the man toppled back from his horse, a look of shock on his face. In a single, fluid movement, Neoptolemus drew out his sword and hewed the man’s head from his shoulders. Then the line of advancing Greeks swept past him and smashed into the frightened mass of their enemies.

Eperitus’s weapon found the throat of an ageing rider, dyeing his white beard red as the blood gushed out over his chest. He sensed a looming presence to his left and turned with his shield to meet the jabbing spear point of another horseman. The man’s thrust lacked the momentum of a full charge, though, and was easily brushed aside as Eperitus’s spear simultaneously found his attacker’s upper arm, tearing through the unprotected muscle. Dropping his weapon with a cry of pain, the Trojan flicked back his heels and sent his mount galloping out of the melee and away to safety across the plain.

Others were not so fortunate. The ruin of dead horses and riders was all about, but the worst of the destruction was piled around Neoptolemus. Standing amid the corpses of men and beasts, he dealt out death with a speed and ferocity that reminded Eperitus of Achilles. He wielded the great shield as if it were a wooden toy, parrying every blow that his attackers dared aim at him, while his sword found their flesh again and again until it was running with gore. Then, as Eperitus watched in silent admiration, someone pointed at the god-made armour that had so awed and terrified the Trojans in earlier battles. A cry of dismay went up and Neoptolemus’s enemies fell back, leaving a ring of annihilation around him. The shout was repeated, spreading quickly through the hundreds of closely packed horsemen, and though they outnumbered their foes several times over they began to withdraw from the fight, some of the horses rearing and flailing the air in panic as they retreated. The shouts were in the Trojan tongue, but Eperitus understood them and smiled.

‘Achilles! Achilles has returned from the dead!’

Now the mauled cavalry were streaming away, fleeing in horror at the return of the man they feared more than any other – a man who had seemingly defeated death itself and come back from the halls of Hades. The infantry and archers that still seethed about the walls like boiling water now glanced uncertainly over their shoulders, seeing hundreds of horsemen break and flee with the name of Achilles on their lips. And then, out of the dust of battle strode the very image of the dread warrior, his armour gleaming as he tugged his spear from the chest of one of his victims. A line of warriors followed in his wake, their number exaggerated by fear and the swirling dust, so that the Trojans began to feel uncertain of the victory that for a moment they thought they had won. All this Eperitus could see in the faces that were now turned towards them, and in an instant he understood the value of Neoptolemus – this second Achilles – and why he would be so important to the final destruction of Troy.

But they had gained only a minor success, temporarily driving away a company of cavalry and dinting the confidence of their enemies; the greater battle was far from over. As the rear ranks of the Trojan foot soldiers turned their shields, spears and bows towards the newcomers, a second unit of cavalry began forming up to charge. Eperitus glanced across at Odysseus, flanked on either side by Polites, Eurybates and Omeros, their spears tipped with dark blood. The king caught his gaze and raised an eyebrow in typically understated fashion at their dilemma. As Neoptolemus saw the forces gathering against them he laughed aloud, his veins flowing with reckless confidence, as if he had not only inherited his father’s armour but his indestructibility also. Levelling his great ash spear above his shoulder, he cast it at the line of cavalry and plucked a rider from his mount, sending him tumbling to his ruin in the dust.

A shout of anger erupted from the Trojans. A single horseman burst from the mass of beasts and men and galloped at the lone figure of Neoptolemus, a long spear couched beneath his arm and aimed at the warrior’s chest. Eperitus saw him and cursed: it was Apheidas. For a moment he was at a loss, wanting to see his father dead and yet not by the hand of Neoptolemus, or anyone other than himself. The Trojan cavalry were charging in the wake of their commander and Eperitus heard the voice of Diomedes calling for his men to close ranks. On the walls, Trojans and Greeks cried out the name of Achilles – the former in dismay and the latter as a rallying cry – and the fighting broke out again with renewed vigour. Then, as Eperitus seized his spear and resolved to run out to face his father, Odysseus grabbed him and pulled him back. Eperitus tried to release himself, but the king held him tight and pressed the whiskers of his beard close to his ear, so that he would be heard over the din of battle.

‘It’s too late,’ he said, guessing what was on his captain’s mind. ‘Run out there now and you’ll be killed for certain. All you can do is ask the gods to save him for you, if that’s what you want.’

Eperitus watched Apheidas galloping down on Neoptolemus, the wind trailing his hair and cloak behind him, and knew Odysseus spoke the truth. With a bitter scowl, he called on Athena to protect the man whose death he had craved all his adult life, promising her the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb if she saved him from Achilles’s son. No sooner had he spat the words from his mouth than the terrifying hum of hundreds of bowstrings filled the air. The Greeks instinctively ducked behind their shields, but their caution was unnecessary: the Trojan archers had loosed their arrows at the reincarnation of Achilles, whose unexpected appearance had filled them with dread and a determination to send him back to the Underworld. The murderous shafts poured towards the splendidly armoured figure, forcing Apheidas to break off his charge and steer his mount away from the fall of shot. Neoptolemus crouched low behind his shield, which no earthly arrow could pierce, then rose to his feet again in defiance of the archers and the fast-approaching cavalry. An instant later, he was swallowed up by the wall of charging horses.

Apheidas – still ignorant of his son’s presence – now sent his black stallion galloping towards the knot of enemy spearmen. The rest of his command followed, intent on wiping the small band of Greeks out of existence. While the Argives and Ithacans instinctively closed ranks to form a circular buttress against the fast-approaching cavalry, Eperitus rushed out to meet his father, determined to avenge the deaths of King Pandion and Arceisius. More than ever now he regretted that the spear of Ares had been left back in Pelops’s tomb. Its unerring accuracy would have brought Apheidas down in the dust, even at that distance, but Agamemnon had given strict orders that his ancestor’s crypt was not to be plundered. And so Eperitus pulled his spear behind his shoulder, aimed at his father’s chest and waited for him to come nearer.

The second volley of arrows hit the Greeks with a silent whisper. Diomedes and Odysseus had shouted warnings, but Eperitus – aware of nothing but the charging figure of his father – did not realise his danger until the bronze tip of an arrow tore into the muscle of his right thigh. It was as if his leg had been knocked from beneath him by a giant hammer, toppling him backwards so that his armoured body met the ground with a thud. He lay there like a stricken titan, momentarily paralysed by the pain of his wound and the approach of unconsciousness. His vision began to fade, like a funnel into which a dark liquid was being poured, and he was dimly aware of the thunder of hooves rising up through the ground and into his ribs. There was a mingled odour of dust, sweat and horses, too, and he knew he only had moments now to live.

Then a strong hand seized the back of his breastplate – the thick knuckles digging into the nape of his neck – and began dragging him at speed through the long grass. His vision cleared again, and he almost shouted in terror as he saw the Trojan cavalry bearing down on him less than a spear’s cast away, their well-bred mounts steaming and snorting as their riders drove them madly on into battle. More hands were hooked beneath Eperitus’s shoulders and he was hauled rapidly through a gap in the Greek line, before being dropped hastily into the grass. He caught a brief sight of Eurybates and Omeros standing over him, and then Polites – whose vast strength had pulled him to safety – before the Ithacans were turning and rejoining the double-ranked ring of Argives, ready to meet the Trojan onslaught.

Grimacing with pain, Eperitus drew himself up on one elbow and placed a hand on the sword slung beneath his left arm. The Greeks had one hope if they were to survive the charge – to stand firm and not flee, whatever their impulses might scream at them to do. It was rare that a horse would ride into an unbroken barrier of shields and spears; instead, its instincts would drive it around the sides with the rest of the herd, losing the impact of the charge and compelling its rider to attack his enemy side-on. But if one man in the shield wall lost his courage and ran, the gap he left would be like an open gate, inviting the cavalry to surge in and tear the Greeks apart from within. Eperitus had seen it happen on many occasions, and the memory of those massacres made him tense as the din of hooves reached its climax.

The Greeks held their nerve. The vast body of horses rushed past and around them, accompanied by the shouts and curses of their riders. A spear thudded into the ground beside Eperitus and he felt a body crash down behind him, though whether Greek or Trojan he could not tell in the confusion. A mounted warrior appeared, framed in the circle of blue sky above the heads of Omeros and Polites, but Eurybates pierced his throat with his spear. Suddenly there were horsemen on every side, hacking at the shields and spear points of the Greeks. The clang of bronze filled the air and for a while Eperitus feared his comrades would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of Trojans. But the horsemen were disadvantaged by having to present their unshielded flanks to the Greeks in order to wield their spears and swords, and many were brought down. After a brief but fierce fight, Eperitus heard the unmistakeable voice of his father calling out from behind them. The Trojans began to pull away.

Now a shadow fell across him and he looked up to see the outline of Odysseus, black against the slowly rising sun. He knelt down without a word and inspected his friend’s leg. The arrow was still buried in the muscle at the back of his thigh, and Odysseus probed the area gently with his fingertips, causing Eperitus to wince.

‘Despite your best efforts to kill yourself,’ the king commented, still studiously examining the wound, ‘it seems the gods have taken mercy on you. The arrow appears to have missed the bone and the main arteries, but we’re in the middle of a battle and we can’t just leave it in there.’

‘What about the horsemen?’

‘They’ve more important things than us to worry about, now. The Greeks have fought their way back out of the gates and are counter-attacking, led by Agamemnon and Menelaus.’

‘And my father?’

Odysseus took out his dagger and sliced the flight from the back of the arrow, before cutting off a strip of cloth from a dead man’s cloak. He called to Polites and nodded towards Eperitus. Then, as Polites pinned Eperitus’s arms irresistibly to his sides, Odysseus seized the shaft of the arrow and pushed it through the other side of his thigh. Eperitus cried out as a surge of fresh pain racked his body, and then blackness took him. He was woken again by the slap of cold water on his face and the sight of Odysseus holding the bloodied dart before his eyes. Polites was busily wrapping the strip of cloth about his thigh.

‘It would have caused more damage pulling it out,’ Odysseus said apologetically, tapping the barbed arrowhead with his finger. ‘And now we have to get that wound cleaned and treated, before it gets infected. Can you ride a horse?’

As he spoke, Eurybates appeared leading a tall brown mare, a survivor of the Trojan cavalry charge. Its neck was crimson with blood, but the animal seemed unhurt.

‘Yes – and fight from it, too,’ Eperitus answered, sitting up with a grimace. ‘Where’re my spear and shield?’

‘We’ll find them for you, when the battle’s over,’ Odysseus said. ‘First you need to get into the camp and have that leg properly cared for.’

Polites lifted him easily onto the back of the horse and passed him the reins. Looking quickly about, Eperitus could see the Argives had lost a few men to the attack but were standing firm beneath the command of Diomedes. Meanwhile, the battle around the walls of the camp had grown in fury. The parapet had been cleansed of Trojans and was now manned by Greek archers – led by Philoctetes – who were exchanging fire with the Trojan skirmishers on the plain below. Between them, the Greeks under Agamemnon and Menelaus had temporarily regained the gates, but had been pushed back by the cavalry while Eurypylus and Deiphobus – two figures in flashing armour at the forefront of the Trojan army – rallied their spearmen for another attack. Apheidas was nowhere to be seen, but to Eperitus’s amazement he saw a figure rise from a pile of dead horses and men further back on the battlefield. He was covered in blood and dust, and staggered drunkenly as he searched for something among the bodies around him, but the red plume of his helmet and the gleam of his great shield – despite its covering of filth and gore – put the man’s identity beyond doubt. Somehow Neoptolemus had survived the wall of Trojan cavalry. He plucked his father’s great ash spear from the body of a dead horse and turned to face the struggle before the walls. As he did so, a soldier on the battlements spotted him and called out the name of Achilles. Others joined in the cry and the spearmen under Eurypylus and Deiphobus looked over their shoulders in awe, unable to believe that the man who had struck fear into their hearts earlier had risen yet again from the dead.

The shock did not last long. Hundreds of archers turned their arrows away from the walls of the camp and aimed them instead at Neoptolemus. Before they could loose their lethal darts, though, Eurypylus shouted a deep-voiced command and every bow was lowered. Behind him, the Trojan cavalry broke off their attack on the Greeks and withdrew. The clash of weapons ceased altogether and men fell silent as Eurypylus walked towards the lone warrior. Deiphobus followed him and took him by the arm, speaking quietly but urgently in his ear. Eurypylus shrugged him off with an irritated gesture then strode out onto the empty plain, raising his spear above his head.

‘I am Eurypylus, son of Telephus, of the line of Heracles,’ he announced in Greek. ‘If the voices on the walls are to be believed, you are Achilles, son of Peleus. But Achilles fell to the arrows of Paris and his ghost is condemned to eternity in the Chambers of Decay, so who are you? Declare your name and lineage, so I can know whether you’re worthy of that armour you wear, which I will soon be claiming for myself.’

‘I’ve heard your name spoken back home on Scyros,’ Neoptolemus replied. ‘There they say you are a coward, watching from behind your mother’s skirts as your grandfather’s kingdom is slowly strangled to death. Well, I see the rumours aren’t entirely true: you’ve found the stomach to fight at least, though whether it was your decision or your mother’s I cannot tell.

‘As for me, I am Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. This armour you covet once belonged to him, but now it is mine. Vain words alone will not change that, Eurypylus, so let’s see how well your mother taught you to fight.’

Eurypylus gave a sneering laugh. ‘Better than your father taught you, boy.’

Tossing his spear into the air and catching it, he drew it back and launched it with a single, easy motion. Neoptolemus raised his shield just in time, deflecting the great bronze point so that it skipped over his head and clattered through the parched grass behind. Neoptolemus lowered his shield again and stared hard at Eurypylus, as if the Mysian king had thrown nothing more than an insult. Then, with a cry of pure hatred, he charged.

Eurypylus slid his sword from its scabbard and advanced to meet his opponent. Neoptolemus lunged at him with his father’s monstrous spear, ripping the shield from the Mysian’s shoulder and almost pulling his arm out of its socket. Eurypylus gave a roar of pain, which quickly turned to anger as he swung his sword at the younger warrior’s head. Neoptolemus caught the blow on his shield and the clang of bronze echoed back from the walls of the camp. He stabbed out with the point of his spear, missing Eurypylus’s abdomen by a fraction as the king twisted aside and backed away.

The watching armies, which for a few moments had been awed into silence, now shouted encouragement and cheered as the two men circled each other, seeking opportunities to attack. A Mysian soldier tossed his shield out into the long grass and Eurypylus ran towards it, pursued by Neoptolemus. He snatched up the leather and wicker disc just in time to push aside the thrust of the Greek’s spear, then leapt forward with the tip of his sword. It beat Neoptolemus’s guard, slipping inside the edge of his shield and finding his bronze cuirass. But the armour that Neoptolemus wore had not been forged by men in the fires of an earthly smithy. It was the work of the smith-god, Hephaistos, and had never been pierced by any weapon. It turned the point of Eurypylus’s sword with a flash of sparks and the king stepped away in dismay and wonder. Neoptolemus, too, fell back a few paces, looking down at himself as if expecting to see his life’s blood pouring from him. When he realised the invulnerability of his armour, his shock quickly turned to triumph. Gripping the shaft of his father’s spear with both hands, he lunged at Eurypylus. The Mysian raised his shield in defence, but the layered oxhide was no match for the cruel bronze point or the ruthless strength behind it. The spear punched through the shield and found the base of Eurypylus’s throat, passing through the spinal cord with such force that his head was almost torn from his shoulders. The onlookers fell suddenly silent, and as Neoptolemus withdrew his spear and his victim’s body slumped lifeless to the ground the Trojans cried out in grief, while the Greeks shouted to the skies in exultation. Achilles’s son drew his sword and straddled the body of Eurypylus, taking three blows to hack off the head before lifting it by the plume of its helmet so that everyone could witness his victory.

Now the battle recommenced with a fury. A hum of bowstrings drove away the groans and cheers of the two sides and the air above the Greek walls was momentarily dark with arrows, before the deadly rain fell down among the unprepared ranks of Trojans and Mysians. Many fell, the dead in silence and the wounded in shrieks of pain. Other voices followed, but these were the roars of the Greeks as they charged into their shocked enemies. The Trojan archers released a hurried volley, felling several, but not enough to stop the terrifying assault. Moments later the spearmen of Mycenae, Sparta, Corinth and a dozen other nations were driving the centre of the Trojan line back with great slaughter. From his vantage point, Eperitus could see Agamemnon and Menelaus in the forefront of the attack, with Idomeneus the Cretan and Menestheus the Athenian leading the fight on each flank. Neoptolemus abandoned the armour he had been stripping from Eurypylus, unable to resist launching his own onslaught against the rear of the enemy line. Deiphobus, alone now in command of the Trojans and their allies, could do nothing to halt the inevitable disintegration of his army. At first, small groups broke and fled; then, as the Greeks poured through the rents in their enemies’ ranks, the rest took flight.

‘Go now,’ Odysseus shouted to Eperitus over the din of battle. ‘Find Podaleirius or another healer. I don’t want to lose you to a mere flesh wound.’

He slapped the hind quarters of the horse and sent it leaping forward. Eperitus, who had ridden horses since childhood in Alybas, took charge of the frightened animal and directed it towards the gates where the Greeks were still pouring thick and furious from their camp. Then, as he rode between fleeing Trojans and their pursuers, a single horn blew a long note that rose above the clamour of war and turned many heads towards its source. Eperitus glanced to his left and saw the ranks of the Trojan cavalry, who had been pulled from the chaos of battle and reformed into a controlled fighting unit. The great mass of horses and men sprang forward, building up momentum as they rode with gathering speed towards the battle. At their head was Apheidas, charging to the rescue of his retreating countrymen as he had done so many times before. And as Eperitus’s eyes fell upon his father, he cast aside any thought of returning to the Greek camp. Drawing his sword, he pressed his heels back into the flanks of his mount and sent it galloping at the wall of approaching cavalry.

Apheidas saw him almost immediately. Abandoning all consideration for the rest of the battle, he steered his black stallion towards his son and leaned across its neck with his sword held at arm’s length before him. While the mass of horsemen behind him raced on towards the Greek spearmen – whose flank had been left exposed by Agamemnon’s headlong pursuit of the enemy infantry – a group of half a dozen riders broke off to follow their leader.

Eperitus cared little for the fact he was now facing seven horsemen, or that his chances of survival were small. With his sword outstretched before him, he focussed on his father and kicked back hard. But he had forgotten the wound in his thigh, which had been rapidly draining his strength since Odysseus had pushed the arrow out of the flesh. His blood-soaked leg now gave beneath the effort and a great stab of pain surged up through his body, weakening his hold on his horse. The last thing he saw before his vision went black and he slid from the galloping mount was Apheidas’s snarling grin and the gleam of sunlight flashing from his blade.

BOOK

THREE

Chapter Twenty-four

THE KEROSIA

Laertes spat on the ground and shook a gnarled fist at Eupeithes.

‘My son will return, and when he finds out what you’ve been up to in his absence he’ll make sure you and all these cronies of yours are kicked off the Kerosia for good. That’s if he doesn’t just have you executed, like he should have done twenty years ago!’

‘Sit back down you old fool!’ Antinous growled, half rising from his chair.

‘Watch what comes out of your mouth, lad,’ warned Oenops, laying a hand on the youngest member of the Kerosia’s shoulder and easing him back into his seat. ‘Remember Laertes was once our king.’

‘What does his generation care for rightful kings?’ Laertes said dismissively. ‘And least of all a son of Eupeithes.’

‘My friends,’ Penelope interjected, ‘be calm and respect the rules of this council.’

She looked at the two old enemies who were staring at each other with open animosity. Eupeithes stood to her left with the speaker’s staff clutched in his hand as if it were a king’s sceptre, his usually pallid complexion warm and flushed from the heat of the central hearth. On the other side of the flames was the bent form of Laertes, glaring with fierce hatred at the man who had once tried to usurp his throne when he had been king of Ithaca. When Penelope had first seen her father-in-law he had been pale-skinned with spindly legs and a bloated stomach, more like an upended frog than a king. Since ceding power to his son, though, he had retired to his farm with Anticleia, his wife, and thrown himself into the hard labour of growing crops and keeping livestock. Now his distended belly had shrunk to a paunch and his flaccid muscles had become as firm as knotted rope. With his sunburnt skin he looked like the root of an old tree standing in the middle of the great hall, tough and immovable.

‘Father,’ Penelope said, ‘Eupeithes has the speaker’s staff. You must return to your seat. Please.’

Laertes sat back down with a show of reluctance and Eupeithes stepped forward into the space he had vacated.

‘Whatever foolish hopes some of us may be clinging on to, it’s clear to me that we cannot wait forever for Odysseus to return. The world beyond our little group of islands is changing rapidly. Outsiders are beginning to enter Greece from the distant north. They are allowed to settle and establish themselves because the mainland kingdoms are too weak to throw them out. It won’t be long before they find their way here. Ithaca needs strong, singular leadership if it is to survive.’

‘Perhaps you should claim the throne for yourself,’ Laertes sneered, ‘bringing in Taphians like you did before.’

Eupeithes ignored him and looked at Penelope. ‘I have a proposal, my lady, and Oenops, Polyctor and Antinous are in full agreement with me. We feel that if Odysseus does not return within two years, he must be assumed to have perished and you must remarry for the good of Ithaca. According to our ancient laws, your new husband will then become king in Odysseus’s place.’

‘Never!’ Laertes barked.

Even Mentor, who had sat listening uneasily to Eupeithes’s slow build-up throughout the morning, rose from his chair with a look of fierce disapproval on his handsome features.

‘That’s preposterous! What about Telemachus, Odysseus’s rightful heir? The law you quote depends on the queen agreeing to remarry, and Penelope would never deny her son his birthright.’

‘Telemachus is still a boy,’ Eupeithes retorted. ‘He won’t come of age for another eleven years, and Ithaca can’t wait that long for a king. If Penelope’s new husband – our new king – dies before then and leaves no offspring of his own, then Telemachus can inherit the throne.’

‘You have a nerve, Eupeithes, suggesting such a thing before me,’ Penelope said, rising from her seat. ‘You act as if Odysseus is dead already! How can you expect me to marry another man when my husband is still alive? You certainly can’t force me to do such a thing!’

Eupeithes smiled patiently at the queen.

‘If I’m blunt, then it’s because something needs to be done to protect the kingdom from spiralling into chaos. We can’t wait forever for Odysseus to return. You must know the nobility are growing restless. They want proper leadership.’

‘Are you threatening me, Eupeithes?’ Penelope asked. ‘If you want proper leadership, why don’t you introduce a law that simply allows the Kerosia to elect a new king? If you’re so determined to seize power, why do you need me anyway?’

‘The Kerosia doesn’t have that power and Eupeithes knows it,’ said Mentor. ‘He needs you for legitimacy, my lady. The people won’t support an elected king, only one with a lawful connection to the royal line – one chosen by you. And after what happened the last time he tried to take the throne by force, he wouldn’t dare seize power again without the support of the people.’

‘He wants to put his own son on the throne,’ Laertes said, looking at Penelope. ‘It’s obvious he’ll insist you marry Antinous. Don’t let him, Daughter.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Eupeithes defended himself. ‘Penelope will choose her own husband. I will not stand accused of forcing my own son onto the throne. Any Ithacan would be able to plead for Penelope’s hand.’

‘And if I refused?’ she asked, tartly. ‘If I decided never to remarry, regardless of whether my husband is assumed to have perished or not?’

‘Then I cannot be answerable for the consequences. If that meant civil war and the shedding of innocent blood, then you would only have yourself to blame.’

Penelope sat down and stared at Eupeithes, but his face was so full of false concern that she could not bear to look at him any longer and turned her eyes to the open doors of the great hall, through which she could see the bright sunlight filling the courtyard. She thought of Odysseus, far away in Troy. She wondered what he would think of the way she had allowed the Kerosia to slip from her control, and of her decision to send Telemachus into virtual exile in Sparta. One thing she could be sure of, though, was that he would expect her not to give up. Things were darker now than they had been in all the years since her husband’s departure, but she still had the upper hand. The people of Ithaca supported Odysseus, and sooner or later the king would return. Until then, it was her duty to buy time and delay Eupeithes’s sudden push for power. And at all costs, she had to avoid forcing the old traitor into resorting to arms. If he knew the consequences of usurping power, there were plenty around him who did not. They would demand a show of strength if Eupeithes could not promise them a clear route to the throne. And she was the only one who could offer him that.

‘You leave me no choice, Eupeithes. I agree to your proposal.’

A wide smile spread across the merchant’s face, while behind him Antinous, Polyctor and Oenops congratulated each other openly with handshakes and pats on the back. Mentor kept his silence out of respect for the queen, though his frown spoke of his disapproval. Laertes simply shook his head.

‘This is folly, Daughter. I’m not so old and bitter that I don’t know what you’re thinking. I was king myself not so long ago, and I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to have the threat of civil war hanging over my people. But to just give in to these pretenders? There are better ways to prevent bloodshed.’

‘But you didn’t find them when you were king, did you Father. And as long as I am queen, I will not sit by and watch Ithaca fall back into division and war.’

‘Then I hope you know what you’re doing, Penelope,’ he said

‘I hope so too.’

‘More wine,’ Eupeithes commanded the servants waiting in the shadows beyond the circle of chairs. ‘We must seal your agreement with an oath before it is announced to the people.’

The members of the Kerosia raised their cups to be refilled. As one of the maids poured wine into Antinous’s krater, Penelope saw their eyes meet and the flicker of a smile cross the young girl’s lips. Melantho was only recently married – to Arceisius, Eperitus’s squire, before his return to Troy – and yet the queen knew in an instant she was sleeping with Eupeithes’s son. The thought made her sad for Arceisius, and even angrier with the war that had brought so evil a legacy upon Greece.

After her own cup had been refilled, she watched Eupeithes pour a libation into the flames and lift his krater into the air. Oenops, Polyctor and Antinous did the same and were reluctantly followed by Mentor and Laertes. Penelope remained in her chair, holding her krater firmly in her lap.

‘If I’m to agree to marry another man,’ she said, ‘it can only be on one condition.’

‘It’s too late for that now,’ Eupeithes said.

‘Not until this wine touches my lips.’

‘Then what is it?’ he snapped. ‘What condition must I agree to to obtain your promise?’

‘You suggest we should presume Odysseus is dead after two years. That’s too vague. I say we consult the oracle at Mount Parnassus, to ask the Pythoness when my husband will return. If he has not returned by the predicted date, then I will willingly remarry.’

‘And if the oracle says he will never return?’

‘Then I will choose a new husband within the year.’

Antinous stood up angrily.

‘I protest. She’s trying to delay –’

‘Shut up and sit down,’ his father ordered.

Penelope saw the doubt in Eupeithes’s eyes and held out her hands imploringly towards him.

‘Think about what I’m saying. If any new king is to hold power, he must have unassailable legitimacy. If I remarry in two years’ time, the people might accept my husband for a while, but won’t their eyes always be gazing towards the distant horizon, wondering when the true king will return? But if we consult the Pythoness and she says Odysseus will never return, or if he doesn’t come back by the prophesied date, then everyone will know the new king has the approval of the gods. They’ll accept Odysseus is never coming home and will welcome my new husband openly.’

Eupeithes’s eyes narrowed as he pondered Penelope’s words, but he did not have to think for long.

‘You speak wisely, my queen, and I accept your condition. Antinous and Mentor will go to Mount Parnassus, escorted by an armed guard. That way, there will be plenty of witnesses to the oracle and no-one can change the Pythoness’s prophetic words to suit their own ends. Agreed?’

Penelope nodded and sat down again, hoping her gamble would pay off.

Chapter Twenty-five

PRISONER OF APHEIDAS

Eperitus woke slowly, drawn out of his dream by the mingled aromas of woodsmoke and the scent of flowers. He heard the crackle and spit of a fire and beneath it the whisper of soft voices. His eyelids were heavy – too heavy yet to open – and he could detect little or no light through the thin layers of skin. There was a throbbing ache inside his head that seemed to be faintly echoed by every muscle in his body, and as he felt the warm furs across his naked chest and the pliant mattress beneath him he wondered whether he was back in his hut in the Greek camp. But as his confused mind began to read and order the signals his senses were feeding it, a deeper instinct informed him that he was not in his hut or anywhere else he recognised. Then the lazy fumbling of his senses was trumped by the recollection of his father’s face, charging at him with his sword drawn. His eyes flashed open and he tried to sit up.

It was as if a strong man was holding each of his limbs, pinning them to the table and defeating every effort he made to rise. As he fought his weakness for a second time, the figure of a woman appeared above him. She laid a gentle hand upon his chest, easing him back down to the mattress, and with her other hand placed a damp cloth on his temple.

‘Be still,’ she said firmly in accented Greek. ‘Your wounds have weakened you. There is no point in fighting them.’

Her face was old and soft, though lined with concern, and her grey hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head. She was kneeling beside him and high above her he could see a shadowy ceiling, where faded murals of the moon and stars were barely visible through a fine haze of smoke. He could also see the tops of the four wooden pillars that supported the roof, as well as the upper reaches of plastered walls where paintings of tall, indistinct figures twitched in the firelight. It was a hall of some kind, confirming to him that he was not back in the Greek camp. The woman’s accent, he noted, was Trojan, but that meant little when almost all the slaves owned by the Greeks were from Ilium.

‘Where am I?’

‘You are in Troy, in the house of my master.’

Troy. The word had a crushing effect on his spirit. Somehow, he had been captured and taken back to the city of his enemies. For all he knew, the battle could have ended in a Trojan victory and his countrymen might all be slain, prisoners like himself, or sailing back across the Aegean to Greece in defeat. If that was the case, he hoped that Odysseus and the rest of the Ithacans had been able to slip away in time.

‘Then the battle was lost and the Trojans were victorious?’

The old woman shook her head.

‘It ended in the same way as all its predecessors – the plain full of dead men and both armies licking their wounds behind the safety of their respective walls. And don’t ask me to tell you what happened,’ she said, intercepting his next question. ‘I don’t know and I don’t much care.’

‘Then tell me your name.’

‘I am Clymene,’ the woman said.

The name was common enough, but Eperitus followed his instincts.

‘Palamedes’s mother?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, a little surprised that he knew of her. Then her attitude stiffened. ‘You Greeks stoned him to death.’

Eperitus felt a pang of guilt as he recalled how Odysseus had brought about Palamedes’s execution, after discovering the Nauplian prince was secretly passing Agamemnon’s strategies to the Trojans. Only as Eperitus had escorted him to his death did he reveal that his mother was a servant woman in Troy – a Trojan herself – and that Apheidas had threatened to kill her if Palamedes did not betray his fellow Greeks. As the offspring of Greek and Trojan parents himself, Eperitus had sympathised with Palamedes, despite his treachery.

‘I had no part in his stoning,’ he said, ‘though I was the one who escorted him to his execution. It was then he told me about you and how he had been forced to betray Agamemnon for your sake. I pitied him and he made me promise to protect you if the Greeks ever sacked Troy.’

‘Then his last thoughts were of me,’ Clymene said. There were already tears in her eyes at the mention of her dead son. ‘Tell me, was his death –’

‘It was quick,’ he said, recalling how the rocks hurled by the Greek kings had split his skin and cracked his bones until he was no longer recognisable as a human being. They were silent for a while before Eperitus spoke again. ‘Tell me something, Clymene: are you still Apheidas’s servant?’

She looked away uncomfortably and nodded. ‘Yes, my lord, and you are a prisoner in your father’s house. He brought you back from the battlefield, even while his horsemen were still covering the long retreat to Troy. You had many cuts and bruises, gained falling from a horse – or so he told us – though by the blessing of some god your bones were not broken. You also had an arrow wound in your leg, and that was more serious. He gave you into our care and threatened us both with death if we did not save you; so we have tended your wounds for two days and a night while you slept, and you are already making a quick recovery.’

‘Then you have my thanks, Clymene. But you say there were two of you.’

‘Mine was the knowledge that healed your wounds, but the care – the love – that tended to them without resting was –’

‘Was mine.’

Eperitus recognised the voice, and this time as he struggled to sit up Clymene helped to lift him onto one elbow. He looked around the shadowy hall – by the darkness he knew it had to be late evening of the day after the battle – seeing the fire blazing in the hearth and noting the armed guard standing at a nearby doorway. And then he saw her.

Astynome stood in the shadows a few paces behind Clymene, dressed in a simple white chiton that did little to hide the outline of the tall, slim body he knew so intimately. Her hair hung down over her shoulders in broad black tangles, framing the fine features of the face he had fallen in love with: the full lips that had declared her love for him in words and kisses; the small nose and smooth cheekbones he had once touched with such affection; and the dark eyes that had looked into his with real longing, but had kept from him the secrets of her traitor’s heart. As they looked at him now he felt his veins flush with bitterness at the memory of her betrayal. Yet his anger could not completely conquer his desire to reach out and touch her, to hold her again and pretend nothing had ever come between them. For though she had been sent as a snare to draw him into his father’s clutches, she had instead caught him up in her own plans – plans for a home and a family, away from the wars and politics of more powerful men. For a while he had glimpsed an alternative to the violent and glorious, but ultimately lonely, life of a warrior, only to find that the woman who had sold it to him was a liar.

‘I have been at your side ever since Apheidas brought you wounded and unconscious from the battlefield,’ Astynome said, leaving the shadows and walking to his side. As she knelt beside him, Clymene stood and moved back. ‘I haven’t left you for a moment, unless it was to fetch water or clean bandages. I even slept beside you last night, Eperitus, with my head against your shoulder and my arm across your chest.’

She smiled as she spoke, almost forgetting he was now awake as she reached out to touch his muscular arm. He grabbed her wrist, making her gasp as she felt the anger in his grip.

‘Save me the mock affection. Whatever care you have administered was given on the orders of your master, not out of concern for me. If you had loved me, Astynome, you would have let me die; better that than to live as a prisoner of my father.’

‘Let you die? Not while it was in my power to save you. Besides, Apheidas may have commanded me to keep you alive on pain of death, but the prayers I’ve given for your life and the offerings that I sent to the temple of Athena were my own. I love you, Eperitus, even if you have learned to hate me.’

‘You were sent by my father to lead me into a trap!’

‘I didn’t know you then. When we first met, I was a loyal Trojan doing my lord’s bidding, under the illusion it would bring about the end of the war.’ She slipped her wrist from his grip and took his hand. ‘And then I fell in love with you.’

Eperitus sensed the walls of his fury bend beneath the touch of her warm fingers. He felt a powerful urge to take her in his arms and kiss her, healing the wounds she had inflicted on him. But his warrior’s caution maintained its defences against her, knowing she had deceived him once before. He took his hand from hers.

‘If you loved me, why did you continue your deceit? You could have told me the truth, but you chose to carry out my father’s commands to the very end.’

‘Weren’t you listening, that night at the temple of Thymbrean Apollo?’ she asked, her tone sharp with reciprocal anger. ‘Did you not hear, or did you not want to hear? I didn’t know he was planning to betray Troy to the Greeks in return for Priam’s throne, or that you were to be a pawn in his ambitions. When he told me he could make you join the Trojans and put an end to the war I trusted him, and that’s why I carried on with his plan. And what choice did I have? He is my master: if I had refused to do what he told me, he would never have allowed me to see you again.’

Eperitus looked into Astynome’s eyes and knew she was right. He had not considered the difficulties she had faced before, and now that he did he saw that she had never been given any option but to see out Apheidas’s orders. But as the hardness in his heart began to soften, so the memory of how much he had suffered because of her stopped him from taking her hand and confessing that he still loved her. Besides, he reminded himself, he was still a prisoner in his father’s house.

‘And where is Apheidas now? Has he sent you to soften me up – to persuade me to join him again?’

Astynome closed her eyes and turned her head away with a sigh, and Eperitus knew he had allowed his bitterness too much rein.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. You must know why I’m here, though, why he’s permitted me to live instead of killing me on the battlefield? Does he think he can appeal to the Trojan blood in my veins again? If so, you can tell him I’m loyal to my Greek ancestry, not to some foreign culture I’m more intent than ever on seeing destroyed.’

‘Do you think he would tell his plans to me, a mere servant? All I know is that he was in a jubilant mood after the battle. Along with Cassandra, he’s the only person in Troy who seems pleased at the death of King Eurypylus – as if Trojan victory in battle doesn’t suit his ambitions. The only other thing I know is that he’s keen for you to regain consciousness.’

‘So he either wants to kill me while I’m wide awake, or he has other designs for me.’

‘Then we will stop him. Together. You remember how you used to tell me about him in your hut, about the kind of man he is? To my shame I did not believe you, because the Apheidas I knew had shown me nothing but kindness after my husband’s death. Now I know you were right, and –’ she looked at the guard and Clymene, and lowered her voice, ‘and I will help you to kill him if you still desire revenge.’

‘Revenge?’ Eperitus replied, feeling suddenly tired once more. ‘Yes, I’ve wanted it more than ever since you and I were last together – vengeance for King Pandion, and now for Arceisius too. But how will you help me?’

‘I don’t know yet, but a chance will arrive. I will pray to the gods for one.’

Eperitus’s tiredness was deepening rapidly, weakening his desire to continue his show of resistance to Astynome. He knew in his heart he loved her as much as he had ever done, and before he slipped back into unconsciousness he wanted to tell her that. Weakly, he pulled his other arm free of the blanket and placed his hand on her thigh, moving it around to her hip. For a moment he felt as if his eyes would fill with tears, so happy was he to feel her warm skin beneath his fingertips and have her back at his side.

‘I won’t allow you to put yourself at risk, my love,’ he said, fighting now just to speak. ‘If I escape and he ever finds out you helped me – ’

Her face, which had been concerned by his failing strength, now broke into a smile. She squeezed his hand and bent down, placing her lips on his.

‘Then take me with you. My loyalty is to you now, Eperitus, not to Troy. I can return to my father on Chryse and wait for you there until the war ends. But now you must sleep. We will make our plans when you awake.’

Chapter Twenty-six

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR

The old beggar opened his eyes to the first light of day and the smell of cooked breakfast. It awoke the gnawing hunger in his stomach and for a moment he thought of rising and petitioning the nearby Myrmidons for their leftovers. But the air beyond his dew-damp cloak was chilly with the approach of autumn, and his bed of hay was still snug and soft – a luxury for a man in his unfortunate position. Daring to stretch out an arm from his protective cocoon, he grabbed a pile of the hay and pulled it closer, stuffing it into a gap that was letting in the cold. Then his nostrils twitched at the pungent reek of horse manure and he saw that one of his bedfellows had risen early and left a heap of fresh dung close to his head. The beggar contemplated the steaming cluster for a moment, then snatched a few handfuls and pushed them into the hay beneath his back. They were like hot coals to his chilled body, and the stench and the disdainful look he received from the white mare that had produced them were a small price to pay for a little heat.

For a while after, he struggled between a reluctance to leave his cosy bed and the need to find something for his nagging stomach. His last meal had been a mixture of grain, rye and barley picked from the hay, where they had fallen from the feedbags of the horses as they ate. Then his decision was made for him: two men were approaching the pens where he lay, talking in the harsh accent of the Myrmidons. The beggar’s first instinct was to cover himself in more hay and hope they did not see him, but his common sense told him a man of his heavy build would need more than a few strands of dry grass to hide behind. So he stood, brushed off some of the dung, and stooped between the wooden bars that kept the four horses from escaping.

‘Who in Ares’s name are you?’ one of the Myrmidons snarled. ‘And what’re you doing in with the horses?’

‘Sleeping,’ the beggar replied haughtily, taking his gnarled staff from the fence post where he had left it the night before and leaning his weight upon it. ‘A man’s entitled to sleep, ain’t he – even if he’s gotta lay his head down with beasts!’

The Myrmidons closed on him angrily, only stopping as they caught the stench of manure and wrinkling their noses up at him in disgust. His appearance matched his aroma. His tunic and cloak were so ragged and torn that large patches of grimy brown skin were visible through the rents. His belt was a long piece of rope – wound several times about his waist – and he wore no sandals, leaving his bare feet caked in manure and dust. His face was almost black with dirt, while his hair and beard were matted with filth and stuck all over with pieces of hay and other accumulated vegetation. And though once a thickset man – a farmer or fisherman, possibly, by his physique – his back was now curved and his knees bent outward so that he seemed a hunched, shuffling creature to their eyes.

‘Two of those “beasts”, as you call them, are immortal,’ the first Myrmidon sneered. ‘And if their master had caught you in with them, rather than us, he’d have lopped off your head by now and thrown your corpse into the sea for the fish to feed on.’

‘Immortal, you say? Then surely they’re the horses of Achilles – Balius and Xanthus.’

‘Not any more,’ the second Myrmidon corrected. ‘Achilles is dead and now they belong to his son, Neoptolemus. And unless you want him to find you here then you’d better get on your way.’

The beggar glanced over towards the huts and tents where the Myrmidon army had been camped for ten years, then looked back at the two men and nodded. But as he turned to go he saw the bags of feed hanging from each of their arms and pointed at the pile of small, red apples on top.

‘Will you spare an old man an apple? I can’t remember the last time I had a whole apple just to meself.’

‘Get on with you!’ one of the men shouted, kicking his behind and sending him sprawling into the dry grass.

The beggar watched the Myrmidons walk away laughing, then slowly picked himself up and began shuffling towards the mass of tents that constituted the rest of the Greek camp. Though the army had routed the Trojans and their Mysian allies several days before, the mood in the camp had become sullen again. Until the arrival of Neoptolemus the Greeks had suffered many casualties, and though they had repaid their enemies in great slaughter, the glory of victory had quickly grown stale and lost its appeal. The survivors mourned their fallen comrades, but even more now they longed for the final conquest of Troy that would release them from their oaths and allow them to return home. As the beggar passed between them, he saw the emptiness in their dark-ringed eyes and knew that they were at the last ebb of their strength. The coming of Neoptolemus – who had taken Achilles’s position at the head of the Myrmidons and now lived in his father’s hut – and his defeat of King Eurypylus had stretched their hope a little further, but it would not endure forever. The beggar could sense the war’s end was close now, just as surely as the last days of summer were passing and the autumn was waiting to take its place.

He saw a banner fluttering in the wind ahead of him. It was green with a golden fox leaping across its centre, and though the material was faded and its edges tattered it remained a symbol of pride to the men who followed it into battle. The beggar watched it for a moment, then began shuffling towards it. Men looked up at the sound of his staff and quickly moved out of his way as they caught his stench and saw his filthy clothing. Eventually he found the hut beneath which the banner flickered and snapped. Three men were seated before it in tall chairs draped with rich furs – the sort of pelts, he noted with greedy eyes, that could make a beggar’s life so much warmer and happier. They were clearly warriors of high rank and renown, sitting with their legs thrust out before them and kraters of wine in their laps as they regarded him with a mixture of distaste and cautious interest.

‘Go warm yourself by the flames, father,’ one of them said, nodding towards the circular fire before their feet.

A black pot hung over it, bathing the beggar’s senses with the delicious smell of porridge while provoking his stomach into a series of groans.

‘My thanks to you, King Diomedes,’ he said, settling cross-legged before the campfire and holding out his blackened hands towards its warmth.

Diomedes gave him a half smile and nodded to a male slave, who walked over to the pot and doled out a ladleful of porridge into a wooden bowl. He passed it with disdain to the beggar, who cackled with joy as he raised the steaming broth to his lips.

‘He stinks like the lowest pit of Hades,’ Sthenelaus said, leaning slightly towards Diomedes.

Euryalus, seated on the other side of Sthenelaus, could barely conceal the sneer on his lips as the beggar slurped noisily at the contents of the bowl.

‘You shouldn’t encourage these vagabonds, Diomedes. Show kindness to one and before you know it you’ll have an army of them at the door of your hut.’

Diomedes smiled. ‘Let the man eat. Isn’t there enough suffering in this world without denying a poor wretch a morsel of food?’

‘There speaks a true king,’ said the beggar, casting the empty bowl aside and rising to his feet. ‘I knew you was Diomedes, as soon as I set eyes on you. Tydeus’s son, yet greater than he.’

‘It isn’t your place to make that judgement,’ Euryalus admonished him.

The beggar flicked his hands up in a dismissive gesture.

‘Who said it were my judgement? A beggar may lack wisdom, but he ain’t deaf. I’m only repeating what I’ve heard others say: that Tydeus was a great man who killed Melanippus at the first siege of Thebes, though he died later of his wounds. But they also say he dishonoured himself by devouring Melanippus’s brains – something his son wouldn’t ever stoop to.’

‘You can’t deny he’s a well-informed vagabond,’ Sthenelaus commented with a grin.

‘As for your father, Sthenelaus,’ the beggar added, ‘they say he were killed by a thunderbolt, for boasting that even Zeus couldn’t stop him scaling the walls of Thebes.’

‘Who do you think you are!’ Sthenelaus snapped, rising from his chair.

Diomedes laid a hand on his wrist and pulled him back down to his seat.

‘Whoever he is, he’s neither as ignorant nor as foolish as he looks. For all we know he could be a god in disguise. Do you have a bag, father?’

The beggar pulled aside his cloak to reveal a battered leather purse, hung across his shoulder by an old cord. Diomedes stood and walked to his hut, signalling for the beggar to follow. As the bent figure entered behind him, he passed him a basket of bread and another of meat.

‘Here, fill your bag for your onward journey. And if a king can advise a pauper in his trade, I suggest in future you don’t insult the fathers of the men you’re begging from.’

The old man smiled and took both baskets, somehow managing to cram the entire contents into his purse.

‘If I insult you,’ he asked, ‘why repay me with such generosity?’

‘Because there’s something about you. A presence that marks you out from the rest of your kind. You may be a god, or you may just be a good man fallen on hard times, but I know better than to turn you away with nothing more than scorn.’

‘Then perhaps I’m worth a cup of wine, too,’ the beggar grinned.

Diomedes raised his eyebrows a little at the man’s audacity, then pointed to a table by the back wall, beneath the racks of armour and weapons he had stripped from his enemies, and told him to help himself. The beggar shuffled over and found a bowl of mixed wine surrounded by half a dozen silver goblets. After clattering about among them for a few moments, he turned with a cup in each hand, one of which he passed to Diomedes. The king took it at arm’s length, holding back from the stink that clung to his guest. Then the beggar poured a meagre libation onto the fleece at his feet and raised the goblet to his lips, drinking greedily so that the dark liquid spilled down over his beard and neck.

‘Zeus’s blessing on you, m’lord,’ he said, and with a fleeting bow pulled aside the curtain door and left the hut.

Outside, the sun was beginning to climb and the cold air and dew that had marked the dawn were swiftly forgotten. The beggar nodded to Sthenelaus and Euryalus as they stared at him with disdain, then shuffled off in the direction of the camp walls. But as soon as he was out of sight of Diomedes’s hut, he placed less weight on his staff and quickened his pace, until a short while later he had climbed the slope and was approaching one of the gates. It was then he heard the sound he had been listening out for: a series of shouts and the clamour of men running some way behind him. He was barely feigning a shuffle now as he passed between the open gates and across the causeway, the guards keeping as far back from the shabby, foul-smelling old man as they could. But he had taken no more than a few paces on to the plain when a voice commanded him to stop. He turned to see Diomedes striding towards him, with Sthenelaus and Euryalus at each shoulder. A horse whip was in the king’s hand and his handsome face was creased with wrath.

‘Where is it?’ he demanded.

The beggar backed away, instinctively covering his head with his forearms.

‘Where’s what? I ain’t got nothing but what you gave me, m’lord.’

Diomedes reached across with a snarl and pulled open the beggar’s robes. The man fell unceremoniously onto his backside, causing a ripple of laughter from the gate guards. As he hit the ground, a silver goblet tumbled from his mess of rags and rolled in a semicircle towards Diomedes’s sandalled foot.

‘Call this nothing?’ he said, stooping to retrieve the cup.

‘You said to help meself,’ the beggar protested.

Diomedes raised his whip and brought it down smartly over the beggar’s shoulder, causing him to howl with pain. As the whip was raised for a second strike, the beggar threw his arms about Diomedes’s knees and pleaded for mercy.

‘A man shouldn’t beat his guests, not for nothing!’ he sobbed. ‘It’s an offence to the gods.’

‘And you’re an offence to me, thief,’ Diomedes replied, kicking him away and lashing his back as he scrambled through the long grass on his hands and knees.

His whimpering yelp was met by more laughter from the guards, who had now been joined by other men from the camp. As they watched, Diomedes whipped the beggar again, slashing open his filthy robes and leaving a red line on the brown skin beneath. Euryalus swung at the man’s stomach with his foot, knocking him onto his back, but as Sthenelaus stepped up to follow with a kick at the man’s head, Diomedes seized his arm and pulled him back.

‘Enough now. He’s learned his lesson.’

‘It’s you what needs to learn a lesson,’ the beggar groaned, clutching at his stomach. ‘Odysseus didn’t attack me when I was in his hut last night; he’s a proper host and knows the rules of xenia.’

Diomedes shook his head in disgust. ‘So you’re a liar as well as a thief. Odysseus retired to his hut last night with orders not to let anyone in. Agamemnon himself would have been turned away, so the chances of a beggar –’

‘But I was there,’ the beggar countered. ‘Fact is, he invited me in to help him with a little problem he was having. Something about finding a way into Troy to pinch a statue.’

‘The Palladium!’ Sthenelaus exclaimed.

Diomedes rebuked him with a warning glance, then turned to the beggar.

‘So you’ve overheard a bit of campfire gossip you think you can twist to your advantage. Perhaps you believe I’m a fool? Well, I’ll show you I’m not.’

He raised the whip again and the beggar threw his hands up before his face.

‘Agamemnon ordered you and Odysseus to steal the Palladium from the temple of Athena,’ he said quickly and urgently, though in a low voice that would not be heard by the gate guards. ‘It’s the last of the oracles given by Helenus, for the defeat of Troy.’

Diomedes’s arm froze above his head and he stared at the beggar incredulously.

‘How could you possibly know that?’

The beggar dropped his hands away from his face and sat up, the sluggishness now gone from his movements. There was a smile on his lips and a roguish gleam in his eyes.

‘Because I am Odysseus, of course.’

Euryalus snorted derisively.

‘Such arrogance in one so low. Do you think we’ve never set eyes on Odysseus before? Do you really think we’re going to believe you’re the king of Ithaca?’

‘This man’s asking for more than a whipping now,’ Sthenelaus hissed, his voice an angry whisper.

The beggar did not take his eyes from Diomedes.

‘Then how would a simple beggar know that Trechos was the first Argive to be killed in Pelops’s tomb, his neck snapped by Pelops’s skeleton as he removed the lid of the sarcophagus?’

‘No-one could know that unless they were there,’ Diomedes answered. He scrutinised the beggar closely for a moment, then smiled and offered him his hand. ‘By all the gods, Odysseus, even your own mother wouldn’t recognise you in that state.’

Odysseus refused his friend’s hand and, retrieving his stick, pulled himself slowly and stiffly to his feet.

‘No Greek will ever be allowed through the Scaean Gate, but beggars come and go as they please. These rags are how I’ll get past the guards, and once I’m in I’ll lower a rope over the walls so you can join me, Diomedes.’

‘We’ll come, too,’ Euryalus declared.

Odysseus shook his head.

‘Agamemnon gave the task to Diomedes and myself. Besides, the more there are of us the more risk there is we’ll get caught.’ He turned his green eyes on Diomedes. ‘Hide yourself on the banks of the Simöeis until dark. I’ll wave a light from the walls – five times from left to right and back again – to show where I’ve tied the rope.’

‘What rope?’

Odysseus pulled back his robes and the folds of his baggy tunic to reveal the rope he had wound several times around his waist.

‘The walls on the far side of the city are lightly guarded,’ he continued, ‘and once you’re over them you’ll be inside Pergamos itself. We can find our way to the temple of Athena, steal the Palladium and be back out before dawn.’

‘Zeus’s beard, I think it might even work,’ Diomedes said with a grin, excited by the prospect of danger and the glory that came with it.

‘There’s one other thing I need to do while we’re there, though,’ Odysseus said. ‘I need to find out whether Eperitus was taken prisoner.’

The others looked at each other doubtfully.

‘He charged a company of Trojan cavalry alone,’ Sthenelaus said. ‘He’s dead.’

‘I spent the whole day searching for his body among the slain,’ Odysseus replied sternly. ‘He wasn’t there! And though some say they saw him shot by an archer as he rode at Apheidas, until I see his corpse and know his ghost has departed for the Underworld I won’t give up looking for him. He’s my friend, and he would have done the same for me.’

‘There’s a chance the Trojans took him,’ Diomedes said, though sceptically. ‘And if they did, they’ll accept a ransom for his release – or we can set him free when we take the city. But that won’t happen until we’ve stolen the Palladium. That has to be our priority, Odysseus, especially if we ever want to see our wives and families again.’

Odysseus did not need to be told the urgency of their mission.

‘Then we should go now. Take the whip and strike me again.’

Diomedes frowned.

‘We’ve given you enough rough treatment already, for which I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I provoked you to it, and it was necessary to make people believe my disguise; but the Trojans have eyes in the Greek camp and unless you want to arouse suspicion then you must continue to treat me as a vagabond and thief. Once you’ve made a display of driving me off you can return to your tent, but make sure you leave unnoticed again after sunset. And don’t forget to bring my sword with you.’

Diomedes hesitated for a moment, then raised the whip over his head and struck Odysseus on the shoulders. He yelped with pain and loudly accused the Argive king of being a whore’s son, earning himself another lash across the lower back. And so it continued until the beggar was out of sight and the guards at the gate had already forgotten his existence.

Chapter Twenty-seven

AN ULTIMATUM

Wake up.’

Eperitus opened his eyes a fraction before the palm of a hand struck him across his cheek, whipping his head to one side. Snatched from a dream about the Greek camp, in which Astynome was once more his lover, his senses struggled to grasp hold of something that would bring him back to reality and tell him where he was. The stench of burning fat pricked at his nostrils and he could hear the hiss of a single torch. By its wavering light he could see he was in a small, unfamiliar room, the corners of which were piled up with large sacks – probably of barley, judging by the smell. He was seated in a hard wooden chair, but when he tried to move he discovered he was bound by several cords of flax that wrapped around his abdomen and pinned his arms uselessly at his sides. He blinked and stared at the face of the man who had hit him – a face he did not know – then suddenly remembered he was a prisoner in Troy, alone and far away from the help of his friends.

‘Who in Hades are you?’ he demanded, reviving quickly from his slumber and looking around at what appeared to be a windowless storeroom.

The man did not answer, but beckoned impatiently to two armed warriors standing by the door.

‘Untie him.’

The men knelt either side of him and picked at the cords holding him to the chair, while the first man drew his sword and waved the point menacingly at his stomach.

‘Don’t even think about trying to escape,’ he warned.

‘What do you want with me?’

No answer. The two men pulled away his bonds and lifted him bodily from the chair, pulling his arms roughly about their shoulders. As they made themselves comfortable with his weight, he placed his feet on the ground and tried to stand. A bolt of pain shot up from his wounded leg. If he had not been supported he would have collapsed to the floor. Then the first man opened the door to reveal two more guards waiting outside, who followed behind the others as they carried Eperitus through a confusion of half-lit corridors, up steps, through more corridors and into the great hall of his father’s house, which he recognised from when Astynome had been tending his wound. He looked for her in the shadows cast by the flaming hearth, but saw no-one in the fleeting moments before he was dragged to another door and out into bright, blinding sunlight. His eyes had become accustomed to darkness and he was forced to squeeze them shut while he was taken through what smelled like a garden filled with shrubs and strongly scented flowers. He tried blinking, but caught only confused snatches of his surroundings. More baffling was the faint hissing he could hear in the background. Then he felt himself dumped into another chair, while his arms were pinned painfully behind its hard wooden back and bound tightly with more flax cords.

‘Stay close and keep your weapons to hand,’ a familiar voice ordered the guards.

Eperitus’s eyes stuttered open again. The dark, blurry form before him quickly gained focus and became his father, who had planted himself legs apart before his son’s chair. Eperitus tested his arms against the ropes, but was unable to move them.

‘Where am I?’

‘In my garden,’ Apheidas answered with a sweep of his hand, indicating the bushes and fruit trees that provided a cheerful green backdrop in the morning sunshine. He spoke in Greek to prevent the guards from understanding their conversation. ‘You were locked up in one of my storerooms – your wound’s healing fast and I didn’t want to risk leaving you in the great hall – but I thought this would be a much more pleasant place to talk.’

‘I have nothing to say to you. You should’ve just killed me on the battlefield and have been done with it.’

‘That was my first thought,’ Apheidas admitted, his voice hardening. ‘After all, you’ve made your desire to kill me very clear. But I don’t suffer from the same crippling lust for vengeance that you do. Revenge is a meaningless, empty passion that achieves nothing – you of all people should know that. No; when I saw you lying in the dust it struck me the gods had delivered you into my hands for a reason. So, not for the first time, I decided to spare your life.’

‘What do you want?’ Eperitus sneered. ‘My gratitude?’

‘Don’t be obtuse. I want … I expect your help.’

‘After what happened at the temple of Thymbrean Apollo? After you murdered Arceisius? After you used Astynome to fool me into thinking you’d changed?’

He spat at his father’s feet, who replied by striking him hard across the cheek, almost toppling him from the chair. A silence followed, filled only by the sinister hissing that seemed to be coming not from the garden, but from beneath it. Eperitus sniffed at the blood trickling down the inside of his nostril.

‘Nevertheless, you are going to help me,’ Apheidas assured him. ‘If not, then I will kill you in the worst way you could imagine.’

He knelt down beside a wooden box, on top of which was a pair of heavy gauntlets. He forced his hands into the stiff leather, then lifted the lid. A low sibilating put Eperitus on edge, and as Apheidas pulled out a thin brown snake from the box he felt every muscle in his body stiffen. He strained against the ropes that held him, but was unable to move.

‘Still have the old fear then?’ his father mocked, stepping closer and holding the snake level with his son’s face.

Eperitus felt his hands shaking as he stared at the scaled, lipless creature with its thin tongue slipping in and out of its mouth. He pressed his head as far back as it would go into the hard, unyielding wood of the chair.

‘Take the damned thing away! Take it away!’

‘As you wish.’ Apheidas stood up straight and held the snake to his own cheek, so that its forked tongue flickered against his jaw. ‘You never did master your fear of my pets, did you? I’ve been keeping them again, you know, since I left Greece.’

‘That hissing sound I can hear –’

‘You don’t even want to think about that,’ Apheidas told him with a knowing grin. ‘But I wonder if your tortured mind has regained any memory of why you fear snakes so much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t fear them for nothing, Son. It happened when you were very young, perhaps three years old. I’d bred snakes since before you were born, to provide sacrifices for worshippers at Apollo’s temple in Alybas. I kept them in a pit in our courtyard, a courtyard much like this.’

‘I remember it.’

‘Do you remember falling in?’ Apheidas asked, fixing his son’s gaze. ‘Your mother and I thought we’d lost you then. I hurried down the ladder and saw you lying on the wooden platform at the bottom, which I used to stand on to keep me safe from the snakes. If you’d landed anywhere else you would have perished in an instant, but Apollo must have been protecting you that day. Then I saw your leg was dangling over the side, waving about above all those angry snakes. Before I could reach you, a viper sprang up and bit you behind your knee. The mark’ll still be there, if you care to look.’

‘If it bit me, then how did I survive?’

‘It was a dry bite. No venom was released. You were lucky.’

The story did not bring back any latent memories, but neither did Eperitus have any reason to think his father was lying. It certainly explained why he despised the creatures so much.

‘But you won’t be so lucky next time,’ Apheidas added with a sudden snarl.

He threw the snake onto Eperitus’s lap, causing him to jerk backwards in fear. The chair toppled over with a crash, but instead of hitting his head against the ground as he had expected Eperitus sensed a void opening up beneath him. The surprise lasted only a moment as he remembered the snake and lifted his head to stare down at its thin, curling body on his chest. A wave of nausea and dread surged through him. Then a gloved hand plucked it up and tossed it away.

His father’s sneering face appeared above him.

‘That’s nothing to what you’ll get if you don’t listen to me.’

Standing now, Apheidas tipped Eperitus on his side. A black void opened up by his left ear, from which the terrible hissing he had heard earlier rose up like a living entity to consume his senses. Not daring to look, but unable to stop himself, he turned his head to see that he was balanced over the edge of a pit, and in the darkness at the bottom he could see daylight glistening on the bodies of hundreds of snakes. His stomach tightened, pushing its contents back up through his body and out into the hole below.

Then his chair was being pulled up again by four of Apheidas’s men, away from the pit and back to safety in the broad sunlight.

‘Now are you ready to listen to my proposal?’ his father demanded.

‘I’ll listen,’ Eperitus gasped, ‘but you already know my answer. In the end you’ll still have to kill me!’

Apheidas sighed and raised himself to his full height. He turned and picked up a leather water-skin.

‘Here,’ he said, holding it to his son’s lips.

For the first time, Eperitus realised how dry his throat was and how much his body craved liquid. He opened his mouth and Apheidas squeezed a splash of cool water into it.

‘You shouldn’t be so hasty to welcome death, Son. You’ve plenty to live for, after all. Astynome, for instance.’

Eperitus was almost taken by surprise, but the hint of uncertainty in Apheidas’s voice gave him away. His father was no fool: he knew Astynome hated him and loved Eperitus, despite all that had happened. He must also have suspected his son had forgiven her for betraying him. For a brief instant Eperitus was tempted to admit as much, if only to show Apheidas that his feelings for Astynome transcended the schemes of his father that had divided them. Then he heard a voice in his head – not unlike Odysseus’s – warning him not to give Apheidas anything to bargain with. His love of the girl could be used against him; by threatening Astynome, Apheidas could force him to agree to whatever he wanted, just as he had used Clymene to bribe Palamedes to treachery.

‘Don’t mock me,’ Eperitus said, narrowing his eyes and trying to sound angered. ‘If all you can offer is that treacherous bitch then save your breath.’

‘So you’ll be glad to know you won’t be seeing her again?’

Eperitus felt sudden anxiety clawing at his chest, but kept his silence.

‘Now she’s nursed you back to health, I’ve assigned her to other duties,’ Apheidas continued. ‘I don’t trust her around you, and the last thing I want is for her to smuggle you a weapon of some sort. Clymene will change your bandage later and after that you’ll not need any more tending to, because you’ll either have agreed to help me or I’ll have thrown you to my pets.’

Eperitus opened his mouth to speak, but Apheidas raised a hand to silence him.

‘Before you tell me to go ahead and kill you, listen to what I have to say. Snakes are a good way to get your attention, but they won’t force you into doing what I want. Neither will threatening you with death, or even, it seems, threatening Astynome. You may still love her and you may not, but I’m not going to send you back to the Greek camp with that uncertainty.’

‘The Greek camp?’

‘As a messenger, of course. My ambitions haven’t changed from when I laid them out before you in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo – I need you to tell Agamemnon I will give him Troy in exchange for Priam’s throne. The King of Men will have his victory, Menelaus his wife, and I will become ruler of all Ilium!’

Eperitus threw his head back and laughed.

‘Still hankering to be a king? Even one subservient to the Greeks you hate so much? Well, things have changed since we last met. There’s a new oracle and Troy won’t fall until it’s fulfilled, not even if you throw the gates wide open and let the whole Greek army inside.’

Now it was Apheidas’s turn to be amused, and he looked at his son with a broad smile.

‘Obviously you’re referring to Helenus’s visions,’ he said.

Eperitus’s laughter ceased and he stared at his father.

‘How could you know about that? Helenus said he hadn’t revealed the oracles to anyone in Troy.’

‘He hadn’t – except to me. Now, let me think: I already know you’ve found Achilles’s son, Neoptolemus, and I guess you must have retrieved Pelops’s shoulder bone by now. Which just leaves the Palladium, doesn’t it. The last key to Troy.’

Eperitus watched as his father raised the water-skin to his lips and took a mouthful of liquid. There was something triumphal about the movement, and this time he did not offer a drink to his son.

‘So, are you ready to listen yet? Threats only work on cowards, and you’re no coward, but maybe I can offer you something we will all profit by: the choice between certain victory for the Greeks or war without end. Would you prefer to return home with your friends before the end of the year, or to remain in that squalid camp until you die of old age, while the kingdoms of Greece succumb to bandits and invaders?’

‘I won’t help you fulfil your vile ambitions, Father,’ Eperitus replied, obstinately. ‘The only thing you can offer me in exchange for the dishonour and pain you’ve brought me is your life. Give me that and I’ll gladly take your message to Agamemnon.’

‘You have the stubbornness of a mule and wits to match, but here’s the choice anyway: help me and I’ll give you the Palladium to take to Agamemnon; refuse and I will not only throw you into that pit behind you, but I will tell Priam the Greeks are planning to steal Troy’s most precious lump of wood. After that, the Palladium will be so well hidden no Greek will ever be able to steal it, and then the walls of Troy will never succumb.’

Eperitus stared at his father and knew he meant what he said. The choice he had given him was stark: being cast into a pit of snakes with any hope of the Greeks stealing the Palladium gone forever; or receiving his freedom and seeing the final oracle fulfilled with a speed and ease that none could have hoped for, leading the way to victory and an end to the war. But his father would also succeed in his ambition, sealing for eternity Eperitus’s shame and dishonour. He closed his eyes in despair and let his chin sink onto his chest. He could not have known that Priam had already heard the oracle from Cassandra’s lips and had not believed a word of it. Neither could he have guessed that Apheidas was bluffing, else he might have felt less despondent.

‘Even if you say no, Son,’ his father said, ‘I won’t reveal your plans to Priam until I have no other option. Perhaps Astynome would be a better messenger; I understand Agamemnon wanted her for himself when she first visited the Greek camp, so if I offered her as a gift it might convince him my offer is genuine. Either way, the choice is yours: death for you and defeat for the Greeks, or life, victory and a swift journey back home. I’ll return for your answer tomorrow morning.’

The Scaean Gate, which had witnessed the deaths of Hector, Achilles and Paris, was firmly shut and no amount of pounding or calling for the guards would open it. When a soldier stood on top of the battlements and urinated on him, Odysseus realised he was wasting his time and followed the circuit of the walls eastward to the Dardanian Gate, praying to Athena as he walked. He reached Troy’s second great entrance and beat the flat of his hand against its sun-baked beams. Again there was no answer. Eventually, and after all his attempts to gain the attention of the guards had proven futile, he sat down beneath the cooling shade of its walls and looked out over the plain at the blue, distant mountains, trying to think how he might enter. Though he was widely credited as the most intelligent and cunning of the Greeks, especially by those who were closest to him, Odysseus’s schemes were rarely thought out in any detail. Often he would begin with a good idea then rely on his wits – and the help of the gods – to see it through to a successful conclusion. This was destined to be one of those occasions.

Before long, the answer to his prayers arrived. A trail of dust appeared above the heat haze on the horizon, where the well-worn road to the Dardanian Gate issued out of the foothills. It moved slowly across the plain towards the city, eventually revealing the distant figures of a troop of cavalry, followed by a line of ox-drawn waggons laden with supplies. Shortly, the gates opened and the mounted escort – some fifty horses and riders – began filing through. The waggons followed, the sluggish beasts that drew them taking little notice of the shouts or sticks of their drivers. The final waggon was piled high with sacks of grain that made the heavy axle and solid wooden wheels squeal in protest. With an agility that belied his powerful bulk, Odysseus darted out from the shadows beneath the wall and hopped up onto the rear of the waggon. A moment later he could hear the sound of cloven feet on flagstones echoing back from the interior of the gate, and watched with a quiet smile of satisfaction – mixed with a pang of nervous anticipation – as the wooden portals were swung shut behind him.

He lay back in the sacks and tried to look as if he belonged there. Then a short guard with an angry, self-important face pointed at him and called out. Odysseus jumped down and immediately assumed a beggar’s pose: back bent, eyes wide with fearful humility, hands cupped and thrust out in a gesture of supplication. The guard shouted something in Trojan that was too fast for Odysseus to understand, then brought the shaft of his spear down on his bowed spine with a whack that gave the other soldiers great amusement. Odysseus hardly felt the blow on his hardened muscles. Moving quickly, he grabbed the hem of the soldier’s cloak.

‘Got any food, captain?’ he croaked, thickening his voice to disguise his accent.

The guard wrinkled his nose up and blinked as the mixed stench of manure, urine and stale sweat washed over him. Yanking his cloak from Odysseus’s clutching fingertips, he stumbled backwards and waved the beggar away.

‘Go on, you filthy swine. Get out of my sight.’

Odysseus turned and shuffled off into the narrow streets before the guard could change his mind and have him thrown back out of the gate. It was ten years since he had last entered Troy, when he had been part of an embassy sent to petition for the return of Helen. Then the population had been openly hostile to the foreign warriors who had dared to bring threats of violence to their peaceful city. Now they were less naïve, their lives changed forever by the war that had claimed so many of Troy’s sons and so much of its wealth. Half of the women seemed to be widows, dressed in the black of mourning, while almost as many were prostitutes, with painted faces and brightly coloured dresses. Their wretched, hungry children scurried through the streets like rats, following the slow-moving waggons and trying to steal whatever they could lay their hands on, indifferent to the frequent cuffs of the escorts. And everywhere Odysseus looked there were soldiers, drawn from all the towns and cities of Ilium. Some were beardless boys barely old enough to carry a shield and spear; others were grey-bearded old men, ordered to fill the numerous gaps left by the dead on the plains between the Scaean Gate and the Greek camp; but most were professional warriors or mercenaries, stalking the streets with their battle-hardened faces in search of wine or women with which to pass away their boredom.

Few paid any attention to Odysseus, unless it was to avoid the odour that emanated from his wretched form. Looking up, he saw the battlements of Pergamos rising a short distance beyond the houses to his right. The temple of Athena – and the Palladium – lay within the citadel walls, and guessing that was where the supplies would be taken for safe storage, he quickened his pace to catch up with the rearmost of the waggons. After a while, the convoy turned right onto a broader thoroughfare that sloped gradually up towards Pergamos. Despite the years since he had last been there, Odysseus recognised the tall tower that guarded the main entrance. Each of its smooth, well-fitted blocks was half the height of a man, and at its base were six statues depicting different gods from the Trojan pantheon. Though these were ostensibly the same gods that were worshipped by the Greeks, the identities of the crudely imagined figures had been a mystery to Odysseus ten years before and remained so now as he followed the trudging convoy to the foot of the tower. The gates opened and the cavalry escort trotted through first, ducking beneath the short, echoing tunnel that led to the highest part of Troy. Odysseus closed the gap between himself and the last waggon, praying silently to Athena that he would not be noticed by the guards.

‘Where d’you think you’re going?’

The harsh words were followed by the smack of a spear across his arm. Odysseus, bent double once more, glanced up and saw the soldier who had hit him. He also noticed two others leaning their weight upon the heavy timbers of the gates as they pushed them inward behind the last waggon. Ignoring his assailant, he shuffled rapidly towards the men on the doors.

‘Spare some food for an old pilgrim? Drop of water, perhaps? How about a swallow of wine?’

He clutched at their cloaks, forcing them to abandon the gates and withdraw with groans of protest from the terrible smell.

‘Never mind,’ Odysseus said, glancing behind as he slipped through the gap they had left. ‘I’ll find something at the temple of Athena. Bless you, sirs.’

He hurried forward, the rap of his stick on the flagstones repeating rapidly from the walls. Then a heavy hand seized hold of his shoulder.

‘No beggars in the citadel!’ the third soldier grunted, throwing him back out into the street. For good measure, he swung his foot hard into Odysseus’s stomach as he lay in a pile of horse manure. ‘Now, piss off and don’t let me see your ugly face here again.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

ODYSSEUS UNMASKED

Odysseus lay still for a moment, clutching his stomach and gasping for breath as the gates slammed shut behind him. Slowly, using his stick, he pulled himself back onto his feet. Looking around, he could see that the guards had retreated inside the gates and he was left almost alone on the street. Up here, as the lower city lapped about the walls of Pergamos, the houses were wealthier and boasted two storeys, which cast long, dark shadows as the sun began dipping towards the west. Odysseus withdrew to the shade of the nearest wall and sat down, wondering what to do next. By necessity, his plan to enter the city and find his way to the temple of Athena was always going to have to rely on good fortune, but it seemed the gods had turned their backs on him at the final hurdle. And yet he could not give up. If he was to lower the rope for Diomedes and steal the Palladium he had to discover a way into the citadel before nightfall. He also had to discover whether Eperitus had been brought into the city as a prisoner, though how he would glean such information was beyond even his imagination. He leaned his head back against the cold stone and closed his eyes in silent prayer. A few moments later he heard voices.

‘I’ll give you two days ration of wine.’

‘No.’

‘Three days.’

‘Not for a whole week. Beside, you drew the western parapet a fortnight ago, whereas I haven’t even seen her for a month.’

Odysseus opened his eyes again and saw two soldiers walking up the main thoroughfare from the lower city. They wore the same armour and plumed helmets he had seen on the men who had just thrown him into the gutter – members of the elite guard that defended Pergamos – and as they approached a desperate idea struck him. He looked around at the empty street, then sat on his haunches with his back to the wall and held his hands out before him.

‘A bit of food, my lords?’

The nearest paused as he noticed the beggar for the first time, then reached into a satchel beneath his cloak.

‘Here,’ he said, passing him a piece of bread. ‘The gods have smiled on me today, so why not you?’

Odysseus took the bread, noting the dagger in the man’s belt.

‘And what good fortune’s worth three days wine ration to your friend?’ he asked.

The man grinned.

‘I drew the evening watch for the western wall, of course.’

‘You’ll have to forgive me, sir, I’m new to the city. Where I come from the soldiers’d rather be drinking wine and throwing dice than be out on duty.’

He no longer made any effort to disguise his accent, but instead employed his most calming tone, hoping to lull the minds of the two soldiers. He instinctively calculated how he would take the dagger and kill them both. Then, after hiding the bodies and swapping his beggars outfit for one of their uniforms, he could try and bluff his way through the gates.

‘Surely you’ve heard about Helen of Troy?’

Odysseus hesitated and gave a slight nod.

‘Every evening at sunset she walks along the western parapet, looking towards Greece,’ said the other soldier. ‘Pining for the children she left behind, or so they say.’

‘And I’ll be guarding the same stretch of wall,’ declared the first, glancing triumphantly at his friend. ‘Whatever people say or think about that woman, she’s a beauty beyond the measure of mortal minds. There’s something of the gods in her, or I’m a Greek.’

‘And can she be seen from the lower city, my lord?’

‘Go to where the outer wall meets the western wall of Pergamos and you’ll see her. If you ask me, I think she makes sure she can be seen: to remind us of what we’re fighting for – something much greater than mere wealth or power.’

‘He’s loved her since the first day he saw her,’ the other soldier explained to Odysseus. ‘If you go there, you’ll understand why.’

‘But don’t get too close,’ added the first. ‘If she catches a whiff of your perfume, old man, she’ll be back inside faster than a rabbit in its hole.’

The men laughed and walked up to the gate, rapping loudly on the panels and calling for entry. Before the doors could be opened, Odysseus was back on his feet and walking as quick as his feigned stoop would allow. He passed the tower with its row of idols and followed the curve of the walls beyond. The thought of Helen had filled his fertile mind with the germ of an idea, an idea that had saved the lives of the two Trojans. It powered him along until he saw the crenellated lip of the city wall rising to meet the battlements of Pergamos ahead of him. Already the light was fading on the streets, as the sun slid towards the ocean and was lost behind the two-storeyed houses and the high fortifications. Then the walls of the citadel bent sharply to the north-west and converged in a dark triangle with the defences of the lower city. Here Odysseus sat down with his back to a small house, looking up at the dark, saw-toothed outline of the ramparts where he hoped to see Helen.

As the clear sky slowly began to turn to a darker blue, Odysseus noticed others gathering around him. Three women in black were the first, their lined and ageing faces stern and silent as they stood together by the corner of the small house. They were followed by the angry stumping of a crutch on the cobbled street as another beggar – his left leg missing below the knee and his right eye an empty pit – entered the sombre triangle. A young mother was next, holding a small infant in the folds of her widow’s robes, and behind her were three Mysian warriors, their young eyes fixed hopefully on the parapet above. A few more arrived, until at last a score of people were waiting in the shade, all of them, in one way or another, victims of Helen’s beauty. Then, as one, the small crowd fell still and stared up at the walls. Odysseus followed their collective gaze and felt his own heart suddenly beating faster. Helen had come.

It was as if a final beam of the sun’s radiance had alighted on the grey stone of the battlements. She wore no black to symbolise the mourning in her heart, but was instead dressed in a white chiton and robe that blushed pink in the dying daylight. Her sad and lovely face, chin raised, stared out at the sunset beyond the city walls, pained by memories of things that had passed. Like a goddess among mortals, she seemed aloof to the dark, shuffling figures below. And that was how it should be, Odysseus thought: she was too beautiful, too perfect, to be soiled with the misery and torment of a sinful universe. Its filth could not stick to her nor weigh her down, and though the widows, the maimed and the awestruck looked up at her in demanding silence, even they must surely know she was not of their world.

And yet she had offered herself to Odysseus when he had been a young suitor in Sparta twenty years before, promising to marry him if he would help her escape the claustrophobic life of her father’s court. By then he had already fallen in love with Penelope, but the memory of Helen’s submission gave him the courage to stand and shuffle forward. Ignoring the shocked whispers of the onlookers, he raised his face to the battlements and called out in the Trojan tongue.

‘What is it you look for in the setting sun, my lady?’

Helen turned to face him and the whisperers on either side fell quiet. Her blue eyes fixed momentarily on the ragged, filthy creature that had dared call out to her, then with the slightest narrowing of disgust turned back to the horizon.

‘Perhaps a winged horse to carry you away from this prison? Or maybe your own death, so your spirit can follow Paris’s and share with him in the forgetfulness of Hades?’

‘How dare you!’ Helen replied, seizing the edge of the wall and staring down at him. ‘How dare you foul my husband’s name with your rank breath?’

‘He ain’t your husband no more,’ cackled one of the widows.

The others joined her laughter, suddenly released from the spell of Helen’s beauty and delighting in her discomfort. One of the Mysians ordered them to be silent, while on the battlements the sound of sandals on the stonework announced the hurried arrival of a guard. Odysseus immediately recognised one of the soldiers he had spoken to by the gate to Pergamos.

‘My breath may indeed be rank, mistress,’ he continued, ‘but it can barely make worse the name of a wife-stealer and family breaker. Such a man deserved to die!’

Unused to facing effrontery, Helen’s face fell blank and she stepped away from the parapet in confusion. Eager to win her favour – a word or even a glance – the guard rushed forward in her defence.

‘Silence, you insolent … By all the gods, it’s you!’

‘I’m here, like you told me,’ came Odysseus’s jaunty reply. ‘And she’s just as beautiful as you said.’

The guard’s mouth fell open in confusion for a brief moment, then snapping shut he pointed at the three Mysians and ordered them to seize hold of the beggar.

‘Take him to the guard house. We’ll soon teach him to hold his tongue before a lady.’

He turned to Helen, hoping for some recognition or approval. She was too shocked to even notice him, and with her hand on her chest was trying to steady her breathing. Below them, the Mysians were struggling to contain the beggar’s surprising strength.

‘You can teach me whatever you like,’ Odysseus shouted out, this time risking Greek. ‘But the lady might want to hear my news, first. Of Aethiolas, Maraphius and Hermione.’

One of the Mysians drew his sword and raised the pommel above Odysseus’s head, but before he could strike a command rang out from the walls.

‘Leave him alone!’

The three men released the beggar at once and stepped back as if burned. Odysseus looked up to see Helen leaning stiffly on the parapet, her eyes staring fiercely at him. He met her gaze and held it, knowing the mention of her children – whom she had last seen twenty years ago in Sparta – could not have failed to gain her attention. Then he saw the faintest twinge of recognition cross her features and lowered his face to the ground. He turned away, as if eager to make his escape.

‘Stay where you are!’ she called.

The Mysians blocked his path and he looked back over his shoulder to see Helen giving instructions to the guard on the walls. The man frowned in consternation, then turned and ran to the nearest steps. Helen followed him, pausing briefly to throw one last glance at the mysterious beggar before disappearing from sight.

The score of onlookers now surrounded Odysseus, a few of them angry but most of them intrigued as they stared at the bedraggled creature who had somehow won Helen’s interest, where their own presences had never so much as received a look. Then they moved aside as orders were barked out and the guard from the walls appeared, accompanied by two others.

‘What was that you said to her?’ the guard snapped. ‘Greek, was it? A spy, are you?’

‘Just a traveller, nothing more.’

‘Whatever you are, and whatever you said, you’ve gained her attention. She wants to see you at once.’

He signalled to his companions, who reluctantly seized the stinking beggar by his elbows and pulled him along between them. They passed through the gate and the cool, echoing archway into Pergamos, where Helen was waiting at the foot of the ramp that led to the upper tiers of the citadel. Despite his foul stench as the guards brought Odysseus before her, she remained where she was and regarded him with suspicious eyes.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, in Greek so that the others would not understand their conversation.

Odysseus caught the smell of wine on her breath, though there were no other signs to tell him she had been drinking.

‘A sailor, my lady, fallen on hard times.’

‘A beggar, cursed by the gods it seems. How do you know the names of my children? Did Pleisthenes tell you?’

‘I’ve never met your youngest son, though I know you brought him with you when Paris abducted you.’

‘He did not abduct me. I came here willingly.’

‘Though not without sacrifice, leaving behind your daughter and other sons whom Menelaus had taken with him to Crete.’

Helen’s eyes narrowed again, subtly changing the emphasis of her beauty.

‘Not many would know that. Perhaps there’s more to you than rags and a terrible smell. Perhaps you’re a god in disguise – such things happen, or so my old nursemaid used to say. At the very least you’re a Greek.’

‘I’m no god, my lady, but I am a Greek – once an Athenian merchant from Piraeus. And for a meal and a sup of wine I can tell you about the children you left behind. They still long for their mother, or so I’ve heard.’

Odysseus saw the look of longing enter her expression and was glad that he would not need to lie to her. Menelaus sent ships back to Sparta every two years for replacements, and when they returned the first thing he would ask about was news of Aethiolas, Maraphius and Hermione, news which he would then share with the other kings to show his pride in his children – and assuage some of his guilt for not being present as they grew up. Something of that same guilt was in Helen’s eyes as she looked at Odysseus now.

‘Then they’re still alive,’ she said, as if to herself. Suddenly, Odysseus was aware of her eyes on his again, though this time there was a new intensity to them as they searched his face. ‘Thank you, friend. I agree to your offer – a meal and wine in exchange for everything you know about my children – especially Hermione. But not before the filth has been washed from your body and you’re clothed in a fresh tunic and cloak.

‘Guards,’ she said, talking to them in their own tongue as she turned to go, ‘take this man to the palace and tell my maids to bathe him.’

‘That’s not necessary, my lady,’ Odysseus protested, reluctant to give up his disguise. ‘Food and wine will do for me.’

‘Nonsense,’ she replied, looking back over her shoulder. ‘They bathe in Athens, don’t they? And Ithaca, too, by all accounts.’

Chapter Twenty-nine

TEMPTATIONS OF THE FLESH

Odysseus closed his eyes and laid his head back against the rim of the bath, enjoying the feel of the warm water covering his naked body. He had not had a proper bath in ten years, and never to this degree of luxury. His bath on Ithaca had been in a high-sided ceramic trough, just long enough to sit in with his legs outstretched; the one in Helen’s quarters was a large oval tub set in the floor at the centre of the room, decorated with murals of dolphins, shells and other marine creatures bordered by wavy lines that represented the sea. The strong smells of manure, urine and sweat had been replaced by the subtle perfumes that Helen’s maids had added to the steaming water, and as he filled his nostrils with their aroma he could almost forget that he was lying undisguised and unarmed in the heart of Priam’s citadel. Naturally, though, his busy mind would not allow him to forget his present danger, for not only had he been deprived of his beggar’s mask but the astute Helen had also guessed his true identity. The thought had plagued him all the way to the palace, and had he not been escorted by three armed guards he might have taken the opportunity to escape. And yet Helen had not given him away at the very time when he was most vulnerable, and the more he pondered this the more he believed she would not surrender him to his enemies – at least, not until she had had her chance to talk with him first.

And so he had allowed her reluctant maids to undress him and bathe him, pouring water over his head and shoulders until the heat drove the weariness from his limbs and he began to feel more at ease. In a short while, they would return with olive oil to rub into his skin and hair, and fresh clothes so that he would be in a fit state to be presented to their mistress. Then, of course, he would have to make an explanation of his presence in Troy and hope Helen would not give him up to the guards, who would certainly be close at hand. But he doubted the gods had placed him at Helen’s mercy just so he could be surrendered to Priam. Rather, he thought, they were giving him an opportunity.

The door opened behind him, announcing the return of the maids. Instead of the hurried scuff of three or four pairs of sandalled feet, though, he heard only a single pair of bare feet walking softly and slowly across the stone floor.

‘How many years since we last met, Odysseus?’

Odysseus’s eyes snapped open to see Helen standing at the opposite end of the bath. She was dressed in a white chiton of a thin, revealing material, through which the points of her nipples were clearly visible. Her black hair was no longer pinned behind her head, but hung down over her shoulders so that her pale face was framed in a perfect oval. Her cheeks were touched with pink and her full lips were red; not due to any false colouration, but rather because of the empty krater that dangled from her fingertips. Her large blue eyes were heavily lidded and looked lazily down at Odysseus’s nakedness. The maids had left a stool close to the edge of the bath, which Helen hooked with her toes and drew closer. She dropped onto it with a heavy motion, letting the krater roll from her fingers onto the floor beside her, and leaned her elbows onto her knees.

‘Must be twenty years,’ he answered.

‘And now here you are, in my bath. My maids treated you well?’

Odysseus nodded.

‘I’m sure they didn’t enjoy it,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Not with those rags and that awful smell. Couldn’t you have picked a better disguise to come spying on us in?’

‘It worked well enough, though I admit I didn’t expect to find myself in your bathroom.’

‘But here you are, completely at my mercy.’ The smile left her lips and her eyes grew dark. ‘You realise I could call the guards at any moment and have you dragged before Priam? Or have you forgotten that we are enemies, Odysseus? I’m a Trojan princess, married to the heir to the throne! It’s my duty to have you arrested, and my pleasure to watch you executed.’

‘Your duty, yes, but not your pleasure, I think. Else why didn’t you reveal who I was by the gates, when I was surrounded by armed soldiers? And why are you here with me, alone? Isn’t it the truth that you don’t consider yourself a Trojan at all – no more than those widows below the battlements think of you as one of them – and since the death of Paris you have no reason to want to stay here?’

‘Whether I want to stay here or not isn’t my decision, as well you know,’ she replied sternly. Then she sighed and brushed away the locks of hair that had fallen across her face. ‘But you’re right: if I’d intended to give you up I would have done so by now. And I may yet, but not until you’ve told me about my children. I hope that wasn’t just another of your lies to gain entry to the palace.’

‘If it was, what’s to stop me making up more lies to keep you happy?’

She smiled and shrugged lazily. ‘Nothing, I suppose, but if you must lie make it good and make it convincing. I’ve thought about them every day for the last ten years, and more so since Paris died. I often wonder what they look like now, or whether they’re married and have children. By Aphrodite, Odysseus, I could be a grandmother!’

They laughed together at the thought of it, and while the smile was still on her face Odysseus began to tell her all he knew about her children. When he had finished Helen did not press him with questions as he had expected, but fell silent for a while and looked down at her painted toenails.

‘And what about you, Odysseus? Why did you risk your life to enter Troy? Have the Greeks accepted they’ll never conquer our walls and sent you to kidnap me instead?’

‘That would be a hopeless task, Helen. Getting into Troy alone is one thing, but to take you against your will and try to leave again would be impossible.’

‘And if I was willing?’ she teased.

There was a pause as their eyes met, then Odysseus gave a dismissive shake of his head.

‘Even if you were, you’re too beautiful by far to smuggle out of the Scaean Gate without being noticed.’

‘Then why are you here?’

Odysseus looked at her again, his eyes questioning and firm.

‘If I told you that, and you betrayed me, it would be a mortal blow to our hopes of conquering Troy.’

‘I won’t betray your mission to anyone, Odysseus. You have my solemn oath, as Aphrodite is my witness.’

‘Then I’ve come to steal the Palladium.’

‘The Palladium?’ Helen gave a short, incredulous laugh, but when she saw that Odysseus was serious the smile fell from her lips and she leaned her elbows on her knees again. ‘You really want to steal the Palladium? There’re too many guards for a single warrior to overcome – and you haven’t even brought a sword.’

‘I’ll find one.’

‘But why risk everything for a lump of wood? Is it because of that old myth?’ She shook her head. ‘Even if you did manage to take the Palladium and escape with your life, the walls wouldn’t just come tumbling down, you know.’

‘No they wouldn’t. And yet Agamemnon has ordered me to steal it, so you can either give me some clothes and send me on my way, or you can break your oath and call the guard. Which will it be?’

He rose to his feet, letting the water stream down his heavy bulk. Helen stood, too, and raised a hand towards him.

‘Wait a moment,’ she said. ‘You can’t just charge through the palace naked and unarmed. Sit down and let’s give this some thought. Maybe I can help you.’

Odysseus eased himself back into the water.

‘Why would you help me, Helen? If the Greeks are victorious, you’ll just be returned to Menelaus and dragged back home to Sparta, to be detested until the end of your days for bringing about a war that has killed thousands.’

‘Can Menelaus be any worse than Deiphobus, who forced me to marry him after Paris was killed? Can anyone who isn’t Paris bring me the joy and happiness he did? And can Sparta be any worse a prison than Troy is? For that’s all I am now, Odysseus – a prisoner, kept here against my will while men continue to die in their thousands for my sake. I’d rather be reunited with Menelaus than remain stuck inside these walls. At least he was always kind to me when we were together, which is more than I will say for Deiphobus. Besides, if I returned to Sparta I would see my children again. I know it was my choice to leave them, but I’m not the person I was then. I’ve suffered just as much as any warrior on the plains of Troy, and all I want now is for the war to end – whoever wins. Do you understand?’

She sat back down on the stool, her cheeks flushed with a mixture of wine and anger. But if the wine had released her emotions, it was the anger that drove her on now. She jabbed a finger accusingly at Odysseus.

‘You have to take me with you, Odysseus. Forget the damned Palladium; the walls of Troy won’t need to be conquered if the Greeks have me. Take me back to Menelaus and the war will end. All I ask is a little time to fetch Pleisthenes –’

‘I’ll never be able to get you and your son out of Troy.’

‘I won’t abandon another child, Odysseus,’ she snapped. ‘And think about it: if you take us back to Menelaus, then the fighting will be over and you can return to Ithaca. Surely you want to see Penelope again?’

‘There’s nothing I want more,’ he answered, ‘but this isn’t the way to do it. Even if Pleisthenes agrees to come, you’ll be too much of a burden – escape would be impossible. And haven’t you realised yet, Helen? This war isn’t about you any more. It stopped being about you the moment Agamemnon had brought the Greek kings under his command and set sail for Ilium. You’re just the figurehead, something for Agamemnon to point at while he ensures the destruction of the greatest obstacle to his own power. If you return to Menelaus the war would still go on – only Agamemnon would probably have you assassinated and blame it on the Trojans, turning the war from a matter of honour to a matter of revenge.’

‘So you won’t help me?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Not for anything?’

She stood and unfastened the brooch at her shoulder. The chiton slipped down to her feet and she stepped free of it, brushing it aside with her toes. Odysseus swallowed and raised himself onto his elbows, transfixed by the sight of Helen’s naked body. Her oiled skin was a matchless white, broken only by the pink ovals of her nipples and the black triangle of her pubic hair. Then, before he could even think to force his gaze away, she crouched down and slid into the bath. For an agonising moment her nakedness was lost below the water, then she moved towards him and pressed her body against his.

‘I’ll give myself to you, Odysseus,’ she whispered, her face so close he could smell the wine on her breath. ‘Promise to take me away from here and I’ll be yours, right now. Deiphobus is at a feast to honour the visit of King Anchises, Aeneas’s father, from Dardanus; we won’t be disturbed.’

‘No,’ he said, turning his face away.

Helen kissed his cheek and slid her fingers into his hair. The soft weight of her chest pressed down on his and he wavered, looking into her eyes and seeing the promise that was in them. The blood was in her lips and cheeks and he could feel the hardness of her nipples, craving for his touch. The wine in her veins and the grief in her heart had filled her with a reckless desire that cared nothing for what might happen if they were discovered. And her passion was infectious, spreading through the heat of her naked skin into Odysseus so that his arms slipped around her and trapped her body against his. He had not felt the touch of a woman since leaving Ithaca; now, suddenly, the long years of loneliness and need rose up like a great wave that threatened to sweep him away. But as his eyes looked into hers another instinct – deeper than his lust – told him the woman in his arms was not his woman. He seized her by the waist and pushed her away.

‘No!’ he repeated, more firmly this time. ‘I will not betray Penelope.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ she replied hotly, rising to her feet so that the water streamed from her shoulders and breasts. ‘You want me, I can feel it. And I want you!’

‘You don’t want me, Helen. All you want is for someone to make love to you and help you forget your own misery.’

‘And what of it? Don’t you have the same need? You haven’t seen Penelope in ten years – and surely you haven’t been faithful to her in all that time? Even if you have, what does it matter anyway? Take me now, Odysseus, while you still have the chance – or deny your instincts and continue in the vain, pathetic hope you might one day be reunited with your wife! Can you risk more years without a lover’s touch – a touch that for all your faithfulness you might never know again?’

Odysseus thought of the oracle he had been given under Mount Parnassus, which had solemnly announced that if he went to Troy he would not see his home again for twenty years. One decade had already passed; could he bear to wait another? And then he remembered the old oracles that had said the war would end in the tenth year, and the new ones that promised Troy would fall if the Palladium could be stolen from the city. No, he insisted to himself, he would bring the war to a finish and sail back to his wife – and the pleasure of a few moments would not mar that homecoming for him. He pulled himself up onto the edge of the bath.

‘I’m sorry, Helen. You’re not in your right mind, and even if you were I could never become your lover. Nor can I help you escape from Troy – with or without Pleisthenes.’

Her eyes were ablaze now.

‘If you refuse to help me get out then I’ll make sure you share my imprisonment. All it would take is a single scream.’

Odysseus swung his legs out of the water and stood. A stack of folded towels waited on a nearby stool; he took one and began drying himself.

‘Then call the guard.’

She glared at him from the bath, provoked to rage by his rejection and tempted to accept his challenge. Then she lowered her face into her hands and sobbed. Odysseus stopped rubbing his hair and looked on helplessly for a moment, before throwing the towel about his waist and kneeling at the water’s edge.

‘Here,’ he said, offering her his hand.

‘I have to be free of these walls, Odysseus,’ she replied, keeping her face in her hands. ‘I don’t care if Agamemnon and Priam want to keep on fighting. I just want to get out, get away; be anywhere but here.’

He took her hands in his and slowly drew them back. The unconquerable walls of Helen’s beauty had fallen to expose the red eyes and damp cheeks of a broken human being – the same frightened young girl he had occasionally glimpsed in the great hall at Sparta, during the feasts held in her honour so many years before.

‘I can’t take you with me,’ he said, ‘but I can give you hope. The end of the war is in sight. There’s a new oracle that says Troy will fall this year if the Palladium can be taken from the temple of Athena. Diomedes is by the banks of the Simöeis, waiting for me to lower a rope to him. Together we will fulfil the oracle and seal Troy’s doom, and if you want an end to your imprisonment, Helen, then you have to help us.’

She looked at him and smiled, the power of her beauty returning like the light of the sun that has been briefly concealed behind a cloud.

‘I’ll help,’ she said with a sniff. ‘I can take you to the place where the walls are easiest to climb. There are still guards, but I can distract them while you signal to Diomedes. Even then you’ll be hard pressed to enter the temple and escape with the Palladium alive.’

‘It’s a risk we’ll have to take.’

Helen moved to the edge of the bath and Odysseus helped her out. She quickly covered her nakedness with one of the towels, then turned to him with a strange expression on her face.

‘There are other ways I can help you,’ she said. ‘My sister, Clytaemnestra, taught me how to make sleeping draughts when we were children. It’s a skill I’ve found use for here in Troy – to sooth Paris when he struggled to sleep, and also for Deiphobus on the nights when I can’t bear his touch. I can have my maids take a skin of wine for the guards at the temple, if you wish.’ She met Odysseus’s grin with a smile of her own. ‘And there’s something else – someone who can help you if you’re forced to fight your way out.’

‘Who?’

‘A captured Greek – a nobleman, from the rumours my maids have heard. It’s curious, and I don’t know whether it’s true, but they say he’s being held in Apheidas’s own house rather than the usual rooms in the barracks, so it’ll be much easier to get him out – ’

‘Eperitus!’ Odysseus exclaimed, suddenly filled with excitement. ‘It’s Eperitus! By all the gods, I knew he wasn’t dead. Fetch me some clothes, Helen – I have to get to Apheidas’s house now.’

Helen reached across and took his hand.

‘Diomedes first,’ she said, then turned and called for her maids.

Chapter Thirty

UNEXPECTED HELP

The streets of Pergamos were cloaked in thick darkness as Helen led Odysseus towards the battlements. The flames of their torch left an orange glow on the walls of the buildings they passed, but at that time of night there was no-one to see them as they slipped out of a servants’ side entrance and between the narrow thoroughfares of the citadel. The greatest danger was from the guards patrolling the parapet, but Helen had sent two of her maids to keep them distracted while she and Odysseus signalled to Diomedes.

‘Any Greek soldier who deserted his duties for the sake of a woman would be flogged,’ Odysseus commented as they waited in the shadows of a house, looking up at the ramparts. ‘I don’t expect it’s any different for Trojans.’

Helen raised a dismissive eyebrow at him before returning her gaze to the stone steps that led up to the walls.

‘I hand-picked my servants for their beauty and sexual charm, and there isn’t a soldier alive who could resist their advances. You’ve seen them, Odysseus, you know I’m right.’

Odysseus recalled the girls who had undressed him and washed him clean, and even though their faces had been screwed up into expressions of severe disapproval there could be no denying their beauty.

‘So what are we waiting for?’

‘No harm in being certain,’ Helen replied.

After she had waited a short while longer – long enough to be sure the guards’ regular tours of the battlements had been disrupted – she moved to the steps as swiftly as her long chiton would allow and ascended. Odysseus followed. His Trojan tunic hugged his knees and restricted his movement on the steps, but it was soft, warm and clean and a thousand times better than the beggar’s rags he had thrown onto the hearth in Helen’s house. Soon he was beside her on the wide walkway, looking beyond the parapet to the pale line of the Simöeis, lit by the sliver of moon above. The meandering ribbon of grey was interrupted in places where the banks were higher, or where clumps of trees or shrubs rose up from the river’s edge.

‘The walls are easier to climb here,’ Helen said. ‘The rock that Pergamos was built on rises up from the plain and makes the drop shorter. More importantly, when you make your escape you can’t risk leaving a rope tied around the battlements. If the guards find it they’ll be alerted to your presence and will raise the alarm, and as soon as they realise the Palladium has gone they’ll send out cavalry patrols to block your escape across the fords of the Scamander.’

Odysseus had not thought that far ahead, but did not admit as much to Helen.

‘So are you suggesting we jump?’

Helen pointed to an alcove in the walls. A deeper darkness indicated a gap in the floor and from the smell that drifted up from it Odysseus guessed it was a latrine.

‘There’s a rock shelf a short way below that hole. It isn’t pleasant, but you can drop down to it without too much danger and nobody will even realise you were here. Until morning, that is.’

Odysseus grimaced slightly and nodded. Then he gave the torch to Helen and, with a glance either side of him along the empty walkways, began to unwind the rope tied around his waist.

‘I told Diomedes to look out for a light waved five times, left to right, from the battlements.’

As he looped one end of the rope about his back and shoulders and tossed the other to the rocks below, Helen leaned over the ramparts and, stretching as low as she could reach, swung the torch in a wide arc five times. After several long, nervous moments they heard a hissed warning from below, followed by a tug on the rope. Odysseus quickly braced himself against Diomedes’s weight and before long the Argive king was clambering through a gap in the crenellated walls.

‘You smell a lot better,’ he greeted Odysseus. ‘Where’d you get the clothes from?’

Then he noticed Helen and nearly fell back through the gap by which he had just arrived.

‘My lady,’ he said, recovering with a low bow. ‘But how –?’

‘Odysseus can tell you later,’ Helen said. ‘Have you brought weapons?’

Diomedes, who had loved Helen ever since he had been among her suitors at Sparta in their youth, could barely take his eyes from her as he pulled aside his cloak and revealed the two blades tucked into his belt. He drew one and handed it to Odysseus.

‘You’re here to help us?’

‘Of course she is,’ Odysseus answered.

Diomedes turned to him. ‘Then if we can persuade her to leave with us now, we could put an end to the war!’

‘Odysseus and I have already discussed that,’ Helen explained, with a slightly embarrassed glance at the king of Ithaca, ‘but I refused to leave without Pleisthenes.’

‘There are other complications, too,’ Odysseus added, ‘but Helen is ready to shorten the war by at least helping us steal the Palladium.’

‘Then let’s find this temple of Athena,’ Diomedes said, turning back to Helen, ‘so you won’t have to wait any longer than necessary, my lady.’

Diomedes moved to the top of the steps, but Odysseus placed an arresting hand on his upper arm.

‘There’s something we have to do first. Eperitus is being held prisoner here in the citadel. We release him first and then we take the effigy.’

Diomedes looked at him with surprise, then seeing the determination in his friend’s eyes gave a silent nod.

‘Good,’ Odysseus said.

He wound the rope around his waist again, took the torch and led the way back down the steps, entering the dark streets once more. They had not gone far when they saw two figures silhouetted against the end of a short thoroughfare. Odysseus and Diomedes raised their swords, ready to defend themselves.

‘Don’t be concerned,’ Helen said, stepping out ahead of them and lowering their blades. ‘I sent one of my maids to fetch a servant girl from Apheidas’s house. I’ve heard it said she’s befriended the Greek prisoner, so if the rumours are true and the prisoner is Eperitus then she’ll help you find him.’

‘And if she refuses?’

‘Then you will have to kill her,’ Helen replied.

The two figures entered the circle of light cast by the torch. Odysseus’s gaze widened at the sight of Astynome, who stared back at him with equal surprise.

‘Odysseus!’

She moved towards him with a smile, then stopped as she remembered the circumstances under which they had last met. Her eyes fell to the ground.

‘Is he still alive?’ the king asked.

‘Yes,’ Astynome answered, her happiness unmistakeable. ‘He was badly wounded in the battle, but I’ve nursed him back to health. He has remarkable powers of recovery.’

‘And have you spoken with him? About the temple of Thymbrean Apollo – your betrayal?’

Astynome’s gaze fell again. ‘A little. I believe he has forgiven me.’

‘Then I forgive you, too,’ Odysseus said.

He stepped forward and folded her into his chest, holding her gently despite the immense power in his arms.

‘Astynome will be your guide now,’ Helen announced, looking from the girl to Diomedes and finally to Odysseus, ‘but I must return to the palace before I’m missed. Perhaps we will meet again, Odysseus, at the war’s end, when the flames of destruction are blowing through this fair city. And if we do, I pray you will remember my kindness to you this evening – and make sure Menelaus knows of it. I fear how he will react when he sees me again, after all that’s passed between us. But until then, may the gods go with you.’

She took the torch from his hand and retreated back up the narrow street, closely followed by her maid. Odysseus and Diomedes watched her until she disappeared behind the corner of a large house, then turned to look at Astynome.

‘Eperitus is locked in a storeroom in his father’s house,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I can show you the way, but two of Apheidas’s men have been posted at the door to make sure he doesn’t escape.’

Diomedes gave her a dark grin.

‘Oh, I think we can deal with them.’

Eperitus’s arms were numb from lack of movement and he could no longer feel any sensation at all in his buttocks. The hard chair had done for them a long time ago. His senses, too, had been suffocated by the constant darkness, the cool, stagnant air and the smell of barley from the sacks piled in the corner. Time had passed at such a crawl in this unconscious void that he felt a day or more at least had elapsed since his father’s ultimatum, though by the fact Apheidas had not yet come to hear his decision must mean that it was not even the morning of the next day. Indeed, if he were left there any longer – with nothing more than the faint glow of a torch lining the bottom of the door and the occasional mutterings of the guards outside – he was certain he would go insane.

But that would not happen. Inevitably, his father would return and he would be given the choice between instant death or a worthless life lived in dishonour and ignominy. Even these grim options, though, seemed unimportant compared to the consequences of his decision for those whom he cared about. For Odysseus, it meant a swift return home to his wife and the son he had barely known, or many more years on the shores of Ilium, held by an oath that could never be fulfilled. For Astynome, it could mean being sent to Agamemnon as a gift, to become his plaything. And whatever his choice, Apheidas would strike his deal with the King of Men and declare himself the new ruler of Troy.

With nothing else to distract him, the same arguments passed through his mind again and again, following a monotonous loop that he could not convert to a decision. For though his logic told him he had no choice but to agree to his father’s proposal, his deeply rooted hatred for the man and his stubborn desire not to dishonour himself refused to acquiesce. It was a nightmare from which he could see no escape.

Then a twitching in his senses told him something had changed. He looked down at the flickering thread of gold beneath the door and somehow knew the guards outside were no longer alone. Had morning arrived at last? he wondered. Had his father come for his decision? If so, the guards seemed unconscious of his presence: there were no slight sounds of sudden alertness, just the continued heavy breathing and occasional scratching of one, mingled with the light snores of the other. Was it Clymene again? She had already changed his bandages, shortly after he had been brought back from the garden. Maybe Astynome? The thought delighted him, but his delight turned quickly to fear as he realised she might have come to fulfil her final promise to him, desperately thinking she could overcome the guards herself.

As tension gripped him, there was an abrupt clatter of noise beyond the door of his prison. One of the guards – who must have been sitting – jumped up with a metallic clang of armour and spoke in a sharp tone. His words became suddenly fearful and were cut off by a grunt and a bloody gurgle, followed by the thump of a body hitting the floor. A muffled groan indicated the last waking moment of the other guard. In the silence that was left, Eperitus’s keen hearing could discern laboured breathing and small, hurried movements. Then the heavy wooden bar was removed from the other side of the door and Eperitus sat up with wary expectancy.

The door swung inwards and rebounded from the jamb, only to be knocked back again by the shoulder of a heavily built man as he burst into the room. He was followed by a second figure, both armed as they stood silhouetted by the shock of bright torchlight from the corridor beyond.

‘Who’s that?’ Eperitus called in the Trojan tongue.

‘Eperitus!’

‘Odysseus?’

‘Not just Odysseus,’ Diomedes added, stepping over and cautiously slicing through Eperitus’s bonds with his dagger. ‘And Astynome’s with us, too, keeping watch at the far end of the corridor.’

The flax cords fell away and Eperitus stood. The next moment he was in a heap on the floor.

‘Steady,’ said Odysseus, hauling him back to his feet. ‘How long have you been tied to that chair?’

‘Longer than I can remember.’

‘And your wound?’

‘More or less healed,’ Eperitus replied. He looked into the king’s eyes, then broke into a smile and embraced him. ‘Zeus’s beard, you’re the last person I expected to see. And Diomedes, too! How did you get into Troy?’

‘It’s a long tale, and one we’ll give in full when we’ve got you safely back to the Greek camp.’

‘So you came here to save me?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Diomedes scoffed, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘We’re here to steal the Palladium and you’re going to help us. Try leaning on this.’

He handed him one of the dead guards’ spears. Eperitus moved his legs, felt some of the life come back into them, and attempted to stand. Odysseus caught him again, while Diomedes knelt down and began vigorously rubbing his calves and thighs to restore the flow of blood, though he was careful to avoid the bandaged wound.

‘Everyone had taken you for dead after the battle,’ Odysseus said, ‘but not me. And when I heard you were being held prisoner here, I insisted on rescuing you before stealing the Palladium.’

‘Try again,’ Diomedes instructed, rising to his feet.

This time, with the help of the spear, he found his legs had the strength to stand once more. He took a couple of tentative steps towards the door and came face-to-face with Astynome. Without a moment’s hesitation she threw her arms about him, almost knocking him back to the floor. Odysseus and Diomedes quickly busied themselves dragging the bodies of the guards into the storeroom, while Astynome drew back and looked into Eperitus’s eyes. The doubt in her dark, attractive features was clear to see.

‘Say you forgive me,’ she whispered.

For an instant he remembered again Apheidas’s cruel revelation at the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, that the woman he had fallen in love with had been sent to lure him into a trap – a trap that had resulted in the death of his friend, Arceisius. Then he recalled the look of remorse on Astynome’s face as Apheidas dragged her away at knifepoint, and her confession that her love for him was genuine. And he knew, despite her treachery, that she had spoken the truth.

‘There’s nothing to forgive. Apheidas is manipulative and evil; we’re both his victims.’

‘In Zeus’s name, will you just say you forgive me?’

‘I forgive you. Of course I forgive you. And now you have to come back with me to the camp.’

Astynome kissed him and shook her head as she withdrew.

‘Impossible. You know what’ll happen if Agamemnon discovers me. Besides, I’ll only burden your escape from Troy.’

‘We can deceive Agamemnon and I can carry you back to the camp, if I need to.’

‘Not on those legs you won’t. Anyway, I’ll be more use to you inside Troy. Odysseus has already asked me to do something for him.’

Eperitus narrowed his eyes and looked across at the king, who was dragging the second guard’s body into a gap behind the sacks of barley in the far corner of the room.

‘What?’

‘I can’t say I really understand it, but even if I did I couldn’t tell you. He’s sworn me to secrecy.’

‘Time to go,’ Diomedes announced, standing in the doorway with a torch in his hand. ‘The night’s old already and we’ve still to find the temple of Athena.’

‘I’ve already told Odysseus the quickest way there,’ Astynome said. ‘The difficulty will be in stealing the Palladium itself.’

‘And in that you can’t help us, Astynome,’ Odysseus said. ‘You have to get back to the servants’ quarters and hope you’ve not been missed. Eperitus, how are your legs?’

Eperitus could feel the strength returning and gave his friend a nod. He looked again at Astynome and kissed her on the lips.

‘When the city falls, wait for me here, in Apheidas’s house. I’ll come and find you.’

She nodded silently and watched him out of the storeroom, following Odysseus and Diomedes as quickly as his numb legs would carry him.

Chapter Thirty-one

THE PALLADIUM

Diomedes followed at Odysseus and Eperitus’s heels, staring in awe at the great mansions and temples of Pergamos. If the mighty walls of Troy were intended to impress visitors with her power and invulnerability, her inner buildings were built to astonish them with her wealth, piety and culture. The well-laid stones and the ornate architecture far exceeded anything the citadels of Argos, Sparta or even Mycenae could offer in competition, and Diomedes – like many before him – was being made to feel like a common barbarian as he stole through the empty streets.

Eperitus could still remember the wonder he had felt during his first visit to the city a decade before, though he no longer looked on the achievements of the Trojans with the same reverence. Now he saw Troy as nothing more than a hateful bastion that had to be conquered – razed to the ground, if necessary – so that he and his comrades could return to Greece. In that desire he had grown very similar to Odysseus, wanting only to see his homeland again. And now, having forgiven her treachery, he was determined to take Astynome with him. The thought of sharing a house on Ithaca with her pleased him greatly, and he had to force himself to stop smiling at his restored dreams and concentrate on the difficulties that lay ahead.

They turned a corner onto a wide stone road. At the eastern end a walled ramp climbed gradually up to the second tier of the citadel. It was flanked by tall poplar trees that were silhouetted black against the dark blue of the night sky, their branches sighing with the faint breeze.

‘Quiet now,’ Odysseus warned, turning and placing his finger against his lips. ‘The temple should be to the left at the top of the ramp.’

He slid his sword from his belt and advanced at a crouch, followed by the others. Reaching the corner of the last building before the ramp, he peered cautiously around the edge. Eperitus and Diomedes joined him. There were no guards on the ramp, and at Odysseus’s signal they dashed up to the second level and hid behind the wall at the top. A short way off was a stone plinth topped by a larger-than-life statue of Athena. By day, its brightly painted wood would catch the sunlight, impressing passers-by with a sense of the goddess’s divine glory; but in the tarry blackness of the night it was a dull, unimpressive grey, its only authority lying in the stern features of its face. Beyond the statue was a tall, square building, footed by broad steps that led up to a pillared portico. This was the imposing entrance to the goddess’s temple, and in the shadows before its high doors were the huddled figures of a dozen men.

‘Eperitus!’ Odysseus hissed. ‘Can you see if they’re moving?’

Eperitus strained his eyes against the darkness. The guards were lying in a variety of strange poses, like a collection of toy dolls that had been abandoned halfway through play. Some had managed to pull their cloaks about their shoulders before succumbing to sleep, while others just lay where they had fallen. Their spears and shields were still propped against the marble pillars of the portico and the only sound was the chorus of their mingled snores.

‘They’re asleep,’ he announced.

As if to prove the point, he rose to his full height and strolled boldly towards the temple. Taking the steps two at a time as the others watched, he walked through the circle of slumbering soldiers and turned to face his companions. It was then he noticed another detail: each guard held a cup, or had let one fall from his fingertips, and there were small stains of dark liquid where the wine had spilled on the flagged floor.

‘They’ve been drugged,’ he informed Odysseus and Diomedes as they climbed the steps to join him.

‘Of course they have,’ Odysseus said, glancing nonchalantly at the scattered men. ‘Helen’s maids did their work well. Perhaps too well – I only hope they don’t draw suspicion down on their mistress. Now, let’s do what we came here for.’

They pushed one of the doors open and slipped inside. The smell of dank stone and incense was laced with the reek of burning fat from a single torch that hung on a nearby pillar. It gave off a sinister hiss that was magnified by the enclosed space, but its failing light was little more than a ball of orange in the thick gloom and did nothing to illuminate the features of the temple, which remained lost among the shadows. Seeing two unused torches lying at the base of the pillar – ready for the priestess to light when she returned at dawn – Diomedes picked them up and held them to the dying flame. They caught quickly and he handed one to Eperitus.

The twin circles of pulsing light grew in strength, pushing the darkness back to reveal high, muralled walls – the pictures too faded and smoke-stained to be discernible among the shadows – and an inner square formed by twelve stone columns. Stepping between two of the pillars, the Greeks entered a broad, flagstoned space in the centre of the temple. From here the light of their torches fell on a gigantic but illusive silhouette against the rear wall, a figure half lost in shadow as it soared up to the ceiling. They stepped closer and saw it was another statue of Athena, but larger and more impressive than any they had ever seen before. Odysseus fell to his knees and bowed his head, while the others looked on in astonished silence. Like the one on the plinth before the temple, the figure was depicted wearing only a simple chiton; her familiar spear, helmet and aegis were absent, giving her a distinctly foreign, Trojan feel. Unlike the other figure, though, this one was seated on an equally oversized throne, and set between her feet was a dull black shape that seemed more like a shadow, somehow absorbing and deadening the effect of the torchlight.

‘Is that it?’ asked Diomedes.

Odysseus raised his head and fixed his eyes on the Palladium.

‘It must be.’

Diomedes advanced towards it with his torch raised at an angle before him. Odysseus followed, but Eperitus gripped his spear and stole a glance at the rear of the temple. His hackles were up and he had a sense of foreboding, but he could see or hear nothing in the darkness. Reluctantly, he turned and joined the others.

Eperitus had first heard a description of the Palladium from Antenor, the Trojan elder whose wife was the chief priestess of the temple. He had been their host before the war, when Eperitus had accompanied Odysseus and Menelaus on a peace embassy to seek the return of Helen. But even Antenor’s matter-of-fact account had overstated the dull ordinariness of the object they had come to steal. Had it not been placed on the plinth that supported the statue of Athena, it would have reached no higher than Eperitus’s thigh. As for form, as far as Eperitus could see it barely had any: there were two uneven bumps in the black wood that might have been breasts, while the lopsided knob on top could have optimistically passed as a head – devoid of neck and with nothing more than a misshapen nose for a facial feature. Two stumps on either side qualified as arms, and with no legs whatsoever its only support was the metal cradle on which it was sat.

‘It’s even less impressive than I’d expected,’ he commented.

‘And the Trojans think this came from the gods?’ Diomedes added. ‘Such fools deserve to lose the war.’

Odysseus undid the green cloak Helen had given him.

‘We’ll be the fools if they catch us talking here. Let’s take the thing and get back to the walls – this place is making me feel uneasy.’

He threw the cloak around the Palladium, as if afraid to touch it with his bare hands, and lifted it from its stand. With deft movements, he knotted the corners of the garment together and slung the parcel under his arm. Just then, Eperitus’s senses reacted to a presence. Whether a small sound or a new smell, he was not aware of the trigger that told him they were no longer alone, but he spun round with his spear held rigidly before him. The others turned in alarm, knowing Eperitus’s instincts were never wrong, and snatched out their swords.

‘How dare you desecrate this temple?’

It was a woman’s voice, speaking in the Trojan tongue, that broke the silence. Eperitus’s eyes picked out the diminutive figure of its owner in a corner of the vast chamber, dressed in the white robes of a priestess. She must have been sleeping in the temple, as many priestesses did, and been woken by their voices. Now she was approaching the three warriors with short, fearless steps that quickly brought her into the circle of light from their torches.

‘Don’t you know what that is? Put it back at once. At once!’

She was an old woman, but she had such confidence in the power of her own authority that she had not even thought to shout for the guards. Either that, or she was too shocked by their sacrilege to do anything other than follow her own outrage. She advanced again, pointing at the bag under Odysseus’s arm and spluttering angrily for him to give it to her. Then her eyes fell on his face and she stopped.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, narrowing her eyes. ‘I know your face. Who’s your commander?’

‘If I have a commander,’ Odysseus answered in her own language, ‘it’s Agamemnon, king of Mycenae.’

‘Greeks!’ the priestess exclaimed, throwing her hands up to her cheeks. ‘How did you …? By all the gods, I must call the guards.’

The point of Odysseus’s sword was at her throat in an instant.

‘You’ll say nothing, Theano. Yes, I know you and you know me. I am Odysseus, king of Ithaca. These are my comrades, Diomedes of Argos and Eperitus, captain of my guard. Eperitus and I were guests of your husband before the war started.’

‘Yes, I remember you now. You were welcome then, especially by Antenor, who has always loved the Greeks. For his sake, I would gladly let you return by whatever way you came into our sacred city, even giving you my sworn oath not to raise the alarm until you were far enough away. Though not with the effigy you have under your arm, Odysseus, not even under the threat of death. Athena is my mistress and the Palladium is sacred to her; if you try to take it I promise you my dying scream will awake the guards outside.’

‘The guards are all dead,’ Odysseus lied. ‘I have no wish that you should join them, but if you try to prevent me taking the Palladium I will not hesitate to cut open your throat. Am I clear? Now, promise me your silence while we escape and I’ll let you live. Make your choice, Theano.’

He raised the point of the blade a fraction so that it pressed against the soft flesh beneath the old woman’s chin, causing her to draw breath sharply. The next moment, the weapon fell from Odysseus’s hand with a loud clang and he stepped back, clutching his hand beneath his armpit and wincing with pain. Eperitus and Diomedes looked at him in confusion, then down at the sword on the flagstones. It was glowing red.

Something else had changed. Sensing danger, Eperitus stepped back and lowered the head of his spear towards the old woman. By now she was standing rigid with her shoulders pulled back and her fingers splayed at her sides. Bright, silvery light was spilling from her eyes and nostrils, filling Eperitus with terror and forcing him to retreat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Diomedes’s face, his eyes wide with disbelief and shock as he raised his sword over his head and made to bring it down on the priestess. Before the edged metal could touch her, it burst into flames and leapt from the Argive king’s hand to skitter across the floor in blazing circles.

Odysseus and Eperitus dropped their torches and fell back to the plinth where the great statue of Athena stood. Theano had stopped shaking now, but the light continued to pour from her eyes and nostrils so that the three men could only glance at her from behind their raised hands.

‘You know me, Odysseus,’ she said, light streaming from her mouth. But it was no longer the voice of Theano that spoke now. It was the goddess herself. ‘Have I ever failed you or betrayed your trust in me?’

Athena’s anger sent tremors through the floor beneath their feet, and led by Odysseus the warriors fell to their knees before her.

‘And is this how you repay my help? To steal the image of Pallas, my friend, in whose beloved memory it was created?’

Eperitus gave a sidelong glance at the king. Odysseus’s head was hung low, not daring to look at the goddess, but Eperitus could see the guilt and anguish written on his face.

‘I command you to return the statue to its rightful place. If you love and honour me – indeed, if you value my continued patronage and protection, Odysseus – you will do my bidding.’

Odysseus closed his eyes tightly and drew back his lips in an agony of indecision. But the effigy remained beneath his arm, wrapped in the cloak.

‘Answer me!’

‘I cannot, Mistress. I mean, I cannot return the Palladium.’

There was a moment of silence, filled only by the hiss and splutter of the torches. Then Athena spoke again, this time her voice calmer and more gentle.

‘Odysseus, my child. I have watched you and loved you all your life – few mortals have been as precious to me as you are. However, if you leave this temple with the effigy of my friend, that is an affront that I cannot permit to go unpunished. You know that.’

‘My orders come from Agamemnon, my lady, to fulfil an oracle given to us by Helenus. He said that Troy will not fall as long as the Palladium remains in the city.’

‘Curse your stubborn beard, Odysseus. Who do you put your faith in, Apollo or me? How often have prophecies given in his name sown trouble for Greeks and Trojans alike? But my path is wisdom; it is straight and even, and though narrow it leads a man ultimately to his goal. Will you abandon me now?’

‘If the oracle isn’t fulfilled, I might never return to Ithaca. I might never see Penelope or Telemachus again!’

‘You might and you might not, but if you insist on fulfilling this oracle then won’t all other oracles concerning you come true? Will you not doom yourself to a further ten years away from home and family, as the Pythoness predicted when you were a young man? What’s more, persist in this and not only will you lose my protection, Odysseus, you will also risk my wrath! And yet I cannot make your choice for you, so decide now and be damned.’

Theano’s eyes and mouth closed and the light was extinguished as swiftly as it had come, leaving them with only the dull glow of the struggling torches. A moment later, the priestess’s legs buckled and she slumped unconscious to the floor. Diomedes and Eperitus retrieved the torches they had dropped and turned to face Odysseus.

‘Was that –?’ Diomedes began.

‘Athena,’ Eperitus finished. He turned to Odysseus. ‘What are you going to do?’

The king raised his head wearily and looked at them with a tortured expression and eyes that were wracked with pain. He picked up his sword, which was now cold to the touch, and stood. Diomedes’s weapon was nearby and he kicked this over to the king of Argos.

‘I can’t bear the thought of this war going on any longer, so I’ve made my decision. We take the Palladium. And now we should go. We have a long journey back to the camp and the Trojans will be close on our trail as soon as they see their talisman is missing.’

‘First we must tie up Theano,’ Eperitus said. ‘If we don’t, she’ll raise the alarm the moment she wakes.’

With compunction – remembering the hospitality the priestess and her husband had shown them on their first visit to Troy – Odysseus and Eperitus tied her hands behind her back and gagged her, before hiding her still unconscious body behind the immense statue of Athena. As they laid her down, Eperitus caught Odysseus’s eye. He wanted to ask his friend whether they had done the right thing, to steal the Palladium in spite of Athena’s direct command that it should remain in the temple, but Odysseus saw the question coming and looked away, indicating it was not a matter he wished to discuss. He was not quick enough to disguise the doubt and regret written in his features, though, an expression Eperitus was not used to seeing on the king’s face.

Silently, they crossed the floor of the temple to where Diomedes was standing guard at the door. The Palladium was tucked under his arm and his sword was held tightly in his other hand.

‘Hurry up,’ he hissed anxiously. ‘Do you want to be caught?’

The guards were still fast asleep on the portico and they were able to make their way back to the city walls without hindrance. Then, as they climbed the steps and approached the stinking hole in the battlements through which they were to escape, they were met by a stern challenge.

‘What’s your business here at this time of night? Who are you?’

A figure came striding along the ramparts towards them, the faint starlight glinting off his scaled armour and the tip of his levelled spear. Realising that all the guard had to do was call out, Eperitus raised the point of his own weapon and charged. The Trojan sprang forward to meet him, punching the boss of his shield into Eperitus’s face and knocking him back against the parapet. Seeing Odysseus and Diomedes draw their swords, he ran on and thrust his spear into the Ithacan’s flank. Odysseus was torn sideways and fell to the flagstones. But before the guard could think to shout for help, Diomedes’s sword had sliced through his neck and sent his head over the battlements and into the darkness below.

Eperitus had regained his feet before the Trojan’s torso crumpled to the floor, and in a single bound was at Odysseus’s side. The king lay on his back, his eyes squeezed shut with pain. A dark, wet patch was spreading through the wool of his tunic, just below his ribs.

‘Odysseus? Odysseus!’

He opened his eyes.

‘It’s nothing. A flesh wound to the side, that’s all.’

Diomedes joined them and delicately peeled back the torn material to reveal a deep cut.

‘It’ll bleed a lot, but nothing worse than that. The gods are with you tonight, my friend.’

‘On the contrary,’ Odysseus replied, sitting up. ‘This is Athena’s way of telling me I’m on my own now. She’s not going to protect me any more.’

‘More work for me then,’ Eperitus commented, helping him to his feet. ‘Now, if you can still walk we need to get going.’

‘I can walk,’ Odysseus grunted, tearing a strip from the Trojan’s cloak and winding it about his wound.

They tossed the corpse over the battlements, and, after dropping through the latrine hole onto the stinking shelf of rock below, carried it the short distance to the Simöeis. Here they washed as much of the filth as they could from their bodies, then with the skies growing less dark in the east – revealing the outline of the mountains – they set off towards the Greek camp with the Palladium strapped to Diomedes’s broad back.

Chapter Thirty-two

THE INSANITY OF KINGS

Eperitus folded a cut of cold goat’s meat in a slice of bread and crammed it into his mouth. As a captive he had been left in a constant state of hunger and the hastened march back to the camp had made him even more ravenous. Now, though, he was surrounded by the luxury of Agamemnon’s vast tent and all the food and drink he could want. A passing slave saw the empty cup before him and refilled it with wine – heavily watered down, as it was still early morning – and such was Eperitus’s thirst that he emptied it at a single draught.

As the liquid sluiced down his throat he blinked the tiredness from his eyes and stared round himself. The flax sails that formed the roof of the tent allowed the rosy sunlight to filter in and give the interior a warm, bright feel, at the same time allowing the breeze from the Aegean to blow through and keep the air fresh and clean. The walls were lined with the trophies Agamemnon had won on the battlefield, while the floor was covered with expensive, thickly layered pelts as a sign of his wealth. The commanders of the army were already streaming in through the tent’s different entrances and gathering around the edges of the table where the King of Men planned his battle strategies. But this morning they were not staring at the customary mock ups of the plain between the Greek camp and Troy, but at the large, black lump of wood that lay unceremoniously in its centre. The sight of the Palladium – the reason Agamemnon had summoned the Council of Kings – caused a stir of conversation that must have been heard for some distance. Normally by now Agamemnon would have called for silence so that the council could begin, but today as he stood with Nestor at his side he seemed content to allow the hubbub to continue. Pleased, perhaps, to let his commanders savour the fulfilment of the final oracle and what it meant for them all.

The noisiest were crowded around Diomedes and Odysseus, congratulating them on their success. Diomedes was revelling in the glory, recounting their exploits with unashamed embellishment, while Odysseus accepted the flood of handshakes and pats on the back with quiet dignity. He was content to allow the bloody bandage wrapped about his midriff to speak of his own part in the adventure. A few recognised Eperitus’s contribution and welcomed him back from captivity, most notably Peisandros, the barrel-chested Myrmidon captain who had once helped save him from execution in Sparta. The old soldier insulted him roundly, then embraced him and told him how glad he was to learn he had not died on the battlefield. Mostly, though, Eperitus was happy just to stand back and sup his wine while his two comrades received the praise and honour they were due. After all, had they not rescued him from imprisonment? And was it not their cunning, courage and good fortune that had stolen the Palladium? Then, with a shout of triumphant joy, Menelaus entered the tent and approached the men who had sealed the fate of Troy.

‘By all the gods on Olympus, why didn’t you tell anyone what you were up to?’ His balding auburn hair and wiry beard, both thick with grey, gave him a fearsome appearance, but his brown eyes were damp with emotion and as his strong hands enclasped each of theirs in turn they could feel the warmth of his gratitude. ‘I’ve been wracking my brains for a way to get hold of the Palladium, and you three just walk right in and steal it from under their noses. Incredible! And there it is.’

He raised his hands toward the deformed effigy on the table and stared at it with a mixture of awe and revulsion.

‘Not much to look at, is it?’ Diomedes commented wryly.

‘Not to our eyes maybe, but can you imagine what they’re saying in Troy right now? Just think how they must feel, knowing their protection is gone and that our very next attack will be their defeat. By Ares’s sword, Diomedes! At long last, everything’s in place for victory. I can hardly believe that all I have to do is reach out and Helen will be mine again.’

‘The same walls that have held us for ten years are still there, my lord,’ Eperitus reminded the Spartan king. ‘Not to mention the walls of armoured flesh that stand behind them.’

Menelaus was not listening. Though his eyes remained on the Palladium, in his thoughts he was already striding through the ruins of Troy in search of his wife.

‘And yet,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when I see her. After all these years, after chasing her to the other side of the world and laying siege to her kidnappers for so long, suddenly I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to set eyes on her beauty again. Even to be in the same room as her! Some say she wasn’t kidnapped at all, that she ran away with Paris because she had fallen in love with him.’ His brow furrowed and his hands balled up into fists on the table top. ‘And may Aphrodite help her if it’s true, because I don’t know whether I’ll embrace her or run her through with my sword!’

Menelaus spat the last words out with vengeful malice, as if Helen was already standing captive before him. Eperitus briefly debated the wisdom of telling him that his wife had helped them steal the Palladium; or that, according to Odysseus’s account, she had helped him enter Pergamos and told him where to find the sacred statue, even going so far as sending her maids to drug the temple guards. But he also knew it was not his place to reveal these things; it was Odysseus’s. He stared at the king of Ithaca, silently urging him to speak up in Helen’s defence, but Odysseus said nothing.

The other conversations had stopped dead at the bitterness in Menelaus’s words, prompting Agamemnon to lean forward with his hands flat on the table.

‘You’ll embrace her, of course, Brother,’ he said in a commanding tone. ‘The kings of Greece haven’t fought for ten years so that you can kill the woman they all swore to protect.’

Menelaus looked round at the circle of faces. ‘Of course not,’ he conceded, though without conviction.

‘So,’ Agamemnon continued, ‘let us congratulate Odysseus and Diomedes for their guile and courage in entering Troy and stealing the Palladium. The full story can wait until we’re all sat around a blazing fire with meat in our bellies and wine in our veins, and doubtless Odysseus will be the man to tell it. But now, with the third of the oracles given to us by Helenus fulfilled, we must decide on our next move. That, my noble lords, is why I’ve called you here.’

‘I’d have thought our next move was obvious.’

The speaker’s tone was matter-of-fact, but the hint of criticism caused every eye to turn to the corner of the table where the words had come from. Neoptolemus, who as commander of the Myrmidons had taken his father’s place on the Council, stood with his hands behind his back staring at the King of Men. Peisandros was at his shoulder, his arms crossed over his broad chest and his wild beard thrust out defiantly. Agamemnon frowned a little, but quickly regained his usual coolness.