Fall of Kings

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE FOG OF WAR

Earlier that night, after the sun fell below the horizon to reveal a sky full of stars, Odysseus had stood on the walls of King’s Joy, nursing a pain in his shoulder and a wound to his heart.

Three days previously, his valiant force of Ithakans and Kephallenians had been fighting on the Scamander plain when the Trojan Horse had punched into the western armies like a battering ram, turning a knife-edge battle into a near rout.

Two of Hektor’s riders had charged as one into Odysseus’ infantry, each guarding the other’s flank, hacking with their swords, killing and wounding all around them. As one rider raised his sword high to slash at a young crewman from the Bloodhawk, Odysseus, running up behind, lanced a spear deep into the rider’s side, straight into the heart. The bronze spear head lodged under a rib. Odysseus tried to drag it out but pulled the dead rider off his horse. With dead and dying warriors around him, the Ithakan king was slow to get out of the way, and the body fell on him, dislocating his shoulder. The arm bone had been wrenched back into place by Podaleirios, the Thessalian surgeon, but even now, days later, Odysseus was still in pain. He had thrown away the sling he had been given and had hidden his discomfort from others. But now, as he moved his arm experimentally, as if swinging a sword, he cursed as agony fired through his shoulder.

Twenty years ago, he thought irritably, or even ten, I would have shaken off this injury within a day.

The greater agony, though, was in his heart. He remembered Penelope’s words years before on the beach at Ithaka. “I fear you will have hard choices to make. Do not make bullheaded decisions you will regret afterward and cannot change. Do not take these men into a war, Odysseus.”

“I have no wish for war, my love,” he had told her, and he had meant it.

How the gods on Olympos must be reveling in the irony, he thought ruefully. Or perhaps his wife’s fear never should have been voiced at all, lest the gods were listening and chose to make it real.

For here he was, within sight of the Golden City, his loyal men fighting side by side with the Mykene for Agamemnon, whose obsession was to destroy the city, kill Odysseus’ former friends, and take its wealth for himself.

He remembered Helikaon’s words to him at their last meeting: “I have not seen Priam’s hoard of gold, but it would have to be mountainous to maintain the expense of this war. Gold passes from the city every day, to hire mercenaries, to bribe allies. And there is little coming in now. If the fighting goes on much longer and you do take the city, you may find nothing of real worth.”

Odysseus smiled grimly to himself. Agamemnon and his fellow kings still had faith in the riches of Priam. At least they had a reason to fight. What is your excuse, Ugly One? he heard Penelope say. Because you gave your word? Is your word so powerful, so sacred, that you must fight with your enemies against your friends?

Three days before, battling on the plain alongside the armies of the Mykene, he had seen the Trojan Horse thundering down the valley. And he had felt his heart leap as if Hektor and his riders were coming to his own rescue.

Odysseus sighed. War made strange sword brothers. He despised Agamemnon and his fellow kings. Idomeneos was greedy and mendacious. Menestheos of Athens and Agapenor of Arcadia were no better. The weakling Menelaus did whatever his brother told him. Nestor was a kinsman of Penelope, and Odysseus liked the old man, yet he had been beguiled by the promise of Priam’s treasure, too. Only Achilles was at Troy on a mission of honor, to find the warrior who had ordered his father’s death and avenge him.

He thought back to Hektor’s wedding games, when wily Priam had declared Odysseus an enemy of Troy. A less prideful man merely would have left the city. But Odysseus, slighted and insulted, had allowed his pride to force him into the arms of this rabble of kings. It was true that he was guilty as accused of hiring an assassin to kill Helikaon’s father, but only to protect Helikaon, whom the same assassin had been paid to kill.

Now Odysseus, sick to the soul, had left his loathsome allies drinking and quarreling in the megaron of King’s Joy and had walked up to the terrace for fresher air.

He looked around. Agamemnon’s Followers, his henchmen, had roasted two pigs there earlier, and the terrace smelled of blood and burned meat. Then they had played a game with one of the pigs’ heads, kicking it around until it was a shapeless black mass. Odysseus picked it up and gazed at it for a moment before throwing it over the wall. He smiled to himself, thinking of the pig Ganny, first rescued from the sea and then, in his yellow cloak, sitting as if listening to Odysseus’ tale of the golden fleece on the pirates’ beach.

“By Apollo’s balls, Ganny, my boy, we had some adventures together!” he said out loud.

Cheered by the memory, he strolled to the western side of the terrace. In the starlight he could see down to the Bay of Herakles, its white sand scarcely visible under the hulls of the hundreds of ships beached there. A sitting target for Helikaon’s fire hurlers, he thought. Had Agamemnon learned nothing from his disaster at Imbros? Odysseus had heard no news of the Xanthos since it had left Ithaka but prudently had quietly moved most of his own fleet farther down the coast to a small hidden cove.

He turned and looked in the other direction, to the walls of Troy lying moonlit in the distance, like a city of magic from one of his stories, and, before him, the plain of the Scamander, where the Trojan army was camped, waiting. The myriad lights of their campfires showed they were formed in defensive squares. Hektor would not be stupid enough to attack, he knew, as the idiot Menelaus had claimed. A man with no sense of strategy assumes others are as stupid as he is. Odysseus glanced down to where soldiers had labored to dig an inner earthwork. A waste of time and energy, he thought, and just another obstacle when we attack. The stupidity angered him. Looking south, along the valley of the Scamander, he saw that a blanket of thick mist was forming over the river and starting to roll slowly toward the Trojan armies on the plain. They cannot see it coming, he realized. Before long they will not be able to see their swords in front of their noses.

His mind working quickly, he left the terrace and stomped back down the stone stairs to the megaron, to be greeted by drunken shouts and laughter. Menelaus was lying on the floor in a pool of wine, apparently unconscious. Agamemnon gazed expressionlessly at the Ithakan king. Agamemnon never drank, and Odysseus always was careful not to drink in his company.

“Well,” said the Mykene king, “the tale spinner has chosen to join us again. We are honored. Have you a story to entertain us tonight, Prince of Lies?”

Odysseus ignored the insult and said nothing, merely standing in the doorway until he had their attention.

“Sober up quickly, you drunken sots,” he bellowed. “I have a plan.”

Achilles, unarmored and wearing a simple black kilt and leather breastplate, his face smeared with soot, crouched in the entrance to the narrow pass and stared into the thick mist. “This is madness,” he said cheerfully.

Odysseus, resting on one knee beside him, chuckled. “We have to attack at dawn, anyway,” he replied. “Our allies have pledged to be here soon after sunup. By attacking now, this fog gives us the extra element of surprise.”

“Well, it surprised me,” a red-bearded warrior said gloomily. “It’s the middle of the night, and the mist is so thick, I can’t see the end of my sword. We won’t know who we’re killing.”

“The ones lying down, Thibo, either sleeping or dead, will be the enemy,” Odysseus told him.

He thought the plan through again. Agamemnon was committed to attack that day, which meant funneling his armies through the pass. The heavy mist gave him the perfect opportunity to get them through under cover. Hektor, of course, would expect that, and by dawn he would have his forces ready. By attacking in the dead of night they might catch him unprepared.

Odysseus and Achilles, the fifty Myrmidons, and another hundred handpicked warriors were to creep out of the pass under cover of the dark and mist, cross the earthworks, and descend on the Trojans as they slept. None were wearing armor lest any clink of metal on metal betray their presence. The Trojans would raise the alarm quickly, but Odysseus calculated that as many as a thousand would die first, slaughtered as they dreamed.

Far behind them, through the pass, the rest of Agamemnon’s armies waited restlessly. Once the silent band of killers had done their grisly work and the alarm had been raised, the infantry would come charging through.

The cavalry would have to wait on the seaward side of the pass until the dawn came and the mist cleared. But the enemy was in the same position. Even the Trojan Horse could not attack if they could not see.

Odysseus moved his shoulder and grimaced at the pain, then licked dry lips. Just one more battle, he thought to himself. You’ve done this before, old man. He grasped his sword in one hand and a long dagger in the other. He glanced at Achilles, who had his swords on his back and two daggers drawn, and nodded.

The pair crept forward, silent in the muffling mist, their small army moving noiselessly behind them. Odysseus climbed the new earthwork, cursing it under his breath. By the time he reached the main earthwork, he had fallen well behind Achilles, who had disappeared ahead of him like a wraith. Hurrying to keep up, Odysseus clambered over the bank of earth and mud, glimpsing dark-garbed warriors, swords and knives in hand, passing him silently on either side. It was an eerie sight.

Then the killing began. Ahead, Odysseus heard the small muffled sounds of cold bronze plunging into flesh and soft gasps quickly cut off. He hurried forward. Soon he was walking in the dim light of campfires, bodies strewn around them, the dead and the dying, blood still gushing from slashed throats, eyes staring up at him, hands reaching out for aid that would not come.

It was so quiet that he could hear his heart beating. Then there was a loud cry. “Awake! Awake! We are under attack!”

In an instant the air was filled with the sounds of clashing blades, the screams of the wounded, the snarls and grunts of fighting men, the snapping of bones and the rending of flesh. Odysseus heard Achilles’ booming battle cry from somewhere up ahead and moved toward the sound.

A warrior appeared in the half-light, a Thrakian tribesman with a painted face. The Ithakan king leaped to the attack, but the man moved like quicksilver, blocking his thrust and turning into him. His shoulder struck Odysseus in the chest, knocking him back. He fell to the ground and rolled quickly as a sword blade was thrust into the ground beside him. Odysseus plunged his dagger into the unprotected thigh of the tribesman. Blood sprayed out, and the man fell. Odysseus jumped up and slashed his sword across the man’s head.

He bent to pull out his dagger, but one of Priam’s Eagles leaped at him with a snarl, recognizing the Ithakan king. Odysseus parried his sword blow and reversed a cut to the warrior’s neck. The blade hammered into the breastplate and snapped. Dropping the useless hilt, Odysseus grabbed the man by his breastplate and hauled him forward, butting him savagely, then crashing his fist into the man’s belly. The Eagle doubled over, and then his head snapped back as Odysseus’ knee exploded into his face.

He picked up the Eagle’s sword and plunged it into the man’s neck. Then, screaming his battle cry, “Ithaka! Ithaka!” he powered into the Trojan ranks, cutting and cleaving, an awesome fury upon him, his injured shoulder forgotten.

An unarmored Trojan warrior ran forward, ducking under Odysseus’ plunging sword and stabbing his blade toward the Ugly King’s belly. Odysseus leaped backward and tripped over a body. He rolled and came up swinging his sword two-handed, half beheading the warrior.

He glimpsed a movement to his right and blocked a lightning attack from a sword. Twisting his wrists and returning the blow, he cleaved the attacker from neck to belly.

There were Trojans all around him now. His sword rose and fell in the melee, cutting through leather and flesh and bone. He twisted and swung and then, too late, saw a sword slashing toward his neck. Another sword flashed up to block it, parrying the death blow. Odysseus recognized the braided red beard and grinned at Achilles’ shield bearer.

“Be careful, old man,” Thibo shouted. “I can’t watch out for both of us.”

Odysseus ducked under a two-handed cut from his right and drove his sword home in the man’s chest. Beside him Thibo leaped and twisted, slashing and killing. Odysseus saw dawn light gleam off his bloody blade and realized that the night mist was starting to clear.

Two Trojan soldiers ran at Thibo. He blocked a blow from the first, gutting the man with a reverse stroke. His sword stuck in the man’s belly. The second warrior’s sword arced toward his head. Odysseus parried the blow, chopping his sword through the man’s neck.

“Where is Achilles?” he asked, panting. “You’re supposed to be watching out for him.”

Thibo shrugged. “Achilles can take care of himself.”

Daylight was clearing the mist quickly, and Odysseus could see warriors struggling and dying all around him.

Three Trojans came at him at once, and he cursed aloud as he cleaved one neck and ducked under a slashing blade. Then, dropping to his haunches, he charged into the two other soldiers like a bull. He caught one in the belly with his injured shoulder and grunted in agony. The other fell back, stumbling over a body, and was disemboweled by a slashing sword.

Odysseus saw Achilles standing over him, his two swords dripping blood.

“Go back, Ithaka,” the Thessalian king shouted above the noise of battle, “or that wound will kill you. Only the dagger is saving you.”

Odysseus looked down and saw a knife blade stuck in his thigh. Blood had drenched his leg. In the fury of battle he had not noticed it.

“And get yourself armored,” Achilles ordered. Swaying to one side as a sword scythed past his chest, he chopped his attacker down with a blow to the neck.

Odysseus shouted back, “You have no armor, Achilles!”

Achilles grinned at him and charged back into the fray.

Odysseus realized he felt dizzy from blood loss, and he cursed. As he stepped forward, he felt his knees give way. Hands grabbed him and pulled him upright, and then he felt a powerful shoulder lift him up under the arm. The sounds of fighting receded as, cursing, he was dragged from the battlefield.

He was on the Penelope again, the wind in his hair, the fresh sea air filling his chest. A huge flock of gulls was flying over the ship, darkening the sky with their wings. The clamor of their cries was deafening. Stupid birds, gulls, he thought to himself. Then he saw that the birds had the faces of women, contorted with hatred and spite. Harpies, he thought, coming to rend his flesh.

The sharp pain of teeth tearing his leg brought him around, and he found himself lying on muddy ground clear of the battlefield. One of his crewmen, the powerful fighter Leukon, was stitching the wound in his thigh, his thick fingers clumsy on the blood-soaked thread. Leukon’s leg had been broken three days before, and he could not fight. Now he sat awkwardly and was clearly in agony from the splinted leg.

Odysseus sat up. “Give me wine, someone,” he demanded, and was handed a goblet. He drank it down, asked for another, and watched impatiently as Leukon tied off the stitches. The blood had stopped flowing, and he felt the wine reviving him.

“Back to the battle, Leukon,” he said.

“Aye, my king,” said the huge warrior, and struggled to stand up.

“Not you, you fool. Me!” Odysseus made to rise, but a hand on his shoulder held him down and a cold voice said, “The battle is over for you today, Odysseus.”

He looked up to see Agamemnon. With a massive effort Odysseus levered himself up, trying to ignore the torment in his shoulder and the pain of the stitches pulling in his leg. The Mykene king was right. He felt as weak as a pup, and it took all his willpower to stay upright.

They were looking over the battlefield from a vantage point in front of the main earthwork. The early sun had burned off the mist, and he could see clearly the battle on the plain before them. It was a melee, foot soldiers on both sides fighting desperately, neither side giving any quarter. Agamemnon’s cavalry had deployed to the left, hitting the right flank of the enemy, forcing Hektor to bring the bulk of his Trojan Horse to that side in a ferocious counterattack. Odysseus could see that the Trojans had the upper hand, forcing Agamemnon’s riders back from the river. Enjoy your success while you can, Hektor, my friend, he thought.

Amid the sea of fighting and struggling men, he could see a group of black-clad warriors forging an arrowhead into the Trojan infantry.

“Achilles and his men are fighting without armor,” he said angrily. During their long night of planning, the western kings had agreed that once the alarm was raised, the elite killing forces would fade back and armor themselves. Achilles, with the battle fury upon him, had ignored that agreement and fought on.

“He can never survive,” Odysseus muttered. “And his Myrmidons will not leave him. He is condemning them all to death.”

“That would be a shame,” Agamemnon said flatly.

Odysseus looked at him, fury rising in his chest. “Have you no loyalty to anyone, Mykene?” he asked angrily. “Achilles is fighting your war.”

Agamemnon turned and gazed at him, his dark eyes as cold and empty as a winter sky. “Achilles fights for the glory of Achilles,” he said, and Odysseus knew it was true.

The battle raged on as the sun climbed in the sky. Odysseus could see that the western armies were being pushed back slowly, and Achilles and his band were in danger of being surrounded. He glanced at the sun, standing proud of the horizon now, and started watching anxiously southward, along the river valley. Finally he saw a distant speck, a horseman riding with all speed toward them. The scout edged his way around the rear of the fighting, galloped up, and threw himself off his horse before Agamemnon.

“They are coming, lord!” he gasped.

“About time,” the Battle King said with satisfaction.

Sunlight glinted off the spear points of hundreds of marching men flanked by cavalry as a new army marched toward Troy. Odysseus looked back to the battle before him. The Trojans, lower down, had not seen the threat yet.

The approaching army’s cavalry broke into a gallop, riding straight for the unprotected flank of the Trojan infantry, lances down. Now aware of the threat, the battle-weary Trojans desperately tried to reform to face the attack, but the shock as the armored riders hit them was devastating. Scores of men fell under the trampling hooves of the horses.

Hektor reacted quickly. His Phrygian archers, at the rear of the battlefield, started loosing volley after volley into the coming infantry. Arrows deflected off shields and conical helms, but some men crashed to the ground, tripping others as they came.

The Trojan Horse was isolated on the wrong side of the field, but at an order from Hektor half of them peeled away and galloped to counter the new threat. Hektor dug his heels into his great warhorse and charged at the enemy cavalry. As he reached them, several horsemen rode against him. His sword lanced out, spilling the first rider from his mount; the second fell as Hektor’s sword, wielded with awesome anger, crushed his skull. Then a lance drove into the chest of the stallion Ares, and he fell, throwing Hektor to the ground.

Odysseus could see him no more. Frustrated, he turned his gaze to the leader of the newly arrived army, who, surrounded by his bodyguard, rode up the slope toward him.

“Well, Kygones,” he commented as the Lykian king drew his horse to a halt, “you are not joining the battle today?”

The Fat King pulled off his helm and smiled coolly.

“You should have more gratitude, Ithaka,” he said. “When last we met, you acted with great moral outrage at the death of one man, a simple sailor. Now you and your fellow kings ask me to help you kill thousands. Where is your thanks?”

He dismounted and handed his horse to one of his men.

“All our actions have consequences, Odysseus. By barring your ships from my beaches over the death of this sailor, you and Helikaon dealt a body blow to Lykia, crippling trade and draining its lifeblood. My people have suffered, and for the first time in a generation children have starved in wintertime. When Agamemnon sought me as an ally, are you surprised that I felt no loyalty to Helikaon and his kinsman Priam?”

Odysseus had no answer for him. He turned back to the battlefield, then heard Hektor’s horn blowing: two short blasts repeated over and over, signaling retreat. Good, he thought. You cannot win the day, Hektor. The Scamander plain belongs to us. Retreat in good order while you can.

But the Trojans were fighting every step of the way, protecting their wounded as they backed slowly toward the river and its four bridges to an ephemeral safety.

No more than a hundred soldiers had retreated across one of the wooden bridges when a bright flame like a huge torch erupted among them. Suddenly the entire bridge was ablaze, setting fire to the men on it. They screamed and thrashed in agony. Many jumped into the Scamander, but their flesh kept burning and their cries were awful to hear. Then a second bridge caught fire. Within moments all four bridges, the Trojans’ only way to retreat, were burning ferociously.

Stunned by the sight, Odysseus turned to Agamemnon. “Is this your work?” he asked, but the Mykene king just shook his head, as surprised as he was.

They watched as desperate Trojans, trapped between the advancing enemy armies and the river, started throwing themselves into the fast-flowing water, some helping the wounded cross, others just swimming for their lives. Injured men were being pulled under and swept down toward the bay, too weak to struggle against the powerful current.

Then Agamemnon gasped and pointed as Hektor, mounted again on gallant Ares, walked the stallion into the Scamander high above the blazing bridges. He reined the warhorse in the center of the river and stood there as the waters crashed around them. Others of the Trojan Horse joined them, guiding their horses to stand by Ares, reducing the force of the water. Soon thirty warhorses stood in the river, enduring as the waters struck them. The riders had only shields to protect themselves and their mounts from the arrows and lances of the enemy, and three fell in the Scamander and were swept away, but most of them stood firm, allowing the Trojan injured to make their way across to safety. The Phrygian archers ran along the riverbank to help protect the horses with a rain of arrows at the advancing enemy.

Odysseus wanted to cheer, and he smiled to himself to see the anger on Agamemnon’s face.

“Hektor lives,” the Mykene king hissed. “Can nothing kill him?”

“He charged an army, and yet he survives,” Odysseus said happily. “That is why Hektor is Hektor and we kings are just standing here watching.”

Sick of Agamemnon’s company, he set off toward the battlefield, limping heavily on his injured leg. Stretcher bearers were on the field, carrying wounded men away. He saw healers and surgeons helping injured warriors of the western armies and soldiers dispatching wounded Trojans. The ground was heavy with churned-up mud and blood, and Odysseus felt himself tiring quickly.

Then he saw a figure he recognized, a fat warrior in outsize armor lying in the mud, his back resting against the flank of a dead horse. Odysseus stomped over to him.

The prince was bleeding from a score of cuts. “Well, well, Odysseus,” he said, his voice a weak rasp, “have you come to finish me off?”

“No, Antiphones,” the Ithakan king said, sitting down beside him, suddenly weary. “I just wanted to talk to an old friend.”

“Are we friends, you and I?” the prince asked.

Odysseus shrugged. “At this moment we are. Tomorrow is another day.”

“Tomorrow I shall be dead, Odysseus. This will be the death of me.” He gestured to a deep wound in his side where dark blood was pumping out onto the ground. “A thinner man would be dead already.”

The Ithakan king nodded. “What happened at the bridges?” he asked.

Antiphones scowled, and his ashen face darkened a little. “My fool of a father, Priam, had secretly instructed his Eagles to torch the bridges using nephthar if our forces started retreating. Trojans do not retreat, he says.”

Odysseus felt a wave of revulsion. “Is he quite insane now?” he asked, shocked by the ruthless cruelty of the Trojan king to his own troops. “It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between insanity and cold-blooded brutality.”

Antiphones tried to lift himself up into a sitting position, but he was too weak and sank down again. Odysseus saw that the flow of his wound had lessened. He knew the man did not have much longer to live.

The prince said, “He is the cruel and selfish king he always was.” He sighed. “He has times of confusion. We thought it was the wine, for he hardly eats. Then he has insane ideas like this one. Hektor just ignores them. But this…” He gestured toward the river. “He is cunning still, you see. He told no one except his Eagles. And they would all kill themselves for him on his command.”

A Mykene soldier walked over to them, his sword red with blood, looking for enemy wounded. Odysseus waved him away.

Antiphones was silent for a while, and Odysseus thought he had died. Then the big man said, despair in his voice, “Troy will fall. She cannot be saved.”

Odysseus nodded sadly. “Agamemnon will win, and the city will fall. Once we reach the great walls and the city is under siege, it is only a matter of time. There will be a traitor. There always is.”

Antiphones said weakly, “I thought she would last a thousand years. There is a prophecy…”

Odysseus said irritably, “There is always a prophecy. I do not believe in prophecies, Antiphones. In a thousand years the Golden City will be dust, its walls ruined, flowers growing wild where Priam’s palace once stood.”

Antiphones smiled weakly. “That sounds like a prophecy, Odysseus.”

The king leaned toward him. “But she will not die, Antiphones. I promise you this. Her story will not be forgotten.” Already in his mind a tale was forming of a warrior’s wrath and the death of a hero.

The prince’s eyes had closed. He whispered, “I was the traitor…” Then he died.

Weary, Odysseus stood. He saw the soldier he had sent away find another Trojan soldier who was gravely wounded and unable to save himself. The Mykene warrior thrust a sword through his heart cleanly, then moved on. His eye was caught by the body of a young man lying in the mud, and he walked toward him. Odysseus saw that the youngster had red hair and was without armor. One arm moved feebly as if he were trying to turn himself over. As the Mykene soldier raised his sword, Odysseus said, “Hold!”

The man paused and looked at him doubtfully.

“He is one of mine, soldier. Do you know me?”

“You are Odysseus, king of Ithaka. Everyone knows you.” The man lowered his sword and moved away.

The boy was plastered with mud and blood and seemed dazed by a blow to the head. Odysseus knelt beside him and helped him turn over.

“Xander! I never thought to see you here,” he said. “Being a hero again, lad?”

Xander awoke with a start to find that it was evening and he was on a sandy beach. He could hear the sound of waves crashing against rocks, the distant sound of lyres and pipes, and low voices murmuring close by.

“Lie still, you fool,” said a deep voice, “and give that wound a chance to heal. It may have pierced your vitals.”

“Then I am a dead man,” another man said irritably. “If I must walk the Dark Road, I do not plan to do it sober. Give me that jug.”

Xander’s head hurt abominably, and as he tried to sit up, the world lurched around him. He lay down again with a groan.

“How are you feeling, Xander?” a voice asked.

He opened his eyes a crack and was surprised to see Machaon looking down at him, his face in shadow as the sun fell at his back.

“Where are we, Machaon?” he asked. “Why are we on a beach?” He tried to sit up again and this time succeeded. He found that his leather satchel was lying by his side.

“Drink this,” the healer said. Kneeling alongside him, he brought to Xander’s lips a cup of delicious-smelling liquid. The boy sipped it, then drank it down greedily. It was warm and tasted, he thought, of summer flowers. He had never tasted anything so good. He found his head clearing a little, and he looked around.

From where he sat, all he could see was soldiers, some wounded and lying down, others sitting around campfires, laughing and joking. The black hulls of ships pulled up on the sand hid his view of the sea, though he could smell its salt air. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realized where he was.

“We are on the beach you call the Bay of Herakles, and I am not Machaon,” said the healer. Sitting down, he poured thick liquid from a clay pot into a cup of water warming over a fire. He looked up. Xander could see now that it was not the face of his mentor, though the two men were very alike. This man was older and nearly bald, and one of his eyes was strange, the eyeball pale and pearly.

“My name is Podaleirios, and Machaon is my brother,” the healer said. “You clearly know him, Xander. Is he well?”

“No,” the boy admitted regretfully. “When last I saw him, he was very sick, sir. I wish I could help him. He has always been kind to me. Why am I here with the enemy?”

There was a burst of laughter at his words, and someone said, “You are in the Thessalian camp, boy. You should be proud to be with Achilles and his Myrmidons, the finest warriors in the world.”

The speaker was a slender young man with fair hair braided and pulled back to his neck. He was cleaning blood off his arms, but Xander guessed it was someone else’s, for he looked uninjured. Beside him was a huge dark-haired warrior dressed in black, and lying between them a bald-headed man with a braided red beard. His chest was heavily bandaged, and Xander could see blood leaking and staining the white material. His healer’s eye noted the gray sheen on the man’s face and the feverish look in his eye.

“Podaleirios,” Xander asked the healer, “I don’t know how I got here, but can I return to Troy now?”

The men laughed again, and Podaleirios said, “Call me White-Eye, Xander. Everybody else does. You were brought here by Odysseus of Ithaka. He found you unconscious on the field of battle and carried you to safety. And you cannot return to Troy. You are now healer and surgeon to the warriors of Thessaly.

“This is Achilles, king of Thessaly”—the healer gestured to the black-clad giant—“and you are now his servant.”

Xander stared in wonder at the legendary warrior. “Lord,” he said humbly, “I am not a priest of Asklepios, pledged to help the sick or injured wherever I find them. I am just a helper to Machaon. I belong in Troy.”

Achilles frowned. “Odysseus tells me you trained with Machaon in the House of Serpents. If such a famous healer sent you onto the battlefield to help the Trojan wounded, then he must have faith in your skills. Are you saying you will not help my stricken warriors? Think carefully on your answer, boy.”

Shamefaced, Xander said, “I’m sorry, lord. I will do what I can to help.”

To White-Eye, Achilles said, “At dawn, when the boy has rested, take him up to King’s Joy. He will be valuable there.”

The healer nodded and moved away. A servant came to the campfire, offering platters of meat and corn bread to the warriors. One was placed at the wounded man’s side, but he did not touch it, merely swigged from his jug of wine. Achilles pointed at Xander and nodded, and the servant gave the boy some food. It was roasted pig, warm with greasy juices, salty and tasty. Xander felt his stomach grumble in reaction to the wonderful smell. He realized he had not eaten all day or the day before. He wondered when he last had tasted any food, then forgot about it as he sank his teeth into the succulent meat.

There was silence for a while as the warriors ate. Then Achilles said to the wounded man, “I will have you carried to King’s Joy, Thibo. It will be cold on the beach tonight. At least there you will be under shelter.”

Thibo shook his head. “I’ll be all right here by the fire. I don’t want to be up there with the dead and dying.”

“I am your king and could command you,” Achilles said mildly.

Thibo grunted. “Would you want to be up there, in that place of torment?”

Achilles shook his head and said no more.

The fair-haired warrior nudged him with his elbow. “We went there once when we were children. Do you remember? We visited King’s Joy with your father. I don’t know why.”

Achilles nodded, chewing his meat and swallowing. “I remember, Patroklos.”

Patroklos went on. “It was a place of beauty then, the white walls painted with bright pictures of the gods. There were soft rugs on the marble floors—I had never seen such rugs before—and the gleam of gold and gems everywhere. It was wonderful to behold.”

Achilles grunted. “And now Agamemnon’s Followers have made a pigsty of it,” he said. Then he smiled. “I remember we were told off for playing on the high balcony where Helen fell.”

Patroklos shook his head in wonder. “I’ll not forget that day on this side of the Dark Road. The princess throwing herself to her death with her children.”

Thibo grunted. “They were dead, anyway, the children. Agamemnon would have seen to that.”

Patroklos argued, “But Helen need not have died. It seems wrong, such beauty smashed to ruins on the rocks below.”

Xander listened with surprise. He had met the princess Helen only once, in Helikaon’s chamber when the Golden One had been gravely ill. He had seen a plump, plain woman with a sweet smile. Perhaps they were talking about a different Helen, he thought.

“She was not a beauty,” Thibo said thoughtfully.

“Yes, but you don’t like them buxom, Thibo,” Patroklos replied, grinning. “You like your women skinny, like boys.” He winked at his friend.

“It’s true,” Thibo agreed amiably. “But I meant she was not beautiful like an expensive whore.”

Patroklos started laughing at that, but Achilles broke in, “I know what you mean, Thibo. She did not have the beauty of golden-haired Aphrodite. She was more like stern and terrible Hera, before whom even the gods quail.”

Thibo agreed, “She made me feel like a small boy. She was like the mother you love but whose anger you fear. The other men on the balcony said the same. They’ve all been talking about her.”

Speaking so much made Thibo cough. The spasm was agonizing, and he held on to his chest with both hands. His face lost all color, and he groaned. Xander could see that the blood patch on the bandage was spreading.

Taking up his leather satchel, he stood and said to the wounded warrior, “Sir, perhaps I can help you, if you will let me.”