Fall of Kings

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE MEN OF COURAGE

When dawn arrived, the Xanthos still was making her way back along the narrow Simoeis. Heliakon stood at the steering oar and watched for signs from Oniacus at the prow. The growing light behind them put the river ahead of the ship in deep shadow, and Oniacus was using a long notched pole to test the depth of the water. Progress was slow, and Helikaon had long since given up on his first idea of attacking the Mykene fleet before sunrise.

He tried to keep his mind on plans for the battle ahead, but his thoughts kept straying back to Andromache. The moment he first had glimpsed her so long before on that ill-starred night at Bad Luck Bay, his heart had been ensnared. Until then he always had told friends that he would marry for love alone. Until then, though, he had had no idea what love was. And arrogantly, he had believed the choice of marriage always would be his. He never had dreamed he would fall helplessly in love with someone who was unavailable, already betrothed to his closest friend. The gods watch for such arrogance with glee, he thought.

In many ways these last hundred days had been the happiest of his life. The Xanthos was his true home, the one place where he could find total contentment. To share it with the woman he loved had been a pearl beyond price. There had been times that winter, as they sailed from island to island in fair weather or foul, as he watched Andromache sitting at the prow gazing at the sea, walking like a flame-haired goddess among the oarsmen handing out waterskins, or crouched by the mast holding on tightly as the ship plowed through rough seas, when he had thought he could never be happier. She was his north star, the fixed point around which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he believed they would share a destiny.

He had not expected to lose her so suddenly that night, to watch her walk away beside one of the donkey carts into the darkness on a perilous journey to the beleaguered city. She had made her choice and decided to stay with Hektor’s son. She had not looked back. He had not expected her to.

As the sun rose, a beam of light speared through the mist and lit up the ships of the Trojan fleet waiting where the river Simoeis opened out into the bay. They lay as if becalmed in the pale morning, sails furled, the rowers resting on their oars, waiting for action. We are fighting the greatest war the world has ever seen, Helikaon thought, and our likely future is death and ruin, and you are thinking about the woman you love instead of making battle plans. If this is what love can do to a man, perhaps you were better off without it.

He smiled to himself. I do not believe that, he thought.

He handed the steering oar to the helmsman and strode to join Oniacus on the central deck. “Gather the captains of the Trojan ships,” he told him. “We have much to discuss.”

“I will ask them to join us, Golden One,” Oniacus replied. He turned away, then came back hesitantly. “It is rumored,” he said, “that some of the the Mykene ships now have their own fire hurlers.”

Helikaon laughed. “Good news at last!” he said.

Oniacus looked mystified. “They will have no battle experience and little practice, Oniacus,” Helikaon explained. “We know how dangerous the nephthar balls are, and we treat them with great respect. In the heat of battle the Mykene will likely do more damage to themselves than to our vessels. This is welcome tidings. Just wait and see, my friend.”

It took a while for the captains of the eighteen Trojan ships to gather. The smaller ships eased in toward the Xanthos until their masters could climb on board, sometimes crossing over several adjacent ships to get there. As he looked at the mass of vessels lying together and bumping gently against one another, a new plan formed in Helikaon’s mind.

Finally, all the ships’ masters were mustered on the central deck of the Xanthos. Helikaon knew them all, and he felt a thrill of pride. They were all men of courage and skilled seamen. They had been frustrated by confinement in the bay for many days. Each was eager for action, but the most impatient was Chromis the Carian, master of the Artemisia, one of the fastest ships in the Trojan fleet, though the smallest. Chromis, a red-faced burly man, stood at the front of the group, hands on hips.

“We are nineteen,” Helikaon said, looking around. “Do we have an accurate report on the number of Menados’ ships?”

“More than fifty,” Chromis said. “Until today half of those were patrolling the coast down to the Bay of Herakles. The arrival of the Xanthos has caused Menados to order them all to the Hellespont. We are heavily outnumbered. But he will expect you to make a run for it soon, lord.”

“What Menados expects is a vital part of my plan,” Helikaon said thoughtfully. “Which of your ships have fire hurlers?” he asked.

“The Naiad and the Shield of Ilos,” replied a young dark-eyed man with a heavy limp.

“And what experience do you have of using them, Akamas?”

“None in battle, lord. But my men on the Shield and the crew of the Naiad have spent many long days throwing empty clay balls at targets. There was little else to do in the bay,” Akamas added ruefully. “Our crews became quite expert at hurling them at the other ships.” Most of the masters smiled, and there was some laughter.

“Have any of you seen a ship aflame with nephthar?” Helikaon asked, his face hardening, his voice cold.

They all shook their heads. Helikaon nodded. “I thought not. You must understand, and all your crews must understand, that once a nephthar ball hits a ship and breaks, that ship is doomed, as if it already sat at the bottom of the Great Green. Do not wait for the fire arrows. All the crew must abandon ship without hesitation. Is this clear?” He looked around at them all, his violet blue eyes studying them one by one, until they all had nodded.

“Very good. And although I respect what you say, Akamas, I will put some of my own crewmen with battle experience on board the Naiad and the Shield of Ilos to advise and help with the nephthar. Do not feel slighted. Be in no doubt we have a mighty confrontation ahead. We need to allocate our skills where they are most needed. And we have extra crewmen from the Boreas to fill the gaps in any of your vessels’ rowing benches.”

“The Artemisia may have no fire hurlers, Golden One,” Chromis said impatiently, “but she has greater speed than some of these bigger ships. We can lead the Mykene a merry dance if you so order.”

“Speed can be vital,” Helikaon replied, “but usually running away from a battle, not toward it.”

The other captains laughed, and Chromis flushed, fearing he was being made a fool of.

“I am not mocking you, Chromis,” Heliakon said. “I have a part for the Artemisia to play, and it is an essential one. You will need all your ship’s speed and agility.”

Chromis grinned and looked around him, proud to be chosen. “So when do we attack them, Golden One?” he asked. “The sooner our ships can slip out into the Great Green, the sooner we can start to fight back, hit the enemy at the Bay of Herakles.”

“We will not attack,” Helikaon told him. “We will wait for the Mykene to attack us.”

Chromos snorted. “But how can we be sure of that? They’ve been content to keep us trapped in the bay like… like crabs in a net.”

“You yourself pointed out that much changed when the Xanthos arrived,” Helikaon said.

He looked around at the Trojan captains. “We must have patience,” he said. “Something the Mykene do not have. They are an impetuous and aggressive people. We must use that against them.

“And my plan is not just to slip past Menados, then make a run for it. I plan to destroy his entire fleet.”

The day passed with bone-aching slowness on the waters of the Hellespont, and when the sun slid down the sky, there was still no sign that the Xanthos and the Trojan ships were planning to break out of the bay. Menados forced himself to stop pacing the deck of the Alektruon. He sat in his captain’s chair, the picture of calm assurance. Inside his head, though, he was seething with anger at the cunning Helikaon and with his need to sail into the bay and smash the Xanthos into small shards. His captains had wanted to follow the hated galley in, but Menados had refused to chase after it in the dark.

All of his fifty-five remaining ships were now at sea, either gathered off the entrance to the Hellespont or patrolling the strait. The oarsmen were tired, and he ordered that they work in shifts, with half the men rowing at a time. It always had been difficult to find rowers. Any man who could afford a soldier’s armor and weapons would rather fight in the field than endure the hot fetid conditions on the rowing benches. Some of the ships’ masters used slave labor. But chained slaves were unlikely to work as hard as free men, and the Alektruon was rowed entirely by Mykene warriors who were proud to be on the finest ship in all the Mykene fleets.

As the light started to fail on the second day, there was a shout from one of the vessels closest to the Cape of Tides. A craft had been spotted trying to break the blockade. Menados, excitement rising in his chest, ordered the Alektruon and the four nearest ships to intercept her. Block her course, he ordered, but do not engage yet.

Peering into the gloom, he soon could see her for himself. It was not the Xanthos but a smaller ship with a dark sail sporting a white full moon. She sped along the line of the coast, perilously close to the rocks of the cape, risking the use of her sail to gain more speed.

“Not the Xanthos,” said his sister’s son, disappointment in his voice. “But maybe they are using a small ship to sneak the royal family out of Troy.”

“That would require a very small vessel indeed,” Menados said drily. And, he thought, Priam would never leave the city or his treasury.

The small ship skipped across the waves, closer to the approaching Mykene galleys. Then, suddenly, her sail was furled, the rowers took over, and within heartbeats they had turned the vessel fully around and she was powering back toward the bay.

“Do not follow!” the admiral ordered, and the signal was passed quickly from ship to ship. The Mykene vessels pulled slowly away, reluctantly, Menados thought.

What is Helikaon up to? he wondered. Was it what it seemed? One ship making a run for it? Or another fire ship? No, Helikaon would not use that trick twice. He paced up and down the deck again, his officers watching him anxiously.

Finally he came to a conclusion. If Helikaon were to sneak past him again, two nights in a row, he and his officers would face a slow and agonizing death at Agamemnon’s hands. He could not afford to let even one vessel out of the bay. It was another moonlit night, so he had to assume they would try again.

“There will be no rest for our crews!” he told his officers. “Tonight all our ships will patrol!”

Helikaon was awake before dawn, when the light was just a pink glow in the east. He had slept deeply. The previous night he had put two ships out at the mouth of the bay to act as night watchmen. The rest of the crews got a good night’s sleep and were fresh for the coming day.

He saw a Trojan galley gliding toward them from the cape, where its captain had picked up reports on the Mykene fleet from the watchers stationed there.

“They patrolled all night!” its master shouted up to Helikaon gleefully. “Their rowers will all be as tired as dogs!”

Oniacus grinned at his lord. “Tired crews and tired commanders,” he said.

Helikaon nodded. “And tired men make poor decisions,” he answered. “It is time for the Artemisia to lure them in.”

For a second time he watched Chromis’ vessel head off gamely toward the Mykene fleet. He was impressed by the skills of the captain and his men. Chromis may be a blowhard, he thought, but he is right to be proud of his ship and its crew. May Poseidon keep her safe.

The crew of the Xanthos was busy preparing for battle. The clay balls full of nephthar, each as big as a man’s head, were being transferred carefully from the hold to straw-lined baskets beside the fire hurlers. The hurlers were being checked and greased. The specially prepared arrows and braziers were kept at the central deck, far away from the nephthar. Each crewman donned a leather breastplate and took up his sword and bow and a quiver of arrows. Food was passed around to break their night fast: corn bread and cheese.

As the light grew stronger, Helikaon ordered his small fleet to form up in two lines abreast facing north, well back from the mouth of the bay. The Xanthos was front and center. The Sword of Ilos and the Naiad, with their fire hurlers, he placed near each end of the front line. The two ships that had watched all night were tucked in at the back in a position of comparative safety.

Helikaon strapped on his bronze breastplate and sheathed the two leaf-bladed swords in scabbards on his back. He placed his full-face helm within reach. To his second in command he said, “You are steersman today, Oniacus. Are you clear on our strategy?”

“Yes, Golden One,” Oniacus replied. He hesitated. “We have never lost a sea battle yet,” he added, concern in his eyes. “And I will follow your strategy without question, as always. Yet we are already trapped in this bay, like a mouse in a jug, and it seems your plan now is to lure a cat into the jug.”

Helikaon laughed, and his merriment rippled out across the water, making other men smile, easing the tension.

“It is true we are trapped here,” he answered, “but the mouse is safe only in his jug. We are seriously outnumbered, Oniacus. We cannot afford to engage the Mykene in the open sea. We would be sunk, or burned, or captured, every last ship. So we must lure the Mykene into the bay, where we have all the advantages. They have been at sea for weeks. They are bored and frustrated, and now they are tired, too. Each Mykene captain wants the honor of sinking or capturing the Xanthos. Especially Menados. I let him live, remember. He is unlikely to forgive me for that.”

Oniacus scratched his curly hair. “Then let’s hope they take the bait of the Artemisia.”

Helikaon shrugged. “They will or they won’t. If they don’t, they will attack before this day is much older. They are Mykene. They won’t be able to resist it.”

It seemed a long wait, but eventually the gallant Artemisia appeared in the distance, rounding the cape, propelled by the northerly breeze. Helikaon watched Chromis’ ship glide down the center of the bay toward them. It was clear she had been attacked. There were arrows stuck in her planks. The ship drew up beside the Xanthos, and Helikaon looked down. There were injured men, but none appeared badly hurt.

“We had a close call, Golden One,” the burly Chromis called up to him, “but I fear they have not taken the bait.”

“Take your place, Chromis,” Helikaon said. He gazed north, in the direction of the Hellespont. “It appears you are wrong.”

Around the headland appeared the Mykene fleet, dozens of ships rowing in regimented order. As the crews in the Bay of Troy watched, the enemy vessels formed up into an attack formation. Helikaon smiled as he saw that the front line was twelve ships wide. The vessels were well spaced, with plenty of room for the oars.

“Twelve abreast,” Oniacus said, grinning. “Just as you predicted.”

“Menados is not a seaman,” Helikaon explained. “He is one of Agamemnon’s Followers. He was promoted to command a fleet after his successes in the field. So he does not know the Bay of Troy. Neither, it appears, do his captains.”

The rivers Simoeis and Scamander entered the Bay of Troy at the east and the south, bringing a cargo of silt from higher lands. As the years passed, the waters were getting shallower, and hidden mud banks had formed on all sides of the bay. Captains who knew those waters took a careful course down the center of the bay to avoid the mud banks on either side.

The mouth of the bay was wide, but it quickly narrowed. No more than eight ships could travel the bay abreast. Menados’ twelve would be funneled into the central channel, where, Helikaon hoped, they would foul their oars and lose their attack formation. If the attacking ships started to swing and show their beams, the Xanthos could use her ram.

Ramming was a difficult maneuver to pull off effectively. Only a highly skilled crew and a captain with brilliant judgment and timing could count on success. At the moment of impact the ramming ship had to be traveling at just the right speed—too slow and the enemy could back water out of range, too fast and the ram could get embedded so deeply into the target’s hull that it would be stuck there, leaving the attacker vulnerable to attacks from other ships.

Khalkeus had equipped the Xanthos with a blunt-ended ram shod with bronze that drove through the sea just below the waterline. The purpose of this was not to penetrate the opponent’s hull but to deliver such a blow that it loosened all the planks around where it landed.

“What are we waiting for?” asked one of the oarsmen in a loud whisper to Oniacus.

The morning was wearing on and the sun climbing high, yet neither fleet had made a move.

Helikaon heard him and told him, “We are waiting for the Scythe.” To Oniacus he added, “Today the north wind is our friend. Perhaps Menados thinks it is his, but he would be wrong.”

The stiff northerly that whistled through the city of Troy most days of the year was as predictable as sunrise. A light wind in the morning would build up as the sun reached its height. After noon the Scythe could cut through to the bone; then it would die away again as night fell.

Helikaon looked up at the city of Troy standing high above him off the starboard beam. The golden walls shone serenely in the sunlight, and from the bay it was impossible to tell that a war was going on beneath them. He could see movement in the lower town, dust rising, and he could hear distant shouts, but they sounded like the placid mewing of seabirds from that distance. The only indication of the war was the smoke from two funeral pyres, one to the west of the city and one to the south, on the plain of the Scamander.

He turned his gaze back to the enemy fleet and at last felt the wind cutting hard against his face. Helikaon raised his sword, the steersmen ran to their stations, and he shouted, “Oars at four!”

The rowers pulled into their oars with a will, and the Xanthos leaped forward, the Trojan ships keeping pace. Out in the mouth of the bay the Mykene ships saw the challenge and attacked.

Once the enemy oarsmen had built up momentum and the two fleets were racing toward each other, Helikaon raised both arms in the air and brought them down sharply. “Reverse oars,” he cried. The powerful rowers leaned on their oars to back water. The Trojan fleet slowed sharply, as if their commander were afraid of contact. Seeing that, the Mykene ships powered on, tempted farther into the bay. For a while they maintained a perfect attack formation.

Then, as Helikaon watched with narrowed eyes, the ships at each end of the front line hit shallow water and lost their rhythm, veering into the vessels beside them, their tired rowers fouling their oars. Ignorant of this, the front line kept pressing forward into the narrowing channel. Helikaon gave the order to attack again, and once more the Trojan fleet sped forward. At last the officers on the Alektruon realized that the ships at each end of their line were floundering helplessly, oars locked, in shallow water. The order was given to slow down, but by then the second and third lines of ships, rowing hard to get in on the action and pushed by the Scythe, were unable to stop. The fast-moving galleys started ramming the back of their own attack line.

Helikaon saw a ship in the second line collide with the stern of the Alektruon, making her start to turn. The Xanthos had the Mykene flagship’s beam in her sights. “Ramming speed!” he shouted.

The Alektruon still was moving forward, her prow drifting helplessly to starboard, and the Xanthos was at full speed when the Golden Ship hit her. Only heartbeats before the impact Helikaon yelled, “Reverse oars!” Again the disciplined rowers started to back water.

The two ships came together with a sound like a thunderbolt from Zeus. The Xanthos hit her target just behind the prow, shuddered from stem to stern, then pulled away. On both ships warriors were waiting on the foredeck with ropes and grappling hooks, swords and shields, at the ready. But many were thrown from their feet by the impact, and as the Xanthos backed away, there was clear water between the ships before men from either side could jump across. Helikaon felt a cold thrill of triumph. He knew the Alektruon was doomed. At the moment of collision he had felt the fatal give in the other ship as planks below the waterline caved in.

Panic erupted aboard the Mykene vessels. Their once-proud flagship started listing to port, and ships on both sides of the fleet were foundering in shallow water and thick mud. There were angry shouts and curses as panicking crews blamed one another for their plight. Then, as Helikaon had predicted they would, they let fly with the fire hurlers.

He ordered his fleet to back off as fast as possible. Some of the flying clay balls flopped into the water near the Trojan ships, but none of the enemy’s fire hurlers had the height and range of those on the Xanthos. Helikaon instructed the crewmen who manned his fire hurlers to stand ready.

But they were not needed.

As the Trojan and Dardanian crews watched, two of the nephthar balls loosed by Mykene galleys hit other vessels of their fleet. Helikaon quickly ordered his archers to aim their fire arrows at the two ships that had been hit. Both targets went up in a whoosh of flame. The ships’ hulls had been caulked with pitch, and the fires spread across the fleet with sickening speed. Crewmen dived and jumped into the waters of the bay, some to founder waist-deep in sticky mud.

Before long the whole Mykene fleet was in flames as the fire reached nephthar balls on other ships and the braziers on listing craft turned over. Crewmen stuck in the center of the melee of flaming ships died screaming. More died as they swam into range of the Trojans’ arrows. Others swam and waded to the shore of the Cape of Tides, where they were killed by the Trojan soldiers holding the headland. A few made it to the eastern beach of the bay, to their own armies.

From the distance came the faint sound of cheering, and Helikaon looked to the walls of Troy, where crowds had gathered to watch the destruction of the enemy fleet. He ordered two of his ships to pick up survivors for questioning, then strode back down the Xanthos to the aft deck.

Oniacus shook his head in awe, his face pale. “They have lost more than fifty ships and hundreds of men, and we have just three crewmen with arrow wounds,” he said, scarcely believing what had happened.

He gazed at Helikaon. “Many Mykene ships are crewed by slaves chained to their oars. What a hideous death.”

Helikaon knew he was remembering the events at Blue Owl Bay, when Oniacus had argued against such a death for the Mykene pirates.

“I would not have wished this death on slaves,” he responded. “War makes brutes of us all. This is no victory to be proud of. These Mykene and their slaves were condemned to death by ignorance, arrogance, and impatience.”

“Alektruon is a cursed name,” Oniacus said.

Helikaon nodded. “That is true. Agamemnon is unlikely to anger Poseidon by building another one. We have only one problem now.”

“Yes, lord?”

“We must get out of the bay before Agamemnon has time to dispatch another fleet from Imbros or the Bay of Herakles. And our way is blocked.” Helikaon cursed. “Those ships could go on burning until nightfall.”

“Although nephthar burns fiercely, it burns quickly, we’ve found,” Akamas, captain of the Shield of Ilos, called up to them. “Then you will find, Golden One, that the Shield and her sister ships can go where the great Xanthos cannot.”

As he waited for the fires to die down, Helikaon interrogated some of the Mykene his crews had fished from the bay. Most were simple crewmen who knew nothing. They were killed and thrown back into the water. One officer was rescued, but he died of his burns before he told them anything of importance.

The sun was sinking in the west by the time the Artemisia set out for the last time toward the Mykene fleet. Using oars as boat poles, the crew of the ship created a narrow channel through the smoldering mass of blackened timbers, finding and clearing underwater hazards and fishing out large pieces of debris. One by one she was followed by the other ships, from smaller to larger, each widening the escape route to the mouth of the bay.

Finally two of them returned: the Naiad and the Dolphin. The crew of the Xanthos threw down ropes, and the two Trojan ships towed the huge bireme slowly through the channel the other vessels had made. The Xanthos crewmen, oars shipped, watched in silence as they passed the hulls of ghostly galleys bearing hundreds of charred corpses.

Some of the burned and blackened crewmen still stood, fixed in the moment of death. Most had died chained to the rowing benches, their bodies writhing in the heat of the inferno. Many of the Xanthos crewmen turned away, appalled by the horror of the scene. The timbers of the Mykene ships still were smoldering in places, and the stench was sickening.

It was a long time before the fleeing ships reached open water and fresher air. Then, as the sun touched the horizon, the Xanthos and her small fleet sped into the Hellespont and out into the safety of the Great Green.

Andromache stood, as she had stood for most of the day, on the western wall of Troy, watching the events in the bay below. She had not joined in the cheers around her as the Mykene fleet burned. She had stood stiff and silent, afraid that if she opened her mouth, she would break down in tears. In her heart she was saying a final farewell to the man she loved above all others.

As the day cooled, the crowds around her went back to their homes or barracks, but she stayed on until only she and her bodyguard of four remained.

Her night journey into the city had proved uneventful. The donkey train had made its way across the plain of the Simoeis and then under the northern edge of the plateau on which Troy stood. As they neared the city, Andromache could make out lights high above. They were the windows of the queen’s apartments, which faced north above the high cliff. There were unlikely to be enemy soldiers stationed beneath the sheer rock face. But as they reached the foot of the northeast bastion, scouts were sent ahead to see if the way to the Dardanian Gate was clear. They waited in darkness, knowing that they had only a few paces to go but that those paces were the most perilous. If Agamemnon’s troops had reached the Dardanian Gate, they were lost. It seemed an age before the scouts returned to say the road to the gate was still open. The donkey train slipped inside the city to safety.

Andromache’s reunion with Astyanax was joyous. As she embraced the boy, warm and sleepy and bewildered from being woken in the middle of the night, she saw another child, fair-haired and white-faced, standing in the corner of the room, clad in a nightshirt.

Still holding her son to her, she knelt down and smiled. “Dex?” she asked gently, and the little boy nodded dumbly. She saw that his face was tear-stained as if he had cried himself to sleep.

She put her arm around him and hugged him to her. “I am Andromache,” she whispered, “and I will look after you if you wish. Would you like to stay here with Astyanax and me?”

She sat back and looked into his dark eyes. He said something, but it was so quiet that she could not hear it. She put her ear close to his lips and said, “Say that again, Dex.”

The little boy whispered, “Where is Sun Woman? I can’t find her.”

Now, standing on the western wall, she watched as the pall of smoke hanging over the fleet of dead ships was blown away by the north wind. She realized that the fog that had clouded her thoughts for the past days, a fog born of conflicting emotions, fear, and exhaustion, had dispersed. She was glad to be back in Troy, where she belonged, with her son beside her and his little orphan cousin. She was no one’s lover, no one’s daughter, no one’s wife. If they were all to die, as she feared they would, they would be together. She would protect the children to the last and would die with them.

She waited until the Xanthos reached the mouth of the bay, raised her arm in an unseen farewell, and, her heart at peace for the first time in days, made her way back to the palace, to her home.