The Armour of Achilles

As he finished, a horn call rang out across the battlefield. It was long and clear and for a moment men on both sides forgot their struggles and looked to the south. Then it sounded again and a murmur began to sweep through the scattered knots of men, a murmur that soon became a shout. Trojans raised their voices in dismay and Greeks called out in hope, all saying the same thing.

‘Achilles! Achilles is coming!’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

ACHILLES RELENTS

Patroclus ran across the sand towards the Myrmidon galleys, watched by his countrymen as they carried heavy loads to the ships or took down the tents they had slept under for ten years. They looked on him with concern as he sprinted past them, but the only eyes Patroclus was aware of were observing him coolly from the prow of the foremost galley.

‘What kept you so long?’ Achilles asked sternly as his cousin ran up the gangplank, but when he saw the tears in Patroclus’s eyes, his look of disapproval was replaced by one of surprise and concern. ‘You’re – you’re weeping? What is it? What disaster could bring tears to your proud face, my friend? If you’d had news that either of our fathers had died, that might be worth your grief; but then surely I’d have heard of it too.’

‘By the sword of Ares, Achilles, has your damned pride made you into that much of a fool?’ Patroclus snapped. ‘Force your gaze to the north, where the armies of Greece and Troy are fighting the most desperate battle of the war. See the trails of smoke from the burning tents and listen to the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying! Turn your eyes that way and witness the destruction of your friends and all their hopes – all for the sake of your cursed pride.’

Stunned by his cousin’s rebuke, Achilles turned his head towards the great clash of nations, which he had been observing with anxious concern ever since he had sent Patroclus in search of news. The battle lines were closer now, trampling the tents and campfires to the east and stretching in a long curve of furious activity to the north, where the fighting had reached the furthest ships. Here the Greek flank seemed to be breaking up: men were streaming back across the beach, hotly pursued by cavalry while knots of their more resilient comrades fought on against overwhelming numbers of Trojan infantry. Spirals of grey smoke twisted up into the bright blue sky, where not a single cloud impeded the light and heat of the sun. Even on the high prow of his galley, the sound of the fighting pounded the inside of Achilles’s head as if every battle he had ever contested had been rolled into one. And somewhere among the shouts of victors and vanquished he knew his friends were suffering.

Patroclus placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Diomedes and Odysseus are lying wounded in Agamemnon’s tent, as are Machaon, Eurypylus and Agamemnon himself. Some say Great Ajax is dead. But even if Menelaus, Idomeneus and a few others remain, what chance do they stand against Hector, Paris and Sarpedon? Do you still refuse to cast off your pride, Achilles, even when your comrades are suffering so terribly?’

Achilles did not reply, but the tightening of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes were answer enough.

‘Then let me lead the Myrmidons out in your name. Lend me your armour, too, so that when the Trojans see your visored helmet on my head they’ll think you’ve returned. It’ll strike the fear of Hades into them. Besides, they’re so exhausted from days of fighting that a fresh force of spearmen now will sweep them away from the ships and back on to the plains.’

‘I will not help Agamemnon,’ Achilles said angrily, still staring out at the dreadful slaughter consuming the camp. ‘When he took Briseis from my hut he created a greater enemy for himself than Hector or any number of Trojans. But . . . but you’re right. With so many already fallen, the Greeks need our help now. Go then, Patroclus. Take my armour and lead the Myrmidons into battle if your heart is moved to save them.’

‘It is, my lord,’ Patroclus replied. ‘Thank you.’

Achilles turned and stared at his cousin. There was a strange look in his eyes.

‘Don’t thank me, Patroclus. You’re simply doing what I should have done some time ago, and perhaps you’re a better man for it.’ He frowned at the notion, but continued quickly. ‘Take the Myrmidons and drive the Trojans back beyond the walls, but don’t go any further! I don’t know why, but I fear for you, my friend. You’ve lived a long time in my shadow and your skill as a fighter has been less appreciated than it should have been, though I believe you’re a greater warrior than Menelaus, Diomedes or even Ajax himself. Nevertheless, I forbid you to pass the walls of the camp.’

He stepped forward and gently cupped his friend’s chin in his fingertips, looking him in the eye. The other men on the ship’s deck glanced away or busied themselves with their work.

‘I’ll take care,’ Patroclus assured him, folding his fingers around Achilles’s wrist.

Achilles smiled, then pulled away and looked back at the battle raging about the camp like a stormy sea.

‘Besides,’ he added, ‘it wouldn’t be right for your deeds to outshine my own. You’re a lesser noble whereas I’m the son of a goddess; even if you feel Zeus himself is with you, don’t pursue glory but remain at the walls. Go now. My armour is sitting idle in my hut; put it on while I call the Myrmidons to arms.’

Patroclus stroked his chin where Achilles’s fingers had touched him. For a moment, he stared at the back of the prince’s blond head and felt both love and hatred in equal measure. Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and marched down to the sand below. As he ran into the hut, Achilles climbed up on to the prow of his ship.

‘Myrmidons!’ he called out in a loud voice, pausing while his men left their tasks and came running to stand before him. ‘For days now you’ve sat around your campfires cursing me for a bull-headed and heartless monster, nursing my ruthless anger while the Greeks are dying on the battlefield. And don’t shake your heads as if I’m a liar, too – do you think I don’t know you, my own men? Well, I’m not the pitiless fool your whisperings have made me out to be. I am sending you to fight in my place, with Patroclus at your head. And if any man has looked on me with spite these past few days, then let him fight twice as hard now that I have relented. Put on your armour and collect your weapons, and remember that when you face the Trojans, you fight not only for your own glory but also for mine!’

The gathered soldiers shook the air with their cheers, before scattering in every direction as their captains barked order after order at them. And as the Myrmidons prepared for war, Achilles saw the first of the Greek ships go up in flames to the north.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

THE MYRMIDONS RETURN

Penelope looked at the lines of fish on the market stall. Expressionless eyes stared back from silver-grey bodies that twisted and arched in helpless agony, longing for the sea. The fisherman – suntanned with heavy muscles and a thick grey beard – poured a pail of seawater over his catch, causing the fish to thrash about with renewed vigour until the last of the briny liquid had cascaded off the sides and on to the grass. Looking up, he recognized the queen and gave a curt bow.

‘My lady!’ He smiled, showing good white teeth. ‘Take a good look. These are the fattest fish in the whole market. Ain’t no little wrigglers ever come off my boat, ’cause I always goes out the furthest to where the best shoals are – all the strongest fish with the tastiest flesh.’

Penelope closed her eyes briefly and nodded. All fishermen claimed their boats went furthest out and caught the best fish, but in this case there was no denying the man’s catch were fine-looking creatures. She turned to Actoris, her body slave, and pointed down at the table.

‘Pick the eight biggest, Actoris, and have him deliver them to the palace kitchens. He can settle with the cook.’

Leaving Actoris with the fisherman, who shouted cheerful thanks after her, Penelope wandered off alone through the crowded market place. The mid-morning sun was already hot and the warm air was thick with the smells of freshly slaughtered meat, different spices, just-baked bread and a multitude of pungent vegetables and fruit. The market was a good place to lose oneself, she thought; where people were too wrapt in choosing and haggling for their wares to pay much attention to the wife of their absent king. As she pushed between different bodies, avoiding bony elbows and plump backsides, she looked across to the walls of the palace where Telemachus and a collection of other boys were being taught military manoeuvres by Halitherses. The old man sat on an upturned bucket waving instructions with his stick at the double line of children, who were armed with staves or poles and wore wicker baskets for helmets. Penelope paused to watch her son, his solemn but shambolic attempts at spear drill earning him sharp reprimands from his instructor. Halitherses was particularly keen for the future king to learn the art of war, but Penelope knew her son was not an instinctive fighter. He had too much of his mother’s sensitivity about him.

And yet, she thought, if his father did not return from Troy soon, little Telemachus would have to learn to fight to defend his kingdom. Ithaca’s wolves had woken from their slumber and were regarding his inheritance with hungry eyes, while the forces that stood in their way were growing weaker in comparison. A silent, undeclared war had begun and Phronius, it seemed, was its first victim. The old man had fallen to his death in the sea below his isolated house, leaving a single sandal at the cliff’s edge to show he had not disappeared completely. In public people said he must have stumbled in the darkness and fallen on the rocks, from whence the waves had taken his body out to sea. But in private there were many who believed his death had been no accident.

He had also left a vacancy on the Kerosia, and it had taken less than two days for the chief wolf to call upon Penelope and demand a replacement be chosen. Someone young, Eupeithes had suggested, to counterbalance the grey heads of Laertes, Halitherses, Polyctor and himself, not to mention that the other two members of the Kerosia – Nisus and Mentor – were both in their forties. His proposition, as he had sat with Penelope in the great hall the night before, was that his own son, Antinous, should take Phronius’s place.

Penelope had laughed off the suggestion, but Eupeithes was not one to be easily dissuaded. She recalled his pale, mole-covered face, orange in the firelight as his fat body sat wedged into the chair opposite her. His long, feminine hands were folded together beneath his chin and his dark, intelligent eyes stared at her without wavering, though the friendly, understanding expression did not fool her for a moment. He wanted to know why she did not want his son on the Kerosia, and before she could reply he gave a long exposition of Antinous’s qualities. Penelope countered with a list of reasons why he was unsuitable, but Eupeithes dismissed each objection with kind and respectful ease until, finally, her arguments for rejecting Antinous had been stripped bare, leaving only her insistence that he should not be allowed on the Kerosia. At that point, Eupeithes had leaned back in his chair with a defeated sigh, nodding his acquiescence to her decision. But if Penelope had thought she was the victor in their contest, she was soon to realize otherwise. Eupeithes had simply been manoeuvring her into a corner. Now, with her resistance worn thin, he took every one of her arguments against Antinous and turned them into reasons for electing Oenops, one of the nobles most aggressively opposed to the conscription of replacements to go to Troy. And indeed, Oenops would have made an excellent member of the council were it not for the fact he was every bit Eupeithes’s man. But Penelope’s arguments against Antinous could not now be turned on their head to reject Oenops, and when Eupeithes reminded her of how she was in his debt for preventing a rebellion of Ithaca’s nobles, she gave in.

She looked again at Telemachus and felt she had betrayed him. She had called a meeting of the Kerosia for that evening and was not looking forward to telling Laertes, Mentor and Halitherses that Oenops was its newest member. Now only Nisus – the seventh member, and every bit loyal to Odysseus – continued to ensure that Eupeithes, with Polyctor and Oenops, did not control Ithaca’s governing council.

Suddenly, more than at any time since those first few months after Odysseus had sailed for Troy, Penelope wanted her husband back. There was a strength about Odysseus that was like a wall, keeping all the dangers of the world at bay so that to those he sheltered the world seemed a safe and happy place. She would have given anything to see him on his throne again, bringing stability back to his island; but her deepest longing was to have him back in the intimacy of their bed, to be able to love him with all her mind and body again and know the long years of loneliness were over.

But Odysseus was gone and his return seemed more distant now than it had ten years ago, when he had left her to defend his kingdom in his absence. What was more, Penelope knew it was up to her to protect Telemachus. For if the wolves wanted Ithaca, they could not have it while Odysseus’s son lived.

‘Achilles! Achilles is coming!’

Eperitus and Apheidas looked to the south, where dozens of Trojan horsemen were galloping back across the sand and between the broken tents. They were shouting the name of Achilles and the fear in their eyes was clear enough. As they passed, the Trojan infantry pulled back from the beleaguered bands of Greeks they had been attacking and looked in the direction of the panic; their opponents did the same. Everyone sensed a wind of change was now blowing across the battlefield, crushing the victorious ardour of the Trojans and raising the spirits of the Greeks.

‘Achilles,’ Apheidas repeated cautiously, before turning his eyes on Eperitus. ‘If it’s true, then perhaps the war won’t end today. But if Hector is denied his victory, don’t think that Agamemnon will find his. The war will go on, Eperitus, and only you and I can end it. Remember my offer of peace, Son: peace between us for the sake of peace between nations and the salvation of many.’

He gave him a last, lingering look, then turned and ran towards a throng of Trojan spearmen. As Eperitus stooped to retrieve his sword, watching his father disappear amongst the shields of the retreating enemy, he heard a deep voice call out to him. He turned to see Ajax staggering across the body-strewn beach, the blazing galley pouring sparks and smoke into the sky behind him.

‘Eperitus!’ he gasped, exhausted. Eperitus went to support him but his help was dismissed with a wave of the king’s giant hand. ‘No, I’m not hurt – though Hector came closer than any man has ever done to killing me. But is it true what they’re saying, that Achilles has returned? The mere sound of his name has sent the Trojans running from the ships and saved the fleet from being torched.’

‘I don’t know,’ Eperitus answered, looking over his shoulder to where the sound of battle had gained a renewed fury. ‘Where’s Hector?’

‘He went to stem the retreat, and if he hadn’t I might not be here now.’

For the first time Eperitus saw the shadow of defeat in Ajax’s eyes. How different from the day when he had first seen him, twenty years ago in the palace at Sparta. Then he was young, powerful and arrogant as he laid his claim on Helen. But today his confidence in his own supremacy had finally been broken.

‘You forget you nearly beat him on the slopes above the Scamander,’ Eperitus comforted him. ‘If he mastered you today it’s because you’ve taken on the greater burden of the fighting, that’s all.’

‘And Hector hasn’t?’ Ajax laughed, ironically. ‘No, Eperitus, the difference today was that Hector could smell victory in the smoke from the galley. He was like one of the gods, assured of his own immortality. But it seems the Olympians aren’t going to destroy us today, after all. Let’s find Achilles and throw the Trojans back on to the plain.’

As he spoke a great cheer erupted from the Greek soldiers, who raised their spears in the air and cried out in delight. At the same time, the scattered Trojans fell back from the beach altogether and reformed in a dense line amidst the remains of the camp. Then Achilles rode up in his chariot drawn by a pair of pure white horses, the immortal Xanthus and the mortal, but equally splendid, Pedasus. Achilles’s gore-spattered spear was raised high above his head and his black-plumed helmet shone like a mirror in the sunlight, the grimacing mask that formed the visor both wonderful and terrible to look on. The bronze breastplate was shaped and patterned with equal skill – though it was criss-crossed with the scars of war – and the shield on his arm was stuck with arrows that had failed to pierce the many-layered leather. The sight of the famous armour alone had sapped the courage from the veins of the Trojans and sent them reeling back in fear of its owner; and as the chariot rode up to the burning galley – with the Myrmidons behind him in five, solidly packed companies – Eperitus and Ajax felt their own fighting spirit revived in equal measure.

‘Achilles!’ Ajax shouted exuberantly, his near defeat by Hector forgotten as he ran up to the chariot. ‘Thank the gods you’re back, and not a moment too soon. I knew you couldn’t resist a rich fight like this!’

But the man did not remove his helmet or take Ajax enthusiastically by the hand, as Achilles had always done whenever they had met on previous battlefields. Instead, he looked down on him with cold indifference, his eyes gleaming behind the narrow eyeholes; then he ordered the chariot about and, signalling for a group of Myrmidons to douse the fire in the galley, moved slowly towards the waiting Trojans, leaving Ajax silent and confused on the sand.

‘Hey, there! Eperitus!’ boomed a voice.

Eperitus turned to see Peisandros standing at the head of a company of Myrmidons. His well-fed torso was encased in armour and he held a tall spear in his large fist, which he let fall into the crook of his elbow as Eperitus ran across and took his hand.

‘What made Achilles change his mind?’ Eperitus asked.

‘There’ll be time for questions once we’ve pushed the Trojans out of the camp,’ Peisandros growled. ‘Until then, why don’t you join my company? We can avenge the blood of our comrades together.’

Eperitus nodded and slipped into the ranks of the Myrmidons. Just then a hail of arrows arced up from behind the Trojan lines and fell amongst the Greeks; the Greek archers replied, followed by the infantry, who hurled their spears with angry shouts at the enemy shield-wall. Then the order to advance was given and the Myrmidons sprang forward, eager to come to grips with the Trojans after idling by their campfires for so long. The rest of the Greeks charged too, while ahead of them all ran the chariot of Achilles, its heavy wheels bouncing across the shattered remains of the dead and dying. Patroclus pulled back his arm and cast his spear into the massed enemy. The bronze point struck a Trojan noble in the shoulder, severing the ligaments at the base of the arm and wrenching the bone from its socket. As the man tumbled backwards with a scream, Patroclus leapt down from the chariot and dashed in amongst the Trojan spearmen, felling more men and tearing a hole in the line as the rest broke and scattered.

An instant later, the rejuvenated Greek army crashed against the wall of shields that Hector and his captains had been busy organizing. But their efforts were to no avail. On every side, Achilles’s Myrmidons used the strength of their fresh limbs to beat down the exhausted enemy, slaughtering the Trojans like sheep until the front line had been shattered and those behind were sent streaming back to the gates. In a few short, frenzied moments the battle for the ships had been lost, and along with it the Trojans’ best hope of ever ridding their country of the hated invaders.

The Greeks chased them out of the gates and on to the plain where the carnage continued with a vengeful lust, transforming men into monsters. They killed without mercy, thinking only of the friends and kinsmen they had lost. But as the retreat turned into a rout, Patroclus halted his chariot at one of the causeways that crossed the ditch and looked out at the fleeing army before him. It was a sight that would warm any warrior’s heart: a broken enemy with no strength to fight and no hope of refuge on the open flatlands. To massacre them as they ran would leave the walls of Troy defenceless; the Greeks could plunder Priam’s city and put it to the torch that very day. And yet, as the daylight grew strangely dim for the early afternoon, Patroclus recalled Achilles’s warning not to go beyond the gates. Then he looked out and saw the Trojans were re-forming again, led by Sarpedon and his Lycians. The tipping point had come: should he recall the Myrmidons and leave the exhausted Greeks to fight on alone, surely giving the Trojans the chance to save most of their army and fight another day? Or should he order the pursuit and destroy them utterly, bringing total victory and earning himself the glory that Achilles had never allowed him? And then a quieter, darker voice spoke from the back of his mind: did he always want to live on the crumbs of glory that fell from Achilles’s table? Was he not a great fighter in his own right, capable of killing Hector himself and breaking open the gates of Troy? Did not the name of Patroclus, son of Menoetius, deserve to be immortalized? His face was transformed with an angry scowl as he let the words take hold of him, and a moment later his chariot was dashing towards the wall of Trojan and Lycian shields.

Eperitus watched him speeding across the dry grass where the bodies from two days of fighting still lay. Once more, the open ground before the walls was the scene of battle, though this time it was the turn of the Trojans to be harried to their deaths. Everywhere, the men of Troy and her allies were falling to their knees and begging to be taken prisoner, physically and mentally too exhausted to continue the fight. Many others did not dare risk their lives to the mercy of the Greeks and either ran headlong in the direction of Troy or turned and fought. Of the latter, some stood alone and were quickly overwhelmed, while others formed small, desperate bands of warriors and fought on for as long as they could. Still more had seen the stand the Lycians and Trojans were making under Sarpedon and ran to join them. All around the terrible din of battle rose into the air once again, like the clatter of hundreds of woodsmen felling trees on a hillside: sword against sword, spear against shield, axe against helmet. And as the Greeks cried out with the joy of battle, cutting down their enemies with ruthless energy, Eperitus’s heart sank. There was little glory in the slaughter of men who were throwing away their arms and begging for clemency, and as the sun’s light faded in a cloudless sky he knew he had to do something. The warrior’s creed called for a man to slay his enemies and bring glory to his own name, but it was not an excuse for murder.

He began to run from one man to another, calling on them to spare the Trojans who had thrown themselves at their knees, reminding them that there was more to be gained from ransoming prisoners or selling them into slavery than opening their throats like sacrificial animals. Some cursed his efforts and carried on the butchery with frenzied eyes, while others stayed their weapons and felt the grip of sanity return to them. Then, amid the horror of ringing weapons and screaming men, Eperitus felt his heart go cold and his senses reel in confusion. The light was being slowly sucked out of the day, turning the very air heavy and brown. Others sensed it, too, and many cowered down as their primeval instincts told them something was wrong. Looking up, Eperitus cried out in fear as he saw that the brilliant face of the sun was slowly turning to black. Many others shouted in dismay also, some even dropping their weapons and throwing their arms over their heads in terror as the bright sunshine was turned to a stifled gloaming.

And then a voice cried out over the battlefield: ‘A sign! A sign from Zeus. Troy’s doom is at hand.’

Eperitus turned and saw Achilles in his chariot, raising his spear over his head and exhorting the Greeks to press their attacks harder. And yet he knew the voice did not belong to Achilles.

The Myrmidons were the first to throw off their stupor and launch back into the fray. They bore down on the shield-wall Sarpedon had marshalled against them, felling several of their enemy as they remained in awe of the partially eclipsed sun. But the Trojans were quick to recover and soon checked the attack with a furious effort, inspired by the figure of Sarpedon at their backs. The dust that rose from the battle was as grey as ash in the dusky half-light, choking both sides as they struggled against each other, pushing this way and that like treetops caught in a gale as yet more men were brought down into the long grass, spilling their blood over the dry earth and sending their souls to the Underworld.

Peisandros ordered his company to join the fray and Eperitus ran with them, all the time throwing glances at the man in Achilles’s chariot. Something more than the sound of his voice told him that the man was not Achilles, and he had resolved to get a closer look when a shout of defiance rang out across the lines of battle. Sarpedon rode up in his chariot and hurled a spear at the commander of the Myrmidons. It missed its target and thumped into the mortal Pedasus, toppling the chariot on to its side as the animal fell and throwing its occupants to the ground. Patroclus was on his feet in an instant and, snatching up his spear, threw it with deadly accuracy at the Lycian king. Sarpedon twisted aside at the last moment and the weapon took his driver in the chest, sending him flailing backwards from the car.

Crying out with fury, Sarpedon took hold of his second spear and jumped to the ground. The lines of men between him and Patroclus herded aside as the king drew back his weapon and took aim; but the throw was hasty and the long shaft passed harmlessly over Patroclus’s shoulder. Determined to kill the man he believed was Achilles, Sarpedon slipped his sword from its scabbard and ran at his opponent, while behind him his men filled the air with their cheers. But before he could cover half the distance between them, Patroclus snatched a spear from one of his soldiers and launched it at the Lycian. It caught him just below the heart, stopping his great bulk dead as the bronze tip punched through his armour and bored a channel into his flesh and bone beneath. Sarpedon’s eyes widened with shock as blood gushed from his mouth to darken his beard and chest. He seized the heavy spear with both hands and pulled it slowly from his body, before falling to his knees and dropping face-forward into the grass.

Tasting the glory that had been denied him for so long, Patroclus gave a triumphant shout and leapt on the huge form of Sarpedon. Cutting the chin strap with his dagger, he pulled the crested helmet from his head and tossed it into the jubilant ranks of his Myrmidons. Next he sliced through the leather buckles that held Sarpedon’s scaled cuirass in place and tore it from his muscular torso, hurling it with a grunt in the wake of the helmet. Then, as he tugged the greaves from his victim’s shins, a groan escaped Sarpedon’s lips and his arm reached out towards the Lycian lines.

‘Avenge me,’ he called out as his countrymen stood rooted to the ground with shock and grief. ‘Do not let the Greeks drag my body away, to be devoured by their dogs. Avenge me!’

And with that he fell back into the grass and his last breath exited his lips. Patroclus, still kneeling at the dead king’s side, sensed movement among the wall of enemy spearmen and looked up. By now the darkness had grown to a thick haze that weighed heavily in the air and sapped the hope from men’s hearts. And through the veil of ash-like dust that swirled with mesmerizing slowness over the bodies of the fallen, he saw Hector standing at the front of the Lycians, his sword in his hand with the tip resting in the dirt. His dark eyes were fixed on the corpse of Sarpedon and he barely seemed to be breathing, though his nostrils were wide and his free hand was trembling.

‘When I left Troy,’ he said, his gravelly voice shaking with suppressed anger as he turned his gaze on Sarpedon’s killer, ‘I swore I would avenge the deaths of King Eëtion and his sons. You killed them, Achilles, in your god-forsaken wrath. You killed the father and brothers of my wife, just as you have killed countless other Trojans and our allies. And now you have brought even the magnificent Sarpedon down into the dust, sending his ghost to Hades to whisper your glory amongst the halls of the dead. He was a great friend of Troy and he was my friend too; but I will not send him on his final journey alone. You are going with him, and I swear before Zeus and Apollo before this day is over I will strip the armour from your dead body and take it for my own.’

Patroclus stood slowly, his eyes fixed on the terrible figure of Hector as he slid his sword from its scabbard.

‘This armour was given to Peleus by the gods themselves, and now I wear it. But it is too great for you, Hector, just as I am too great for you. Already I have claimed the life of Sarpedon and soon I will claim yours also. The bards will be lifting my name in song before the vultures have finished picking the flesh from your bones, and when I sail back to Phthia your wife will come with me, to spend the rest of her days as my plaything—’

‘NO!’

Hector ran forward, striking Patroclus’s shield with such force that it was torn from his arm. The fighting around them had stopped and the watching Greeks gave a cry of alarm as Patroclus was sent stumbling backwards, almost falling as he raised his blade instinctively against a second powerful blow. Peisandros gripped his spear in both hands and stepped forward as Hector pressed his ferocious attack upon Patroclus, but Eperitus seized the Myrmidon’s wrist and pulled him back. Then Patroclus slipped beneath another blow and turned, thrusting his sword with terrifying speed at Hector’s exposed right flank. This time the Trojans and Lycians shouted in fear as they expected their champion’s heavy bulk to crash into the long grass. But Hector twisted aside with impossible agility and the edge of the blade skidded across the scaled plates of his armour. Turning, he punched out with the point of his sword, high and to the left, catching Patroclus on the shoulder and causing him to cry out as the bronze bit through his armour and into the flesh. He fell back, grimacing and shocked by the sudden pain as Hector rounded on him.

‘So the great Achilles can bleed!’ he crowed, his eyes wide with vengeful triumph.

Still gripping his sword, Patroclus raised his fingers to his throat and unslipped the laces from beneath his chin.

‘Achilles remains by the ships,’ he announced, pulling the visored helmet from his head and dropping it in the grass. There were shouts of surprise from the onlookers. ‘And though I love him and honour him above all men, he has forsaken his chance of glory and given it to me. And in killing you, Hector, I will become his equal.’

He lunged with his sword, the speed and power of his attack almost burying the point in Hector’s chest. But the Trojan had been waiting for the attack and caught the blade in the toughened leather of his shield, before burying his own sword in Patroclus’s stomach, driving it clean through. A stream of dark blood flowed down the blade as Patroclus slid back and fell into the grass.

‘You were never your master’s equal,’ Hector mocked, though there was disappointment in his eyes that he had been robbed of the destruction of Achilles. ‘Although you boasted you would leave me to the vultures and take Andromache back with you to Greece, I have taught you the hollowness of your words. Instead, you can tell the shades in the Underworld that you were beaten by Hector, the greatest warrior in all Ilium.’

He knelt beside the dying Patroclus and stripped the breastplate from his chest. Then he tore away his tunic to expose his flesh for the vultures, leaving him naked and pale in the brown half-light.

‘You are right in one thing, Hector,’ Patroclus croaked as the greaves were torn from his shins. ‘I never was the equal of Achilles, and for my arrogance I will not see his beauty with my living eyes again. But you are not the greatest warrior in Ilium. He is, and when he learns of my death he will hunt you down without mercy. You will not escape him, Hector.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ Hector said, standing and placing the point of his sword against Patroclus’s throat.

Patroclus stared up at silhouette of the Trojan prince. The half-eclipsed sun shimmered over his right shoulder, a sign not of the end of Troy as Patroclus had hoped, but of his own end. And then Hector leaned his weight on the hilt of his sword, cutting through Patroclus’s windpipe and releasing his spirit from his body.

The Lycians and Trojans thumped their spears rapidly against their shields as Hector rejoined their ranks, the armour of Achilles piled in his arms. Then, their fear dispelled, they gave a hoarse shout of triumph and charged. The Myrmidons ran to meet them with Eperitus and Peisandros at their head.

book

THREE

Chapter Thirty

THE VOICE OF THETIS

Achilles sat at the southernmost point of the beach, where large black rocks rose out of the sea and the long sickle of sand was bare of ships. At last, Zeus’s anger seemed to have been appeased and the darkness that had covered the face of the sun was slowly receding. But the return of the soft light of late afternoon did not diminish the darkness that had taken hold of Achilles’s heart. It was clear Patroclus had disobeyed his orders and taken the Myrmidons out on to the plain, and as he sat in the sand and watched the gentle waves roll back and forth along the shoreline he sensed something terrible had happened. The foreboding he had felt when Patroclus had begged to lead the Myrmidons into battle was stronger now, filling him with an inescapable dread for his friend’s life.

Then he heard horses and the rattle of an approaching chariot. One set of braying he knew intimately and with a rush of joy turned to see Xanthus at the top of the beach, standing tall and magnificent with Achilles’s own chariot behind him. But the sense of relief that Patroclus had returned quickly drained away and was replaced by apprehension as he saw that the horse next to Xanthus was not Pedasus – the horse he had captured at Thebe and had been putting through its paces – but another animal, an unfamiliar brown mare that looked frightened and blown. And the man who leapt down from the chariot was not his cousin but Eperitus, caked with blood and dust from the battle and his armour slashed and dinted with many fresh scars.

The Ithacan trudged across the white beach towards him, lifting small clouds of sand behind his heels. The look on his face was sombre and anxious and Achilles knew in an instant the news he had brought with him. Suddenly the heart in his great chest seemed to stop beating and he reached out for something to support himself against, but there was nothing to hold him and he fell back in the sand, tears already welling up in his eyes.

‘My lord Achilles,’ Eperitus began, his words hurried as if he knew he must impart his news now or lose the courage to speak. ‘My lord, your cousin is dead!’

Achilles dropped forward on to his knees like a beggar.

‘You mean Ajax! Ajax is dead.’

Eperitus blinked with surprise. ‘No, my lord, I mean Patroclus. Patroclus is dead.’

Achilles lowered his head, his face lost behind the long curtains of his blond hair. Suddenly his whole body felt heavy, heavier than he had ever known it, hanging between his limbs like a sack of grain that he no longer had the strength to lift. Then he felt Eperitus’s hand around his wrist, hauling him to his feet, and as he stumbled under the leaden weight of his body Eperitus caught him and held him firm. Achilles looked into his brown eyes and saw the depth of his concern.

‘He died a warrior, Achilles, covered in glory. It was he who drove the Trojans from the camp and saved the ships, and I watched him kill Sarpedon with my own eyes and strip the armour from his dying body – such a feat of arms that men will sing about for generations to come. And yet, in the end, the gods were against him . . .’

‘Hector!’ Achilles spat. ‘It was Hector, wasn’t it? Oh, foolish Patroclus! Why did you dare to face the best man in all Troy?’

He looked up at the empty skies and let out a despairing wail, then seized his tunic at the neck and tore it down to his belt. He ran across to the remains of an old campfire, knocking aside the tripod and pot that straddled it and tearing up handfuls of cold ash that he poured over his hair, all the time shouting Patroclus’s name as the tears flowed down his handsome cheeks. At the top of the beach a maidservant ran out from a tent and, guessing what had happened, began to beat her breast with her fist and call out in grief. Others joined her from the surrounding tents, and though all of them were Trojan slaves they also took up the mournful cry. It was a scene Eperitus had witnessed many times about the walls of Troy, as the womenfolk came to claim their dead after a battle, but as he watched the captive maidservants grieving for one of their country’s enemies he felt himself deeply moved.

He turned to Achilles, now lying face down in the remains of the campfire, and knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

‘You should know that he died with your name on his lips, Achilles, declaring that he loved and honoured you above all other men.’

‘Where is he now? Where’s his body?’

‘Still on the battlefield. Ajax and Menelaus sent me back to you with the news while they fight to save Patroclus’s corpse from the Trojans. Ajax has killed many, but still they fight on, eager to take the body back to Troy as a prize. But your armour could not be saved; Hector has that.’

‘What do I care for armour when Patroclus is dead?’ Achilles declared, dragging himself to his feet and facing the west, where the sun was now dipping towards the rim of the ocean. It was a sight he had seen thousands of times in his ten years at Troy, but today it felt as if the sun was going down and would never rise again. ‘I sent him to his death by my own arrogant pride, Eperitus. It’s as if I killed him, not Hector.’

He walked back down to the shore and waded out into waves until they reached his waist. For a moment Eperitus feared that his grief had driven him from his senses and he was about to drown himself, but as he splashed down into the water behind him Achilles threw his arms wide and closed his eyes.

‘Mother!’ Eperitus heard him whisper. ‘Oh Mother, hear me in my grief. Menoetius’s son has been killed by Hector and now I wish my anger had never been provoked by Agamemnon, or that I had never been given reason to plead for your help. How the gods mock us mortals. Even you, my own mother, must have known that my prayers would lead to the death of Patroclus. Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d put aside my fury at Agamemnon’s arrogance things would never have come to this. But it seems this whole war has become nothing more than an exchange of savage fury between friend and foe alike. It’s no longer the thing of honour and glory that I left Greece in search of. And what do I even care for such trifles as honour and glory any more? Patroclus has fallen and now I have nothing but the darkness of grief – and this heaviness I feel is but the beginning. Unless I can find solace beneath these waves?’

He beat the water with the flats of his hands and a sudden desperation filled his eyes, but Eperitus reached out and took him by the arm before he could throw himself under.

‘There was one other thing Patroclus said – his last words before his soul left him. As Hector took the armour from his dying body, Patroclus said that you would avenge him.’

‘Hector?’ Achilles echoed, as if the name were new to him. Then his eyes narrowed and a shadow fell over his handsome features. ‘Yes, Hector. Patroclus must be avenged.’

‘Then you will die, my son.’

Eperitus looked around in surprise for the source of the voice, which did not come from the air but the very waters in which he and Achilles were standing. It sounded gentle and sad, but as ageless and vibrant as a waterfall that calls to the thirsty man with the promise of refreshment and new life. Achilles instantly raised his head.

‘Mother!’

‘Listen to me, Achilles,’ the voice continued, though there was no sign of its owner. ‘If you choose the path of vengeance you will not live long; for it is your doom that once Hector’s soul has departed this world, yours will surely follow. But I would not have it this way. Even now you might escape the fate that has long been assigned to you.’

‘Then I choose death!’ Achilles insisted bitterly. ‘My pride condemned Patroclus to his fate, so why should I go on living without him? All I want is to grant him his dying wish and bring Hector down into the dust. After that, nothing matters. After that, I will gladly give up this pathetic existence and join Patroclus in the Underworld.’

‘And I will spend eternity weeping for you, my dearest child!’ Thetis replied. ‘But even you cannot return to the fight without armour. Restrain your lust for vengeance until tomorrow and meet me here before the sun rises. I will ask Hephaistos to make you a set of arms that will be the envy and desire of all men, though even Hephaistos’s craftsmanship cannot save you from your death.’

A gust of wind tore at Eperitus’s hair, waking him from the dreamlike trance the voice of Thetis had cast over him. Only then, as a white-tipped wave came rolling towards them, did he realize the waters about him and Achilles had been still and flat while the goddess spoke.

Achilles’s grief – like the pride that had come before it – was excessive. He returned to the beach to pour more ash over his head and wallow in the depths of his despair, surrounded all the time by the Trojan maidservants he and Patroclus had taken from the cities they had sacked. The sound of battle raging on the plain drifted over the camp and filled the wounded with fear for their comrades, but the great warrior did not hear it in his anguish as he beat the sand with his fists and tore his clothes and hair. Eventually the sun dropped below the horizon, draining the colour and light from the world and bringing a natural end to the fighting. The remnant of the Greeks fell back behind the relative safety of their walls – the shattered gates having been repaired during the afternoon’s fighting – and the Trojans set up their tents on the plain once more. Everything was the same as the evening before, except that the plain and now the camp itself were filled with thousands more corpses of all nationalities, while the groaning of the wounded had become even louder.

There was one other exception. The following day would see Achilles return to the fight. But as the evening darkened into night he lay prostrate across the dead body of his friend, his face hidden in the crook of his arm and his whole body shaking with harsh, relentless tears. By the efforts of Menelaus, Little Ajax and, above all, Great Ajax, the body had been dragged step by step back to the walls, while all the time the Trojans had fought like Furies for possession of it, as if that single corpse represented the winning of the whole war. Then, as Achilles had led the general mourning – washing the blood and dust from the battered body of Patroclus before covering it with a white sheet and a cloak – Eperitus had slipped away to look for Odysseus and the other Ithacans.

He found them by their ships, battered and exhausted by the prolonged fighting and with a hundred of their number left behind on the battlefield, carrion for the vultures and wolves. As he approached their silent campfires he could see the despondency on their faces, but then a deep voice called his name and he saw Polites limping towards him, his leg bandaged and his bulging limbs and torso crossed here and there with new scars. Eperitus embraced him, ignoring his sharp intake of breath, and to his delight saw Antiphus and Omeros sharing a campfire and signalling for him to join their meal. But he was most pleased to see Arceisius grinning at him from behind the flames, alive and well.

‘I’d given you up for dead,’ he said, gratefully accepting a warm bowl of porridge from his old squire. ‘In fact, I’d given you all up for dead.’

‘You should know we’re not that easy to get rid of,’ Arceisius said, his voice heavy with tiredness.

‘You least of all, I suppose,’ Eperitus said and smiled back, laying a hand on Arceisius’s shoulder. ‘Especially after all the years I spent training you.’

‘You can claim some of the credit, old friend, but not all of it. A glorious death isn’t as appealing as it used to be, not since I married Melantho. I’ve a good reason to survive now, and as soon as we get back to Ithaca the first thing I’m going to do is set about having lots of sons.’

‘Then Zeus save the girls of Ithaca if they’re anything like you,’ Eperitus responded. ‘And perhaps we’ll be returning to Ithaca sooner than we thought: Achilles is going to return to the fighting.’

The others exchanged looks of surprise and elation, glad that their greatest warrior would be returning to their ranks.

‘What of our casualties?’ he continued.

‘Too many,’ Antiphus answered. ‘Half of the new recruits, but a lot of our best fighters too – and some of the old guard with them.’

Eperitus was silent for a while.

‘I’ll go round the survivors soon, but first I have to see Odysseus.’

‘He’s waiting for you in his tent,’ Polites informed him, ‘with Eurybates and Eurylochus.’

Eperitus did not voice his disappointment that Eurylochus was still alive, though the news did not surprise him. Taking a mouthful of wine from a skin offered by Arceisius, he took his leave of his friends and went to find the king. Fortunately, the small Ithacan camp had avoided the worst of the destruction and he found Odysseus’s hut much as it had always been. His friend was inside discussing the formation for the next day’s fighting, but when he saw Eperitus he gave him a broad grin and came to embrace him. Eurylochus scowled and excused himself while the others sat and discussed the battle, as slaves brought tables of roast meat and bread with kraters of wine to wash it down. Odysseus listened intently to everything that Eperitus and Eurybates had to say about the battle – both men having experienced different viewpoints while their king’s wound had forced him to remain in the camp – but his interest increased even further when Eperitus mentioned hearing the voice of Thetis as he stood with Achilles in the sea.

‘And she will return to him before sunrise tomorrow?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, down by the rocks at the northern end of the bay.’

Odysseus raised an eyebrow. ‘That should be something to behold. But for now I need to rest this wound and get some sleep. I suggest you two do the same: even if Achilles settles his differences with Agamemnon tomorrow and rejoins the fight as you say he will, Eperitus, it’s going to be another hard day for us all. Goodnight.’

His companions stood and left, welcoming the thought of sleep and a rest after the toils of the day. But, though Eurybates went straight to his own tent, Eperitus stayed awake a little longer, visiting the Ithacan campfires and testing the morale of the men – which was good, despite their losses – before encouraging them to grab some hard-earned rest. A little while later, he curled up under his blanket and was instantly taken by a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Thirty-One

THE ARMOUR OF ACHILLES

Odysseus placed his hands on Eperitus’s shoulders and shook him gently.

‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not long until dawn.’

‘What of it?’ Eperitus replied, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘Where are we going?’

But Odysseus was already at the door of his hut, beckoning for him to follow. Eperitus kicked off his blanket and dressed quickly, throwing his cloak about his shoulders and grabbing his sword. The brightest stars were still shining overhead as they stepped out, but a faint light was infusing the skies to the east and turning them a deep blue. With Odysseus leading the way, the two men jogged between the tents and campfires where the hunched forms of sleeping men were snoring heavily, ignorant of the groans of the wounded that still undulated from different parts of the camp like the wailing of lost souls. Soon they reached the beach where the Myrmidon ships were drawn up and found the wooden bier on which Patroclus’s body had been laid. It was empty.

Odysseus gave Eperitus an inquisitive glance as they paused to look at the discarded shroud and the white cloak that had covered the body. Then he set off again, kicking up gouts of sand as he sprinted past the tall, black prows of the galleys.

It was not until they passed the last Myrmidon ship and saw the jagged rocks that marked the southernmost edge of the bay, that they spotted Achilles, a dark shape lying close to the water’s edge. Patroclus’s pale, naked body was with him and the prince lay prostrate across his friend’s chest, shaking with tears as the waves washed repeatedly over his outstretched legs. Odysseus ducked down behind a low boulder and signalled for Eperitus to join him.

As the rock was only a short distance from the shore they could see Achilles clearly, and for a while they crouched in silence listening to his heavy sobs amid the consolatory hushing of the waves. The sky grew gradually lighter and objects that before had been black and indistinct now became colourless shapes in the greyness. A gentle mist had formed over the surface of the sea and was threatening to wash inland when Eperitus seized Odysseus by the shoulder and pointed at a spot close to the shore, where two black rocks jutted upwards like the broken pillars of an ancient gateway.

‘Do you see it?’ he whispered.

Odysseus nodded. There was a movement in the water, a frantic splashing as if someone were drowning. It grew quickly, rising up in a column like an inverted whirlpool that swirled round and round, fast at first but getting steadily slower as it began to take shape. Then, as the first hint of dawn crept into the sky and brought small dashes of colour back to the world, the two men were amazed to see the figure of a young woman forming from the water, her translucent arms reaching up to clutch at the air. And as she caught the light in her fingertips the liquid became flesh, transforming the hands and arms first, followed by the head, breasts and stomach until they were staring at a girl of little more than twenty years old, standing waist-high in the waves.

Slowly, she lowered her arms and stared at Achilles, who remained oblivious to her presence. Her hair was blond like his and flowed over her shoulders and down her back to run in rivulets over her buttocks; her skin was as white as ivory and her face had all the beauty of unblemished youth, but in her sea-green eyes sat all the knowledge and wisdom of an immortal. She walked ashore, unhindered by the waves because she was part of them, her lower body taking shape from the water as she moved and changing into flesh until she stood naked on the sand, looking down at her son.

‘This is not the time for mourning, Achilles,’ she said.

Achilles snatched up the sword that lay in the sand beside Patroclus’s body and spun round. Seeing his mother, he dropped the weapon and leapt to his feet, throwing his cloak about her nakedness before taking her into his arms. Eperitus almost expected her to dissolve into a shower of spray as the prince embraced her and laid his head on her shoulders, but her flesh was as real as his own and she kissed his head and ran her long fingers through his hair.

‘Restrain your grief until you have avenged Patroclus,’ she whispered. ‘When Ajax brought him to you, you swore before all the gods that you would not let his death go unpunished; that you would make Hector pay for it with his own life. Now there can be no turning back, my son. You have chosen the path of doom and so you must make amends with Agamemnon and take up your spear once more. But even though I dipped you into the River Styx as a baby in the vain hope of making you an immortal like myself, you can still suffer the pain of wounds. What is more, the heel by which I held you remains mortal, the one place where the bite of a weapon can end your life. And so I have fulfilled my promise and brought you new armour – made by Hephaistos himself.’

She swept her arm across the waves that were lapping the beach and suddenly they retreated before her, rolling back to reveal a pile of metal in the damp sand that gleamed and glittered as the sea water drained from its ornately carved surfaces. At the same moment the first molten glimmer of the sun topped the distant mountains to the east and its light touched on the heap of gold, silver and bronze, making it blaze as if consumed by tongues of red fire. Wide-eyed with awe, Odysseus and Eperitus clutched at the rough edges of the boulder and pulled themselves up to get a better view, not noticing as the sharp stone cut at their tightly grasping fingers. Achilles, too, was stunned at the sight. He released his mother and took a step towards the collection of armour. Then he staggered forward – the wet sand sucking at his bare feet – and lifted the golden helmet in both hands, raising it above his head so that the shaggy red mane of its plume dripped salt water on to his chest. His mouth was open and his jaw quivered as if he wanted to speak but, instead, he fell to his knees, laid the helmet down reverently in the sand and lifted up the tin greaves, admiring the life-like curves and the crested waves that had been engraved over every surface.

After a moment he set them down beside the helmet and took hold of the heavy cuirass, which had been perfectly shaped to mimic his own muscle-bound torso, even down to the circles of his nipples and the chute of his navel. The bronze was so highly burnished that he could see his face reflected clearly in the chest muscles, framed by lightening skies that were traced with pink cloud. The red-rimmed eyes that looked back at him had forgotten their grief and become consumed with desire, and the sight of them forced him to release the breastplate and look away.

But he did not look far, for his eyes fell upon the large round shield that stood behind the other pieces of armour, its lower lip buried in the sand but otherwise without any visible support. If the helmet, greaves and breastplate were works beyond Achilles’s wildest imaginings, the shield was beyond his comprehension. He stared at it dumbfounded, letting his eyes feast on the intricate designs that adorned it, designs that moved with a life of their own. At its centre, forming the boss, was the disc of the Earth, covered with mountains, forests and rivers depicted in silver; encircling this was the Sea, dotted with islands and populated with giant marine creatures that constantly plunged into the waves before rising up again, spewing water. Bounding Earth and Sea were the heavenly bodies of the Sun, Moon and Stars. As the golden Sun set into the Sea the silver Moon would rise and the constellations that Zeus had set in the sky would twinkle and gleam, fading only when the Sun rose again.

The central circle was ringed by four more circles, each one filled with designs that moved in cyclical patterns. The second circle was divided into two halves, on which were depicted two cities: one filled with celebrations and banqueting as a wedding procession moved through its golden streets; the other in turmoil as besieging and defending armies wrought bloody havoc among each other’s ranks. In the first, young women in bridal robes of ivory danced to the music of reed pipe and tortoiseshell lyre; in the second, larger-than-life figures of Athena and Ares fought amid the two armies, slaying with impunity while all around them mortal warriors struggled over the armour of their dead and dying victims.

The third circle showed, on one side, a large meadow being ploughed by teams of oxen, where the golden soil was being turned black by the plough blades, and on the other a rich estate filled with vineyards and fields full of tall wheat. In the latter, golden vines grew on silver frames and brought forth grapes made from gleaming jet; the whole was surrounded by a fence made of tin and an irrigation ditch that flowed with blue enamel. The fruit was being carried away by teams of young men and girls as they danced to the music of a lyre, while in the fields men were harvesting the wheat with sickles and others were tying them into sheaves, all under the close supervision of a majestic king.

In one half of the fourth circle was a herd of ten cattle, depicted in gold with horns of tin. They were accompanied by four drovers, also in gold, and nine dogs that barked as the cows were driven down to a river to drink. But as Achilles watched, a pair of lions leapt out from the rushes and brought down the first animal, tearing out its throat and then feasting on its entrails as the drovers and their dogs tried in vain to scare them off. In the other half were great flocks of sheep with ivory fleeces, grazing in a wide valley where a farm and several sheep pens were depicted in silver.

The fifth circle of the shield showed a vast dance. Young men held the hands of pretty girls as they circled each other in time to the music of a lyre. The maidens wore beautiful silver chitons and flowers in their hair, which Hephaistos had fashioned with minute threads of gold and tin. As for the men, their skin gleamed as if oiled and they wore silver belts with golden daggers. Large crowds of older men and women watched in delight, as if filled with memories of their own youth. Finally, the concentric circles of the shield were bound by the Ocean Stream, which marks the end of all things.

Achilles plucked it from the sand and looped his arm through its leather straps, finding its weight surprisingly light. As he turned, the shield caught the rising sun and its ever-moving designs were displayed in their full glory to Odysseus and Eperitus.

‘In the name of Athena!’ Odysseus gasped, his eyes widening as they took in the impossible detail of the shield’s design.

Not caring that Achilles and Thetis would know he had been spying on them, he stood and crossed the beach towards the Phthian prince. Achilles was momentarily surprised to see him, but instead of admonishing the Ithacan he ran towards him with the shield on his arm.

‘Look at it, Odysseus!’ he declared, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. ‘Can you believe such a thing? Hephaistos made it, and as Zeus is my witness, I swear its equal has never been seen on earth or Olympus.’

Odysseus nodded his head in agreement but said nothing, too absorbed by the continuous movement of the figures on the shield. And the more he looked the more he sensed that the scenes depicted his own life, as if the shield had been meant not for Achilles at all, but himself. Among the islands that populated the depiction of the Sea, he could clearly make out the shapes of Ithaca and its larger cousin, Samos. And what were the wedding scene and the besieged city meant to represent but his own marriage to Penelope, followed by the attack on Ithaca and the defeat of the Taphian invaders? The king in the third circle could only be himself, presiding over the ten plentiful years that Ithaca had enjoyed under his rule. And as for the cattle in the fourth circle, there was one animal for each year of the war and the tenth – which was being seized by the two lions as he watched – represented the final victory of the Greeks over Troy. The dancers in the fifth circle surely represented the celebrations on his return to Ithaca. And yes, there amongst the crowd was a woman and her son – Penelope and Telemachus – both depicted in gold to pick them out from the other onlookers who were shown in silver.

But as he looked at the great shield and the pride with which Achilles was displaying it, he realized his fantasies were but foolish imaginings. Surely the armour was beautiful – as beautiful an object of metal as Helen was of flesh – and his heart was filled with desire for it, telling him that here was the outward show of greatness Palamedes had predicted he would never possess. And there was no doubt in his mind that the mere sight of it would spark a similar lust in all fighting men, whether enemies of Achilles or friends, such was the lure of all things that came from the gods, and Odysseus had almost been drawn in by its promise of glory. But he also remembered how he had once tried to make Helen his wife; and as foolish as that thought had been twenty years ago, so he knew it was a foolish desire to want Achilles’s shield now. For though the shield was magnificent, the mere possession of it did not bring a man glory or honour. Such lustre could only come from great deeds, and unless a man could first kill Achilles and take the shield from his dead body it was nothing more than a splendid token.

He turned to look at Thetis, wondering whether her eyes would reveal that she, too, knew the shield would be a snare to the Greeks. But the sand where she had stood was empty except for the ashen corpse of Patroclus, its waxy flesh disfigured by the marks of combat.

Chapter Thirty-Two

THE FEUD ENDED

Odysseus and Eperitus helped Achilles on with his new armour then followed him along the beach as he called out at the top of his voice, summoning the Greeks to assemble. The last of the night had been chased away and powder-blue skies now formed an endless ceiling over the world, but the calm of the heavens was not mirrored for long in the sprawling camp below. From every point, soldiers left their cold breakfasts and herded down to the meeting place on the shore opposite Agamemnon’s tent, where the clamour of their excited voices grew until it drowned out the cawing of the many seagulls and the gentle crashing of the waves upon the sand. Though they were exhausted by their exertions and many of them bore wounds from the battles of the previous days, the Greeks were suddenly filled with confidence at the appearance of Achilles. The fact that he had left Patroclus’s bier could only mean he was ready to put aside his grief and go to war, and the multitude of warriors shared his eagerness for vengeance in Trojan blood. But if the prospect of following the prince into battle had loosened their tongues, the magnificence of his armour set them racing.

‘It’s the work of a god,’ Ajax said as he joined Odysseus and Eperitus on one of the benches being set out hastily by Agamemnon’s personal guards. He was accompanied by Teucer and Little Ajax, whose pet snake hung about his shoulders and hissed at the Ithacans. ‘The breastplate and helmet alone are beyond the skill of any man, but that shield!’ He gave a whistle and shook his head disbelievingly.

‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’ Odysseus agreed without removing his eyes from the object as it hung on Achilles’s arm. ‘And yet—’

‘In the name of Ares!’ Ajax exclaimed, placing his hands on his knees with his elbows out and leaning forward. ‘The designs on the shield – they’re . . . they’re moving! From the top of the beach I thought it was the sunlight playing on the silver and gold, but they’re actually moving. How is that possible?’

Little Ajax squinted doubtfully at the shield, and then, for the first time since Eperitus had known him, a look of wonder transformed his mean features. He turned to Teucer, who was huddled in close by Great Ajax’s enormous frame, but the archer’s gaze was transfixed by the shield and he paid no attention to the Locrian king.

‘Teucer, I forgive you for waking me while I was with Tecmessa,’ Ajax said, placing a thick arm about the scrawny shoulders of his half-brother. ‘Just to see such a thing was worthwhile, and the more I look at it . . .’

He paused and frowned, staring hard at the shield with a mixture of surprise and growing recognition. At the same moment the crowds of soldiers standing around the benches where the kings, princes and other leaders were sitting parted. Agamemnon entered through the gap, sceptre in hand and followed by Menelaus and Nestor. The King of Men threw a quick glance towards Achilles – who remained with his back to the assembly, staring out at the rollers as they folded in on the shore – then leaned in towards his companions and spoke in a low voice.

Eperitus gave Agamemnon a contemptuous sneer and turned to Ajax.

‘You were going to say something about Achilles’s shield,’ he prompted.

Ajax blinked as if waking from a dream. ‘Your eyes are the best in the army, Eperitus,’ he said, taking the Ithacan by the arm and pointing at the shield. ‘Tell me – does one of those islands look like Salamis to you?’

‘I wouldn’t know. Salamis is your kingdom, not mine, and I’ve only seen it from the western side.’

‘Never mind,’ Ajax said dismissively. ‘But look at that city under siege – it’s Teuthrania, the city I sacked where I took Tecmessa as my captive. And the next scene is of my marriage to Tecmessa – and that’s our son, Eurysaces! Look, all of you: it’s as if the shield was made for me and not Achilles at all!’

He stood up as if he intended to claim the object there and then, but Odysseus seized his wrist and pulled him back down again.

‘Don’t be a fool, Ajax,’ he hissed, staring at the giant warrior with a strange look in his eye. ‘Eperitus and I saw Thetis bring the armour to Achilles. Besides, the shield could just as well be showing Achilles’s marriage to Deidameia, whom he wedded back on Scyros. Why should it be you and Tecmessa when it could easily be Menelaus and Helen, or even myself and Penelope? And which of us hasn’t laid siege to one city or another?’

Ajax shook Odysseus’s hand off and stared at him.

‘You’re wrong, Odysseus. This armour was meant for me, I can feel it in here.’

He tapped his fist against his chest.

‘Ajax, listen to me. The armour has some sort of enchantment about it – I felt its pull myself, only a short while ago. But it was made for Achilles, at the command of his immortal mother. Since when have the gods lavished gifts like this on ordinary warriors like you or me?’

‘I’m no ordinary warrior, Odysseus. I’m the equal of any god in battle – even Zeus himself !’

The others drew back, Little Ajax frowning and hissing through his teeth at his namesake’s blasphemy. But Great Ajax just glared at them contemptuously.

‘Fools! Superstitious old women have less fear of the gods than you do. But I tell you the truth, I’ve never needed an Olympian’s help in any battle I’ve ever fought. Even the great Achilles calls on their help before each fight, but not me! And if any of them dared face me in mortal form then I would master them by my own strength alone.’

Eperitus shook his head. ‘I remember a short while ago you thought you’d met your match in Hector. Now you’re saying you could beat the father of the gods himself ?’

‘A comment made in a moment of exhaustion and weakness,’ Ajax replied, scowling. ‘I have the skill to beat anyone, Hector included, and the fact the gods have sent this armour to me proves it.’

‘But the armour belongs to Achilles,’ Odysseus reminded him. ‘Unless you think you can take it from him.’

Ajax looked at him thoughtfully, then shook his head.

‘There’s no treachery in my heart, if that’s what you’re implying, Odysseus. But one way or another, I tell you the armour is meant for me.’

At that moment Agamemnon stepped forward and raised his arms for silence.

‘Achilles,’ he called out in a stern voice, ‘you have called us to assembly. State your reasons and be quick about it; the rest of us have a war to fight.’

Achilles did not answer immediately. He took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of the sea and the feel of the breeze against his face. Then he turned to look at Agamemnon and for the first time the King of Men saw the shield in all its glory. His eyes widened and his sceptre – which had also been made by Hephaistos – almost fell from his fingers.

‘Agamemnon, son of Atreus, king of Mycenae,’ Achilles began, the red plume of his helmet flickering lightly in the breeze. ‘It was your decision to take Briseis from me that caused this feud between us. And yet I would rather the girl had died first and my anger had never been provoked, for it has brought calamity on the Greeks and death to Patroclus, my beloved friend. But these things have happened and I have taken a solemn oath that I will not bury Patroclus until I have avenged his death with Hector’s blood, so for my part I declare this feud over. If you will accept it, my spear is at your service once more, King of Men.’

His words were greeted by a ringing cheer from the watching soldiers. Those who were fully armed clashed the shafts of their spears against their shields, while even their leaders – Ajax, Odysseus and Eperitus among them – rose from the benches and shouted their joy at Achilles’s announcement. Only one man remained seemingly unmoved, though there was a glimmer of a smile on his thin lips.

‘You aren’t the only one, Achilles, to place the blame for our feud squarely on my shoulders,’ Agamemnon declared, staring round at the gathered men, many of whom looked down at the sand as his eyes passed over them. ‘Every man here was angry at me for driving you into your hut and away from the fighting, though none dared voice it. And yet I tell you the fault for our rift was not mine. It belongs with the gods, who blinded me with folly in order to heap more misery and suffering upon mankind. But as there can be little doubt that the immortals have betrayed me, or that they have shown you their favour’ – he pointed at the shield and his eyes lingered a moment on the constantly moving designs – ‘I will honour the gifts Odysseus promised you on my behalf. Let them be brought to you now – Briseis first – so that the whole army can witness my offer of reparation and the end of our feud.’

The assembly raised their voices in agreement, but Achilles stepped forward and drew his sword, holding it up like a sceptre.

‘Let the gifts wait until after we have driven the Trojans back to their city and Hector’s blood is soaking the soil of Ilium.’

The voices were louder in response, Ajax’s chief among them, but when Odysseus stepped forward and took the staff from Agamemnon, they soon fell away again.

‘Stem your anger, Achilles. We don’t all have your strength and our limbs aren’t as fresh as yours. The men must eat before they go out to battle and the gods have to be honoured with sacrifice for ending your quarrel. Agamemnon has acknowledged that the immortals overruled his own judgement and has offered reparation; you should have the grace to accept it. The Trojans will still be there once the right customs have been observed, and then we can all make them pay for the suffering they’ve inflicted on us.’

Reluctantly, Achilles conceded and the army set about preparing their breakfast, though the prince stubbornly refused to eat until the day’s fighting was over. Even when Briseis was brought before him, along with the slaves and the other wealth that had been promised him, Achilles hardly seemed to notice the woman over whose ownership his costly feud with Agamemnon had taken place. Instead, he sat on one of the benches as his Myrmidons took Briseis to his hut, watching impatiently as Talthybius brought a boar to Agamemnon and the King of Men invoked Zeus’s blessing on their restored friendship. Then, as soon as Agamemnon had slit the creature’s throat and Talthybius had hurled its carcass into the sea, Achilles stood and returned to the Myrmidon camp to prepare his chariot for war.

Chapter Thirty-Three

HECTOR’S DILEMMA

Hector stood looking at his shadow as it lay across the crushed grass, pointing like a long, black finger towards the shining sea. He wore the armour he had stripped from Patroclus’s body, the magnificent breastplate, shield and helmet that for many years he had longed to pull from the corpse of Achilles himself. About his waist was the purple belt Ajax had given to him after their inconclusive duel. They were symbols of honour, won in combat against men whose spears had brought many a good warrior down into the dust, and yet they gave him no pleasure as he awaited the slaughter of another day’s fighting.

Aeneas and Apheidas stood to his left, Paris and Deiphobus to his right, their own shadows thin and black before the bright sunshine. On the plain between them and the walls of the Greek camp were strewn the bodies of the men who had been slain in the previous days’ battles. They lay singly or heaped one upon another, hardly recognizable as the living, breathing, articulate beings they had been only a little while before. Now, scattered groups of vultures picked at their dead eyes or probed open wounds with their hooked beaks, occasionally flapping their large wings to give themselves leverage as they tore off strips of flesh. Elsewhere, packs of wild dogs buried their sharp teeth into exposed limbs and torsos, ripping open stomachs and pulling out long, purple entrails that the other dogs would then pounce on in a frenzy. Hector watched them impassively. He could send groups of soldiers to chase the vile creatures away, but what good would it do? The animals would soon come back and he would only be tiring his already exhausted men further.

He sighed audibly and Aeneas, who had been fidgeting impatiently, took this as a sign that the debate could begin.

‘Any moment now, those gates are going to open and the entire Greek army will come pouring out again,’ he said. ‘And if they find us still here, they’re going to massacre us. It’s a long way back, Hector; we need to return to Troy with the army intact, while we still can.’

‘Aeneas is right,’ Paris added, tracing his finger along the scar that crossed his face from forehead to beard. ‘The men are exhausted, but worse than that, they’re afraid. With Patroclus dead, Achilles is going to want revenge. He’ll be leading the Greeks this time, not Agamemnon, and if he was difficult enough to fight before he’ll be like a lion among lambs now. Face it, Brother, for all our efforts we’ve fallen short of victory. I say let’s return to the safety of the city and save our forces for another day.’

Hector folded his hands behind his back and watched one of the broken forms on the battlefield wave a weak arm at a vulture, which hopped out of reach and waited for the arm to flop back down before closing in again. Aeneas and Paris were right, of course. Morale was low with the certainty that Achilles was going to return to battle, so one fiercely pressed attack could break the army’s will to fight and force them into open retreat across the plain. Better perhaps to turn back now and find shelter behind the city walls, where they would be safe and could rebuild their strength. With new allies getting nearer by the day – the Amazons led by Queen Penthesilea from the east and the Aethiopes under their king, Memnon, from the sun-parched south – it would not be long before they could sally out again and trap the Greeks in the middle, there to be annihilated.

But allies would demand a high price for bringing victory. And Hector still had his pride: marriage to Andromache may have softened his youthful ambitions, but it had not taken away his warrior’s lust for glory. He wanted to defeat the Greeks himself, and, most of all, he wanted to face Achilles and take vengeance for the murder of Andromache’s father and brothers.

‘The walls will keep us safe, no doubt about that,’ said Apheidas, staring out at the carnage on the plain. ‘But they won’t send the Greeks from our shores or give us victory. Our only chance of that is to stand our ground here and defeat them, or to die in the attempt. If we go back now, Troy may hold out for another couple of years – but the Greeks will triumph in the end. Hector knows that.’

Like the other commanders, Apheidas was ignorant of the new allies Priam had won over, so Hector was able to ignore the provocation in his tone. But the young and impetuous Deiphobus could not.

‘Apheidas is right. The only way we can save Helen is to destroy the Greeks now, while we have a chance. We’ve fought hard and lost many men, but so have they. All it needs is for one of us to kill Achilles and the rest of them will fold.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Hector answered, turning to his comrades. ‘Get rid of Achilles and the rest is a matter of time. But who is going to kill him? Will you, little brother?’

Deiphobus blinked in surprise. He had fully expected Hector, the bulwark of Troy and its greatest hope, to see the sense of his argument and announce he was going to face Achilles at last. The notion that he would accept the advice of Paris and Aeneas and retreat had never occurred to him. It was almost as bad as the thought of his beautiful sister-in-law, whom he had loved since the first moment he had seen her, being trapped inside the city walls for more long years or being taken back to Sparta by Menelaus.

‘I will kill him!’

The five men turned to see a short, stocky warrior strolling towards them. His shield was slung across his back and he clutched two spears in his right hand, while his helmet dangled by its chin strap from the fingers of his left.

‘Podes!’ Hector exclaimed, rushing to embrace his friend. But the next moment he pulled away and stared hard into the man’s dark eyes. ‘What’s wrong? Why have you left Troy when I gave strict orders for you to stay there with the militia? And who’s protecting my wife and son?’

‘Andromache’s my sister, don’t forget, and Astyanax is my nephew – do you think I’d leave them if they weren’t safe? The fact is they never needed my protection in the first place and that’s why I’m here. I’m sick of waiting on the walls with frail old men and boys too young to fight, listening to rumours and watching the wounded and captured streaming back through the Scaean Gate. I’ve come to avenge the evil the Greeks have done to our beloved homeland – and to fight at your side, Hector, as I have done in every battle up until now.’

‘That all changed when Achilles killed King Eëtion and your brothers,’ Hector declared, his gravelly voice strained. ‘You’re the last of Andromache’s family. If you die, it’ll destroy her, so think of your sister rather than yourself and return to the city at once.’

‘No! You’re the one who should go back to Troy and let the rest of us do the fighting for a change. You never give yourself any respite in this war, my friend, no doubt because you don’t trust us to hold off the Greeks without you. But if you fall, then Troy will fall with you, and Andromache and Astyanax’s fate will be sealed! Go back to them now and let me face Achilles – it’s my duty and my heart-felt desire to avenge the deaths of my father and brothers, whom he slew in his vile and ungodly anger at Thebe.’

As the last word left Podes’s lips, the different gates along the Greek wall flew open with a crash and streams of men began pouring across the causeways. First came the cavalry, the horsemen quickly assembling on each flank and the chariots forming a long line opposite the waiting Trojans. Hordes of archers and slingers followed, running on to the plain to create a thick, disorderly screen of skirmishers. Then came the dense ranks of heavily armoured spearmen, their bronze and leather equipment clanking as they drew themselves up into well-disciplined oblongs before the ditch. The sun sparkled on the breastplates and helmets of the assembled army, but from the armour of one man in particular it blazed like a great beacon, too fierce to look at. The red plume of his helmet fluttered in the ever-present wind like a jet of fresh blood, while on his arm was a shield as brilliant as the face of the sun.

The Trojans looked on their foes with dismay. Their numbers seemed hardly diminished by the days of hard and terrible fighting that had taken such a toll among their own ranks, and though none could see his face, every man knew that the warrior with the bright armour in the leading chariot really was Achilles this time, fresh to the battle and seething with the desire for revenge. Hector looked from the resurgent Greeks to the faces of his own men, standing in their companies behind the small group of their commanders, and he knew what he had to do.

‘We cannot fight them,’ he announced, though his heart was heavy and he had to force the words from his lips. ‘The army’s exhausted and doesn’t share your enthusiasm for this fight, Podes, despite its skill and courage. I will speak to Agamemnon and call a day’s truce to gather the dead again, and then we’ll withdraw to the city during the night.’

Podes spat in the dust and glowered his disapproval at his brother-in-law.

‘Back down now and all is lost,’ he warned. ‘You’re a greater man than that, Hector, and Troy is tired of surviving to fight another day. You must lead us to victory – or say farewell to everything you love.’

‘He’s right,’ Apheidas agreed, clutching at the hilt of his sword and looking at the prince sternly. ‘You’ll not get another chance like this.’

Hector thought of the Amazons and the Aethiopes who were drawing closer to the city with each passing day and shook his head as he turned to face his men.

‘I’ve made my decision. I’m going to parley with Agamemnon and—’

‘Podes!’ Aeneas shouted.

They turned to see Podes leap on to Hector’s chariot and shove the surprised driver back into the dirt. He seized the reins and with a shout sent the horses leaping across the plain.

‘Stop him!’ Hector ordered.

At once Aeneas took up his spears and dashed forward, calling to the driver of his own chariot. The man was quick to react and a moment later Aeneas had jumped on to the car and was pursuing Andromache’s brother towards the Greek lines. As he watched the chariots speed across the battlefield, Hector knew there was no chance now of a truce and little hope of an unmolested return to the safety of Troy.

‘Apheidas,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘prepare your cavalry to cover the army’s retreat, if need be. Paris, Deiphobus – pray to the gods and call on all your courage. We’re going to attack.’

Raising his spear above his head, he turned to the ranks of skirmishers and spearmen whose tired faces looked at him with grim expectation. Then he thrust the weapon towards the Greek lines and, with a great shout that sent the vultures flying slowly and awkwardly up from the bodies of the dead, the army advanced.

Out on the plain, Aeneas quickly overhauled Podes – whose horses were struggling to obey his unfamiliar voice – and shouted for to him to turn back. Podes ignored him, but as Aeneas prepared to cut across and force him away from the Greeks, Achilles spurred his own chariot forward and came rushing towards the two men at a fearful pace. Knowing there was no escape, Aeneas hurled his spear at the approaching warrior, only to watch Achilles raise his shield and swat it aside as if it were nothing more than a toy arrow fired by a child. The Greek’s reply was rapid and accurate, the point of his heavy spear punching through the oxhide layers of Aeneas’s shield and tearing it from his arm. A storm of arrows from the Locrian archers followed and as Aeneas ducked behind the low screen of his chariot his driver steered the horses away and drove them back towards the Trojan lines.

‘Achilles!’ Podes shouted, bringing Hector’s chariot to a halt and jumping down to the ground. ‘Achilles, you murderous dog! I am Podes, son of King Eëtion and brother to his seven sons, all of whom you murdered when you sacked my home city of Thebe. I have come to face you and take revenge for their deaths.’

‘Brave but foolish,’ Achilles replied, stepping down from his chariot and retrieving his spear from the shattered remains of Aeneas’s shield. On either side of him the Greek and Trojan armies were advancing at a run, the heavy tramp of their feet shaking the foundations of the earth as the sky above was darkened by the exchange of their arrows and spears. ‘Your father and brothers fought well, but what makes you think you are any better than they were? You’d have honoured their memory more by preserving your life at home, not seeking death from the same man who sent them to Hades.’

‘Damn you!’

Podes hurled his spear with a grunt at the Phthian prince. Achilles fell to one knee and raised his shield over his head, letting the point of the weapon glance across its surface. Then, as Podes’s eyes fell on the shield and were mesmerized with awe by its ceaselessly shifting designs, Achilles rushed forward and thrust his ash spear into his chest. The Trojan cried out as the sharp bronze pierced his scaled armour and punctured his heart, then fell in a heap as his soul rushed down to join his father and brothers in the Underworld.

‘No!’ Hector cried out.

He had sprinted far ahead of the army, his speed unchecked by his heavy armour as he rushed to save his friend from his folly. But despite his great strength he had not been fast enough. As he watched Achilles pull his spear from Podes’s chest and Podes fall dead to the ground, he knew he had failed not only his closest companion but also his wife, whose entire family had now been murdered by one man. In an instant he recalled that long night only a short time ago when Andromache had been unable to sleep for grief at the death of her father and brothers; and as she loved Podes above them all, how much deeper would her suffering be now?

Hector’s despair turned to hatred. He charged at the Greek monster who had caused his people so much misery and saw the same hatred reflected back at him in Achilles’s face. There was no time for words, no time for the courtesies or insults great warriors loved to exchange as they sized each other up – there was only the briefest instant in which each man could judge the approach of his enemy, take aim and cast his deadly missile.

They threw their spears at the same moment. Hector’s passed over Achilles’s shoulder and disappeared into the mass of soldiers running up behind him, while Achilles’s skimmed past Hector’s shield and thumped into the ground, where the heavy shaft stood vibrating with the force of the impact. Shouting with rage, both men drew their swords and dashed at each other, followed closely by the long walls of Greek and Trojan spearmen.

Hector swung his blade down with a crash against Achilles’s shield and was amazed to see that not only did the myriad figures of men and animals leap aside from the blow, but also the long, thin dint that it left quickly closed up and filled out again. His moment’s wonder nearly cost him his life, for Achilles’s own blade swept swiftly down beneath the edge of Hector’s shield towards his knee. Hector leapt back before it could slice through the skin, muscle and bone and bring him crashing down into the grass, but Achilles was quick to follow, thrusting his shield against Hector’s and stabbing with the point of his sword above the rim. It scraped across the scowling bronze visor of the helmet Hector had stripped from Patroclus’s body – the same helmet Achilles had worn into battle ever since he had first killed a man – but as the Trojan fell back, he lashed out and caught Achilles on the upper arm. The obsessively sharpened edge cut into the flesh and was only stopped at the shoulder by the god-made cuirass.

Achilles pushed Hector away with his shield and glared hatefully at him, paying no attention to the wound on his arm. But before he could attack again, Hector lunged with the point of his sword at his stomach. The attack came quickly and skilfully and with all the weight of Hector’s bulk and strength behind it, but Achilles’s instincts had pre-warned him and he parried with ease. His counter-thrust should have found Hector wrong-footed, but the Trojan was too clever a warrior for that and his own shield turned the blade away. And yet, for all his ability and experience, Hector had no answer for the depth of the Greek’s hatred. With an energy and speed that knew no bounds, Achilles now launched himself furiously at his sworn enemy, driving him backwards with blow after blow, just as the Greeks on either side of him were besting the Trojans and pushing them back with great slaughter. And as each angry strike of Achilles’s blade came closer to finding a gap in Hector’s defences, so the Trojan prince began to think that he would not be able to defeat Achilles. In all the years of the war, the two men had exchanged spears but never engaged in hand-to-hand fighting, and with a sudden dismay that doused the fires of his own anger, Hector realized he might never see Andromache or Astyanax again. Though he had fought countless battles and always been at risk of falling to sword, spear or arrow, he had never before sensed the nearness of his own death as sharply as he did now.

He thought of his chariot, standing where Podes had left it, and recalled his friend’s words to him – that if he fell, then Troy would fall with him, and Andromache and Astyanax’s fate would be sealed. In that moment he knew that his duty was not to fall needlessly to Achilles’s wrath, but to swallow his fatalistic pride and take the army back to Troy. He could fight Achilles another day.

The Phthian prince came at him again. Hector met the blow with his sword and pushed his shield into his enemy’s chest, sending him reeling backwards and buying himself enough time to turn and sprint to the waiting chariot. Leaping into the car he glanced back at Achilles, whose face was now a mask of wrath. Ares himself would fear to confront such a man, Hector thought, and though he was not one of the immortals, he seemed barely human, either – a demonic creature, physically perfect and yet twisted by equal and opposing forces of pride, grief and unquenchable anger. For a moment he felt pity, then he whipped the reins across his horses’ backs and sent them surging through the ranks of his army, shouting for them to retreat.

Chapter Thirty-Four

DEUS EX MACHINA

As Hector rode away and the Trojans fell back in disorder, Odysseus drove his chariot through the chaos to where Achilles stood. Eperitus was in the car beside him, his spears expended and his sword wet with gore from tip to hilt.

‘You’re hurt,’ Odysseus said, forced to shout over the sound of ringing metal and the yells of struggling men.

‘It’s nothing,’ Achilles grunted irritably, not even looking at the deep gash on his upper arm.

He watched Hector disappear behind the shattered ranks of his army, then ran back to his chariot and seized the yoke that hung between the shoulders of the horses. Pedasus’s place had been taken by the immortal Balius, brother of Xanthus. The siblings were magnificent beasts and proud, but the prince looked at them sternly.

‘My friends, carry me into battle so that I can take my vengeance on these miserable Trojans. And when the day’s fighting is over, bring me out alive again; don’t leave me dead on the field, as was Patroclus’s fate.’

Xanthus stamped his foot and lowered his head, whinnying pitifully as his mane stroked across the high grass. Achilles’s eyes widened with surprise, then he cupped his hand beneath the animal’s chin and raised his head up again.

‘Don’t prophesy to me, Xanthus,’ he said. ‘My mother has already told me I won’t live long after Hector dies, but she didn’t deter me and neither will you. If a man cannot face his fate, he is not worthy to call himself a man. Now, take me after Hector or I will cut your throats and find other, less wilful horses.’

Odysseus and Eperitus exchanged glances as Achilles stepped into his chariot and lashed the reins. Xanthus and Balius shook their manes and neighed loudly, then shot forward. Odysseus watched Achilles disappear behind the clouds of dust that had enveloped the fighting, then turned to Eperitus.

‘Did you hear what he said?’

‘He thought the horse was prophesying,’ Eperitus answered.

‘And did you hear the horse say anything? I mean, you’ve got sharper ears than I have . . .’

‘Horses don’t talk, Odysseus. If Xanthus spoke, it was in Achilles’s head. His grief has turned his mind.’

Odysseus nodded and dropped a hand on his captain’s shoulder. ‘Maybe it has. And maybe a man of his quality was never quite sane in the first place. Either way, the beast inside him has been unleashed at last and I doubt either Hector or the walls of Troy will be able to stop him any more. Come on, let’s get after him.’

The Trojans were in open flight across the plain now. All semblance of order had gone and though a few fought a rolling rearguard under the direction of Paris, Aeneas and others, many lesser men simply tossed their weapons aside and fled in terror, hoping to reach the safety of Troy before they could be cut down. Achilles, though, was relentless in his pursuit. Odysseus and Eperitus followed in his wake, watching with a mixture of awe and horror as he cut down one man after another, riding down the living or driving over the slain so that clouds of red gore sprayed up from the heavy wheels of his chariot. The pitiless efficiency with which he slaughtered the Trojans seemed to inspire the whole of the Greek army, who chased their hated enemies back across the battlefields of the preceding days until, eventually, they reached the slopes overlooking Troy, with the broad, gleaming ribbon of the Scamander below.

Until this point, only a series of quick, skilfully directed attacks by Apheidas’s horsemen had saved the Trojans from utter destruction. By forcing the Greeks to keep their order, they prevented the pursuit from becoming a rout and enabled many Trojans to escape the worst of the butchery. But the Greek archers and cavalry had taken their toll of Apheidas’s men, and as the Trojan foot soldiers fled down the slope towards the fords and the city beyond, the cavalry turned tail and went with them.

Achilles drove through the middle of the human stampede, followed by Odysseus, Eperitus and a dozen other chariots. They split the Trojans in two, letting the greater part flee across the fords but driving many into a bend of the river, where the banks were high and the waters between them deep. Without stopping to strip off their armour, the panicked soldiers leapt into the fast-flowing waters and tried to get to the safety of the far bank. Those who could not swim drowned quickly, while many who could, drowned anyway beneath the weight of breastplates and greaves, or the sheer mass of men who were struggling to escape certain death on the grassy slopes above.

Heedless of his own heavy armour, Achilles halted his chariot, threw his shield across his back and jumped into the river after the Trojans. The water by the banks was shallow enough to stand in and was thick with rushes. He waded through them and began laying about himself with his sword, ruthlessly killing any man who could not escape beyond the circle of his reach. Odysseus and Eperitus left their own chariot and ran down to the lip of the slope, where they looked on in horror at the scene before them. Though both men had witnessed much slaughter in their lives, they were appalled to see the water turn pink with the blood of Achilles’s victims and the banks become choked with their corpses. Equally horrifying was the sight of hundreds of Trojans drowning in their panic as they fled, or being shot by the arrows of the Locrian archers who had reached the riverbanks and were pouring missiles into the press of bodies, regardless of whether they were alive or dead. The air was filled with screams of pain and anguish, and it took Odysseus a moment to realize that Achilles was calling to him as he pushed a young noble through the rushes.

‘Bind his hands with his belt and send him back to the camp,’ he shouted.

Odysseus took the shocked youth by the wrist and hauled him up the muddy embankment, but no sooner had he secured his hands behind his back than Achilles sent another nobleman after him. Another followed and then another so that, even with Eperitus’s help, Odysseus had to call some of the archers from their sport and get them to assist with the prisoners. Why Achilles had stopped killing he could not guess, as up to that point he had cut down any Trojan he could find without pity or remorse; but soon twelve young men stood cascading water on to the grass, their hands tied and their heads hung low, though doubtless thankful to be alive.

Odysseus and Eperitus returned to the lip of the bank, expecting more prisoners as Achilles waded further into the congested water. But as the Trojans held out their hands in gestures of submission, he began to kill them again without mercy, lopping off heads and limbs or opening stomachs so that men fell into the water surrounded by their own entrails. As the killing resumed, one Trojan ducked under the sweep of Achilles’s blade and fell to his knees before him, throwing his arms about the prince’s legs so that only his head remained above the water.

‘My lord Achilles,’ he pleaded, speaking in Greek. ‘Do you not recognize me?’

His words pierced the killing trance that had fallen on the Phthian prince and Achilles looked down at him.

‘Who are you?’

‘Lycaon, one of Priam’s sons. You captured me in battle last year and we shared a meal together before you sold me into slavery on the island of Lemnos. I escaped and came back to my father only a few days back, but you fetched a good price for me then and you’ll surely get the same or more now.’

‘My days of showing mercy to Trojans ended with the death of Patroclus.’

‘But the men on the bank—’

Achilles took Lycaon by the hair and forced his head back.

‘I have something else in mind for them,’ he said as he raised his sword.

‘But you can’t kill a suppliant,’ Lycaon protested, flinching and shaking with fear, but unable to escape Achilles’s iron grip. ‘You’ll bring the wrath of the gods upon yourself!’

Achilles smiled sardonically and brought the blade down through Lycaon’s neck and collar bone.

‘What more can the gods do to me, Lycaon?’ he mocked, still holding the dead youth by his black hair. ‘Nothing! Go and feed the fishes, son of Priam; as for the rest of you, I will bleed Troy white for the death of Patroclus, and neither this river nor those walls will save you from my wrath.’

He launched himself once more upon the Trojans, whose bodies clogged the river now and sullied its once clear waters with their blood. A few had made it to the other side – those who were strongest and who had fought their own comrades to reach the embankment – but those who remained alive in the water had either thrown away their weapons or did not have the will to resist the terrible figure of Achilles. They fell before him like sacrificial goats, kicking and clawing at each other in their efforts to escape, but were shown neither compassion nor clemency as Achilles continued his butcher’s work.

Then the river level dropped suddenly and began to draw back against the natural direction of its flow, revealing the jumbled mass of armoured corpses that had been dragged to its stony bed. As Achilles stood knee-high in the water, dumbfounded by the sudden draining of the waters, there was a sound like a strong wind approaching from the east.

‘What is it?’ Odysseus asked, as all eyes were turned upriver.

Then he saw a wall of water like a giant ocean wave come rolling down the course of the Scamander at an incredible pace, bringing rocks and chunks of bank with it as it came. He shouted a warning to Achilles, who saw the danger and waded as quickly as the shallow waters would allow him to an elm tree on the far bank.

‘Run!’ Odysseus shouted, grabbing Eperitus by the arm and dragging him towards the slope.

‘Wait,’ Eperitus protested, pulling back. ‘Achilles’ll be washed into the bay and drowned. We have to help him!’

Odysseus paused and looked down at their stricken comrade, frowning in consternation at what to do. While the archers on the bank turned and fled, the men trapped in the river could only throw their arms up in terror as the water carried them away. Many were killed outright by the rocks, or were drowned quickly by the volume and pressure of the water as it overwhelmed them. The elm that Achilles had thrown his powerful arms about collapsed and fell into the river, damming its flow for a moment before the pressure swept it away, and Achilles with it.

Odysseus and Eperitus sprinted after him, following the river’s edge in the hope of intercepting the prince at the ford. As they ran, the Scamander broke its banks behind them and spread across the marshes, rolling the corpses of the drowned and murdered Trojans before it. Chariots were tossed on to their sides and smashed to pieces, releasing their teams to gallop up the slope in panic, while many of the escaping archers they passed were caught by the waters and bowled over. The Greek cavalry, which was crossing the ford in pursuit of the Trojans, turned and galloped back up the slope to safety, while Odysseus and Eperitus had their legs knocked away as the deluge passed beneath them.

‘There he is!’ Eperitus cried out, pointing downriver.

Achilles was using all his strength to hold on to a large rock that had once marked the centre of the ford. He still wore the helmet and breastplate his mother had brought for him from Hephaistos’s smithy, but the magnificent shield was nowhere to be seen.

‘We’ll never reach him there,’ Odysseus shouted over the roar of the water that was now up to their shins and threatening to take their legs away from beneath them. ‘The river’s too deep. And even if we did . . .’

But Eperitus was not listening. He ran to the edge of what had once been the riverbank and dived in, instantly disappearing beneath the fast-flowing water. He bobbed up again a few moments later and began to swim with the current to where Achilles was being pounded by the relentless Scamander.

‘And even if we do,’ Odysseus shouted after him, ‘how are we going to get back to dry ground?’

Shaking his head, he leapt in after his friend. The cold water shocked the breath from his lungs as he plunged below its surface. For a moment everything was a turmoil of darkness and bubbles, mixed with the pounding of his heart in his eardrums as the angry river sucked him down towards its bed, aided by the weight of his treacherous armour. He kicked against it with all his strength and shot upwards, gulping in a lungful of air as he broke free of the raging waters. Then the violent force of the current seized hold of him and swept him inexorably towards the finger-like rock, where he caught a glimpse of Eperitus and Achilles holding on to each other as their strength began to fade.

Odysseus turned and began swimming against the current to slow his approach to the rock, all the time looking over his shoulder so that he would not be driven directly against it. Then, at the last moment, he turned again and was swept into the waiting arms of Eperitus and Achilles.

‘The flood can’t last for ever,’ Eperitus shouted over the roar of the Scamander as they stood chest-high in the water. ‘We just have to hold on to the rock and each other.’

‘And pray!’ Achilles added.

Odysseus nodded, squinting against the spray. He turned his back to the rock and linked arms with Eperitus, the pressure of the water thrusting them back against the rock.

‘Mistress Athena,’ he yelled. ‘If ever you’ve been pleased with the sacrifices we three have offered to you, help us now! If ever—’

He stopped and looked down into the tumultuous waters. There, but a little way to the right of the rock, was Achilles’s shield, its gold, silver and bronze gleaming beguilingly at him from beneath the surface of the river. All he needed to do was wade out a little into the waters and reach down, but as soon as the temptation had formed in his head he knew that the force of the Scamander would sweep him away. It was as if the shield were trying to lure him to his death.

Then a large shadow passed over them and all three men looked up to see a long-winged bird sweeping down out of the sun. They ducked instinctively and heard a loud splash. When they raised their heads again they saw a woman standing in the water before them, impossibly tall and with brilliant white skin and golden hair. She wore a long white chiton filled with a light that seemed to emanate from her body. On her head was a bronze helmet, from beneath which her stern grey eyes were staring at them intently. The river passed around her, releasing the men from the grip of its power; and it was a good thing, for they would have been swept away in their surprise. Achilles’s jaw dropped as he looked up at her, but Odysseus and Eperitus recognized the goddess at once and were quick to bow their heads.

‘Mistress,’ Odysseus acknowledged her.

‘It seems you and Eperitus are still incapable of surviving without my help,’ Athena replied, her haughty tone betrayed by the twinkle in her eye. ‘And as for you, Achilles, you went too far when you massacred the Trojans in the river. You made the Scamander angry enough to rise against you himself.’ She spat into the river and stretched out her arm so that the tasselled aegis hung down like a curtain. ‘But this is not your time to die, so I’ve been sent to save you from his wrath. And Hephaistos has come with me – look.’

The men turned to see a giant figure standing at the flooded delta where the Scamander fed into the wide bay before Troy. His muscular chest and arms were out of all proportion to his spindly legs, one of which was crooked and bent inwards; but if this gave his listing body a comical appearance there was little else to laugh at about the smith-god. His eyes were black coals rimmed with orange fire, staring out from a face that – like his whole body – was covered in a mass of dark, curly hair. In his upturned hands were columns of flame, and as he thrust his arms out – first to the left, then to the right – streams of fire leapt out, igniting the elms and willows that lined the submerged banks of the river. Soon every tree was ablaze, sending waves of intense heat over the surface of the Scamander and turning its waters back in hissing gouts of steam. Achilles, Odysseus and Eperitus threw their arms across their faces and Athena swept her aegis over them to protect them from the scalding inferno. Then Hephaistos limped forward and moved his arm in an arc over the flooded river and plain. The hundreds of bodies of men and horses that floated there burst into flames at once, spewing tongues of fire like white petals and forcing the water back even further.

‘Listen to me,’ Athena said, her voice louder than the roar of fire and the hiss of water raging all around. ‘Amazons are coming to Troy from the distant land of Scythia in the east. They are female warriors, fighting priestesses of Ares who have come to Priam’s aid, but your male arrogance should not underestimate them. They are slower and weaker than men, but their fighting spirit is a match for any of yours. Their strengths are their command of horses and their skill with the bow: they can shoot a man down from horseback – at long range and on the move – and wheel out of range before their enemies can fire back. It’s a tactic they use to great success in their own lands. I want you to destroy them, and most especially their queen, Penthesilea. These viragos are an affront to the gods – though Ares and Artemis both favour them – and if you do away with them I will consider that ample payment for saving your hides now.’

‘Then they will die, Mistress,’ Achilles said.

‘Be wary of Penthesilea, my prince,’ Athena warned him. ‘She has the ability to master even you. Be advised by the guile of Odysseus, and don’t rely on your own strength.’

‘As for you, Odysseus,’ she continued, looking directly into the king’s eyes, ‘the gods have appointed a special task to you. Something you must keep to yourself.’

Odysseus looked left and right at Achilles and Eperitus, but neither man seemed to be listening.

‘Only you can hear me,’ Athena said. ‘And only you can carry out this command. Eperitus cannot help you this time, and you must not tell him until the task has been carried out. It will not be an easy thing for you to do.’

Odysseus looked at the goddess who had watched over him since his childhood, protecting him and occasionally guiding his footsteps. He saw the look of affection and sadness in her divine features, knowing that somewhere in her immortal heart she loved him for his cunning mind and quick wits, qualities for which she herself was famed.

‘What do the gods require of me?’ he asked, though the question was heard by Athena alone.

‘Great Ajax has blasphemed the gods too often. We want our vengeance upon him, as a lesson to all others who defy us in their pride and arrogance. The day will come when he will lay claim to Achilles’s armour – Hephaistos placed an enchantment on the shield to fool the weak-minded, though it was aimed at Ajax in particular. When he does, you must stop him, Odysseus. Make the armour your own by any means at your disposal, fair or foul.’

Odysseus looked down at the glimmering circle of gold beneath the surface of the river, recalling Calchas’s prophetic words spoken that night on the fringes of the Greek camp. As his sharp mind mulled over what they meant, the boiling waters retreated to leave a vast cloud of steam that hovered over everything like an ethereal sea. When, finally, the thick fog began to dissipate, they saw that Athena and Hephaistos had gone and the Scamander was once more contained within its own high embankments. On the other side of the fords, the plain was silent and empty but for the howling of the north wind. The Trojan army had escaped into the city and the battle was over.

And yet, as the mist thinned and was blown away from the walls and towers of Troy, they saw a lone figure standing before the Scaean Gate, the bronze of his helmet and breastplate shining in the sunlight. It was Hector.

Chapter Thirty-Five

HECTOR AND ACHILLES

The streets of lower Troy were crowded with exhausted soldiers. Many had collapsed against walls and in doorways, where they were given water and helped out of their heavy armour by the womenfolk and old men of the city. Those who still had enough strength to stand were staring vacantly, too shocked to answer the questions thrown at them by people searching for husbands, sons or brothers among the survivors. A few gave quiet thanks to the gods for their deliverance, while others tended to their wounded comrades – of whom very few had reached the city – and tried to comfort them in their pain. The most stout-hearted assembled in their companies, in case the Greeks followed up their victory on the plain with an assault against the walls.

Amid the cacophony of groaning and weeping, a tall, hooded figure dressed all in white pushed her way through the mass of people and horses, her terrified and yet beautiful face turning this way and that. She looked stunningly pure among the dust and bloodstained soldiery and there were many who forgot their suffering as they saw her, their eyes keen to drink of her loveliness; but there were many more who scowled as she passed them by, cursing her under their breath for the perfect looks that had brought unthinkable disaster and misery to Troy.

‘Helen!’

She turned to see a young man in expensive armour – now much abused and covered in dried gore – waving to her from a group of wounded soldiers. He left the man he had been tending and shouldered his way through the crowd towards her.

‘Deiphobus,’ she gasped. ‘Oh Deiphobus, you don’t know how glad I am to see you alive.’

The prince smiled with pleasure at her words, then, seeing the anguish written in her wonderful face, stepped forward and caught her up in his arms. For a moment he said nothing, content to hold her against his chest and feel her soft, scented hair against his cheek, his only regret being the armour that prevented him from enjoying the warmth of her body next to his.

‘What is it, Sister? What’s wrong?’

‘Is your brother alive, Deiphobus? Have you seen Paris?’

Her eyes were filled with desperate urgency, which turned to relief and joy when Deiphobus nodded his head.

‘Yes, he’s alive and well. I’ll take you to him . . .’

‘No, Deiphobus. You have work to do here – your men need you. Just tell me where he is and I’ll find him.’

Deiphobus gave her a weak, disappointed smile and nodded towards the battlements. ‘He was by the gates when I last saw him. I don’t think he will have moved.’

Helen kissed him on the cheek, picking up a smear of dirt on her nose and chin as she did so, then pushed her way back into the crowd. Most moved aside at the sight of her, though some of the women spat on the road before her feet and others stared at her with undisguised malice. Then a soldier took it upon himself to go ahead of her, clearing the way with his shield until the tower of the Scaean Gate was looming over them.

‘This will do,’ Helen said, and the man bowed low and disappeared back into the crowd.

She cast her gaze around at the walls, where scores of wounded or exhausted men were sitting in the shadows. Many were leaning against each other and sleeping, or resting their foreheads on their raised knees and silently reliving the horrors of the battlefield. But one had placed his tall shield against his shins so that his face could not be seen, though Helen instantly recognized the bow leaning against the wall next to him.

She ran over and pushed the shield away, then knelt beside him and pulled his head into her chest.

‘Oh, Paris, Paris!’ she whispered, stroking his matted hair. ‘It’s your Helen. Everything’s all right now. You’re safe.’

He said nothing, but after a moment she felt his trembling hand slip gingerly on to her hip. Suddenly a rush of tears poured down Helen’s cheeks and she sat beside her husband, throwing her arms about his neck and covering his face with kisses. Cupping his chin in her fingers, she raised his head a little so that his eyes met hers. She choked back a new wave of tears as, with deep shock, she saw the emptiness within.

‘What’s happened to you, Paris?’ she sobbed. ‘What is it? Is it Hector? Where is he?’

She shook his shoulders gently, but Paris closed his eyes and let his head fall again.

‘He’s outside the gates,’ said a voice, ‘waiting for Achilles.’

Helen turned to see Apheidas staring down at her. His armour was not as dusty or bloodstained as most of the rest of the army – the result of having fought the battle from horseback – though there was a gash on his thigh and his skin had an ashen tinge to it.

‘He’s outside alone?’ Helen asked, her eyes stern through the redness of her tears. ‘You left him there to fight that monster?’

‘He ordered everyone else back into the city,’ Apheidas replied, turning away from her and walking towards the road that led up to the citadel. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

‘Don’t turn your back on me!’ Helen snapped.

When Apheidas continued walking – a slight limp evident in his right leg – Helen kissed Paris hurriedly on the forehead and, promising to come back shortly, ran after him.

‘Didn’t you try to dissuade him?’ she demanded. ‘Achilles is a butcher with only one mortal weakness. Hector will die out there if he faces him, and the last hope of Troy will die with him.’

Apheidas rounded on her.

‘Hector is not Troy’s only hope! And he’s no fool, either; he knows where Achilles is vulnerable.’

‘By Aphrodite’s veil, you just left him there to die on his own, didn’t you! You know Achilles will win, but you said nothing to discourage him. Your guilt’s written all over your wicked face, Apheidas.’

‘Guilt! How can you lecture me about guilt? Isn’t the plain out there littered with dead men because of your iniquity?’

Helen slapped him hard across the cheek. Apheidas’s eyes blazed for a moment and his fists clenched at his sides, but he was quick to restrain the flash of his own temper.

‘As for discouraging Hector,’ he sneered, ‘I was the one who persuaded him to stay and fight! You were there that night, skulking in the gardens when he took an oath on his son’s life to kill Achilles before the year was out. I reminded him of the fact when he was ushering the army back through the gates, while the river was in flood. I also reminded him that Achilles murdered Podes before his very eyes – what, Helen? Shocked to hear of another victim of your lust? And last of all, I told him that he had to fight Achilles sooner or later; their rivalry is the fulcrum on which the scales of this war are balanced, and until one of them has been dispatched to Hades the suffering and the death will carry on interminably.’

‘I can’t believe he listened to you. It doesn’t have to be like that!’

‘Doesn’t it?’ Apheidas smiled. ‘Well, Hector agreed with me. And what’s more, he confessed his shame at fleeing before Achilles when they met earlier today, at a time when he could have struck him down and saved the army from devastation.’

‘Confessed, Apheidas? Or did you goad him?’

Apheidas’s eyes narrowed as he looked away. ‘If you’ll forgive me, my lady, I have wounds that need tending to and then I must see to what’s left of my men and horses.’

He gave a curt nod before turning and forcing his way into the crowd. A moment later Cassandra appeared, short-breathed with panic. Her hair and clothing were dishevelled and her face was even paler than usual.

‘Helen!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, Helen, thank the gods. Have you seen my half-brother, Lycaon? I had a terrible dream about him and warned him not to go out and fight, but he wouldn’t listen. Now Leothoë’s looking for her son and we can’t find him anywhere.’

Leothoë was one of Priam’s many wives and had been a good friend to Helen ever since she had first arrived in Troy. Helen took Cassandra’s hands in her own and squeezed them reassuringly.

‘There are a lot of soldiers here, Cassandra. He must be somewhere. But tell me, where’s Andromache? I have to speak to her urgently.’

‘She’s in the palace, preparing Hector’s bath as she always does after a battle.’

‘Then fetch her at once. Hector’s outside the gates, waiting for Achilles. If anyone can persuade him to come back behind the safety of the walls, it’s Andromache. I’ll look out for Lycaon and send him up to the palace the moment I find him.’

Cassandra stared at her briefly, shocked at the news, then nodded and ran back the way she had come. Suddenly the sluggish, densely packed crowd on the road stopped its wailing and fell silent. A moment later armed soldiers appeared, pushing aside those who were too slow to move. The fact that their armour was pristine, expensive and brightly polished, and the men themselves were tall, young and strong, told Helen instantly that they were palace guards come down from the citadel. Then she saw Priam’s black hair and painted face at their centre – the thick powder on his cheeks stained with tears – with the short, plump figure of Hecabe beside him. They marched past Helen in a hurry and took the broad stone stairs up to the walls. Helen followed, along with a great crowd of the ordinary Trojans who thronged the streets.

‘Hector, my boy,’ Priam called, his voice cracking as he leaned over the battlements. ‘Hector, what is this madness that has possessed you? I’ve lost too many sons to Achilles already, but I’d gladly lose the rest of them before I saw you murdered at his hands. Come inside at once, my beloved son, I implore you.’

Helen pressed against the ramparts with the rest of the crowd – mostly women – and looked down to see Hector standing just beyond the shadow of the gates. He had removed the helmet he had stripped from Patroclus as he lay dying and thrown it on the ground beside the sacred oak that stood a little further beyond the walls, but his tall shield was on his arm and a single spear was in his hands. He made no response to his father’s appeal, focusing his attention instead on the fords of the Scamander, where three Greeks stood knee-high in the babbling waters. One had a blood-red plume and a bright shield that caught the light like a mirror; instinctively, Helen knew she was looking at Achilles.

‘Then I will order the army out again,’ Priam declared in a high voice. ‘Even Achilles cannot defeat the whole might of Troy.’

‘Keep the army where it is, my lord,’ Hector replied without looking up. ‘They have earned their rest. I must face Achilles alone – it’s the will of the gods.’

‘He’s coming!’ Hecabe shouted, throwing a hand to her cheek in horror and pointing at the figures in the ford, who were now wading through the water to the near bank. ‘My dear son, the very sight of him fills me with dread! If you have any love for the mother who suckled you as a baby, then come inside now. There’s no dishonour in it.’

‘What does a woman know of honour?’ Hector replied, this time looking up at his parents. ‘If I turn and flee now I will be no more of a man than you are, dear Mother.’

The usual stern self-confidence was gone from his face, and at the sight of this change Helen suddenly realized that Hector knew he was going to die. Perhaps others sensed it too because a few amongst the crowd began to wail, raising their voices in the monotonous sound of mourning that had been heard too often in Troy in recent days.

‘Silence!’ Priam ordered, raising his shaking hand high. ‘My son is not dead yet. He stands as he has always stood, defending the gates of Troy against those who would seek to conquer it.’

The wailing fell away. Then, as Achilles strode across the plain with his shield blazing like the sun, someone tossed a handful of flowers from the ramparts. The stems scattered about Hector’s feet and the yellow petals stared up at him, bright and cheerful in the warm glow of the afternoon. He looked at them, transfixed by their simple beauty, and for a moment the darkness that was sweeping towards him was forgotten. Then another clutch of flowers was thrown from a different part of the walls, and another, and another. More followed, until Hector stood amid a carpet of red and white, yellow and blue, green and pink, while the air around him was filled with petals, floating like snow to settle in his hair and on his cloak.

Helen hid her face in her hands, ashamed of her tears before such bravery.

As the mist evaporated in the warm sunlight Odysseus splashed across the clear, slow-running river and lifted Achilles’s shield from its shingle bed. Eperitus watched the water stream off it to reveal the gold and silver figures moving beneath. Odysseus balanced it on his arm for a moment, enthralled by its beauty and craftsmanship, then quickly slipped it off again and handed it to Achilles.

‘I need a weapon,’ Achilles announced, passing the strap of his shield over his shoulder and staring across the plain at Hector, who was still standing defiantly before the Scaean Gate. ‘Every breath that man takes is an offence to me and the sooner I kill him the sooner I can return and mourn the one whose life he took.’

So this was it, Eperitus thought as he slid his sword from its scabbard and handed the hilt to Achilles: Hector had decided to stop running and face the inevitable. He must have known it was his destiny to fight Achilles and that the outcome of their combat would ultimately decide the outcome of the war; and yet Eperitus was surprised to see him standing there. For ten years he had led the Trojans in battle, skilfully repulsing one Greek attack after another, and yet always reluctant to face Achilles or challenge him to single combat. Had some part of him – as with every warrior – baulked with fear at the sight of Achilles? Or was it that Hector was more concerned with preserving his city for as long as possible, rather than risking everything in a duel with Achilles? Whatever the answer, he did not flinch now as Priam and Hecabe pleaded with him from the city walls, or show any signs of fear as he leaned on his spear and looked across the plain towards his enemy in the middle of the ford.

Achilles took the proffered sword and, with a snarl of hatred, began wading towards the opposite bank of the Scamander. Odysseus and Eperitus followed, while behind them the massed ranks of the victorious Greeks came streaming down the slopes to the fords, which could once again be crossed in safety. As Achilles stepped out on to the plain before Troy, the stamp of hooves and a loud cry made him look over his shoulder to see Peisandros driving the prince’s chariot into the water. A few moments later he called the team to a halt beside Achilles and jumped down.

‘Your spear, my lord,’ he said.

Achilles took the thick, monstrously long weapon and smiled grimly as he stared up at its broad head.

‘Wait here,’ he ordered.

Then, balancing its familiar weight in his hand, he ran towards the sun-bleached walls of Troy where Hector waited for him, surrounded by a ring of flowers that the women of the city were still tossing to him from the battlements. Peisandros stayed where he was, stroking the noses of Xanthus and Balius, but Odysseus and Eperitus ran after the prince. They were soon within bowshot of the walls, where Achilles came to a halt and planted his spear in the ground. The early afternoon sun flared up from his armour, blinding the watchers on the walls, but the look on his face as he glared at his enemy was as dark as the deepest pit of Tartarus. Hector moved back and, for a moment, Eperitus thought he would run, but some god must have breathed courage back into his limbs for on his third step he halted. He took his spear in both hands and held it across his body as if to bar Achilles from the city.

‘I’m done with avoiding you in battle, Achilles,’ he said. ‘For ten years we’ve danced around each other, too fearful to fight and too proud to run, but now the time has come for Zeus to decide between us. I expect you to show me no mercy, for I will show you none, but I will make one request of you before we fight.’

‘What is it?’

‘If Zeus’s favour rests on me and I succeed in killing you, I will not dishonour the father of the gods by mistreating your corpse. I’ll take your armour as a trophy of my victory, but your body will be returned to the Greeks for cremation with the proper rites. I ask you to do the same for mine, if you defeat me.’

‘No,’ Achilles responded, scowling at Hector. ‘You and I are enemies, not friends to make cosy bargains with one another. That armour you wear with such pride is already mine, loaned to Patroclus, not you. And for the suffering you have caused me by his death I will drag your body back to the ships and give it to the dogs. No flames to devour your dead flesh, Hector, only the teeth of savage beasts!’

He plucked his spear from the ground, pulled it back behind his ear and hurled it with a shout that shook the air. Hector ducked aside at the last moment and the bronze point buried itself in the old oak opposite the Scaean Gate. He turned his shocked eyes upon it, realizing it had only missed him by a finger’s breadth; but as he watched its long shaft still quivering with the force of the throw he also understood that the gods had preserved his life and handed him the advantage. He looked back at Achilles, who had drawn his sword and was now charging across the open ground towards him, snarling with anger. But the distance between them was still wide and Hector no longer felt any fear. The lethargy of dread and doom that had given his muscles a leaden heaviness was lifted from him and he felt a rush of nervous energy burst through his whole body. Drawing back his spear, he took careful aim down the shaft and launched it with all his force, bellowing his rage and resentment.

The slender missile rushed with deadly accuracy at Achilles, catching him full on the shield and knocking him on to his back in a cloud of dust. The crowds on the wall shouted out in joy, but their elation was short-lived. Achilles staggered back to his feet and kicked aside the broken halves of Hector’s spear, the force of the blow having failed to pierce even the outermost layer of his magical shield. Now it was Achilles’s turn to cry out in triumph. His face a mask of hatred, he dashed forward and hewed his sword down against Hector’s shield, sending the Trojan reeling back towards the sacred oak. Achilles came on relentlessly, swinging with terrifying speed and force at his opponent’s neck. The arcing blade would have taken the head off any ordinary man, but Hector’s instincts did not fail him; he ducked the blow and launched himself shield-first at the Phthian, knocking his legs from under him and rolling him over his back to crash in the dust behind him. Hector turned on his heel and drew his sword in the same movement, only to find Achilles back on his feet again and charging at him with the speed and energy of his pent-up hatred. Their blades clashed and scraped against each other, echoing back from the walls of Troy and mingling with the horrified shouts of the onlookers above. But the fury of Achilles’s attack forced Hector back, battling with all his skill and experience just to survive. Then the Greek lashed out and the tip of his weapon drew a line of red across Hector’s forehead. The Trojan rocked back beneath the blow, clapping his hand to the stinging wound, and Achilles circled swiftly to block his escape route to the Scaean Gate.

As the two men eyed each other from over the rims of their shields, Achilles edged back towards the oak tree – watching Hector closely for any attempt to run towards the gates – and pulled his spear free with a grunt. Hector closed the distance again, not wanting to give Achilles the chance for another cast. Then a voice called his name from the battlements and he looked up to see Andromache. Her beautiful eyes were red and her cheeks stained with tears. Helen was at her side, supporting her, but as she looked at her husband facing the monstrous Achilles, her courage left her and she buried her face in Helen’s neck.

By now the Greek army, with the Myrmidons in the van, was crossing the ford and forming a dense barrier of shields and spears just beyond the range of the archers on the city walls. Hector glanced over his shoulder and knew he was trapped, but he no longer cared. He turned to Achilles, renewed hatred burning through his veins. There before him stood the black heart of all Troy’s suffering, but if he could strike him down now it would end the war and release Ilium from the stranglehold of the Greeks. The farmers would take up their ploughs again and the fishermen their nets; merchants from the east would no longer bring weapons and armour, but coloured garments and silver ornaments for the women of the city; Andromache would smile again and little Astyanax could play beyond the walls for the first time in his life. There would be peace again and the only fighting would be in the songs of the bards, sanitizing the memory of the war and glorifying the sons of Troy, with Hector foremost among them.

But the songs had not been written yet, and would not be until Peleus’s son was dead. Hector mumbled a quick prayer, surrendering himself to the mercy of Apollo, and ran forward. Achilles ran to meet him, his spear held in both hands and the point aimed at Hector’s stomach. Hector twisted aside and turned as Achilles rushed past him, striking out with his sword. The blow rang out against Achilles’s helmet but failed to pierce the thick metal. Shouts of dismay rose up from the walls, but Hector barely heard them as Achilles rushed at him with renewed vigour. They met head on, their shields clattering loudly against each other and for a moment Achilles’s long spear left him at a disadvantage against Hector’s sword. In that brief instant of time, drawn out by the quickening of his senses, Hector recalled the one weakness that Achilles was said to possess – his heel. Against all his warrior’s instincts to strike at the head or torso, he hacked down at the back of his opponent’s foot. But Achilles was quicker. He punched the shaft of his spear into the Trojan’s face and knocked him to the ground. With a triumphant shout, he moved to plunge the sharpened bronze into Hector’s prostrate body. Hector kicked out in desperation, finding Achilles’s stomach and sending him sprawling back against the bole of the sacred oak. Hector leapt to his feet and ran after him, his sword raised over his head.

In an instant Achilles’s shield was raised, catching the sun as the figures of men and animals moved rhythmically through the concentric circles that spread out from its centre. It was enough. Hector’s eyes followed them for a moment too long, noticing the enchanted designs for the first time, and Achilles’s spear found the gap between his breastbone and his throat. The momentum of Hector’s attack carried the point through his body and back out by the nape of his neck, stopping him dead. He hung there for a few beats of his heart, then the weapon was pulled free and his heavy body crashed backwards into the long grass.

A sudden, incredulous silence swept across the plain. Even Achilles looked surprised as he stared down at his defeated enemy, his bloodstained chest still rising and falling with its final breaths. Then he stabbed the air with the point of his spear and sent a mighty shout of exultation up to the heavens. His triumph was echoed by the Greeks, while on the battlements of Troy the shocked silence gave way to hysterical cries of disbelief and anguish. As Eperitus ran with Odysseus to join Achilles, he looked up to the walls and saw Helen, her pale face even whiter now as she tried to stop Andromache hurling herself from the parapet.

When they reached Achilles he was already tugging the shield from Hector’s limp arm and throwing it behind him, before kneeling at his side and unbuckling the purple belt Ajax had given him after they had fought on the slopes above the Scamander. The Trojan’s huge body was motionless but for the faint movement of his chest. His eyes were closed and his chin and neck were stained with fresh blood. Then, as Achilles began to unfasten the ties that held his breastplate in place, Hector seized hold of his wrist.

‘Achilles,’ he whispered, though the effort brought on a fit of impulsive coughing as more blood flowed into his throat. ‘Achilles, don’t throw my body to the dogs. Ransom me to my parents so they can give me the proper rites and cremate me with honour.’

Achilles knocked his hand away and spat in his face.

‘You’ll have no honour from me. Be thankful your corpse’ll be left for the dogs and carrion fowl; if I had the appetite, I’d carve your flesh right here and eat it raw before the walls of your own city! Not even if Priam were to offer me your weight in gold would I give your body back to him, not after what you’ve done to me.’

‘Damn you, Achilles!’ Eperitus protested, stepping forward. ‘Hector has fought well; he deserves to be treated with honour. Leave his body here for his own people to claim him, or be cursed by the gods for your savagery.’

‘Savagery?’ Achilles snapped, pulling the breastplate from Hector and throwing it at the Ithacan’s feet. ‘What man can endure a war like this and not succumb to savagery? Can you, Eperitus? And you needn’t look at me with such disdain either, Odysseus. Do you think I don’t know who planted the gold beneath Palamedes’s tent?’

Odysseus’s eyes narrowed slightly but he said nothing as Achilles stripped Hector of his greaves and his tunic to leave him naked in the long grass. Then, as Peisandros drove up in Achilles’s chariot, the prince drew his dagger from his belt and slit the tendons at the back of Hector’s feet, from heel to ankle, causing him to cry out pitifully. Next he passed Ajax’s purple belt through the slits and, dragging Hector behind him, tied him to the back of his chariot. Peisandros jumped down lightly and joined Eperitus and Odysseus as the prince piled the captured armour in the back of the car. The wailing from the walls of Troy grew in intensity as Achilles stepped into the chariot and, with a shout at the horses, sent it trundling off towards the ford.

Eperitus watched Hector dragged to his death, his head knocking over the stony ground, and was filled with contempt – for Achilles, for the war, and even for himself for standing by and allowing such things to happen. Though he had endured ten long years of fighting with little complaint, and knew that with Hector defeated Troy could not stand for much longer, he was filled with a sudden urge to leave Ilium and never bear weapons again. The nature of the war had changed; or maybe he had changed; or maybe it was both. But his heart for fighting had left him and, like Odysseus, all he wanted now was to go home and find peace.

Chapter Thirty-Six

AFTER THE FUNERAL

Omeros drew on the strings of his tortoiseshell lyre and began to tell the tale of Orpheus’s journey to find Eurydice, his beloved wife, who had been killed by a snake bite and condemned to eternity in the Underworld. It was a sad story that did little to lift Eperitus’s already melancholy mood as he sat next to Odysseus in the king’s hut. Eurybates, Antiphus and Eurylochus were also seated around the blazing hearth, while two more chairs sat empty between them, the fleeces that covered them glowing orange in the light of the flames.

‘More wine, sir?’ asked a slave, peering over his shoulder and seeing the empty cup in his hand.

Eperitus nodded and handed him his cup. As the dark liquid reached the rim and the slave moved off to serve Eurylochus, whose hateful eyes were ever flickering towards Eperitus, Omeros reached the climax of his tale. Having persuaded Hades to release Eurydice, Orpheus broke the one condition imposed by the god of the Underworld – not to look back before he reached the land of the living – and lost his wife for ever. For some reason, whether it was the wine or Omeros’s skill as a bard, Eperitus felt his heart sink lower and he let his gaze fall on the flames quivering over the hearth.

While the others listened intently to the conclusion of the song, the words faded into the back of Eperitus’s mind and he recalled the horrors and excesses he had witnessed over the previous days. More than anything, as he watched the fire, he was reminded of the funeral pyres on the plain and the countless bodies of Greeks and Trojans burning brightly in the darkness. It had taken the exhausted army the rest of the afternoon after Hector’s death and the whole of the next day to gather the slain, while the Trojans had done the same under truce. So many had been killed on both sides that the wood for their pyres had to be collected from as far away as the foothills of Mount Ida, and every wagon and cart, mule and bullock had to be commandeered to bring it back. That was twelve days ago now, but Eperitus could still smell the burnt flesh as clearly as the spices in his wine.

But if the scene on the plain had been horrific, the cremation of Patroclus by the ships was opulent, ghoulish and profane in the extreme, making Eperitus shudder with disgust at the memory of it. The humble mourning of the rest of the army for their lost comrades was made a mockery of by the excessive grief of Achilles for his friend. Refusing to wash the caked gore of battle from his own body, he laid Patroclus on top of the great mound of wood and then fetched Hector’s corpse, which he threw face-down in the dust before it. Sheep and cattle were sacrificed by the dozen, but instead of offering the fat and thigh bones to the gods as he should have done, Achilles laid them on top of Patroclus’s body and slung the carcasses of the slain beasts upon the piled wood around him – a blasphemy that caused even Great Ajax to turn away in shame. Next he slaughtered four horses and two of Patroclus’s hunting hounds to add to the growing heap of death, before placing jars of honey and oil between the cadavers – gifts suitable to a god, but not a mortal man. His final act was to murder the twelve prisoners he had taken during the fight in the river, slitting their throats one by one and throwing their bodies on to the pyre, which welcomed them greedily. This stunned the onlookers and raised murmurs of dissent among the attendant kings and leaders, appalled by the affront to the gods. But Achilles ignored them and none dared challenge him while he was in such a fell mood, for fear of having their own corpse added to the heap; but there were few now who did not doubt his sanity as he stood before the raging flames with his arms held up to the night sky, shouting defiance at the gods. His voice was lost in the howling wind and the roar and crash of the waves out at sea, but even though Eperitus’s sharp hearing could not hear the words, he knew the immortals did. And whatever curses may leave a man’s mouth, the gods always spoke last.

The following day Patroclus’s bones were sealed with fat in a large jar and a barrow was raised over the ashes of his pyre. Funeral games followed, with Achilles providing rich gifts for winners and runners-up alike. Diomedes won the hotly contested chariot race, while Odysseus competed against Little Ajax in a foot race that recalled their competition in Sparta twenty years earlier, when Odysseus had won the hand of Penelope by using his cunning against the Locrian’s greater speed. Once again Odysseus was victorious, despite being the slower man, though this time his ploy was to have Omeros spread fresh dung across the final stretch of the course, causing Little Ajax to slip and fall face down in the mess while Odysseus swerved around it and sprinted to victory. More competitions followed with ever more luxurious prizes and growing bitterness between the proud and stubborn competitors.

When the wrestling match was announced Odysseus stood up at once, but when Great Ajax rose to challenge him Eperitus noticed a strange hesitation in Odysseus’s face. After the two men had stripped naked, they began a series of exercises to form a layer of sweat over their skin, making it harder for their opponent to get a grip. But as they knelt to dry the palms of their hands in the sand Eperitus saw the same doubtful look in Odysseus’s eye again, though it was more a guilty pause than a wavering of fear. Then they closed with a shout, throwing their arms about each other in a fierce embrace and trying for the first throw of the three required for victory. But both men were too seasoned and much too strong to give away such an easy advantage, and within moments their arms were locked about each other’s backs and their heads were thrust into their opponent’s shoulder, pressing ear to ear so that their senses must have been filled with the sound of their own grunting and the stink of fresh sweat. Each tried to wrong-foot the other and trip him, using the techniques and tricks they had been taught and had practised since childhood, but with little success. Then, as the cheering died down and the crowds began to lose their enthusiasm for the contest, Ajax’s superior strength prevailed and he lifted Odysseus from the ground.

‘I have you now,’ he groaned.

But in the same instant, Odysseus kicked his heel back against the bend of Ajax’s knee and cut his legs from beneath him. The son of Telamon crashed into the sand with Odysseus on top of him, while all around them the crowds exploded back into life, leaping into the air and cheering.

The two men were soon back on their feet with their arms tight about each other’s backs. Though their stamina was waning, Odysseus was filled with renewed confidence and tried to lift Ajax from his feet for another victory. He raised him a little, but Ajax’s pride had already been hurt and he was determined not to be thrown a second time. He resisted with all his might, and as Odysseus felt his strength give, he abandoned the lift and attempted a hasty knee-hook, bringing both men crashing side by side to the ground.

Sensing the contest could carry on until sunset without conclusion, Achilles stepped forward and declared the match a draw, announcing that the prizes and the honour would be shared equally. The crowd applauded the decision with relief and Ajax offered Odysseus his hand. The Ithacan took it quickly and withdrew, leaving Ajax looking puzzled.

‘What is it?’ Eperitus had asked, handing Odysseus his tunic and cloak.

‘What’s what?’ Odysseus replied, refusing to meet his captain’s eye as he walked past him.

Last of all was the competition for the furthest spear cast, but when Agamemnon offered to compete, Achilles pronounced that the King of Men was clearly the best spearman of all the competitors and awarded him the prize without a missile being thrown. This act of flattery towards Agamemnon, and the Myce-naean’s equally sycophantic acceptance of it, disgusted Eperitus almost as much as any of the other shameful events connected with the funeral of Patroclus. It was as if the feud that had cost the lives of thousands of men had never happened, as if their deaths were but an unfortunate chapter in the breaking and mending of the relationship between the greatest of the Greeks.

But if Achilles’s animosity towards Agamemnon had been laid to rest, his hatred of Hector had not. The morning after the funeral games, he rose at first light and went out to Patroclus’s barrow, where Hector’s corpse had been left unburied in the dust for the carrion beasts to have their way with it. When he found the Trojan prince’s body untouched and his wounds miraculously closed up, Achilles flew into a fury and hacked at it with his sword, before tying it to the back of his chariot and dragging it three times around the broad mound where Patroclus was entombed. It was a sacrilege that he had repeated every morning since, and every night the gods closed the new wounds and left Hector’s body lying as if in a deep sleep.

Omeros’s song ended with a flourish on the strings of his lyre. A moment later the flap of canvas over the hut door was pulled aside and Arceisius entered, followed by the vast bulk of Polites, who had to stoop to fit through the low entrance.

‘You sent for us, my lord?’ Arceisius asked.

‘Come in and sit down,’ Odysseus said, indicating the two empty chairs.

They lowered themselves into the seats, wondering why they had been summoned to the king’s hut and looking uncertain of themselves. Odysseus sensed their discomfort and gave them a reassuring smile.

‘Relax, both of you. I don’t often ask you here, but that’s going to change from now on.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Arceisius said, taking the krater of wine that the slave was holding before him and leaning forward to pour a libation into the flames.

He shot a questioning glance at Eperitus, who looked away and raised his wine to his lips to disguise the smile that had appeared there.

‘My commanders often come here to discuss tactics and other matters, so you might as well get used to the place,’ Odysseus explained with a grin. Then, seeing the look of confusion on their faces, he opened his hands out wide and shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’m promoting you both. Since Pelagon and Tychius were killed in the fighting, two of my companies have been without commanders – I want you to take their places. I would have said something before now, but I didn’t want you walking around with broad grins while everyone’s still supposed to be grieving for the dead. Anyway, the official mourning period ended today, so I’m giving you charge of Pelagon’s two ships, Arceisius, and all the men in them; Polites, you’ll have Tychius’s.’

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Arceisius said, standing and bowing.

Polites, still looking confused, followed suit.

‘To Polites and Arceisius,’ Eurybates said, standing and raising his cup. ‘May their service be long and glorious.’

The others stood, poured fresh libations to the gods and drank to the new commanders. Eperitus caught Arceisius’s eye and nodded, proud that the shepherd boy whom he had made his squire so many years before was now a captain in his own right.

‘Time you chose a squire of your own now,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s a commander’s privilege.’

As Arceisius opened his mouth to speak, the canvas flap was pulled aside and a guard ducked inside.

‘Sir,’ he said, addressing Eperitus. ‘There’s a man outside who wants to see you.’

‘Who is it?’

‘A farmer, sir. One of the men who brings fodder for the animals.’

‘What would he want with me?’ Eperitus frowned. ‘Tell him I’m busy.’

‘I already did, but he says it’s urgent. He said to tell you it’s about the girl in the temple of Artemis, whatever that means.’

Astynome! Eperitus thought. He glanced at Odysseus, who looked back with concern but nodded his consent. Eperitus retrieved his cloak from the table by the entrance and threw it about his shoulders, then followed the guard out into the night air. The sky above was cloudless and pricked with stars, though their lustre was dimmed by the light of the moon as it hung low in the east. A skinny man with a wide-brimmed hat was standing close to the entrance, tugging anxiously at his pointed grey beard and muttering to himself.

‘What do you want?’ Eperitus asked sternly, though his heart was beating rapidly at the thought the man might have brought word from Astynome.

‘I have something for you, my lord,’ the farmer answered in thickly accented Greek.

‘What is it? A message?’

‘It’s in the back of my cart, sir,’ he replied, lowering his voice and looking nervously at the guard. ‘You’ll have to come with me.’

Eperitus narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but nodded his consent. The man set off at a quick pace between the tents and fires of the Ithacans, until he reached one of the main thoroughfares that ran through the Greek camp. An old cart sat at a camber by the side of the broad path, with a sore-covered and fly-infested mule yoked before it. A small, bored-looking boy sat on the bench dangling a long stick over the animal’s back. He sat up as the farmer and Eperitus approached and eyed them in silence.

‘In here,’ the farmer said, leading Eperitus around to the large heap of hay on the back of the cart.

He looked furtively about himself, then thrust his arms into the hay and began pushing great heaps of it over the side. A blanket appeared with something beneath it, and then the something moved. Eperitus stepped back in alarm, gripping the hilt of his sword. At that moment the blanket was thrown aside and a girl sat up, blinking in the moonlight. Her tousled hair was threaded with hay, but her lovely face and dark eyes were as beautiful as the first time Eperitus had seen her.

‘Astynome!’

‘Eperitus!’ she replied, smiling with joy and an instant later bursting into tears.

He rushed forward and lifted her out of the cart. Her arms slipped round his neck and she kissed him, filling his senses with the feel of her soft lips and the smell of perfume in her hair.

‘Praise the gods you’re still alive,’ she said, kissing him on his bearded cheeks and running her fingers through his long hair. ‘With all the fighting I feared the worst might have happened to you.’

‘It takes more than an army of your countrymen to kill me,’ he said smiling. ‘And I’ve no intention of dying yet, not when I have you to live for. But what are you doing here? If Agamemnon were to find out . . .’

‘Never mind Agamemnon, I had to know you were still alive. And there’s something else. I need your help.’

‘So this is what’s keeping you so long.’

They turned to see Odysseus emerging from between two of the tents at the side of the path.

‘I saw the lad keeping watch, so decided to come round the back,’ he added in explanation for why he had not come along the path.

‘My lord Odysseus,’ Astynome said, bowing low before him.

‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Astynome,’ he replied with a smile. ‘How did you get past the gates?’

Astynome picked up the blanket and shrugged at the simplicity of the ruse.

‘I see,’ Odysseus said, peering in to the back of the cart and stroking his beard thoughtfully. ‘Very clever indeed. But it’s not safe for you out here – if Agamemnon should find out . . . well, you understand. Why don’t you come to my hut?’

‘I’d rather not trouble you, my lord,’ the girl said. ‘I just wanted to see that Eperitus was alive.’

‘Yes, I overheard. And something else about needing his help.’ He leaned back against the cart and gave her a searching look.

‘Perhaps Astynome would rather I speak to her alone, Odysseus,’ Eperitus suggested.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, laying her hand gently on Eperitus’s forearm. ‘Odysseus is your friend and king, I trust him.’

‘Then come back to my hut and we will both be able to help you,’ Odysseus said.

‘Not with Eurylochus there,’ Eperitus warned.

‘Leave him to me,’ Odysseus replied. ‘Come on.’

Astynome gave quick instructions in her own language to the farmer, who nodded slowly, then she took Eperitus’s hand and followed Odysseus back to the Ithacan camp. The occupants stood as they entered Odysseus’s hut, staring with surprise at the beautiful Trojan girl. Eurylochus shot her a venomous look, which she returned with defiance.

‘Listen to me, Eurylochus,’ Odysseus warned, staring at his cousin. ‘If Agamemnon – or anyone else for that matter – learns of Astynome’s presence then I will hold you personally accountable, and the next battle we fight I will have you at my side in the front line. Do you understand?’

Eurylochus frowned at the king but saw that he meant what he said.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Good. Now, bring a seat for our guest, if you please. Astynome, anything you say will not go beyond the walls of my hut. You have my word on that.’

Astynome sat and looked about at the circle of warriors as Odysseus and Eperitus resumed their places. Then she sighed and placed her hands on her knees.

‘My lords, you are the enemies of my people, but you are also warriors and men of honour. What I tell you now could hand you a swift victory over Troy – and though I trust Eperitus and Odysseus implicitly, I must also trust that the rest of you will respect the word of your king and not use my information to your advantage. The father of our city, King Priam, is beside himself with grief for Hector. He has heard of the treatment his son’s body is suffering at the hands of that monster, Achilles, and in desperation has decided to set out at midnight tonight with a ransom for Hector’s return. His wife has tried to dissuade him, as have Andromache, Helen and his nine remaining sons, but he won’t listen – he will come, even though it means he may be captured and forced to order Troy’s surrender.’

The Ithacans exchanged surprised glances but said nothing.

‘If he can reach Achilles’s hut and appeal to him as a suppliant,’ she continued, ‘Achilles will be obliged by the laws of xenia to offer him protection and a safe return to Troy, even if he refuses the ransom. But if he is captured on the plain or at the gates, he will be taken prisoner and there will be no limit to the price Agamemnon will be able to ask for his return. When I heard this I knew there was only one hope – to find you, Eperitus, and ask you to get Priam into the Greek camp. It was always a small hope, as you are only one man, my love; but my hope increases with the knowledge that King Odysseus will also help.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Eperitus said, smiling at her. ‘I’ll do everything I can, and I’m certain Odysseus will be able to think—’

‘By Zeus, are you mad?’ Eurylochus exclaimed. ‘This is a gift from the gods! If we can take the old man alive, the Trojans will be forced to give Helen back and pay us as much compensation as we want on top. We haven’t had an opportunity like this in ten years of fighting. The war could be over in days!’

‘Don’t be so sure of that, Eurylochus,’ Odysseus said coldly. ‘For one thing, Agamemnon won’t be happy until Troy has become a Mycenaean colony, and the Trojans will never agree to that. For another, I have no intention of taking a heart-broken old man prisoner, even if it means we could sail back to Ithaca tomorrow. I’ve done shameful things to try and shorten this war, but I won’t do that. Besides, Astynome brought this news to us in good faith and we must help her if we can.’

‘Even more so, if it means Achilles will accept the ransom and stop his defilement of Hector’s corpse,’ Eurybates added. ‘I can’t bear to see him dragging it around Patroclus’s barrow any longer.’

There was a muttering of agreement, at which Odysseus stood up and raised his hand for silence.

‘Very well, then. This is what we’re going to do . . .’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

PRIAM IN THE GREEK CAMP

There were six guards on the southernmost gate and not one of them was able to refuse the wine that Astynome brought to them. After all, it was a gift from Prince Achilles, she told them – his best wine, offered in celebration of the end of the official mourning period. Equally, none of the guards was able to resist the powerful drug that Odysseus had added to it and soon they lay slumped by their posts, snoring loudly.

It took but a moment for Odysseus and the others to take their places and open the gates, allowing Eperitus to slip out on to the moonlit plain. The night was already reaching its zenith and he knew that he had to be quick if he was to intercept the Trojan king and his ransom-laden wagon. Fortunately, the gibbous moon shed its silvery light over the plateau, illuminating the numerous rocks and gullies and the newly raised barrows of the dead, and with his exceptional hearing he was soon able to hear the faint squeaking of a wooden axle under stress. Following the direction of the noise, his sharp eyes quickly picked out a humped shape moving in an arc to the east of the walls, obviously trying to avoid detection by the patrols that the Greeks had once been in the habit of sending out, though the practice had waned after the death of Palamedes.

Eperitus ran to intercept the wagon. As he got closer he could smell the pungent odour of fresh human sweat mixed with the reek of the mule’s hide; he could also see that there were two men in the cart, both hooded. After glancing around for any sign of an escort, of which there was none, he hid behind a rock and waited until the cart was but a few paces away.

‘Good evening, my lords,’ he said, emerging from his cover and raising his hands before the mule.

The animal stopped and one of the men threw back his hood. It was Idaeus, Priam’s herald.

‘We’re simple farmers going about our business. Let us be!’

‘It’s a little late to be off to market, isn’t it? And your Greek’s very good for a simple farmer.’

‘But farmers we are, nonetheless, and I’ll remind you that both armies respect our right to move about the land. Your leaders wouldn’t be best disposed towards you if we stopped supplying the Greeks with food now, would they?’

Eperitus laughed. ‘And what food do you have in the back of your cart, friend? I’m feeling a little hungry myself. Perhaps if you give me a bite to eat I’ll let you pass.’

‘You won’t find anything you can stomach back there, lad,’ said Priam, tipping back his hood. His black wig was gone, revealing thin strands of grey hair that clung to his white scalp. ‘And we’re no more farmers than you are, as well you know.’

‘I know, my lord,’ Eperitus answered, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. ‘You are King Priam, and this is your herald, Idaeus. You’ve come with a ransom for the body of your son, and I’ve been sent to escort you in safety to Achilles’s hut.’

The two men looked at each other in surprise.

‘Then the noble Lord Achilles knows I’m coming?’

‘No,’ Eperitus answered, standing and placing a hand on the mule’s yoke. ‘You have a faithful subject, Astynome, daughter of Chryses, who loves you and doesn’t want to see you come to harm. She journeyed ahead of you to seek my help, and I agreed to bring you to Achilles in safety.’

‘The daughter of Chryses the priest? Yes, I know her,’ Priam said. ‘A pretty girl and no doubt you are in love with her. That’s good. But I also know your face from somewhere.’

‘I am Eperitus, my lord, commander of the army of King Odysseus. We came to Troy ten years before, with Menelaus and Palamedes.’

Priam’s eyes narrowed a little and then he smiled.

‘Of course. I nearly had you killed, and perhaps I should have done – Menelaus, above all. But there’s no point ruing past judgements, not now. Lead on, Eperitus.’

The gates swung open as they approached and Odysseus ushered them through, bowing to King Priam as he joined Eperitus. Together, they led the cart down to the southernmost corner of the bay, where a faint trail of grey smoke was rising up from the roof of Achilles’s hut. They passed between the fires of the Myrmidon camp, where the men were asleep beneath their blankets, and halted the wagon a few paces from Achilles’s hut. Odysseus helped Priam down while Idaeus remained on the bench, huddled beneath his thick double-cloak. Eperitus disappeared behind the back of the cart.

‘What do you want?’ the guard asked brusquely, lowering his spear as Odysseus and Priam approached.

‘Do you realize who you’re talking to, man?’ Odysseus snapped. ‘Stand aside and let me in.’

The guard straightened up at once. ‘Sorry, sir, but I can’t do that. Lord Achilles is still grieving for Patroclus and has given orders for no one to enter, not even King Agamemnon himself.’

‘He’ll let us in,’ said Eperitus, coming up behind the guard and striking him over the head with the pommel of his sword.

Odysseus pushed the flax curtain aside and stepped in, followed by Priam and Eperitus. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, painting the walls of the hut orange and casting flickering shadows behind the captured weapons and armour that hung there. The lone figure of Achilles sat in a great wooden chair at the side of the hearth; he was bent over, looking at something white and bulbous held between his hands. He looked up in surprise and quickly hid Patroclus’s skull in a fold of his robe.

Before Achilles could do or say anything, Priam threw back his hood and fell to his knees before him, locking his arms about the prince’s legs in supplication. Taking one of Achilles’s hands in his, he pressed his lips to its knuckles and began to weep.

‘King Priam?’ Achilles said, shocked.

He looked questioningly at Odysseus and Eperitus, who said nothing.

‘Have mercy, my lord,’ Priam said. ‘Pity an old man who has seen so many of his children slain. Pity me! I had fifty sons, the best men in the whole of Ilium, and now but nine are left to me. And those I would gladly see dead if I could bring back the one whose life you took before the Scaean Gate.’

He laid his forehead on Achilles’s thighs and sobbed, his once muscular frame shaking as his tears fell on to the Greek’s legs. Achilles looked down at him in disbelief, not knowing what to do or say.

‘It’s for his sake that I’ve come,’ the old king continued. ‘Won’t you give up your anger at Hector and release his body to me? You cannot harm him any more by denying him a burial, but you are killing me. Have mercy, Achilles; accept the ransom I have brought – my own son’s weight in gold and many other lordly gifts besides. Show compassion to a father who has forced himself to do something no man should ever do, to kiss the hand of the man who murdered his son.’

He seized Achilles’s hand again, gripping it firmly as he pressed his lips to the tanned skin. Achilles looked down at him, his other hand hovering over the old man’s head as if ready to push him away. Then the tension seemed to leave his body; his chin dropped slightly and his hand moved to Priam’s head, stroking the thin strands of grey hair. And both Odysseus and Eperitus could see the tears rolling down his cheeks.

‘You . . . you remind me of my own father, Peleus, on the day I left Phthia for Aulis. He knew he would never see me again and he came to me dressed not in his kingly robes, but in sackcloth, weeping as if already in mourning for me. He begged me not to go and I turned my back on him. I turned my back on my own father! But I will not turn my back on you, Priam. The gods themselves have sent you here, and I will not ignore them. As of this moment my feud with Hector is ended. I will accept your ransom and the honour it brings to my name, and in return you shall have Hector’s body.’

And with that he folded Priam’s old head in his arms and wept openly.

It was a long journey back to the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, overlooking the moon-silvered trail of the Scamander and the ghostly walls of Troy, where Eperitus left Priam and headed back to the Greek camp. The old king had not spoken a word since Hector’s body had been laid in the back of the cart and he had planted a simple kiss on his son’s white forehead. Mounting the wagon with Idaeus at the reins, he had drawn his hood down across his face and allowed the mule to be led away again. Odysseus had only accompanied them to the gates, but was still there with the others when Eperitus returned in the pitch blackness, the moon having slipped behind the distant hills.

Odysseus insisted Eperitus return to his hut, where Astynome was waiting for him. He found her asleep in his bed, her dark hair spread across the white fleece and one arm on top of the furs that hid her naked body. Eperitus laid a hand on her shoulder and the coldness of his fingers woke her.

She smiled up at him, sleepily. ‘Is he safe?’

Eperitus nodded. ‘And Achilles relented. Tomorrow the whole of Troy can mourn her greatest son.’

She sat up and the furs fell away, revealing her white breasts. Eperitus took the cloak from his shoulders and hung it about her.

‘You’ll get cold.’

‘Not if you join me.’

‘But you need to leave before dawn. If anyone recognizes you—’

‘Don’t worry, my love. The farmer who brought me will return after sunset tomorrow and take me back the same way. I’m yours until then.’

Eperitus could not keep the smile from his lips and had to stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her.

‘What about your master? If he misses you, you’ll be punished.’

Astynome shook her head and removed Eperitus’s cloak from her shoulders. Then she unbuckled the belt from around his waist and reached down to untie his sandals.

‘He knows I’m here,’ she said, lifting his tunic over his head so that he was naked before her. ‘Join me.’

She moved aside as he slipped into the bed beside her, then swept the heavy furs back over them both. She ran her fingers through his dark hair and looked into his eyes before kissing him, slowly and gently. Hesitantly, he slipped his arm about her waist and pulled her warm body against his.

‘What is it, Eperitus?’ she asked, drawing away from another kiss and staring at him with concern. ‘You seem . . . I don’t know . . . sadder than before. Is it . . . do you no longer want me?’

He narrowed his eyes in brief confusion, then smiled. ‘Never, Astynome. I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. Every day without you has been . . .’ He shook his head, not knowing how to describe the anguish of wanting her and knowing she was in the one place he could not reach her.

Astynome touched his cheek affectionately. ‘Then what is it?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose you’re right. Something is wrong with me, and it’s this war. There was a time, in the early years, when the fighting was hard but not dishonourable. Xenia was still observed, as were truces and parleys; the dead were respected and prisoners sold or exchanged. There was free movement for those who did not bear arms and their neutrality was never violated. But things have changed: small atrocities and acts of vengeance have chipped away at the honour of both sides, leaving us bitter and hateful. I’ve seen it affect Odysseus and even myself, a little. But Achilles’s reaction to Patroclus’s death was too much for me.’

‘Perhaps the nature of war itself has shifted, Eperitus,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you are clinging to ideals that have become meaningless. But even so, doesn’t Achilles’s change of heart absolve him, at least in part?’

‘No, not in my eyes. He treated Patroclus like a god, even made human sacrifices to his corpse! And his defilement of Hector was an affront.’

‘The rumours have been heard in Troy,’ Astynome said, running a finger thoughtfully down Eperitus’s chest and to his hard stomach. ‘He was a very great man and deserved better, much better. We Trojans loved him and his death has filled us with despair. But there is yet some hope, even of peace.’

She glanced up at him, running her tongue thoughtfully along her bottom lip. Eperitus sensed she had something else to say and waited.

‘Eperitus, my love, there was another reason for my coming here.’

‘Yes?’

‘My master in Troy found out about you from my father. He doesn’t approve, of course – being a warrior who has spent years fighting the Greeks – but he mentioned your name to another of the commanders, a powerful man call Apheidas.’

Eperitus felt his muscles tense and his jaw set. He stared hard at Astynome, who looked guilty suddenly.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. It was more urgent that Priam was brought to the camp safely, and then everything happened so quickly. But . . . but I have a message for you from this Apheidas.’

‘Do you know who he is?’ Eperitus said, gripping her arm more fiercely than he had intended. ‘Did he tell your master anything about me?’

Astynome reached up and touched his dark hair, avoiding looking into his brown eyes.

‘He says he is your father. I always thought there was more of the Trojan about you than the Greek, my love.’

‘He’s a dangerous man, Astynome. Don’t trust him.’

‘He says he wants to meet with you on neutral ground, in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. Whenever you are ready.’

‘Does he?’ Eperitus said scornfully. ‘Well, I don’t want to meet him.’

‘But he says it’s to discuss peace between our two nations, something that only you can help with. Peace, Eperitus – an end to this wretched war that we both hate so much!’

‘And what can Apheidas possibly offer that will bring about peace? With Hector dead the Trojans can never hope to win this war, so why should the Greeks agree to terms?’

‘You forget our walls. They were made by Poseidon and Apollo and can still hold out for many more years. Besides . . .’

She paused.

‘Besides what?’

‘There’s a rumour that more allies will be arriving soon. Female warriors from the east, they say, and Aethiopes from the distant south, where the sun is so hot it burns their skin black. But whether the rumours are true or not, peace will mean you and I can be together. I love you, Eperitus, and I want you to marry me and live with me here in Ilium.’

She leaned forward and kissed him, pressing her body against his and temporarily exorcizing the savage memory of war that had haunted his thoughts for so long. As she slipped her soft thigh over his hip and looked into his eyes, it was easy to imagine that the long siege was over and that he and Astynome were already married.

‘We can have children,’ she added in a whisper.

He thought with a painful jolt of Iphigenia, then tried to smooth the memory by picturing what his children with Astynome would look like: they would have their mother’s thick black hair and large eyes, but his courage and sense of honour. He smiled briefly as he entertained the fantasy, then the reality of what her proposal entailed quickly snuffed it out again and he frowned.

‘But I could never live here,’ he said. ‘I’m a Greek, for one thing. People would hate me.’

‘You’re half Trojan,’ she retorted. ‘And your father is one of the most powerful commanders in the army.’

‘My father brought shame on our family when I was young and our only words since then have been over crossed swords,’ Eperitus said bitterly. Then, seeing the look in Astynome’s face, he smiled and touched her cheek. ‘But why do we have to wait for peace when you can come with me to Ithaca? We could marry and have as many children as you want there.’

Astynome shook her head gently. ‘You can’t leave Ilium until this war is over, my love, and that could be many long, hard years away yet. But if you meet your father and it brings an end to the war, then what else matters? I will even go back with you to Ithaca, though it’s on the opposite side of the world.’

‘It’s still not that simple,’ he said. ‘Twenty years ago an oracle warned I would one day face a choice between everlasting glory gained in battle and shame brought about by love. Only now do I see what the prophecy meant: if I do as you ask, it will be for love, and to meet with Apheidas would be an act of treachery against my countrymen and my king. But I will not betray my oath to Odysseus, no matter how sick I am of this war; not even for you, Astynome.’

‘Don’t forget that Odysseus is sick of this war, too – you told me so yourself,’ she reminded him. ‘Perhaps by betraying your king you will also bring him release. But all I ask is that you think about your father’s offer and do not reject it out of hand, for all our sakes. This peace may be the will of the gods.’

‘It may,’ Eperitus agreed, reluctantly. ‘I will consider Aphei-das’s offer. I can say no more than that.’

Astynome smiled and moved on top of him, covering his face with her hair as she lowered her lips to his.

book

FOUR

Chapter Thirty-Eight

WOMEN OF ARES

Helen stood on the roof of the palace, looking east. The sun had gone down behind her and turned the skies crimson, which faded into purple darkness as they stretched towards Mount Ida. In the waning light she could see Hector’s barrow on the plain before the Dardanian Gate, its freshly heaped earth dark against the sun-bleached grasslands. They had cremated him that morning amid great cries of grief from the city streets, but for the nine days previous, since Priam had brought him back from the Greek camp, his body had lain on a bier in the Temple of Athena, where the people of Troy had queued day and night to mourn their greatest son. Priam’s choice of resting place had been a clever one, of course, for Hector’s corpse had been deliberately set before the crudely carved Palladium. Though one of Troy’s great bastions had fallen, the king was reminding his subjects that as long as the Palladium still remained within its walls the city would never fall to enemy attack.

And even now, while Hector’s ashes were still cooling beneath the earth of his homeland, a new hope was arriving to replace him. News had arrived that an army of Amazons was approaching the city, and as the evening settled about her Helen could see the horses of the lead party dashing across the plain, raising a small dust cloud behind them.

Paris laid his hand against the small of Helen’s back. It felt warm in the chill air of dusk.

‘Did you know that Amazons only mate to have children, never for pleasure?’ he said. ‘They take several partners at the same time so that the paternity of the child can never be known.’

Helen turned to give him a doubtful frown.

‘No, it’s true. Where they come from, beyond the River Thermodon, the women do the governing and fighting while the men are given the household chores. It’s said they break one arm and one leg of every infant boy, so that when he grows to manhood he will never be able to fight and he will never be able to run away.’

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Helen scoffed. ‘And if they hate men so much, why are they coming to help Troy – a city ruled by men?’

Paris smiled knowingly. ‘Because Queen Penthesilea is indebted to my father. When she was younger she accidentally shot and killed her sister, Hippolyte; Father gave her refuge and purified her of the guilt.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I still don’t see how an army of women is going to help Troy. The Greeks will make pretty carcasses of them all.’

‘Oh, they’re not pretty, sister,’ said Deiphobus, who was standing on the other side of her and watching the troop of fifty or so horses approach the Dardanian Gate. He turned and smiled at her. ‘Not if the rumours are true, anyway. But they’re supposed to be fine cavalry and second to none in archery. It’s even said they cauterize the right breast of every baby girl so that it won’t grow and hinder the pulling of a bow when they reach fighting age.’

‘And Troy needs all the allies she can find now,’ Paris added. ‘With Hector gone, the future of our city could rest in the hands of these women and the army of blacks marching up from the south. If they fail us, then all our hopes may fail with them.’

‘Well, they sound perfectly vile to me!’ Helen replied. ‘But now they’re here I suppose we should go and see if all these rumours are true.’

They found King Priam already in the courtyard before the palace, awaiting the arrival of the Amazons with Apheidas and Antenor. The two older men were dressed in their finest robes – the first time Priam had worn anything other than sackcloth since the mourning for Hector had begun – and Apheidas wore his ceremonial bronze-scaled armour, which reflected the watery pink of the late evening sky. As Helen, Paris and Deiphobus joined them, they heard a series of shouts followed by the clatter of hooves on the cobbled streets of the lower tiers of Pergamos. Moments later, the guards at the top of the ramp that led up to the courtyard were being brushed aside and thirteen horses and riders came galloping on to the open space before the palace, quickly forming a line opposite the small group of Trojans. Helen looked at the riders with disbelief, though she hid this behind a display of haughty indifference. All were dressed like warriors: half-moon shields and bows across their backs; leather caps on their heads, with flaps of fur to cover their napes; and swords and daggers hanging from their belts. Though they wore no greaves, their shins were protected by layers of fur tied around with strips of leather, while in place of tunics and breastplates they wore thick animal skins. The mounds of their left breasts could be seen beneath the fur, but the right sides of their chests were flat, proving the rumours Deiphobus had heard were true.

Two of the riders dismounted and crossed the finely raked soil of the courtyard. The older of the two was around thirty years of age, while the younger was perhaps half that. Both were tall and long limbed, with finely honed muscles, but though their facial features could have been considered beautiful, Helen thought, the effect was spoiled by their severe, hard-bitten expressions. The eldest stopped opposite Priam, planting her legs apart in the soil and thrusting her fists on to her hips.

‘I am Queen Penthesilea of the Amazons, daughter of Otrere and Ares,’ she announced, fixing the king with her light-brown eyes. ‘This is Evandre, my cousin.’

Priam nodded genially to them both.

‘It’s been a long time, Penthesilea,’ he said. ‘You were but a young girl when I purified you of your sister’s death, and now you are a strong and fierce queen of your people. Welcome to Troy.’

He opened his arms and the queen’s aloof stance melted away as she stepped forward and embraced him.

‘Priam, my old friend,’ she said, pulling him into her and thumping his back with the heel of her hand. ‘It’s been too long and these are not the circumstances I would have chosen to have returned under. But here I am. Where’s that big-headed braggart, Hector? Your son would sire fine daughters and I’ve a mind to mate with him while I’m here.’

Priam drew away, though he left his wrinkled hands on Penthesilea’s shoulders.

‘You passed my son’s barrow as you rode in. He was killed before the Scaean Gate by a man called Achilles.’

Penthesilea stared at Priam and nodded sagaciously.

‘Then I am pleased for you and for Hector – it is a much greater thing to die in battle than in bed. But Hector was my friend once. I will be pleased to avenge his death for you.’

She passed her gaze over the others until it rested on Helen. The princess shifted a little under the scrutiny of Penthesilea’s cruel eyes and was quickly forced to look away, albeit with a sneer.

‘So this must be the woman who started everything,’ Penthesilea said scornfully, walking up to Helen and taking her chin between her thumb and forefinger. Helen frowned harshly, but said nothing as the Amazon forced her head first one way then the other. ‘Beautiful indeed – to the sentimental eyes of men, who love to dwell on baubles. But such finery would soon find itself at a loss among us Amazons. Any woman who cannot fight is a burden on the rest and must be disposed of quickly.’

This raised a laugh from her companions, in whom there was not the least intimation of femininity. Helen looked at them with hateful derision, angry that the potent charm of her beauty was powerless against them.

‘Mock me if you like, my fair queen, but never forget that you Amazons are simply women masquerading as men. What are you but an abomination? At least I am true to my nature.’

‘Your nature?’ Penthesilea scoffed. ‘You should be ashamed to call yourself a woman!’

‘She’s more of a woman than you are!’ Deiphobus snapped, stepping forward and pulling the queen’s hand away from Helen.

Penthesilea immediately reached for her sword, followed by her twelve bodyguards. Deiphobus, Apheidas and Paris did the same, but Priam raised his hands with a gesture for calm before laying an arm across Penthesilea’s shoulders.

‘Come now, all of you, save your aggression for the Greeks. And on that subject, when will the rest of your army arrive? How many horses and men – forgive me, women – will we need to provide for?’

‘Army?’ Penthesilea replied. ‘Our army is at home in Thermiscyra, fighting our own wars and keeping an eye on the men. We and the forty riders waiting outside the gates are all the aid you will receive from the Amazons, my lord.’

Priam’s jaw dropped. Antenor and Apheidas looked at each other in silent surprise, while Paris and Deiphobus let their hands slip limply from their sword hilts. Penthesilea smiled reassuringly.

‘And we are all the aid you will need, old friend. The Greek leaders are all men, yes?’

‘The whole army is, of course.’

‘Then they will be arrogant and conceited, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. Their pride won’t allow them to refuse the challenge of a few dozen women, will it? Tomorrow morning we are going to ride to their ships and invite the best of the Greeks to face us, man against woman. And when their leaders come out to fight us we will kill them all. How do you think their army will function when we have cut off its head?’ She thumped the flat half of her chest with pride and grinned at the old king. ‘And now we will stable our horses and eat. I assume our arrival has warranted that much?’

Priam shook his head in dismay at his own lack of hospitality. ‘Of course. Apheidas here will show you to the stables, while my son, Deiphobus, will send for the rest of your escort. Antenor and I will await you in the great hall. And, Penthesilea, my thanks to you for coming.’

He hugged her once more, and only those who knew the king would have been able to read the disappointment in his eyes.

Paris wrapped his arm about Helen’s waist as they watched the Amazons dismount and lead their horses to the stables, following Apheidas, Penthesilea and Evandre. The army they had expected had not arrived, but the fact the Amazons had only seen the need to send so few warriors was a greater stain on the city’s pride than if they had arrived in full force and filled the streets with their obnoxious arrogance. Paris sighed.

‘And so the manhood of Troy is finally and truly undone,’ he said.

The next day the Greek kings and leaders were gathered around a large table in one of the annexes of Agamemnon’s tent. Outside, the wind was sending ripples through the cotton and flax sheets that in turn were casting strange, rolling shadows over the table and the odd assortment of objects that were spread across it.

This is the valley I mean,’ Nestor said.

He pointed to two baskets that had been turned upside down to represent hills. A trail of oats passed between them, running from a small circle at one end of the table that had been formed from a belt, to a larger pair of circles – one within the other and also formed from belts – at the other.

The road from Lyrnessus in the south to Troy in the north,’ he continued, tapping the smaller circle, then the larger pair of circles, ‘runs straight through the middle of it. The slopes on the western side are scree-covered with plenty of rocks and trees. You can hide a thousand archers there with ease, and as many spearmen beyond the ridge as you like.’

‘And if these Aethiopes want to reach Troy, they have to go directly through this valley?’ Menelaus asked.

‘Certainly, if they want to follow the main road and don’t want to be delayed by the hills on either side.’

Eperitus looked at the crude re-creation of Ilium that had been mapped out on top of the table and tried to picture the different terrains in each part. Though he had informed Odysseus of what Astynome had told him, and Odysseus, in turn, had told Agamemnon that an army was approaching from the south, the King of Men had dismissed the intelligence as worthless (especially as Odysseus had been forced to say he was told by a local farmer, so as not to mention Astynome’s visit to the camp). Only when a horseman had found his way to the camp that morning, claiming to be the lone survivor from the garrison at Lyrnessus, did he decide to call the Council of Kings. Here they had heard from the exhausted rider of how a force of warriors, each one as black as night and as tall as an afternoon shadow, had stormed Lyrnessus and put every living thing to the sword, including the few Trojans who had found their way back to their homes. He had also reported the army to be in its thousands upon thousands, but this was dismissed by most of the council as the exaggerations of a frightened man. The garrison itself was only a few hundred strong and could easily have been taken by a thousand attackers; and where, they argued, could Priam find such a powerful ally this late in the war? At most, two or three thousand mercenaries were approaching from the south, and the plan was to ambush them before they reached the Dardanian Gate and swelled the defenders of Troy.

‘Then we’ll send a force to intercept them,’ Menelaus announced. ‘A thousand Thessalian spearmen under the command of Podarces, supported by a thousand Locrian archers under Little Ajax. That should be more than enough to deal with these southerners.’

‘I agree, Brother,’ Agamemnon said, taking a swallow of wine. ‘We’ll crush these Aethiopes and the last hope of Troy will die with them. Then we can bend all our efforts to taking the city itself !’

‘You’ll need more soldiers.’

The men around the table looked at Odysseus.

‘A lot more,’ he continued. ‘Eperitus and I have visited the valley and it’s a good place for an ambush, but it has its disadvantages too. A determined force could quickly storm the slopes and sweep your thousand Locrians away, and if there are enough of them, they’ll push back the reserve force of Thessalians too. It’s a long way from there to the safety of the Greek camp, and if the survivor from Lyrnessus was correct about the numbers of these southerners, then we’d be lucky if any of our own men make it back at all. You should send three or four times the number, or none at all.’

‘We’re severely under strength as it is,’ Idomeneus countered. If we send a larger force to ambush the Aethiopes, there’s a risk they could be caught by Trojans from the city and wiped out. That would leave the rest of the army too few in number to continue the siege. It would end the war with one blow.’

Odysseus opened his mouth to speak, but raised voices at the mouth of the tent stopped him. The interruption was followed by the appearance of Thersites, the hunchback whose provocations and vulgar taunts at the assemblies of the army had always proved a scourge to the members of the council. Today, though, he was red-faced and short of breath, the usual antagonism absent from his hideous features. He shuffled in on his club-foot, his left shoulder so badly deformed that his arms dangled unevenly at his sides and his cone-shaped, balding head sunk almost down to his chest. One of his eyes was set in a permanent squint, while the other was as wide as an egg, the dark pupil revolving this way and that as he stared at the council.