The Oath

23

The sight of that immense fleet, of the hundreds of ships and thousands of oars beating the surface of the sea seething with foam, filled me with wonder. This was truly an enterprise that dimmed any other human adventure. The world of Hercules, of Jason, of the seven kings against Thebes, of Theseus of Athens who had defeated the man-bull in his labyrinth, faded away in the mist that the wind lifted from the cresting waves. A world had been lost forever and was dissolving in the haze of an early summer morning as the sun which rose over Asia lit up a vast sweep of vessels, a forest of standards, a myriad of flashing shields. The rumble of drums beating time for the oarsmen, the trumpets raising bronze blasts towards a clear sky in which white clouds galloped. This was the voice of the greatest army that the world had ever seen. Thousands and thousands of men were setting out to traverse the sea and their crossing that day would be forever impressed in the hearts of each one of them, and would be passed down to their sons and the sons of their sons for centuries and centuries to come, for thousands of years.

They were leaving their brides and young children, babies even, behind them, abandoning their parents weakened by age and by an anxiety which would never again leave their sides for as long as they lived. But now they felt part of the multitude, of the shouts and the blasts, of the incessant pounding of the drums, of the crashing of waves against the prows, of the spumy sea, of the shrieking birds. They denied it now, but the time would come. The cruel toil of battle, the bitter, bloody brawl. Nights without sleep, eyes staring in the dark. The time would come for wounds and death and, far worse than death, fear!

Many of them, too many of them, would never make it back, but descend inexorably into Hades instead. The vision that now filled my eyes and my heart would be the last vision of greatness and glory, I could feel it. Nothing else would be this luminous. Destiny had been set free to take its course. The route was carved out, the wind blew strong and steady. Its enormous force pushed one thousand ships in a single go, pushed tens of thousands of bronze-clad men. Where was my goddess? Was she sitting on her throne of ivory on high Olympus contemplating the spectacle as well? Were the other immortals seated beside her: Zeus and Hera, Apollo, Ares who could already pick up the smell of blood, and Aphrodite, naturally, Aphrodite who protected the woman, sublime Helen, for whom this war was being fought? O, Athena! Is your blue-green gaze searching for me even now, perhaps, in the sea froth, among the swaying sails? Here I am, standing straight at the prow, gripping the spear that wanax Autolykos, lord of Acarnania gifted me. I’m searching for you. Can you see the flashing tip of my spear?

The wind continued to fill the sails with no change in direction for two days and two nights. Oh, how many days, how many nights, would be needed to cover the same ground on the way back! The men at the oars added speed and the helmsmen held the prows unwaveringly, heading west. It was as if a god had suddenly opened the gates of the great cave on Mount Haemos where the wind had been kept locked up so long, and the prisoner, released, had rushed out in an unbridled gallop like an eager steed, aching for infinite spaces.

Each of the royal ships was at the head of its own squadron. Some were faster, others lagged behind. I could see them all, the sovereigns of Achaia, resplendent at their prows. Sometimes our ships would nearly touch and we’d greet each other, shouting over the hiss of the wind. At my left I saw coppery-haired Menelaus and it felt like that day when Helen had chosen him, unlocking her eyes from mine at the last moment.

Achilles’ ship drew up alongside mine and we spoke. He had a favour to ask of me: he wanted to go ashore at Scyros to see the young son he’d had with a princess, daughter of King Lycomedes, when Achilles had lived as a page at his palace. The child was called Neoptolemus but Achilles preferred to call him Pyrrhus because his hair was the colour of fire. He had advised Agamemnon, and suggested that the fleet wait at anchor in the shelter of a promontory, and take the opportunity to stock up on water and provisions.

Achilles and I alone, followed by two Lapiths from his guard, made our way up to the palace. He didn’t want to meet the little boy; perhaps he was afraid to upset him. He merely looked on, from behind a parted curtain, as young Pyrrhus slept peacefully, nestled in his mother’s arms. Achilles watched his son for a long time in silence.

Instead, I met the little boy myself and gave him a small suit of armour I’d had one of my shipwrights craft using the copper from an urn. I told him: ‘This is a gift from your father, who is leaving to go to war. Start getting ready, one day you will join him and fight at his side.’ The boy gave a shrill laugh, grabbed the sword and started making slashing movements like a tiny warrior. His eyes looked like a wolf cub’s, cold and expressionless.

‘He’ll grow up to be like you!’ I said to Achilles later. ‘But he’ll need someone to instruct and train him. We’ll have to leave your Lapiths here.’ Achilles nodded but didn’t say a word.

I went to pay my respects to King Lycomedes. ‘Wanax, thank you for your warm reception. We can’t stay any longer because we have the sea still to cross, but we’ll be back. We’re leaving these two warriors who can begin at once to train young Neoptolemus in the art of weaponry. They are ready to repay you for your hospitality.’

I don’t really know how I came up with such a plan or what made me say those words: it was as if I were obeying the voice of a stranger whispering in my ear. Even today, I can’t resign myself to what I did.

‘He’s my grandson,’ responded the king harshly. ‘I’ll decide how he should grow up.’

‘It’s the will of his father Achilles,’ I replied.

The name alone was enough to intimidate even a king into obeying, without protest. I said nothing else to him, but spoke in secret to the two Lapiths: ‘Listen well to what I’m telling you. The outcome of this war is completely uncertain. The boy will become our weapon of last resort, when all else has failed. You must bring him up to be an implacable warrior, a slayer of men. Use no pity, no affection. See that he is separated from his mother tomorrow.’

The next day Achilles and I rejoined the rest of the fleet. The crews heaved out the sails and they were soon bellying in the wind as the rowers urged each other on, bending their backs in a race to see who could make the sea boil under their oars, who would reach the shore first. Troy was already visible in the distance on top of the hill.

It felt like a contest, like the day we traditionally celebrated Poseidon, the blue god and lord of the abyss, by stripping our ships of their masts and sails and launching forth by dint of our oars alone. Their hulls furrowed the waves and the prows fought over the space that separated them from the finish line.

As we neared land, Agamemnon had his heralds proclaim the order in which the ships would put to shore, arranged by kingdom and point of origin. I was to draw up at the centre, equidistant from Ajax at one end and Achilles at the other. We began to prepare our tents, along with everything else we would need to set up camp. Meanwhile the walls of Troy were filling up with warriors but also with townspeople: old men, women, youths, even children. After the unhappy outcome of our first visit no one could have imagined we would accept the abduction of the queen of Sparta without a fight. Priam surely had his ways of getting information and knowing exactly how many men and ships were on their way.

I could see, even before we set ashore, that reinforcements had been built up on either side of the Skaian Gate. But I was mostly struck by the fact that the Trojan fleet had not advanced against us on the open sea. Why hadn’t they thought of attacking us as we were landing, when they would have had stood a good chance of succeeding? Could a city so powerful that it controlled the straits not have a huge fleet? How was that possible?

The first to touch ground was the ship of Protesilaus, who commanded the Thessalians; he ran onto the beach, followed by his men. Achilles was next, then Menelaus with his Lacedaemonians. Next it was my turn to touch shore, with my comrades. Then came Agamemnon with his Mycenaens, Diomedes with the Argives, Ajax Oileus with his Locrians and Ajax the Great with the warriors of Salamis alongside the Athenians commanded by Menestheus, and then all the others. I ran straight to Agamemnon, to warn him to call back Protesilaus, who was too exposed, but it was too late. An arrow had already pierced the king of the Thessalians in the middle of his chest. A formation of Trojan warriors, who had been laying in wait behind the defensive palisade at the second city gate, surged out right and left to surround Protesilaus’ army. His men had gathered around the body of their fallen king to protect him, but they were open to attack from every side, and the Trojans were charging forward on chariots!

‘Achilles!’ I shouted. ‘Achilles!’ But the prince of the Myrmidons had already seen. His warriors had rolled their chariots off the ship and were yoking Balius and Xanthus, Achilles’ splendid steeds, one dappled brown and white, the other blond as wheat, on to the hero’s own chariot. Other comrades were preparing to charge forth in the same way. The Myrmidons, all of them armed with burnished greaves and shields, had mustered rapidly and were running among the chariots in squads of fifty men. I shouted for Diomedes and Menelaus to go to their aid, and their men followed as well, in a second wave of chariots and warriors on foot. I drew up my archers to be ready to cover their return to camp.

The counter-attack slammed into the Trojan ranks, fragmenting them. They were not unified or numerous enough to withstand Achilles’ furious charge nor the vigour of Diomedes and Menelaus following close on his heels. The king of Sparta certainly hoped that Helen was watching from up high on the walls, and that she would recognize him by the splendour of his weapons and the colours on his chariot.

Diomedes burst upon the Trojan ranks right after Achilles. He hurled an anchor that he’d grabbed from the ship and hooked the wheel of an enemy chariot, while Sthenelus, his charioteer, pushed the horses forward on an oblique path and ruinously threw their already crippled adversary off balance, toppling him into a shrieking tangle of men, horses, splintered wood and broken limbs, as black blood stained the ground. I was moving forward with my archers when I saw the Skaian Gate open on our left, vomiting forth thousands of fresh warriors onto a field already soaked with blood. How many of them there were! I gave the triple war cry of the king of Ithaca and wheeled to the left. The archers immediately formed up in three rows either side of me. They planted their quivers in the ground, raised their bows, cocked their arrows and waited.

‘He — ha — heee!

‘He — ha — heee!

‘He — ha — heee!’

My throat burned like fire.

They were pouring with sweat, their foreheads gleaming. The sun blazed down on us from the right. None of the others, engaged in combat, had noticed the new threat. I was reminded of the boar of Acarnania and the wound on my leg started burning.

‘Let fly!’ I shouted, and a cloud of arrows rained down hard as hail on the steps in front of the gate, beating down on the Trojan ranks.

They buckled.

‘Let fly!’

They shouted.

‘Let fly!’

They turned towards us. We drew our swords, raised our shields. The din was hellish, I couldn’t tell the shouts from the sounds of the clashing metal; the weapons spoke different languages but they all pronounced the same word: death, death, death! I was gasping for air in the fray, my breath was short, broken, painful. But then racing rumbling chariots were cutting the ground between us, their rims carving deep furrows in the earth. Our own! Achilles’ chariot! Diomedes’ chariot! Menelaus’ chariot!

‘Skaian Gate!’ roared a Trojan warrior. Powerfully built, helmet glowing in the sun, high crest. Hector!

The gate opened again with a deafening screech. The city swallowed up her sons so they would not die.

They closed themselves in.

Great Ajax advanced. A shower of arrows greeted him; he raised his huge shield, thick with the hides of seven bulls. The other hand brandished a two-headed axe. The earth trembled beneath his feet. He went all the way up to the gate.

‘Let fly!’ I shouted again to my men. ‘At the bastions! Protect Ajax! Cover him!’

He was already under the parapet. He swung the enormous axe and banged it on the gate, one, two, three times. He made the doors shudder, made the bronze hinges groan.

My heart laughed inside my chest: Ajax was knocking at the door!

Many of their men were strewn on the ground, fewer of ours. Too many, in any case. The Thessalians carried back their king on their shoulders, singing a funeral dirge. Before evening the Achaians had raised a pyre and laid his body upon it. The days of bitterness had already begun. Protesilaus had only just been married, had spent only one night of love with his young bride, and had lost his life the moment he set foot on Asian soil. This is how he would be remembered: as the one of us, the Achaian, who had first touched ground and been first to die.

The Trojan warriors could oversee our whole camp from the highest towers of the city. A few of them cautiously pushed open the gates and ventured out to gather hastily their fallen from the field of battle so they could be given proper funeral rites.

As soon as night fell, high plumes of smoke and flames shot up from a hill dark with black cypresses near the eastern bastion of the citadel of Troy. If I had taken a group of bold warriors up there and attacked all those who were attending to the funeral honours for their fallen, we would have caught them completely unawares and killed a great many, but I told myself there had to be a limit to the wickedness of war.

Not enough time had passed yet. Things would change, later.

Columns of smoke rose from our camp as well. Young men reduced to ashes who would never return home, whose mothers and fathers would never see them again. Their ashes were gathered in bronze jars and buried. This was what we had decided: we would not send back ships carrying the ashes of the dead. Their families would have to build empty tombs on the seashore to wet with their tears.

Late that night, Agamemnon sent heralds to summon the kings to a war council. He wanted to know how many had fallen on our side and theirs, and to get information on how the Trojans fought: were they good in the fray? In hand-to-hand combat? How many chariots had they sent out onto the field of battle? He praised Achilles, Menelaus, Ajax and Diomedes and finally me as well, for protecting our warriors and keeping the Trojans at bay. We all congratulated each other, then sat down to eat and drink; we had to regain our strength. Nestor asked me then what I made of the fact that the Trojan fleet hadn’t sailed out against us.

‘Yes,’ Agamemnon said as well, ‘how do you explain that?’

‘I think they’ve hidden their ships,’ I offered. ‘They knew they couldn’t get the better of us, and instead of witnessing the fleet’s destruction they must have scattered their ships among the coastal cities allied with Priam.’

Agamemnon pondered my words for a while and so did Nestor; it was he who spoke again: ‘Maybe we should attack and seize those cities one by one. We would eliminate Priam’s friends and destroy the fleet wherever we find it. We could lay siege to each of the cities in turn until it falls.’

The kings began to discuss this idea and others, and their opinions differed greatly. Achilles wanted to assault the walls of Troy without delay. Menelaus was behind him, and everyone could understand why: he wanted to take the city by storm, exterminate its inhabitants, chop Paris into little pieces and feed him to the hounds, get Helen back, take her home and forget about everything, if he could manage it.

But it wasn’t so simple. The city was defended by a mighty wall with ramparts and by palisaded gates. The Trojan army was powerful and Priam certainly had many friends, perhaps even the great king of the Cheteians, who sat on a stone throne in his city of stone in the heart of Asia. In the end, the prevailing opinion was that it was best to start by raiding the cities allied with Priam or at least those closest to our position. But the bulk of our forces would remain to hold the siege of Troy.

The decision proved to be a wise one. Over the first year of war, Achilles and Patroclus, at the head of their own fleet and that of Protesilaus, attacked a number of cities on the coast and plundered them, destroying all of their ships. The only thing that stopped the onslaught was the winter, when the cold breath of Boreas began to sweep the sea with violent gusts. They brought a great deal of booty back to camp with them, a part of which was left to Agamemnon, his right as supreme commander of the army.

The following spring, Achilles, Patroclus, Menestheus and others seized the greatest and most prosperous city of the coast near Troy. It was called Thebes and it rose at the foot of a mountain called Plakos inhabited by Cilicians from the southern sea. Achilles himself killed the king and sold the inhabitants as slaves. It was a great victory, but I took no joy in it. The murdered king was called Eetion and he was the father-in-law of Hector, Priam’s firstborn and heir to the throne of Troy. I had seen Hector’s wife Andromache when I first went to Troy to try to stop this war and to ask for Helen’s return. I remembered her as being very beautiful, with a deep, melancholic gaze.

The violent death of her father, Eetion, king of Hypoplacian Thebes, kindled even more hatred for us in Troy and made the fight even more vicious. The Trojans made continuous sorties to try to force us back into the sea or set our ships on fire. We responded by trying to wipe out their army and attacking the defences they had built outside the city, aiming to breach the walls of the lower city. The struggle was becoming more bitter by the day.

I suffered my first losses as well. It had never happened to me before, and my grief was made worse because the dead were from Ithaca. I knew their parents, their wives, I had seen their children born. I would avenge them by killing the same number of enemy combatants, for this was the law of war: to perpetuate the slaughter, although we knew it would not serve to bring those who had been killed back to life. What hurt me most was looking at their faces; they’d always been so ruddy, their colour deepened by the sea air and the sun. They were so pale, the dead. A colour hard to define but one that only the dead have. Pale heads!

Achilles relentlessly continued to attack cities and pillage them. He came back from one of these rampages with a beautiful maiden for Patroclus, to give him pleasure on long nights — her name was Iphi; long-legged, she was, with high, firm breasts — and another for himself, splendid high-waisted Diomedea.

What I remember most from the beginning of the war, more than the battles and the blood, more than the victories and defeats, more than my own exploits and those of my comrades, are the words. Everyone talked to me.

Even Ajax of Salamis, who was not a talker, but a man of unbeatable strength, a walking mountain. I believe that none of the kings and princes of the Achaians ever achieved feats as prodigious as his, or bore up under such great toil alone, without asking for help from either man or god. And yet he was as simple-hearted and innocent as a child. While Ajax occupied his place on earth like a boulder, Achilles was light, swift as the wind, deadly and ruthless, yet as fragile as a clay cup. He killed so as not to be killed; he fought to escape the Chaera of death, who was always present at his side. He saw her, sometimes, racing beside him on a chariot pulled by four stallions as black as a crow’s wing, wielding her scythe. Only she could keep up with him, as he urged on Xanthus the blond and Balius the dappled, making them fly over the field of blood, his steeds answering him with words that only he could understand. It wasn’t that he wanted to cheat the Chaera of her due, but he was holding out for glory. The last moment of his life would be, had to be, like a dazzling strike of lightning. He would not be forgotten, would not vanish into oblivion.

Menelaus, consumed with bitterness and humiliation. . he often confided in me: his nightmares, his doubts, his dreams. He didn’t talk that way to anyone else. One day he said to me: ‘You were next to me that day. Why did Helen choose me? Why did she choose me, only to betray me and abandon my home?’ I looked into his eyes and he seemed sincere. Was it really possible, I asked myself, that a thousand ships and fifty thousand warriors had crossed the sea to Asia for the sole purpose of reclaiming a man’s wife? I searched my heart for other reasons, truer reasons, reasons which were not apparent. The real motives of men and gods. But I couldn’t find them. Not then, not yet.

‘Don’t torment yourself,’ I answered. ‘Look around you: one thousand ships have crossed the sea with myriads and myriads of warriors. Do you really believe that all of this — the finest youth of Achaia pouring their blood onto this sun-scorched field — has happened for the reason we pretend to believe? Is there any way to explain this? No, Menelaus, there is not. You may think you know why we’re here, but you don’t. We’re here without knowing why we came, or what we’re doing here. We’re like twigs at the mercy of a raging river. We endure hardships, fear and hunger, we toil and strive, suffer wounds. . only to finish in the mouth of implacable Hades. Someone else wanted this. . something else, something that is irresistible and overwhelming. Something faceless and voiceless. Our only defence is to stay together, like we are now, to stay with our comrades and friends and ward off darkness and fear.’

‘But we’d made a pact. .’

‘There’s no mere pact that could keep fifty thousand warriors here for all this time, is there? Can you explain why we didn’t sail back before the winter began? What has kept us here? I don’t know. Do you, perhaps? Does Agamemnon, king of Achaian kings? Menelaus, if you know, tell me, now. I want to know why I’m here to lose my life. Helen’s not enough.’

Menelaus was silent, and I’ll never know whether it was because he didn’t want to say or because he didn’t know.

I spoke again: ‘Haven’t you noticed something strange going on? Something that makes you uneasy, fills your heart with anxiety?’

Menelaus looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time, as if he were realizing that I could feel things that escaped other people. He said: ‘They say that the goddess Athena speaks to you. Is that true?’

‘It’s not important what people say about me, what’s important is what’s happening here. Can’t you see that time is escaping us? Can you remember what happened just seven days ago? Or four, or two? How long have we been here?’

Nothing but a blank stare met my words.

One night I ventured as far as the walls of Troy to see if I could hear the voice of the city. Nothing, not a sound; nothing but silence hovered over the sleeping city. It seemed to be uninhabited, empty. That silence made me shiver. Could we be besieging a ghost city? But then I remembered that I’d seen the city myself, gone through the gate, lodged in Antenor’s house, spoken to him for long nights. I walked and walked until I found myself under the citadel and called out Helen’s name. I wanted her to hear our voices as she lay in Paris’ arms, I wanted her to remember a day long ago: a boy and a girl in a horse pen as the sun was setting. .

When I got back to camp it was the middle of the night and I called out to my sentries so they wouldn’t kill me. That night, which night? I felt my father’s absence acutely. How many nights had he lain awake, like I did now, his eyes staring wide into the dark?

Diomedes was certainly not a man of many words, but I’ll always remember them nonetheless. After the initial attack, when Agamemnon was reviewing his vast army for the first time, the high commander turned to Diomedes and said, to rankle him, I presume: ‘Why do you hesitate? Why are you afraid of jumping into the fray?’

‘I fear nothing,’ Diomedes snorted. ‘Don’t forget that I’m the only one who fought and won a battle before coming here. I avenged my father at Thebes of the seven gates.’

Agamemnon fell silent and continued to advance on his chariot in front of the drawn-up ranks of the Achaians. Diomedes turned towards me and it was as if he were seeing me for the first time.

‘You were there,’ he said, and I understood what he meant.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I was.’

‘What were you doing at Argus?’

‘I was with my father. We were taking Eumelus of Pherai back to his parents, Admetus and Alcestis. You remember, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he replied. ‘Everyone was looking for that boy. .’

‘But no one ever found him.’

‘You have something that I don’t have,’ said Diomedes. ‘What is it?’

‘I know that the mind is a weapon more powerful than any sword or spear or claw or fang.’

‘Together we could be invincible.’

‘I could be invincible on my own,’ I answered, ‘but if you like I’ll very happily be your comrade. Our fathers were together on the Argo.’

‘All of our fathers were together on that ship,’ he replied with a smile, and he got on his chariot alongside Sthenelus, his driver, ready for combat.