The Oath

24

Achilles conquered city after city on the coast, but the war wasn’t going any better for us. Even more warriors flocked to Troy from other countries to assist Priam in driving off the foreign invaders. Even the gods, at that stage, had decided whose side they were on, and you could feel it in the air and in the turns of events. The weather. Unexpected manifestations of the earth and sky, thunder and lightning, even an earthquake that made our horses restive and made the sea boil around us. Messages from the gods that the soothsayers were only too eager to interpret. Agamemnon had brought his own seer to Troy, Calchas, a man he despised but whom he kept at his side, afraid to do otherwise; it was Calchas who had pronounced that horrific prophecy when the dead calm of the sea had left the fleet wind-bound in Aulis at such length.

Once, fed up with the priest’s manner and his empty words, I challenged him myself: ‘Tell me something useful, o prophet, how many figs are on this tree?’

He regarded me icily, and drew close: ‘My art does not serve to count figs, but that’s something you know well. Do you think I haven’t heard you when you speak to a certain someone that the others don’t see?’

I was stunned. We had been under a great, lush fig tree and I don’t know how or when we had come to find ourselves walking along the seashore as the moon was rising. I knew in that very moment Penelope was searching for my thoughts, the sting of nostalgia. .

‘Isn’t that true?’ he continued as if we still found ourselves under that fig tree.

I did not answer. I didn’t want others to get between me and my goddess.

‘She loves you and protects you. You feel when she is close, but I can feel her when she’s present as well, you know. I envy you seeing her. Tell me, what is she like?’

‘Be careful of what you ask,’ I replied. ‘If she wanted to be seen by you, you wouldn’t have to ask me anything.’

He dropped his head and we continued walking. ‘I have a proposal to make,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘You tell me what will be the day of my death and I’ll tell you yours.’

‘No one wants to know when the day of his death will be,’ I replied.

‘Then we’ll tell each other without moving our lips, without pronouncing a word. That way each of us will know the truth, but will be free to ignore it.’

‘What good would it do us?’ I asked. ‘Here it’s easy to die. Every day.’

‘It will allow us to understand if we really are different from all the others. It’s a very rare gift that the gods have given us. There are borders that only a very few are allowed to cross. You are one of them.’

‘I’ll accept your challenge if you will answer this question of mine: why does the passage of time escape me? Why don’t I know how long I’ve been in this place, and why don’t any of my comrades ever talk about it either?’

‘Because there are two borders in our world: time and place. You have crossed the border of time and what feels like a month for you can be a year for the others. Or the opposite. And one day you will cross the other border as well. You’ll cross an invisible line to reach places that no one else can see. Athena. . perhaps it is she who wills this. I know no more than that.’

I turned towards him and as soon as I looked into his eyes a dark, bottomless well opened up. I gave him an answer, and he to me. But his answer was not a day or a year. It was an image, one I thought I’d already seen. I wouldn’t think about it again for a very long time afterwards.

The war went on, ever harsher, ever more violent and cruel, ever more difficult. We hated it. In order to sustain such a huge army we had to sack everywhere around us. We took crops, herds, flocks, while the bronze and copper, the silver and gold and the beautiful women were all for the kings. I wanted the war to end, so I fought on the field with all my might, and my men with me. I had to be an example for them: I had to share the strain, the danger, the long nights awake on guard. I shared their food as well. Only when I was invited to the table of Agamemnon with the other sovereigns did I eat roasted meats and drink pure, inebriating wine, in endless banquets which perhaps helped us to forget what was happening.

One night I realized that there was a guest whom I thought I would never meet again: the minstrel without listeners from the port of Troy, the one who had offered to sing for me alone. I remembered his song as a long lament, as a mysterious, harmonious weeping, a melody he had drawn out of my own heart. How could he have entered our camp? Was it a divinity in disguise, plotting calamity for us? Or a friendly god coming to our aid? Would Calchas notice him?

He didn’t sing until the banquet was over, and I leaned close to hear every sound that came from between his teeth. No one else listened, not Diomedes, not Achilles, not Great Ajax, not the handsome king of Crete, Idomeneus. Not Nestor, knight of Gerene. Beautiful slave girls had joined us and even Nestor, who was so old, was eager to indulge in the pleasures they offered. I noticed that the poet was looking straight at me and that his lips were moving without making any sound. I saw, and I understood a single word: Anterior. When he walked off I ran after him. ‘When?’ I asked.

He did not turn. ‘Now, at the wild fig tree,’ he said and disappeared into the darkness before I could say another word.

I went to my tent, put on a dark, hooded cloak and girded my sword. I left the line of ships dragged up on the dry beach and started off into the countryside. I could feel the presence of many troubled shadows as I walked, ghosts of heroes fallen in the cruel fray, and I could feel their pain inside me as they mourned their lost lives.

The wild fig was an enormous tree, so big that one hundred men could have found shelter in the shade of its leafy boughs. Ever since we had come ashore so long ago, it had been a landmark for us in the middle of the plain, and it bore the signs of our many battles: arrowheads still stuck in the trunk and spear tips as well, deep wounds and gashes in the bark and wood. And yet it was thriving, and laden with fruit that the birds ate. I saw a shadow and remained at a distance, saying: ‘A poet asked me to come to this meeting, noble Antenor. I came because I was certain you would not betray the bond of hospitality.’

‘Wanax Odysseus. . I recognize your voice even though you keep your face hidden. No one but you could come to this place at this late hour. I knew you would accept.’ We stood opposite each other now, dark statues sculpted by the moon. ‘We were the only ones who fought in the assembly to avoid this useless massacre.’

‘In vain, wanax Antenor. What has urged you to summon me to this place?’

‘Both Trojans and Greeks are suffering terrible losses. It’s clear from the pyres incessantly burning at the edges of your camp and on our cypressed hills. Young men in the bloom of their youth are falling on the field every day, their mothers clasp the urns with their ashes to their breasts and weep inconsolably. Our two peoples are bleeding to death without one prevailing over the other. There must be a solution, a way to stop all this.’

‘Do you know what that is, noble Antenor?’

‘A duel. .’

‘. . between the main contenders,’ I finished his thought. ‘Paris and Menelaus. But how can Paris be convinced? He is a coward. He has allowed thousands of young men to go to their deaths to pay for a passing fancy.’

Antenor hesitated, meditating silently in the shadow of the fig tree streaked by the moonlight. ‘It’s no passing fancy; it’s love. But that doesn’t change anything. Hector will convince him. Paris always stays close to his brother in combat; he’s afraid to fight alone. Listen to my words, Odysseus, and swear to me that you will not use what I’m telling you now to unfair advantage. .’

‘I swear it. I’m just as eager as you are to end this meaningless war.’

‘Tomorrow Hector will be drawn up on the right, his cousin Aeneas will be at the centre and his brother Deiphobus on the left. Convince Menelaus to challenge Paris to single combat. He will be easy to recognize: he wears a leopard skin on his breastplate. Tell Menelaus to step forward and to shout in a thunderous voice to overcome the din of the battle. It would be best for him to make his challenge before the two fronts engage. Paris will want to flee at the mere sight of Menelaus, but Hector will stop him and force him to fight; he is too proud, too noble and uncompromising to allow his brother to refuse, and he has no esteem for Paris. He’ll force him, if necessary, to show that he’s ready to face danger personally, and not to let only those who are not sons of a king to die for Helen’s thighs. Paris will have no choice and Menelaus will be satisfied.

‘I don’t care who wins. A pact will be sworn and I will convince King Priam himself to vouch personally that the outcome will be respected. The king is grief-stricken by the great number of deaths, with many of his own sons among them, and I do not believe he will oppose a duel no matter how much he loves that wretched son of his. You convince Menelaus and Agamemnon, it won’t be difficult for you. At that point, no matter how the duel turns out, the war will end.’

My heart exulted at those words. Our return was imminent. In perhaps just a couple of days we’d be checking the hulls to make sure our ships were still seaworthy, and hauling them to the water. Just eight more sunsets before I’d be sleeping in Penelope’s arms, in the wedding bed suspended between the olive branches. I’d see my son, my parents. I couldn’t believe it, and I prayed in silence for my goddess to help me. Everything depended on me now.

We shook hands, and before we separated, I said: ‘If Agamemnon accepts, you’ll see a yellow banner flying at the prow of my ship.’ Antenor nodded. Each of us retraced our footsteps in the darkness.

I went to Agamemnon’s tent. The banquet had finished but he was not sleeping yet, so I had Menelaus summoned as well. As soon as the king of Sparta crossed the threshold into his brother’s tent, I told them about the meeting and about Antenor’s proposal. Menelaus’ face lit up.

‘Finally!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll massacre that lily-livered bastard as soon as I get my hands on him. He’ll spit blood into the dust and quiver like a goat when you’ve slit its throat and it’s about to die. I’ll throw his miserable body to the dogs like I promised. Or I’ll eat his heart myself.’

‘No,’ I stopped him, ‘not like that. King Priam will come in person to sanction the pact. Solemn sacrifices will be made to the gods of the heavens and to the divinities who rule the Underworld. The man who falls will be returned to his people, so that funeral rites can be celebrated. Then, if the victory is ours. .’

‘You can be sure of that!’ broke in Menelaus.

‘If victory is ours,’ I repeated, ‘the Trojans will have to return Helen and make rich reparations in gold, silver and bronze. If victory is theirs, we promise, instead, to raise our siege and return to Achaia. Tell me if this agreement is acceptable to you. I told Antenor that, were it up to me, I would accept these conditions.’

Menelaus nodded.

‘I accept as well,’ said Agamemnon. I watched as he drew a long breath and smiled. He too felt the weight of so many lives spent without obtaining any results, and he was wary of damaging the prestige he had always enjoyed. His heart still ached with the loss of Iphigenia, the loveliest and sweetest of his daughters. Iphi, he used to call her.

But now, after the first moment of enthusiasm, doubt crept in. I was too well aware of how fate, or the will or caprices of the gods, could destroy the plans of men. I said: ‘Prince Hector, the heir to the throne, will be lined up on the right and Paris with him. Aeneas at the centre will lead the Dardanian formation, and Deiphobus, Hector’s dearest brother, will be on the left. Therefore you, Menelaus, will be at the front of the left wing of our army. You will make the first move, stepping forward to challenge Paris. We’ll protect you, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry because Antenor will have the situation under control. There’s no one who wants the war to end more than he does, and he’ll have convinced Priam as well. Keep Achilles far away from our left wing. He’s too rash; he could ruin everything.’

We walked out together and Menelaus clasped me to him: ‘I swear that, if everything goes as it should, I will give you fertile lands from my kingdom, close to the sea; I will give you cities that you can settle in if you’d like to spend some time close to me for, of all the Achaian kings, you are the dearest to my heart and the one I esteem most greatly.’

‘Thank you for honouring me with your friendship. But let us pray to the gods tonight, that they may favour our endeavour. Everything is possible for them, while fate governs us, and can shatter the plans we have carefully laid, or even our very lives. Sleep as much as you can, rest and build up your strength so that tomorrow your arm may be unstoppable. Remember: she is certainly watching you from high up on the walls.’

I said nothing else but hoped ardently that everything would go as noble Antenor and I had anticipated. As soon as I reached my ship, I raised a yellow banner on the forward yard. As soon as day broke, it would be seen at a distance.

The next morning, when the rays of the sun lit up the clouds from behind the mountains, we assembled the army and led them out of camp, towards the city. The gates of Troy opened, spewing forth chariots and men who surged into the field and devoured the space that separated them from us. The time to act was approaching and I scanned all that I saw before me, searching for any mysterious presence that might overturn our plans, but I found nothing. If there were gods hostile to us, they were well disguised. I soon spotted the gleam of Hector’s bright helmet and there at his side was Paris. A leopard skin partially covered his chest and shoulders.

‘There he is!’ I shouted over to Menelaus, who was advancing on his chariot not far from my own. What a sight my friend was to behold: the bronze cladding his chest shone like gold, his every movement sent off blinding flashes. The high crest on his helmet rippled with every gust of wind.

As soon as he saw his enemy, he bellowed in a thunderous voice: ‘Paris! Traitor, coward! You’ve lain low as long as you could, you’ve always avoided facing me. Show us now, finally, what you’re worth. Can you only win over a woman, or do you have the courage to take on a man?’ Saying thus, raising his shield and grasping his spear, he advanced with a heavy step towards his adversary. Paris tried to retreat to safety among the ranks of the Trojan warriors but Hector stopped him and shouted something I couldn’t understand. Paris turned and began reluctantly to advance towards the front line.

‘Trojans!’ Menelaus shouted out again. The army slowed their march and ours halted as well, at a signal from Agamemnon, who raised his spear, jutting it forward crosswise. ‘Trojans, I propose a pact! It is not right for all of you to suffer for the fault of one man alone. I am ready to fight Paris in single combat. It will be only the two of us risking our lives!’

The two armies were just a few paces away from each other now. The warriors on both front lines trained their weapons at the other, ready to launch an attack at the slightest movement from the other line.

Paris looked around anxiously, seemingly unable to understand what was happening. Hector, accompanied by his herald, approached Agamemnon, who beckoned for me to join them.

‘We’re ready to listen to Menelaus’ proposal,’ said Hector, the Trojan prince. My heart leapt with joy in my chest: one more decisive step towards the end of the war. The two high commanders were in agreement. Achilles was far away.

Agamemnon, our king of kings, replied: ‘Prince Hector! We have suffered too greatly, we Achaians and you Trojans, for the offence of a single man. We shall allow your brother, Prince Paris, to fight my brother, wanax Menelaus. If Paris wins, we will leave Troy without demanding anything. We will weigh anchor in three days’ time and we will never return. If Menelaus wins, you will return Helen, along with a good number of precious objects, to redress the damage we have suffered.’

Hector asked that the pact be approved and sanctioned by King Priam and we agreed to this. All the warriors of both armies sat down and placed their weapons on the ground. It was like when the wind flattens a wide field of wheat, bending all the pointed stalks to the ground. It was an extraordinary, unbelievable event in the minds of all those present except me: everything was going exactly as Antenor and I had foreseen. Certainly Hector had been informed as well, and had agreed to this. Perhaps the only one who knew nothing was Paris himself.

We waited anxiously for the king, who had been summoned by a messenger, to reach the battlefield and swear to the terms of the pact before the two drawn-up armies. We finally saw him arriving. When the chariot was close enough for me to see Antenor standing at his side, I truly began to think that it was the day we could start planning our return.

Two pairs of lambs were slaughtered, two of them white-fleeced and two black. The pact was sworn and the terms of reparation defined. My eyes happened to meet Antenor’s, but only for a moment. He must have been blaming himself as the engineer of such a painful compromise; humiliating, but necessary. Could pride ever be measured against the lives of so many young men? The anguish of so many women, so much bloodshed, such grief? I realized how much he must have struggled and I admired him then, as greatly as I had ever loved and esteemed the hero Laertes my father.

And yet deep down in my heart I felt a strange anxiety, a vague uneasiness that I could not define or banish from my thoughts. I was sure we were close to the finish, because Menelaus would certainly strike down his adversary, who was all show and no guts, and the war would be over. That must be why I felt so uneasy: we were so near to the end.

The two adversaries faced off, very close to one another. They were covered with armour from head to toe, and were studying the gaps into which a spear could be thrust, thirsting for the heart or the throat or the groin of the other. Paris had first throw; he flung his spear without waiting an instant. Menelaus raised his shield swiftly. The bronze point pierced the shield and stuck there, the hanging weight of the long heavy shaft deforming the hard metal. It was Menelaus’ turn, and his powerful throw ripped through the shield and breastplate of his adversary. Everyone shouted out, imagining that Paris had been struck down, but it wasn’t so. No blood dripped to stain his tunic. I bit my lip in disappointment. Menelaus had to toss aside his useless shield and he lunged forward with his sword, while Paris broke the spear shaft to extract it from his shield and held it up again to protect himself.

My uneasiness mounted, surging from my heart to my throat.

Menelaus attacked him furiously, like a ravenous beast: his sword fell with such hammering violence that the great bronze shield protecting Paris rang out under his blows, as deafening as thunder. The Trojan prince was driven back and turned, as if seeking shelter among the ranks of his army but there was no shelter to be found; all of them were sitting down, only Hector was on his feet, leaning on his spear. He was scowling, and biting his lower lip. I heard a distant noise, coming closer, like wind rushing over the plain, amidst the trees. A slight haze seemed to be drifting in from the east.

With his second assault, Menelaus’ sword broke into jagged splinters; smashed by the hand of a god, perhaps? I began to despair. I could not believe what I was seeing. The haze became denser, swirling, blown by the wind between the two armies. Menelaus picked up the broken shaft of his spear then and delivered such a devastating blow to Paris’ right arm that he dropped his sword. Menelaus gave a mighty leap, landing on top of him, and pressed with all his weight on the prince’s shield to crush Paris’ chest and heart. Paris slipped sideways and avoided death, but the king of Sparta grabbed him by the crest of his helmet and dragged him over the ground towards the lines of the Achaians, who urged him on, yelling for Menelaus to strangle him. The helmet strap sank into his flesh. The haze invaded the field, shrouding the two armies, the raging combatants, everything. I could see nothing.

Then the wind shifted direction, the mist cleared and I realized that Menelaus was quite close to me. He held Paris’ empty helmet in his hands: the strap was broken. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks.

The Trojan prince had disappeared. And now all the Trojans were on their feet.

A low drone, then a shrill whistle.

A clean, metallic strike.

A roar.

Menelaus had been hit by an arrow!

The arrow was stuck in his side. A trickle of blood slowly descended his thigh. Scarlet.

Do you see that Helen, the blood? Do you see it? The blood of your husband, the father of your child?

Too far away to see, too high, up on the highest tower, alongside the king, alongside Antenor. Alongside Paris, even.

It was over. The dream, our careful plans, gone. The oath pledged by two great kings violated. And I had been so sure that our departure was imminent!

But my unease had warned me. How often would I be prey again to such bitter disappointment in my life? Driven back into the unknown, when everything had seemed ready, secure, easy and visible, a victory in my hands.

The two armies clashed like black clouds in the sky storming with lightning. Hatred, rancour, dismay set men’s hearts aflame. Fury chased them into the ferocious brawl, wrapped them in blood, in screams, in the din of bronze. Horror girded their temples, hate issued from their eyes. They locked their breath tight behind their teeth and all you could hear were beastly growls. How long would it be before evening fell? Before merciful darkness covered the corpses, gave the wounded a chance to live, allowed us to weep our dead!

I let out the triple war cry of the king of Ithaca, inflecting my voice, shrill and short, calling my men to rally. Many were dead, killed by spear and by sword, others wounded, others maimed, struck in the arms, legs, face, yet others blinded, forever denied the light of the sun. I led those who remained with fury, so none of us would be cheated of our share of the massacre.

Makahon was there among us: the best of surgeons and a great warrior as well, son of Asclepius, who had defeated death. He was summoned to gauge how far the dart had penetrated Menelaus’ flesh and to treat his wound. He put the blade of his dagger into the flames until it was red hot and inserted it in the path cut by the arrow until it reached the tip. The muscle had clenched so hard that it had stopped the tip from piercing Menelaus’ internal organs. Makahon extracted the shaft, cauterized the wound, stitched the ragged edges and applied an ointment whose preparation had been passed down by his father; no one but he knew the ingredients. Then he gave Menelaus a potion that would calm him and allow him to rest. The king of Sparta, who had suffered so in his flesh and in his soul, fell asleep.

That night, Diomedes invited me to his tent along with Achilles. Achilles was not suffering at all; war was his element, like air for a bird and water for a fish. Diomedes was similar to him in many ways. I went. I needed to swallow my bitterness, to stop agonizing over what had happened.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ asked Achilles. ‘Menelaus will live, and he’ll have plenty more opportunities to kill that bastard.’

I nodded. If I had told him how I felt he wouldn’t have understood. It was late when I returned to my ship. I didn’t want to sleep inside a tent; I wanted to stretch out on a rowing bench like my father used to do when he had sailed out with Jason of Iolcus to Colchis in search of the fleece.

In the middle of the night, when the Great Chariot was beginning its downwards course towards the sea, I heard a footstep in the dark. A footstep that I recognized. . I’d been hearing it since I was a boy. I jumped onto the ground and scanned the gloom all around me, and then I saw him. Damastes!

He looked somehow bigger, but otherwise the same as the day he left us. He was wearing the same armour, his hair was streaked silver at the temples, his arms strong, his shoulders wide.

‘I thought you were up in the mountains, my friend, watching for the chimeras to take off in flight between the cliffs of Mount Pelion and Mount Ossa and listening for the echoes of their shrieks. How did you get here?’

‘I always follow you, king of Ithaca. I’ve always protected you.’

I sighed. It was hard for me not to weep. ‘Then, o goddess, why did you allow Paris to slip away in the thick fog, to escape death when Menelaus was ready to strangle him? I would be preparing for departure now, I would be fitting the rowlocks and stretching the stays from the mast to the pins on the railing. My heart would be singing in my chest, impatient as I pushed my ship into the sea. And instead I’m in agony, thinking of how much more distant the day of return will be for me and my companions. Why did you do this to me? Why did you dash my hopes and why do you continue to taunt me by appearing to me in disguise?’

‘Do you truly not understand? Don’t you know why I look like Damastes?’

‘Are you saying that Damastes never existed? It was you hitting me with that stick when I was learning to use my sword? And Mentor never existed either?’

‘I suppose you can’t hope to understand, as versatile and acute as your mind is. Take what you can from my benevolence and don’t ask other questions. I couldn’t change what happened today because it was decreed by the gods that dwell in the heavens. They don’t want the war to end; they want this deadly game to continue, for their enjoyment. Some of them help the Trojans, others help the Achaians. And so the conflict will go on without respite or interruption, for a long, long time. Accept it: mortals cannot escape the will of the gods.’

‘So this is why our blood has spilled, the reason so many brave souls have been crowded into Hades?’

‘No, not only. What happens is a mystery for us as well. Fate is unfathomable and has neither a face nor an expression, neither a reason nor a cause.’

‘What possesses you to help me then, if it’s all useless anyway?’

‘Fate is nothing more than the result of thousands and thousands of wills, an infinite number, divine and human, along with the force of the waves and the rush of the wind, the song of the birds and the movements of the stars. Like a great river, it is made up of thousands and thousands of streams and its power is invincible. I remain close to you because from the beginning of time all the way to the end, no one has ever been like you and no one ever will be. I love your fear and your courage, your hatred and your love, your voice and your silence, and so live your life, king of Ithaca, as long as you have breath. No god could ever be what you are, not even if he wanted to.’

She left and I listened to her steps leading away from me.