The Oath

26

Every now and then I’d run into groups of warriors who were patrolling the roads or helping the wounded, but most of them were busy carrying the dead up towards the eastern hill where the pyres had been raised. An entire forest had been cut down to build them, so funeral rites could be celebrated for the heroes who had given their lives for their homeland. I could hear weeping and moaning, muted at that distance, echoes of agony. . When no one could see me I was free to run and move quite swiftly from one side of the city to the other. I wanted to reach the citadel, I needed to see the walls, the gates, the palace and all the other landmarks from above. I already had some idea of how the city was laid out, since I’d been there with Menelaus, but many things had changed. Bulwarks had been added and the stone itself had been cut to eliminate any footholds which could have been used to climb to the top of the walls. There was even an earthen rampart — we didn’t know it existed! — which protected the camp of the Trojan allies: the Thracians, Phrygians, Lycians and those from the other nations of Asia. Thousands and thousands of warriors who often faced us alongside Priam’s army. At other times they were absent, back at home sowing seed or gathering the crops in their fields.

The citadel was close: I was high enough to see the pyres burning in our own camp, and the others blazing on the eastern hill of Troy. The harbour, once crawling with ships, was deserted now. I tried to impress every detail in my mind before darkness fell and obscured everything. I finally arrived as far as the greatest of the sanctuaries, dedicated to Athena, on the highest part of the citadel. A mystery for me: how could the goddess turn her gaze from the city that honoured her so greatly? Surrounding the sanctuary on all sides were lines of bronze-clad warriors gripping heavy spears, casting long shadows. The torch light projected them onto the pavement.

I approached and waited for the right moment to discover the reason why so many warriors were drawn up to protect a sanctuary, a sacred enclosure that no one would dare to violate. How could I possibly get by the row of warriors on guard? I crept as close as I dared, remaining in the shadows of the portico which flanked the southern wall of the citadel, trying to spot a weak point in their defences. I decided that I’d have to distract them somehow, and I threw my helmet as far away as I could towards the opposite end of the portico. The bronze rang out loudly when it hit the wall and then again each time it bounced on the pavement. A few of the guards rushed towards the source of the noise. Others lit torches from the brazier to see what was happening and in the meantime I slipped unseen up to the entrance. The door was not completely closed, as if someone had just gone in and was planning on leaving. I entered. From outside I could hear shouting and commotion, and then the steps of the guards approaching. I looked through the crack in the doorway and I could see them closing ranks around the sanctuary again. Now my problem would be getting out.

I turned towards the interior and saw a woman standing perfectly still in front of the statue of Athena, which was very small, no more than three cubits high, representing the goddess on her feet, with a spear in hand and a helmet on her head. It wasn’t made of metal or wood. It seemed to be sculpted from a stone, but one I wasn’t familiar with. Rough and porous, with crystals that glittered and turned red as they reflected the light of the torches and the brazier. The statue’s eyes were framed by lashes and brows and were made of mother-of-pearl, and they seemed to be staring at you no matter where you were in the sanctuary. The young woman standing in front of the image wore a richly decorated gown and a gold diadem in her hair; she was clearly a royal princess and this explained why armed guards were surrounding the sacred enclosure. One of Priam’s daughters! But who could it be? Or might she be the wife of Hector the exterminator?

I kept moving, light and invisible as a ghost, until I was facing her. I could see her face and her expression and the big tears flowing from her eyes. Sad, terrified eyes. Should I abduct her, take her back to our camp? No. I would never commit such a detestable act inside a sanctuary.

The princess wet the statue’s feet with her tears, saying a prayer through her sobs that I could not understand, and then she turned towards the exit. The door was bolted shut behind her and I listened to the footsteps of the warriors as they marched off, escorting her back to her home. I was alone with the goddess and I approached the image.

There was something very disturbing about it. The mother-of-pearl eyes were fixed and staring, and yet they pierced through you. The spear seemed to be vibrating in the goddess’s hand. Although the strain of such an intense confrontation made my own eyes frantic to seek out a distraction, I was certain, almost certain, that as I looked away, the goddess’s eyelids opened and closed. I felt it happen; the air in the sanctuary was moving in short, fast puffs. It was unnatural in the closed space I was in.

‘Show me a way out!’ shouted my heart, but all I heard in return was a distant grumbling of thunder. A sudden bolt of lightning lit up the sky, revealing the opening in the ceiling from which the fumes of the burning incense and torches could escape towards the heavens.

The goddess had answered me!

I climbed up a pillar all the way to the ceiling and pulled myself through an open hatch onto the rooftop. The moon was just breaking through the storm clouds and it lit up the whole city with a light blue glow.

The city was silent now. The Trojans sought respite from their daily sorrows in sleep. Their lives must have been agony. We Achaians were all warriors, accustomed to giving and receiving death, but they were a community of families, with wives, husbands, sweethearts, sons and daughters, parents: grief was multiplied beyond measure within the limits of the walls, like the echo of a shout rebounding from the cliffs of a rocky valley. I contemplated sacred Troy for long, endless moments. Splendid, with her towers and her walls, her palaces and sanctuaries, the houses built on sloping terraces all the way down to the outer rampart, the altars, the carved and painted funerary monuments, raised to remember ancient kings and heroes, the pinnacles and pillars. I thought that one day we would win, and that all of these things would be ours for the taking, but the thought gave me no joy, because I was feeling that I never wanted to be wrenched away from this enchanting vision.

I lowered myself to the ground without making a sound and as I was about to slip into the shadows under the portico, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I wheeled around with my sword out and ready to kill. The bronze stopped a hair’s breadth from a throat of divine perfection, from a face that only the goddesses of Olympus could boast of: Helen! My sword trembled in my hand like my heart had trembled in my chest the day she chose a husband for herself in distant Sparta.

‘Odysseus,’ she said, ‘I knew it had to be you. A warrior who went from limping one moment to scampering like a young ram the next, bounding from one spot on the walls to another. .’

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked her. A cry from her and I was dead. But my hand had already hesitated; I’d missed my chance to kill her. That would have been another way to end the war. Why hadn’t I thought of it?

She seemed to read my mind. ‘Why did your hand falter? Why didn’t you take the life of the bitch who gave herself to a man she’d never seen before, betraying the husband she herself had chosen? The war would have ended and you’d be on your way back to Penelope.’

I was shaking, strangled with the emotion that flooded my heart and made me unable to utter a word.

‘Follow me,’ she said, and walked away, turning her back to me. I followed; what else could I do? Helen, gorgeous as a crimson flower. Could an entire city be sacrificed for such beauty? The deaths of thousands of young men in the fields of blood had not seemed to disconcert her in the least. Her sinuous, sublime body swayed under a thin gown, her hair was like sea foam in the moonlight, flickering with gold every time the sky was set afire by a sudden burst of lightning.

She opened a little door set under an arch, entering a long, narrow corridor lit by a few oil lamps. Another door at its end opened onto a richly decorated room, surely part of the house she lived in.

‘Come,’ she said, and opened yet another door. We found ourselves in a room whose walls were covered with alabaster. Against the wall was a tub filled with scented water and jars brimming over with rare essences.

‘I had it prepared for me,’ she said. ‘Undress, have a bath. Once the Trojan princes bathed in the sea, but now their sea is occupied by Achaian ships, and they have to bathe indoors.’

I took off my clothes, lay down my sword and stood before her naked and defenceless. Helen took a silver bowl, drew water from an urn and poured it over me, washing away the clotted blood from my hair, my shoulders, my face. She asked me: ‘I’ve never been able to see my brothers, Castor and Pollux, when I watch you from the towers. Where are they?’

‘No one knows. They left for an expedition in the north, and never came back. I’ve heard that each of them died to save the other. They are venerated in your city as immortal heroes.’

She sighed and hid her face as she had me enter the tub. She sat down next to me and washed my back and my chest with a sponge. Was I perhaps in the home of a god on Olympus? How could what was happening be possible? Helen’s eyes gleamed with a tremulous light as contrasting emotions vied for possession of their expression, and yet, for an instant, in those gestures, in the way she was looking at me, I could see Penelope.

‘Why are you doing this for me?’ I asked.

‘Because I’ve always desired this,’ she replied. ‘Remember the horses’ pen? Remember what I said to you?’

‘How could I forget it?’

Heavy footsteps could be heard on the street outside: a group of armed men, heading this way.

‘Paris. Returning from the war council, where all show disdain for him. Leave now, quickly, and don’t forget me. I’ve never betrayed you.’

She gave me a clean robe and wrapped me in an embrace that I would never forget for the rest of my days. Tears were falling from her eyes.

‘Why?’ I asked her again.

‘Because this is what I dreamed the night before I made my choice: you and I, as husband and wife, in a beautiful place, in the intimacy of our own home. I thought it was a sign, a message about my future. It was, in fact, but not as I had imagined it then. This is how the gods have tricked me! This is the vision of that dream, and I brought it about without wanting to, I’m just realizing that now. Cursed be that god who sent me the dream, made fun of a girl in love. That was not to be my destiny. No. My destiny was this dreadful, cruel, bloody war, whose true purpose still eludes me but which the gods are taking such pleasure in. . Go now, king of Ithaca, lest you lose your courage.’

She kissed me. A long, insane, desperate kiss.

Now I looked like a Trojan again, like an aristocrat with those robes, wandering around the city at that time of night. I asked my goddess from the depths of my heart to guide my steps in the darkness. I warily made my way down the roads of Troy, giving a wide berth to patrolling warriors and sentry posts while saving all the details of the city’s defences in my heart and mind. The one thing I couldn’t stop thinking of was the image of the goddess Athena in her sanctuary: mysterious, enigmatic, yet tremendously powerful, with that mother-of-pearl gaze and shining crystals on her body. Where had such an ancient simulacrum come from? What power did it have?

I finally reached the walkway that led to the Skaian Gate, the only one that opened out onto the countryside. I lowered myself down the outside, clutching at any handhold on the rough stone, skinning my hands on the cracks and sharp edges of the blocks. Then I let myself tumble to the ground. I rolled, wounding my elbows, my shoulders and my back and ending up against a boulder that could have killed me. My blue-eyed goddess was certainly watching over me from her sanctuary. A dog barked a long way off and another answered with a long howl, as scattered drops of rain fell. When I reached the wild fig tree I was panting. My clothes were still there and I changed into them: dressed in those Trojan robes, any of my own men might have killed me.

Soon afterwards I entered Agamemnon’s tent and a war council was immediately convened. I told them that the city had not given in to despair and that a rampart had been raised on the north side to protect the camps of the allied warriors who could not be lodged inside the city: there were Thracians, Lycians, Phrygians there, as well as other Asian nationalities. I told them that much work had been done to further isolate the Skaian Gate from the surrounding territory, making access even more difficult. And I explained how a frontal attack on the fortifications, realistically, would be impossible. All we could do was continue fighting on the open field, seeking a decisive victory: without this, there would be no way to bend the will of the Trojans.

‘I saw no public manifestations of sorrow; only the grief of mothers and fathers accompanying their sons to the pyres. Surely there must be something that gives them the strength to go on despite their mourning, their maimed and wounded.’

‘And what would that be, wise Odysseus?’ asked Agamemnon.

I fell silent, quite uncertain, until the image of Athena in the sanctuary on the citadel came clearly to mind. Then I answered: ‘The love they have for their city and their land. Because of this love, they are willing to face any danger and even to lose their lives, if necessary. All of us out here are alone, while they are surrounded by their wives and children, their parents, brothers and sisters, the people they love. This is their strength. Let’s hope that the night will bring counsel and may the gods grant us peaceful sleep.’

I walked towards my ships and my tent, and when I was a short distance away I noticed a dark shadow on his feet in front of the entrance: Calchas was waiting up for me.

‘I heard your words even though you did not see me.’

‘And you’re not content with what you heard?’

‘The person you met in the sanctuary is Cassandra, Priam’s daughter. She too has the gift.’

‘All I could see was a lonely, sad, frightened woman.’

‘Anyone who has the gift is lonely. The gift is also a curse. They say that when Paris was born, she was only a child, but she ran into the room of the queen who had just given birth. Hecuba and her handmaidens smiled to see that the little one was already so eager to meet her little brother. But Cassandra regarded the child with an icy glare and said: ‘Kill him.’

‘The queen burst into tears at those dreadful words, even more terrible coming from the lips of an innocent child. No one understood. They imagined that the little girl, who had been her parents’ favourite, feared that the new arrival would rob her of their affection and caresses. Little Paris was sent to the house of his wet nurse, a shepherd’s wife who lived on Mount Ida, because of their fear that Cassandra would try to harm him. Even today, King Priam and his wife refuse to understand the message, even while they see their other sons falling under Achilles’ blows.’

‘So what is the message?’

‘You’ve understood it well: Paris would bring about the ruin of his homeland and thus it was necessary to eliminate him.’

‘So Troy will fall.’

‘Thus it is written. But not now.’

‘Yes, I think that’s true: not now.’

‘Don’t make fun of me: you saw the reason with your own eyes. It’s not just love of their homeland, not only that: it’s that stone statue covered with sparkling stars. As long as it remains where it is, the city will not fall.’

I didn’t want to ask anything else. The image of the goddess with the mother-of-pearl eyes still haunted me, and Helen’s kiss had poisoned my blood. I said only: ‘I wish you a good night, Calchas, without nightmares.’ And I left him.

Much time passed and much blood was drunk by the earth, and still Zeus’ scale would not tip in favour of one side or the other. It sometimes happened that some of our strongest champions were wounded and could not take their places in the battle line; other times, even when our forces were superior in number, the invincible walls of Troy became a safe refuge for our enemy, and all we could do was batter ourselves against the bloodied jambs of the Skaian Gate. We tried more than once to line Achilles up against Hector, but the Trojan always succeeded in escaping the challenge by flying off on his chariot in another direction, where another part of his formation was yielding to the pressure of Agamemnon, Menelaus and Diomedes.

There was never a decisive moment. Hector was a sagacious commander: he wouldn’t put his life at risk and thus deprive the army of his leadership. The lives of his people and his city came before his personal glory as a warrior.

It seemed that nothing would ever change, that the gods had used bronze nails to pin our destiny to that horrible field of agony and despair, until one day something happened that changed our fate.

That year the summer was scorching, suffocating. The heat was so unbearable that even the war was melting. Neither the Greeks nor the Trojans could fight any longer from inside armour baked in the sun, their strength fading before they had even begun. It took no time before we were all completely exhausted. But in the middle of those dog days, a sickness spread through our camp which cut down scores of victims every day and night and threw us all into the utmost consternation. A warrior can bear up under thirst, hunger, wounds, death in battle, but cannot rot away in the stink of his own sweat and vomit, cannot die such a senseless death.

The plague was almost certainly willed upon us by an irate god. It was necessary to understand which of the gods was offended, what we had done to warrant his anger and how it could be placated, with sacrifices and rites of expiation. Achilles himself demanded that the council of all the kings and princes of Achaia be called so we could consult the seer Calchas.

We assembled one evening near the seashore, standing within a circle traced in the sand surrounded by twelve lit torches. Agamemnon was vexed because the meeting had been called by Achilles and not by himself. And it was Achilles who spoke first: ‘Speak up, o diviner, which god has been so greatly irritated that they send us this scourge? What is the cause of their wrath?’

Calchas seemed reluctant to answer.

‘Speak up, I said! Why are you holding back?’ demanded Achilles.

‘What I have to say will not please our high commander.’

Achilles, without even looking at Agamemnon, replied: ‘Fear nothing and no one! You are under my protection.’ This was an outright challenge to the most powerful sovereign of Achaia, pronounced in front of us all.

Calchas raised his cane, shaking the bells that adorned its tip, and silence fell over the assembled kings and princes; I could hear the waves lapping at the shore and the groans of the dying. The smoke from the pyres had enveloped the setting sun in black soot. Against that atmosphere of death, the words of the seer rang out: ‘Apollo is incensed at us because his priest Chryses came to our camp, as many of us saw with our own eyes, bearing riches to pay the ransom for his daughter, whom Agamemnon has taken as his war prize, but Agamemnon refused to return her. In his dismay, the priest called upon Apollo to avenge his humiliation and the god heeded his prayer, flinging his deadly arrows our way. The only way to put an end to this scourge is for Agamemnon to return Chryses’ daughter to him and sacrifice a great number of victims on the altar of Apollo, in the hopes that the god will accept this act of expiation.’

Never in all those years of war had the high chief of the Achaians been humiliated in public or forced to swallow such an arrogant challenge. The Achaian king of kings reacted harshly to Calchas’ words. ‘You visionary of hell! Never have I had fair play in your prophecies! You have never brought me a happy portent, only trouble and misfortune fall from your lips. I don’t want to deprive myself of my slave. Why should I? Chryseis, the priest’s daughter, belongs to me. She is beautiful: her face, her body, her mind, and I want her here with me. It was my right to take her and my right to decide whether to accept the ransom or refuse it. The same would have been true for any one of you! But if what you say is true, Calchas, I won’t have anyone thinking that I do not have the destiny of my men at heart. My only concern is the warriors who are fighting under the walls of Troy.

‘I will return her to her father if this will placate the ire of Apollo, but it is not fair that I alone must do without the most precious part of my war winnings. And so you kings and princes present here will have to give me another prize of equal value and beauty. It is not just that I, your supreme commander, be deprived of my rightful due!’

I could foresee what was about to happen. Achilles was the mightiest warrior of the whole army, Agamemnon was the high chief and most powerful sovereign; their words could only become harsher and more aggressive. I could not, however, foresee the consequences of a clash, if words spilled over into actions. The end of our great enterprise, perhaps. The shame and disgrace of defeat. Although I desired to return to Ithaca more than any other thing on earth, I would rather have died than accept such a dishonourable end.

Achilles answered: ‘O great — and greatly covetous — Atreides, there are no further war prizes to be split up to satisfy your demand, but if we succeed in conquering Troy, you will be the first to choose from among the most precious objects and the most beautiful women.’ I felt that I could breathe again: the prince of Phthia, lord of the Myrmidons, had managed at least in part to maintain control of himself. I waited in trepidation for Agamemnon’s response.

‘No,’ shot back the king of Mycenae. ‘I want my prize now, and if you don’t give it to me I will take it. From you, Achilles, or from Ajax or Odysseus.’

I had to smile at hearing my own name: he would find nothing on my ship to compare to his splendid slave and he knew that well. He also knew how hard I had worked, first to ensure peace and later to make war. He was behaving like a man of no worth. Now anything could happen. And of course, it did. Achilles insulted him ferociously, reproaching him for his greed and self-indulgence, calling him shameless and contemptible. But those words didn’t really make much of an impression on me; it was what he said afterwards that broke my heart.

‘I’ve always fought with all my strength, conquered villages and cities, flocks and herds of thousands of animals, and I always saved the richest part for you, out of respect. A respect you never deserved, Agamemnon. It’s on my shoulders that the weight of the war lies. The only reason I’m here with my men is because your brother’s wife was abducted: to keep faith with a promise,’ and here Achilles shot me a piercing look. ‘The Trojans never did me any harm; they never robbed me or invaded the kingdom of my father, and so I’m leaving. I’m going back home. I have no desire to stay here to accumulate riches for you, to fight your war!’

‘Go!’ shouted Agamemnon. ‘I won’t try to hold you back. Others no less valiant than you will stay to fight at my side and I’ll have the support of the king of the gods, who protects the king of men. I won’t miss you, you quarrel-seeking, hot-tempered, rebellious villain! Go, I’m happy to see the end of you, you have my permission. But since I’m the one who has to pay by sending my slave back to her father, I’ll come by and take your own Briseis. Yes, I’ll take her to my own tent.’

This was too much, Achilles would never allow such a thing to happen. He threw his sceptre to the ground, heaped insult upon insult on Agamemnon, and put his hand to his sword. It was the end.

But suddenly, all at once, I felt her presence: Athena. It wasn’t that I saw her, no. But who else could have abruptly stayed the murderous wrath of the strongest and most impetuous warrior the world had ever seen? Induced him to sheathe his sword?

I saw Achilles speaking without a word coming out of his mouth. He was close to me, I could see him well. He turned and his eyes seemed to lock on to something just behind him, and then he lowered his gaze.

Nestor saw his chance to plead for peace, but I said nothing. He went on and on as he usually did, recalling the endeavours of his youth and the prestige he had accumulated in so many long years of experience. He tried to soothe their quarrel and remind them of their duties. Too late. Agamemnon sent his men to Achilles’ tent to carry off his woman: Briseis, a radiant beauty whom he had fallen in love with, and she with him, although Achilles had killed her husband. Then Agamemnon had his mightiest warship readied, along with the biggest of his cargo ships, which would carry the animals destined to be sacrificed. He had me summoned, and I walked at his side as, pensive and downcast, he made his way back to his tent.

‘I need you, Odysseus. I want you to command the ships on this journey and to sustain me when we meet the girl’s father. We can’t make any more mistakes; too many terrible things have already happened. I have great faith in you.’

I accepted, although he’d done nothing to deserve my help, and the next day I woke up early and had the cargo ship pushed out empty into the water; only then were the sacrificial animals put aboard, using a wooden ramp. When the ship was fully loaded, and even Chryseis, with her statuesque figure and deep, moist eyes, had come aboard my vessel, I gave the order to hoist sail and sent the men to their oars. Before we put out to sea, Agamemnon came to say goodbye.

‘Why did you provoke the savage warrior?’ I asked him. ‘Without Achilles, we have no hope. And we cannot count on the support of the gods. They don’t help fools.’

Agamemnon did not answer and I fell silent as well, my heart heavy. The sun’s first rays were lighting up the towers of Troy and I boarded the ship.