The Oath

27

Once more I had the destiny of Achaia in my hands. And once again it was a woman who had set off everything. But we could no longer count on the might of Achilles: our pure, raw, implacable thunderbolt. Gone. All that was left was my heart and my mind. Could that suffice to guide the powerful brawn of Great Ajax, the fury of Diomedes, the noble prowess of Idomeneus and Menelaus? But first of all, the plague had to be stopped. If Makahon, our warrior surgeon, son of Asclepius, who overcame death, hadn’t succeeded, I needed to come to terms with men and gods and redress the offence. My time had come.

I spoke with the girl during the voyage and discovered that her name was Astynome, even if everyone referred to her using her father’s name: Chryseis, daughter of Chryses.

‘What kind of a welcome can we expect from your father?’ I asked her. ‘I’ve decided to come without an armed guard, and have left my own weapons behind, so I can offer sacrifice to the god pure-heartedly.’

Astynome hesitated — she was accustomed to being the property of another man, and she had never spoken with him as she did with her equals and friends — but then decided to answer me. Her voice sounded very young, but was intense and slightly husky, which made her all the more intriguing. ‘He’ll be very happy to see me again. I am his only daughter and he was willing to pay my ransom with all the wealth in his possession. He’ll want to give it to you, since you are the one returning me.’

‘I’m relieved to hear that he won’t receive me in anger. How were you treated by Agamemnon, our supreme leader?’

‘Like a slave,’ she answered.

There were no words to be said after such an answer, but I decided to continue nonetheless. ‘Even slaves can be treated in different ways. Did he treat you well or badly?’

‘Like a slave. . a beautiful one.’

I was struck by her clarity of thought and sincere words.

‘I possess slaves as well, in the palace and fields of my island. They all love me, and I them, as part of my family.’

‘Do you have children, wanax?’ It was the first time she’d asked me a question. I was gaining her confidence.

‘Just one. Telemachus is his name, born of my wife, Penelope. When I left he hadn’t even started speaking yet, although sometimes I thought I heard him say “atta”.’

She smiled. ‘That’s what all children say before they learn to talk.’

I don’t know what she thought of me, but I tried to help her understand that I was a person, with a mind and heart, thoughts and hopes. Above all, hopes. I think she understood.

By the time we reached Chrysa, her city, she would speak with me easily without waiting for me to start the conversation, and that was a good thing. I put my warship and the cargo ship ashore, had Astynome disembark and started unloading the animals to be sacrificed.

I walked with the girl until we reached the sanctuary and the altar. Her father had just begun to celebrate rites in honour of Apollo and when he saw us his face lit up; joy shone in his eyes. I put her hand into his and said: ‘The lord of all our peoples, Agamemnon, has sent me to you so that I may return your daughter who is so dear to you, and offer sacrifice to placate the god, if you will appeal to him on our behalf.’ I heard Astynome speaking to him in their language. There was only one word I understood: my own name.

The priest invoked the god with a prayer: ‘God of the silver bow who reigns sovereign over our city, you have heeded my words and you made the Achaians pay dearly for their affront. You have done me justice. Now that the wrong has been righted, a sacrifice will be offered to you and a choir will sing your glory. Turn your ire from the camp of the Achaians, I beg of you.’

When we had offered the animals we’d brought with us in sacrifice, the meat was distributed among the people, who ate it happily and celebrated with wine. My men and I spent the night sleeping on the rowing benches or on the beach. I prayed devoutly to my goddess to intercede on our behalf with Apollo, to convince him to accept the prayer of his priest. When dawn awoke us, we unfurled the sails and raised anchors. Only then did I notice the girl walking on the beach, barefooted on the fine sand. She had begun to live again.

I still think of her. Does she still exist? What happened in her life? She incarnated, for us, the hope of salvation or the threat of catastrophe, at least for that brief time in which I knew her. Did she have children? A husband? Was someone willing to take her after she had been in the bed of the king of Achaian kings? Or did she decide to dedicate herself, still a virgin in her heart, to the cult of her father? In my mind she still lives the way I saw her that last time. .

The ire of Apollo was not soon placated. Perhaps he wanted to finish the arrows still remaining in his quiver, perhaps he was as slow in abandoning his wrath as he had been swift at kindling it. It’s difficult to understand the mind and intentions of the gods. In the end, the plague ceased but the fighting began again. Achilles would not take part, although he hadn’t set sail as he had threatened to do. He’d stayed put, and he was seething at not taking his place in the action. Keeping out of the war was a punishment he’d inflicted on himself, not on Agamemnon. It wasn’t long before the enemy became aware of his absence. That hit us even harder. Achilles inspired terror and he was unstoppable. Every day, the number of dead that we carried back from the battlefield increased, and the men were becoming greatly discouraged. My mission had served no purpose. That didn’t mean I was giving up.

I met Patroclus one day as he was returning from the hunt with a roebuck on his shoulders. He realized that I’d been waiting for him and he stopped in the shelter of a tree, where Achilles, who had left his tent, could not see us. As we spoke he began to flay the animal and gut it.

‘He respects you,’ Patroclus told me, ‘and he can’t understand how a man like you can still recognize the authority of Agamemnon. But what’s really killing him is that his woman is in that tent, perhaps even in that bed. He has proved that he’s much more judicious than anyone would have imagined. He could have killed Agamemnon, and he didn’t.’

‘Perhaps a god stayed his hand. Anyway, I haven’t given up hope. He hasn’t left; he’s still here. Unless he’s told you he has other intentions. I know he has no secrets from you.’

Patroclus sighed. He was suffering as well for our misfortunes but could do nothing. ‘That same night,’ he told me, ‘when Agamemnon’s heralds came to take Briseis away, I saw him sitting on a rock on the shore. I think he was crying. A man who will take on any pain or suffer any wound without a whimper, who would never shirk danger of any sort. . crying. Out of anger, humiliation, despair at losing his love.

‘He’d taken her from her husband, the king of Lyrnessus, after killing him in combat. His name was Mynes and he fought like a lion but he had no chance against Achilles. At first, and for a long time after, she hated him. She wouldn’t speak to him or look him in the eyes. I was afraid she’d plant a dagger in his back while he was sleeping, or try to poison him. But none of this came to be. She submitted to him, like any slave with a master, forsaking pleasure or emotion. At first. Until she was swept away by him, his passion, his ardour. They fell in love. She was a queen, after all, and she had the dignity, the beauty and the bearing of a queen, although she was very young, and this turned their union into something that was noble and true. Her arms were a safe refuge for him. The hours he would spend with her in bed after the battle calmed his fury, tamed the beast that lived inside him. Now he cannot tolerate her being in the power of a man he detests. He knew that if he opposed Agamemnon, disaster beyond any imagining would result. But for him, giving her up was an immense sacrifice: Briseis was his lover, sister, mother.’

‘His mother,’ I mused. ‘No one has ever seen her. They say she is a goddess of the sea.’

‘You think that’s so?’ asked Patroclus. ‘I’ve seen Achilles’ blood spilled many a time and it was the blood of a man, believe me.’

‘Then who might she be, if not a goddess who can hide from our eyes and show herself only to him?’

‘Maybe she never existed. Maybe she died when he was born. Maybe he’s talking to a ghost when he sits on the seashore in the evenings with his lyre, singing those sad songs.’

‘Or she may truly be a goddess of the abyss,’ I replied. ‘We can’t explain everything that’s around us. He’s the only one who knows the mystery. One so great that it contains the beginning, but also the end, of his life.’

Patroclus dropped his head and fell silent. I watched as his blade peeled back the skin and sliced through the muscles in the animal’s neck. His hands plunged into the belly and pulled out the entrails.

I started talking again. ‘Have you ever met another man like him, your whole life? I haven’t. I was the one who convinced him to come here and that makes me suffer now. Understand?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘You said that maybe he’s talking to a ghost when he sits on the seashore at night. What’s he asking this invisible creature for?’

Patroclus raised his eyes to mine. ‘Revenge,’ he said.

And revenge it was.

As soon as the Trojans realized that Achilles had withdrawn — he was nowhere to be seen, nor was his sparkling silver and orichalch chariot, nor were his magnificent bronze-clad steeds, Xanthus the blond and Balius the dappled — they took heart. Our own ranks were daunted and jumpy. To the point that one day, like when a shepherd secretly sets fire to a luxuriant forest in order to have more grazing land for his sheep, a rumour spread like wildfire among the men: that the chiefs had decided to return home. Thousands of warriors surged to the beached ships and started pushing them out to sea. All the kings were gripped by panic; no one knew how to react. It was my goddess who spoke to me, placing her bronze hand on my shoulder: ‘Stop them!’

I obeyed. I shouted like a madman: ‘Stop, Achaians! Where are you going?’ I whirled my sceptre like a club, driving away anyone who dared approach one of the ships. I hit some of them: on their backs, their shoulders, their faces. No one dared to strike back. At that point, the other kings came to my aid and we finally managed to herd all of them into a single area, where we held a huge assembly. I found myself standing next to Calchas and said to him, in a low voice: ‘Give me a prophecy. . tell me that Troy will fall within a year! I want it now!’ And in an instant he was telling me a story, true or false, about a portent that had occurred in Aulis before our departure.

I shouted out: ‘Listen to me!’ and before I knew it the men had fallen silent. I told them of how a red-headed serpent had crawled out from under the altar at Aulis, slithered up a plane tree and devoured eight sparrow chicks, and their mother as well when she came too close, chirping in protest. Then the serpent turned into stone. We would fight for nine solid years and then Troy would fall in the tenth year.

‘Don’t tell me you think you can go now! Run off like a bunch of cowards? Stay here and fight! Troy will be razed to the ground. I promise you! I swear to you!’ I didn’t even know what I was saying but I was shouting so loud that my throat was bleeding. Everyone had to hear me.

Even the other kings were looking incredulously at me. Where on earth were my words coming from?

‘And now, everyone in combat formation!’ Agamemnon echoed me.

It was a memorable day. We had hit our stride and we were a formidable force again. Diomedes had become the new Achilles. The son of Peleus and his Myrmidons may have disappeared from the battlefield, but the king of Argus had started to shine like the new star of the war. At the first opportunity he raced out on his chariot, driven by Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus, who had fought with Tydeus at seven-gated Thebes. He urged his chargers into a gallop and broke through the Trojan ranks like a boulder rolling down a steep slope, overturning and smashing everything he found in his path. He struck out with his spear and his sword, without respite, animated by an inexhaustible strength. His passage left behind a host of corpses, strewn over the bloodied ground; his servants didn’t even have the time to strip the bodies to seize their armour and precious ornaments.

I found myself at another point of the front line with my Ithacans and Cephalonians and I could see the other kings fighting with a vigour I’d never seen before, as if they wanted to prove that they didn’t need Achilles to defeat the Trojans, no matter how many enemy warriors they had to take on. It was said that Athena herself, as well as Ares and Apollo, took part in the battle that day and that Athena had removed from Diomedes’ eyes the cloud that prevents mortals from seeing the gods. A dreadful vision that I was spared.

Once I was sucked into the whirlwind of the battle, the cries, the whinnying, the roar of the chariots, the flashing of the armour, I threw myself into the fray as well with a violence that I would unleash only once more in my life. I took on anyone who got in my way, slashing, thrusting, killing. The lamb grazing on the fields of Ithaca had become a huge white ram with curved horns, possessed with the awesome, unfailing strength of a bull.

All at once I saw Diomedes hurtling in his chariot towards Aeneas, who was second in strength only to Hector among all the Trojans. He charged him without hesitation. I saw his helmet glittering in the sun and the tip of his spear swaying as he weighed the shaft in his hand, preparing to hurl it. Then he plunged into the melee and I lost sight of him, as I could not let myself be distracted from the battle raging on every side of me, with its deafening din. Upon my return I learned, and saw for myself, that Aeneas had saved himself at the last moment by leaping off his chariot but had lost his two splendid chargers, which I saw being led away by Sthenelus. They were steeds of ancient, noble lineage, a gift from the gods to one of Aeneas’ ancestors. From that moment on, they followed Diomedes. Aeneas had escaped death through a true miracle and unfortunately we would have to face him again.

Hector appeared then, a powerful vision clad in bronze, fresh to the fight, and the battle began to turn in favour of the Trojans. I sent in the only man we had who had a chance of stopping him: Great Ajax. Steady as a rock, the only hero to rely solely on his own stamina and strength; it was never said that he had been helped by one of the gods. They’d already given him his incredible bulk and seemed unwilling to give him anything else. Like packs of dogs assailing a boar, the Trojan warriors swarmed around him, and he struck down a great many of them, so many he didn’t have time to strip them of their arms and take home his prizes; it was all he could do to wrench his spear out of the bodies of the fallen. He’d plant his foot heavily on the body and yank it out with one hand while the other held up his enormous shield against a constant hail of arrows.

Ajax of Locris was at his side, as he had been so many times before, so his lightning swiftness was added to Great Ajax’s power, but not even the two of them together could check Hector’s driving force. It seemed that arrows and spears could not strike him; as if a god were deflecting them with an unseen hand. And thus we continued until nightfall, when darkness separated the combatants. It had been Diomedes’ day. Like a star he had shone: a formidable warrior, fierce and flashing with his own light in the sun’s rays. Aeneas would have certainly been crushed by his blows, had a god not snatched him from death that day. Although at the end we had been forced to yield ground, we had killed a great number of enemies and curbed Hector’s onslaught.

As we were returning to camp, I saw Patroclus again, sitting in front of his tent. Behind him, at the end of the beach, were the powerful Myrmidons, swimming in the sea and frolicking like children. Shock overwhelmed me. Here were my men dragging themselves back to camp, wetting the ground with their blood. One comrade sat not two feet away from me with his back to a rock, groaning as another man extracted an arrow from his thigh. The hours following a battle were the most grievous. As long as you are fighting, it seems like you are in another world, in another place, you feel neither fear nor pain, you become invaded by a frenzied inebriation, like the feeling produced by wine, by fever and by love, all together. It’s the nearness of death that makes you feel that way. Afterwards, you sink into a state of quiet desperation; a sort of fear. Fear of emptiness, fear of the dark.

I gestured to Patroclus, raising my chin as if to enquire if anything had changed. He shook his head. Achilles had not got his fill of revenge yet; he hadn’t seen enough to appease his wrath. He wanted to watch and savour the scene: that’s why he had stayed and had not weighed anchor to return to Phthia, where his old father watched the waves every day, longing to catch a glimpse of his son’s ships.

The dead and wounded were counted up. Even Diomedes had been wounded, in the shoulder. Sthenelus had dragged him away from the front line to the shelter of their chariot, where the Argive warriors had closed ranks around him so that Sthenelus could extract the iron point as Diomedes never stopped shouting: ‘Let me go back! I have to kill the man who hit me!’ And no sooner than that, he was back in the brawl, searching for the Lycian warrior who had wounded him. The man’s name was Pandarus, and when he saw Diomedes reappear he stopped dead in his tracks, as incredulous as if he had seen a ghost returning from Hades, and it was thus that he was run through by the relentless spear of Diomedes, son of Tydeus.

In the following days we fought and fought and fought. It would have been impossible not to, even if we had desired to stop. The Trojans, led by Hector, Deiphobus and Aeneas, who was miraculously on his feet again, surged out of the gates every day, and we had to stop them if we didn’t want them to advance all the way to our ships. One day, Hector stepped forward and launched a challenge: he was prepared to take on any one of our champions willing to face him in single combat. It was strange, very strange behaviour indeed, and I wasn’t expecting it. The Trojan prince had always avoided a one-on-one encounter because he knew his adversary would be Achilles. Now, sure of winning, he was daring us to a duel so that he could pick off another one of our bravest combatants, destroy the pride of the entire army and break their will to fight.

I remember that terrible moment. Fear froze us all. Shame did not suffice to restore our courage. Menelaus was the first to advance, shouting: ‘I will face the Trojan prince. It is my duty, unless someone who can match him steps forward.’ Nestor, king of Pylos, rained insults and disdain on us. He lamented his lost youth, cursed the white hair that prevented him from taking on the bold challenger. Then Agamemnon, our high commander, stood. Diomedes followed his example, as did Ajax of Locris, and Great Ajax son of Telamon, and then Idomeneus, lord of Crete and of the labyrinth, and even Merion, his shield-bearer, and Thoas, king of Calydon. At least four of them had no chance against the man-slaughtering strength of Hector.

I stood last, hoping not to be chosen. I wanted to survive. I wanted to return to Penelope, to whom I whispered my love every night when the sun sank into the purple sea, I wanted to hear Telemachus calling me ‘atta’, I wanted to see sea-kissed Ithaca again. But I would have fought had I been chosen.

There were nine of us.

The lots were put into Agamemnon’s helmet and he shook it. A herald picked one out and held it high so all of us could see it. Ajax, colossal Ajax! We exalted. And he — the Achaian bulwark, the walking mountain — rose to his feet. The shield made of seven bull hides, covered with bronze, was like a tower. His sallet was lowered over his face, letting only his eyes be seen, and they were glittering ominously in the darkness of the helmet. His hand gripped his massive five-cubit-long spear. His footsteps made the earth shake. Hector paled. He had perhaps never found himself face to face with the son of Telamon, and fear nipped at his heart like a dog.

They stood facing each other. Ajax shouted: ‘Did you believe there was no Achaian capable of beating you? It’s true that Achilles has left the fight. You no longer see him among us, otherwise you would never have dared to make such a challenge. But there are other Achaians no less powerful than he, if lacking his fame! Well now, prince of the Trojans. . bring it on!’

Hector replied: ‘Don’t treat me like an ignorant child, or like a woman, Ajax. I’m an expert in war and massacre! Show me what you have!’

Hector impetuously hurled his spear: it passed through six oxhides and stopped at the seventh. Ajax threw his own: the tip pierced Hector’s shield and his breastplate and tore his tunic, but only just scratched his skin. Each ripped the spear from the other’s shield and they attacked each other again like famished lions. In their hand-to-hand duel, Ajax thrust his spear at Hector’s shield and its tip slit the skin on his neck. We saw blood and a roar erupted from our army. But once again, it was only a surface wound. Hector lifted a boulder and pitched it at his adversary: it thundered upon impact but the seven-hide shield was not damaged. Ajax picked up an even huger boulder and let it fly; its impact knocked Hector off his feet and Ajax ground the stone into him. It looked as if he would crush the man under his own shield. We were ready to claim victory, but incredibly the Trojan prince twisted out from under that immense weight, drew a long breath, recovered his strength and challenged Ajax again, with his sword this time.

They fought for hours without pause, with an energy that seemed unceasing although they were burning with thirst, dripping with sweat and smeared with blood. Until night fell between them. As soon as the sun disappeared under the horizon, Talthybius and Ideus, the heralds of the two armies, approached and thrust their sceptres between the two combatants. The fighting ended. The two champions exchanged words of praise and precious gifts: Ajax’s brilliant purple baldric and Hector’s silver-studded sword — glorious objects that would, for years, speak of such a formidable contest. I always wondered: what would have happened had Ajax killed Hector? What would everyone have thought then of the wrath of Achilles, who had sacrificed the lives of thousands of comrades to his wounded pride? But it was fated that the most powerful, generous and faithful of our companions would not be able to bring our endeavour to an end.

We returned to camp, to rest after a day of fatigue, fear, anxiety and mourning. The field was covered with dead bodies. I reached my tent and my ship. There was nothing I wanted more than to plunge into the sea, yearning to be born again from its clear waters and shining waves. When I emerged, I was, in fact, calmer in my heart and more lucid in my head.