The Oath

30

I met Achilles very late that same night, after silence had long fallen over the camp. The exhaustion of such a dreadful, endless day, that had drained the men’s hearts and their limbs, had plunged them into a sleep so deep it resembled death. All that could be heard was the intermittent cries of the sentries who were watching over the rampart and the ditch.

No one had asked for a truce, like we had so many times before, because there wasn’t a single man either inside the walls of Troy or in the naval camp who could imagine for a moment that a truce was possible. Achilles was honour-bound by Patroclus’ death to claim revenge, and it was sure to be as bloody and brutal as he could make it. There would be no escape for anyone. Blood could only call for more blood, to the most extreme limits.

Ninety-nine Myrmidon warriors, lined up in three rows on three sides, wearing their black tunics and carrying burnished arms, were the honour guard for Patroclus, who lay on a bier, a purple sheet covering his pale, naked body.

Achilles, who had routed an entire army solely by dint of a war cry, sat weeping disconsolately, his face hidden between his hands.

Briseis, who had been returned that same evening by Agamemnon, wept as well, because Patroclus had always treated her with respect and affection, from the first moment she had been taken prisoner. Even the Myrmidon warriors, still and stiff as statues in their funeral vigil, wept silently, tears coursing down their cheeks. But it wasn’t only the fallen warrior they mourned, their prince’s dearest and most loyal friend. They mourned Achilles: his inevitable return to the war could only mean a headlong plunge towards his death.

Even Balius and Xanthus, relieved of their yoke and their trappings, their backs covered by gold-embroidered purple caparisons, stood unmoving, their big eyes feverish and shiny, as if they were crying. I had always had so many words at my beck and call, no matter how dire the predicament, but this time my heart suggested nothing and my lips were closed at the sight of that boundless grief.

It was Achilles who spoke: ‘Had I listened to you, had I swallowed my wrath, Patroclus would not be dead now. I myself gave him permission to don my armour so he could provide relief for our routed army, and in doing so I brought about his death.’

I didn’t have the heart to remind him that Nestor had been behind the plan. ‘I could never have imagined it myself, Achilles,’ I said. ‘When such terrible misfortune strikes, our sorrow leads us to seek thousands of alternatives to the destiny we have suffered, but none of them are possible, none real. Only one, the one that has fiercely wounded us, is true. We are mortals, Achilles, we must accept death.’

‘I’ve always sought death out. All I wanted in exchange was that my name would survive my brief existence. And if my wrath had led me to question whether there might be a different future for myself, now I have no further doubts. Whoever killed him must die. Whatever happens after that has no importance. Go to Agamemnon, tell him that I accept his reparations, but that his gifts are not necessary. What I want from him is that the army be ready for combat tomorrow morning, at the first light of dawn. I will be there with my Myrmidons.’

‘Combat? How do you propose to do that? Naked, without your armour? Three of us have already been wounded, must you add grief to our grief? Do you want your own body to rest next to Patroclus’ on the pyre? Wait. Tomorrow you will reconcile with Agamemnon in front of the assembled army, and we’ll wait until an able craftsman, as there are still many among us, can forge a new suit of armour for you, worthy of you, Achilles. Heed me this time, Achilles. Once before you refused to accept my counsel and it was not a wise choice you made.’

Achilles looked deeply into my eyes, and I would never forget that look — melancholy and ferocious at the same time. I lay a hand on his shoulder and then went back to my tent at the centre of the naval camp.

The next day, a ceremony of reconciliation was held inside the assembly circle on the sand. Agamemnon sacrificed an animal and solemnly swore that he had never touched Briseis and that she had never shared his bed. The promised gifts were turned over to me and I had them carried in procession to the Myrmidons’ camp. Achilles announced that the next day at dawn he would attack, even alone if necessary. We all answered that we would be with him, to win or to perish at his side.

I fell into a nightmare-ridden sleep, but before dawn I saw my goddess hovering over the prow of my ship. She was looking at me intensely. Maybe I was still dreaming, or maybe Athena had wanted me to feel her presence. I pleaded with her: ‘Goddess of the green-blue eyes, how will Achilles be able to fight without arms? Has he perhaps convinced giant Ajax to hand over his own?’ The goddess answered me with an enigmatic smile and vanished into thin air.

I opened my eyes and felt stronger. My wound was dry and the scar was healing. It made me think of my adventure hunting the boar during that first visit to my grandfather Autolykos. I wondered where he might be. Whether he’d had news of this interminable war, of this endless massacre.

I had Eurylochus help me put on my armour and I walked to the extreme northern end of the naval camp where Achilles’ tent was. A breeze laden with sea salt lapped at Patroclus’ body and kept his limbs from suffering decay. Six Myrmidon warriors had watched over him all night. Achilles had ordered that his body not be put on the pyre until he had killed Hector with his own hands. The camp was silent, only the waves of the never-tiring sea let their crashing voice be heard. I walked almost all the way out to the line of the undertow to watch the sun rise. The first ray stopped me dead in amazement. In front of me, hanging on two crossed sticks, was a suit of armour of stupefying splendour: a helmet with a vermilion crest, a breastplate of blinding brilliance, embossed shin plates rimmed with gold plating and a shield completely carved in concentric circles with hundreds of figures. A wonder that would take the very best of the master craftsmen of Hephaestus’ art at least a year to complete. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I had to get close enough to brush the metal with my fingers to convince myself that it was real.

‘See? My armour is ready. I didn’t have to ask my cousin Ajax son of Telamon for anything.’

‘How did you get this? Who crafted it for you?’

‘I don’t know. How can one explain a miracle?’

I looked at the glittering gravel all the way down the beach. The foaming waves caressed the tiny multicoloured pebbles, a thousand reflections making them shine like precious stones. I could see the armour of Achilles carried in by the billows and deposited on the shore. Had this happened during the salty, bitter night?

I tried to imagine what that splendid armour, jewel of a craftsman’s art, would look like that same evening, after being tormented by thousands of blows, disfigured and deformed by the violence of combat.

‘A real pity, isn’t it?’ said Achilles, reading my thoughts.

‘It is. But I don’t think we have another choice.’

His face suddenly turned grey as metal, his jaw clenched. ‘War is the most cruel of all parties, but a party it is. We have to dress up in our best to dance with death. Tonight Hector will be biting the dust, run through by my spear.’

I watched as he approached his horses. He was speaking with them.

‘What did you say to Balius and Xanthus, Achilles?’ I asked.

‘I said: “Bring me back safely to my tent tonight; don’t abandon me in the middle of the field as you did with Patroclus.”’

‘And they? Did they answer you?’

‘Certainly. They always answer me.’

‘What did they say?’

He half closed his eyes and I saw that he — the inexorable warrior, the ruthless exterminator — was hiding tears. Why such agonizing grief? Many of our companions had died, many of them friends, and I had never seen him show such despair. I looked out towards the sea, towards Patroclus’ white, dead body. What glorious deeds had he performed before the one that led to his death? Not a one. Or if he had, no one remembered them, because he was only the shadow of Achilles. All the glory was always for the son of Peleus and of the mysterious, invisible goddess of the sea. But no one can live without his shadow. A man without a shadow no longer has a life. He’s only a ghost.

‘They said: “We will bring you back once again to your tent safe and sound, Achilles. But, beware. After you’ve killed Hector, it will be your turn. Your turn to die, and we won’t be able to do anything, even if we are as fast as the wind.”’

I smiled: ‘Maybe they’re wrong. They are only horses, after all.’

‘They’re never wrong, my friend,’ he replied. ‘Never!’

He jumped onto the chariot where his driver, Automedon, was already waiting for him. The two divine horses, with a solemn step, arched their powerful necks and advanced to the point at which they would join the ranks of the Myrmidon warriors.

They were joined by a multitude of Achaians, all covered in bronze. The gates of the rampart were opened, wooden planks were thrown down over the ditch and the chariots crossed to the other side. Achilles’ preceded them all, blazing like the sun. The ranks crossed over behind them on foot: a forest of beechwood spears with shining tips swayed as they moved like a field of wheat in a gentle breeze.

In the distance I could see the Skaian Gate opening at its askew angle, and the secondary gates as well. Two rivers of warriors, on foot and mounted on chariots, surged into a single mighty front. The warriors of Troy felt sure that they could stand against Achilles, they had done so for many a long year, and that day they certainly called upon all the reserves of energy remaining in their hearts and arms to face the implacable warrior. But they did not know his wrath. Or rather, they’d only heard its voice. That day they would experience it.

Neither I nor Diomedes, or even Agamemnon, should have taken part in that day of blood and delirium; we weren’t even close to regaining our strength and if any of us were overrun, many others would have to lose their lives in the effort to save ours. But I could not imagine hanging back in my tent on such a day, and it struck me that there was a weapon available to me, one that I had never yet used in battle under the walls of Troy, only when I’d been hunting now and then in the forests of Mount Ida: my bow.

I regretted not having the one that grandfather Autolykos had given me, but I chose an excellent and very powerful weapon nonetheless and I made my way to the ships of the Thessalians of Pherai and the tent of Eumelus.

‘Vox,’ I said, ‘you promised you’d let me try out your horses.’

‘And I always keep my promises, wanax.’

‘You had said, “whenever you want”.’

Eumelus was starting to get the idea: ‘As in today?’

I nodded. ‘You will be my charioteer. We have no roads in Ithaca, only narrow paths, so I’ve never trained a team or owned a chariot myself. But my aim is true and if you can take me to where the enemy are drawn up, carry me up and down the ranks, stopping where the fray is thickest, my arrows will thin out the field for Ajax, Idomeneus, Menelaus, or any of the others.’

Eumelus’ eyes smiled at my words: ‘Just give me the time to yoke my beloved chargers and to pass on the command of the Thessalians to a friend I can trust and I’ll come for you at your tent.’

I went back, covered my head and face with a helmet that left only my eyes exposed, put on a leather cuirass and slung my sword from my shoulder. I took my bow and a couple of quivers, filled with nail-hard, three-headed arrows, and stood thus, waiting for Eumelus. When he came I mounted the chariot as he urged on the horses and we flew, roaring, over the planks covering the ditch. We crossed the wide plain on a slant as I drew my first arrow and notched it to the bowstring.

The day was wholly Achilles’. The two Ajaxes, Idomeneus and Menelaus fought as they always had against the Trojans and, this time, maybe against the gods as well, but in lesser corners of the battlefield. I could see where Achilles was from my chariot. I saw, or perhaps only thought I could see, what is normally hidden from mortal sight. Was it Athena passing close again? She found me wherever I was, sleeping or awake, in the forest, on the mountains, on the sea.

The peak of Mount Ida was hidden by dark clouds. A loud thunderclap greeted the onset of the carnage that day as the gods started mixing with the men: they’d never have another chance like this one to kill so many mortals on a single day.

Hector’s army had drawn up in all its glory. Warriors had come from as far as distant Hatti to help, as well as Thracians from the straits, Lycians and Mysians from the south, Paphlagonians and Eneti from the shores of the Terme river.

Achilles charged the centre of the formation, hoping to find Hector, his hated enemy, there. But he found only warriors trying to stop him. The front wavered here and there, depending on who was faring better at that moment, or where a brave champion had managed to drive back the enemy with his shield and spear.

I gestured for Eumelus to race along the front; upon my command to stop, I would let fly, wait for the strike, then move on swiftly. I fired off arrow after arrow without pause. Eumelus’ horses were as fleet as the wind and it only took a light touch on the reins and bit from my young charioteer to keep them flying.

The battle continued to rage that whole day, as did the storm on Mount Ida. Zeus was proclaiming his anger, but even He, who had always held out his hand to protect the city, had to bend to fate. We watched as the Scamander and Simoeis swelled up with turbid, foaming waters that looked like they would carry our warriors off, but Achilles wouldn’t be stopped. He entered the Scamander, holding back the current with his shield, treading over the bodies of the dead Trojans being washed by the river away to the sea. His Myrmidons plunged in behind him and emerged to attack a flank of the Trojan army, sending them into a rout.

The great gate opened, as did the city’s lower gates, to offer refuge to the warriors in flight. Where was Hector?

‘Look!’ shouted Eumelus. ‘Down there, between the wild fig tree and the Skaian Gate! It’s him and he’s wearing Achilles’ own armour, stripped from Patroclus’ body.’

‘You’re right. Those arms will be the death of him if Achilles sees him and succeeds in isolating him.’

From our chariot we could see both champions, their helmet crests waving, both men much taller than the other swarming warriors. Hector, realizing the danger he was in, headed for the gate. Achilles called out to his horses and jumped on the chariot.

‘He’ll never get away,’ I said. ‘Hector is done for.’

Great numbers of our warriors were massing around the fleeing Trojans, but our men suddenly drew up short, and were left crowding, milling, pressing murderously at the Skaian Gate as it was being pulled shut against us. We were too close; if the gate remained open the Trojans knew we would surge into the city. But Hector himself had been closed out as well.

The moment had thus come for the final test. Men and women had gathered on the walls of Troy and the standards that always accompanied the king were flying at the top of the tower flanking the gate. Perhaps Andromache herself was watching in anguish as her husband faced such terrible danger.

I could not bring myself to watch the end of such a valiant, worthy hero, who had allowed himself to be blinded by the thirst for glory and defeated by his love for his homeland. Nor could I have watched his end had I wanted to: tens of thousands of warriors were thronging in front of us and it would have been impossible to make our way through the fray.

‘Let’s turn back,’ I said to Eumelus. ‘We’ve done what we could. Now all will be decided by fate, whom even the gods fear.’

We were the first to reach the rampart. Eumelus tied his horses to one of the palisade trunks, without removing their yoke, and we both went up to the sentry walk. The plain stretched out before us littered with lifeless bodies; already the stray dogs were creeping close. Other warriors, wounded or crippled, were struggling to make their way back to the camp. The sun was on our left, already descending towards the sea. The great black clouds crowning Mount Ida were rent by lightning bolts. The dying sun cast bloody stains on their wind-tattered edges.

All at once, the thunder hushed, the lightning ceased, even the voice of the sea vanished. In the utter silence we heard a cry, muffled by the distance. A cry of despair and delirium that rose like a dart into the impassive sky and finally died there in a long, agonizing lament.

‘Hector is dead,’ I said. Then we saw the army split and draw back into two wings to allow the passage of. . the chariot of Achilles, which crossed the plain and then the ditch and then the rampart. Dragging behind it, in the dust, the broken body of Hector, stripped of his arms: the Trojan prince, untiring defender of sacred Troy.