The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Wait here,’ Odysseus whispered to Hecabe as he and Eperitus clutched their swords and advanced into the gloom.

A row of black columns stood either side of the hearth, drawing the gaze naturally towards the dais at the far end of the great hall. On it was a tall throne cut from a single piece of rock and lined with thick furs. A large man sat on the throne with his elbows propped on his knees and his forehead resting in his hands as he gazed down at the floor. He could almost have been asleep, so still was he, and though he wore no crown his battle-scarred armour and the sword balanced across his lap made him look like a king from Troy’s legendary past. The prostrate forms of dead men lay all around him. A few were old – some of Priam’s counsellors, who must have sought refuge in the great hall and then fought to protect their master’s throne. The rest were soldiers, a mixture of Trojans and Greeks. Whether they had died fighting each other or had been killed by the man on the throne was unclear, but Eperitus guessed Apheidas had bought his new throne in blood.

‘So this is where your ambitions have brought you, Father,’ he said. ‘The last king of a doomed city, with no crown and only dead men to bow down before you.’

‘At least I had ambitions, Son,’ Apheidas replied, lifting his head slowly. ‘Unlike you, ever a slave to the commands of others. Now that’s the Trojan in you.’

‘Better to serve a real king than to become a mockery of one.’

Apheidas shook his head and a tired smile filtered across his face.

‘You’re right, of course. And now I suppose you’ve come to murder me and usurp my mock throne. That was always your driving ambition, wasn’t it – to kill me and restore your precious honour? Well, I won’t resist. My leg’s finally given up, you see,’ he said, patting the thigh Eperitus had wounded earlier. ‘Here I am, king of Troy at last, and even my own body won’t do what I want it to.’

He lowered his face into his hands again and to Eperitus’s shock began to cry, his heavy shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.

‘Perhaps I should have been more like my father – more like you – a loyal servant, knowing my limitations instead of aiming at things forbidden by the gods. And what have I gained? Your brothers died serving my ambitions and I drove you away, earning your hatred in place of your love. So come and get it over with. Send my miserable ghost down to Hades’s halls, where at least I’ll be able to forget the mess I made while I was alive.’ He took the sword from his lap and tossed it across the hall. ‘Kill me Eperitus; I won’t fight you any more.’

Eperitus looked at his father as he lay with his head back against the throne, inviting death. It was a moment he had hankered after for twenty years, but now it was here he no longer wanted it. He would not be his father’s executioner and inherit his legacy of hatred. Astynome had saved him from that.

Apheidas sensed his reluctance.

‘Kill me, damn it! I murdered Pandion and your friend, didn’t I? I killed Astynome, damn it – do you care so little for her that you can’t even avenge her death!’

‘She isn’t dead – you failed in that, too. But you did bring dishonour on our family and you murdered my friend, Arceisius. Crimes that have to be paid for.’

Eperitus’s fingertips touched the dagger in his belt, the ornate blade that Odysseus had given to him when they had first met. He tugged it free and walked around the long hearth to where his father sat. Apheidas eyed the knife in his son’s hands, then leaned back again and exposed his throat.

‘Do it,’ he rasped through clenched teeth.

‘You do it,’ Eperitus replied, and tossed the blade onto his lap.

Apheidas flinched at its touch, then with shaking hands picked it up and held it before himself. Eperitus stepped back, even now not trusting his father. He turned to look at Odysseus, uncertain, seeking the reassurance of his king, and in that moment Apheidas let out a groan. Eperitus’s head flicked back to see the dagger embedded in his heart, his dying hands slowly peeling away from its hilt. Then his head lolled onto his chest and he was dead.

After a while, Odysseus walked around the hearth and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

‘Time to move on.’

Eperitus nodded. Slipping his grandfather’s shield from his back, he dropped it at Apheidas’s feet then turned and followed Odysseus out of the great hall.

Chapter Forty-five

AT THE SHIPS

Penelope stood beneath the thatched canopy of the lookout post on top of Mount Neriton and gazed at the ocean of cloud that had covered the world. In the distance the mountainous peaks of the mainland pierced the layered vapour like the spines of an ancient monster, while at the furthest edge of creation the chariot of the sun had burst free of the haze and was riding up into the pale skies. Before long, its fierce heat would drive away the low-lying fog and leave land and sea naked before its gaze. For now, though, the air remained damp and chill and the breeze on the mountain top found its way into Penelope’s mist-soaked clothing, forcing her to pull her cloak tighter about herself.

She had come here to be alone and think over the news of the evening before. Whenever she felt her emotions threatening to expose her inner weaknesses, she would climb the steep flanks of Mount Neriton and dismiss the elderly lookout; and when she had conquered herself and could once more put on the calm, controlled mask of a queen, she would go back down to the palace to face whatever her duties required of her that day, whether they be as simple as buying food in the marketplace or as daunting as facing Eupeithes in the Kerosia. This morning, though, the lookout must have seen the thick fog and decided to wait before climbing up to his post, and his absence made the place seem lonelier than ever. It was as if every living soul had been taken from the world and she was the only person left.

She walked to the edge of the flat, grassy space where the lookout post was sited. Far below her, through the white, churning vapours, she could hear the waves of the Ionian Sea crashing against the rocky skirts of Ithaca, carrying on the war that had been fought since the beginning of time. She looked down at what was visible of the stony slope before it was swallowed by the fog, and tried to picture the invisible cliffs below and the green sea as it frothed about the tumble of jagged boulders. Ten more years would pass, the Pythoness had confirmed, before Ithaca’s king would find his way home. Mentor, Antinous and the twenty warriors who had sailed with them to Mount Parnassus had returned the evening before, repeating the priestess’s cryptic verses and the interpretation given by her attendant. Mentor had announced the oracle before the Kerosia, while Antinous had sulked in his seat and looks of shocked dismay settled on the faces of Eupeithes, Oenops and Polyctor. Penelope had felt an initial burst of relief, as if tight bonds had suddenly been released from about her chest, but what small joy she felt was brief. Eupeithes’s rise to power had been cut short, and though he remained dangerous Penelope knew he would rather sit out the ten years than risk civil war against the royal guard – who were firmly loyal to their king and queen – and the people of Ithaca. But if she had gained time, what, ultimately, did that matter if the oracle was true? What did anything matter if another ten years had to pass before Odysseus came home again?

She wedged the toe of her sandal beneath a small rock and flicked it into the milky haze below. Her whole body seemed to ache with desire for her husband. She wanted nothing more than for him to return and lift the weight of the kingdom from her slender shoulders, and then to take her to their bed and make love to her. Ten years had been almost insufferable without his touch; ten more would be impossible. Her breathing became suddenly thicker and she laid a hand on her chest, trying to calm the panic that was taking hold of her. Odysseus had said a man could overcome his fate, she reminded herself, and she had to have faith in him for that. That would be the hope that carried her through – that and Telemachus. For even if the Pythoness’s vision came true, Penelope was still the mother of Odysseus’s son. For his sake she would carry on as Ithaca’s implacable queen, fighting for the kingdom that one day he would inherit – unless, of course, Odysseus never returned and she was forced to honour her agreement with Eupeithes. Then she would have to choose a new husband to become king ahead of Telemachus.

She hated herself for taking such a risk, but knew it had been the only way to placate Eupeithes’s ambitions. Now his insistence on a new king had been checked and he was in no position to stir up rebellion. Their agreement had also allowed Penelope to send a messenger to Sparta, telling Halitherses to bring Telemachus back home as her son was no longer under serious threat. All the same, after the Kerosia she had confronted the fat merchant beneath the portico of the great hall and told him that if anything did happen to Telemachus, she would hold him responsible. What was more, Odysseus would too when he eventually returned. Something in Eupeithes’s expression had made her think he did not believe Odysseus would return, but he said nothing and Penelope knew he had understood her message.

She wiped away a tear, angrily crushing it out of existence. Her son was returning, she reminded herself. Telemachus’s presence would be enough to keep her going. And yet, if she had to endure a further decade without Odysseus, where would she get the strength from? His long absence had already drained away Anticleia’s will to live; his mother had been ailing for a long time now, and Laertes believed the news from the oracle would be the death of her. Penelope snuffed out another tear and glared down at the cloying mists that fenced her in on the lonely hilltop.

‘Good morning, Mistress.’

She turned, in surprise, to see the grey head and long grey beard of the lookout a few paces away. Conscious of her tears, she looked away again.

‘Good morning.’

‘If you want I should go back down for a while, then just you say so.’

‘No, no. I was just going anyway.’

The old man ventured a little closer.

‘The fog’s clearing, my lady. It’s often thickest just before the dawn, but it doesn’t last forever. Look south and you can already see the sun on the waves.’

Penelope followed the line of the old man’s outstretched arm and saw the glint of golden light riding the Ionian Sea around the island of Zacynthos, the southernmost point of Odysseus’s kingdom. The sight of a sail made her catch her breath, but in the same excited instant she had already realised it was nothing more than a fishing vessel. But she knew the lookout was right: the fog would not last forever, and one day the sail on the water would belong to the galley that brought her husband home again.

The clouds remained, threatening rain yet refusing to weep for the destruction of Troy. Like the stone lid of a sarcophagus, they continued to press down claustrophobically over the whole of Ilium and to the far horizon of the Aegean. The bright light of morning was stifled to a dull gloom, and the Greeks emerging from the insanity of the night were left reflecting on their crimes and debauched excesses.

When a summons arrived calling for Odysseus to attend the Council of Kings at the Scaean Gate, Eperitus asked, and was given, leave to return to the ships and check on Astynome’s welfare. He passed the heaped booty being stacked in orderly piles on the plain between the walls and the bay, for later distribution among the victorious army, and looked for the familiar, blue-beaked galleys of the small Ithacan fleet. With a thousand vessels beached or anchored in the hoof-shaped harbour it took him a while, but eventually he was greeted by the calls of a skeleton crew as he approached the gangplanks that had been angled down onto the sand. To his surprise, every man was clean-shaven, making them hard to recognise without the beards they had worn for so many years.

‘The oath’s been fulfilled,’ Eurybates explained, seeing Eperitus’s curious look as he helped him up the last part of the gangplank and onto the deck. He stroked his jaw uncertainly, unfamiliar with its smoothness. ‘Troy’s in ruins and Helen’s back with Menelaus, so we’re free to shave and cut our hair again.’

‘I suppose we are,’ Eperitus replied. ‘But all of you? Most of you had beards before the war, and I thought Polites was born with one.’

‘I wanted a change,’ Polites defended himself.

‘Have you seen Odysseus?’ asked Antiphus, approaching from the stern with Omeros at his side.

Antiphus’s hairless face was gaunt and bony, but Omeros’s baby cheeks looked much more natural without the desperate, downy growth that had covered them for the past few months.

‘The king’s alive and well. Where’s Astynome?’

The others all looked at the stern, where a young, helmeted soldier was leaning back against the rear of the ship with his elbows on the rail. As Eperitus stared at him, trying to picture his grubby, smoke-stained face with a beard, the soldier removed his helmet and shook out his long black hair. It was Astynome.

Eperitus left his comrades and hastened to the rear of the galley, where he was met with a warm embrace and a long kiss. When he finally pulled his lips away from hers, he looked down in amazement at her leather breastplate, the greaves about her shins and the short sword hanging from a scabbard in her belt. Astynome stood back and opened her arms so that he could admire her more fully.

‘I had to strap my chest down with bands of cloth before I could get the armour to fit,’ she explained, tapping her fingers on the cuirass, ‘and this sword’s beginning to weigh me down a bit, but other than that I could almost be an Ithacan. Don’t you agree?’

‘You lack one important thing: a sprig of the chelonion flower – the badge we Ithacans wear to remind us of our homeland. Here.’ He took the fragment that remained of his own chelonion from his belt and tucked it into hers. ‘Now you’re an Ithacan warrior. And a more brutal, fearsome figure I’ve never seen before.’

Her grimed face broke with a smile and she slapped his breastplate playfully, before allowing him to take her into his arms and kiss her again.

‘So, are you going to tell me why you’re dressed as a soldier? Especially as a Greek, your despised enemies.’

‘Omeros’s idea, after Agamemnon’s men started searching the ships for plunder and captured Trojans.’

‘On what grounds?’ Eperitus asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

‘For fair redistribution,’ she replied, raising her eyebrows questioningly. ‘I wanted to dress as a slave, but Omeros said they were even taking women who’d been with the army for years, unless they could prove otherwise.’

Eperitus laughed. ‘Now, I understand. They shaved their beards so that you wouldn’t stand out. See how much they love you already?’

‘Me? Not me, Eperitus – you! They love you as much as they do their own king. It’s clear from the way they talk about you both – and fret about you when you’re not here. They protected me because I’m your woman, not for any gallant notions of defending an escapee from Troy.’

He gave a dismissive shrug to hide his embarrassment and turned away to look at the still-burning city with its columns of black smoke driven at angles by the westerly wind.

‘Did you go after your father?’ she asked, cautiously.

‘Yes.’

She put her arm about his waist and kissed his shoulder. ‘I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Oh? Then did he escape?’

‘He’s dead. He took his own life. Right up until I entered his house last night, I’d always thought I would be the one to kill him. Then it all changed. The gods had other plans, I suppose. It’s strange, but now he’s gone I wish he hadn’t died in such an ignoble way. For all his wicked, misguided ambitions, he was a great warrior – the greatest I’ve ever had to fight. The only satisfaction I take from the whole thing is that I didn’t have to kill him myself.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

He kissed her forehead.

‘It’s strange, though. I should be happy that he’s dead, but instead I just feel … empty. Now the war’s over and he’s gone, I’m not sure what lies ahead any more. For the first time since he exiled me from Alybas and gave me a purpose in life, my future’s suddenly uncertain again.’

‘So like a man,’ Astynome smiled, shaking her head. ‘You spend years not knowing whether today’s going to be your last one on earth, then the moment the danger’s removed and your life is safe again you feel lost, as if your whole reason for existence has been taken away. Well, it hasn’t. You have me and together we will make a home on Ithaca and populate half the island with our children. That’ll keep you occupied!’

He laughed and brushed his fingertips over the small but distinct cleft in her chin, admiring the beauty that layers of smoke and dirt could not hide.

‘It sounds like a good way to stay busy. And perhaps,’ he whispered, with a glance towards the rest of the crew, sitting on the benches and chatting, ‘we’ll be able to make a start before the fleet sails.’

He kissed her and raised a hand to touch her breast, only to find the hardened leather of her borrowed cuirass. She laughed, her mouth so close he could feel the brush of her breath on his lips. Then her smile faded and she pulled back, looking down at his chest and frowning.

‘But your need for vengeance hasn’t been satisfied yet, has it? Your father’s dead, but –’

‘But Agamemnon still lives,’ he finished. ‘I know.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘It’s hard for a warrior to accept injustice, especially when done to someone he loves. What would you do if a man murdered your daughter?’

‘I’m a woman, not a warrior. I would weep for the child, and eventually I would start again. You must do the same, Eperitus. You know you cannot face Agamemnon – if you do you will die – but if you swallow your hatred for him then you can have another daughter with me. Reclaim the life he took from you; don’t let him prevent you from being a father a second time. And then be the parent your own father was not. Don’t you see you have the power to destroy everything, or to make everything right again?’

Her words had a feminine logic, full of hope and the desire to renew and nurture life. Eperitus sighed.

‘Even if I had a chance to kill Agamemnon, I couldn’t take it,’ he said, turning to lean his forearms on the bow rail and look again at the ruins of Troy. ‘I swore to Clytaemnestra I would not, so I have to be satisfied that she will repay him for his crimes. And yet I wish I could just do something.’

Astynome joined him, resting her head against his shoulder. Together they watched the teams of men working at every point of the walls, dismantling the battlements stone by stone and sending the huge blocks tumbling to the ground below. Progress was slow, but already the great defences had lost their sense of order and uniformity, taking on a frayed look as if the seas had risen up and smoothed away their edges. The perfection that the gods had made was being destroyed by men in an act of sacrilegious vandalism. From the streets behind the walls came the hiss of fire and the occasional crash of yet another building succumbing to the flames. These sounds were dominated, though, by the incessant beating of hammer and pick, as those structures that the fires were not bringing down were made unusable by the hands of the Greek army, its tight discipline restored now after its fanatical rampage of the night before. Other soldiers were still busy carrying out the plunder from the city and placing it in carefully arranged heaps outside the walls, marching back and forth in lines like ants.

‘So ends Troy,’ Astynome sighed.

‘As long as the stones remain, the city can be rebuilt,’ Eperitus replied.

‘But who will build it? With every male dead, who will come back and restore Troy to anything like her former glory? And look! There’s another. They’ve been doing it all morning!’

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face against his armoured chest. Eperitus looked and saw two men on top of one of the towers, holding a small boy between them. The boy struggled when he understood why they had taken him up to the battlements, then the men pitched him over the broken parapet and his body was dashed to death on the stones below. Only then did Eperitus see the other boys, scores of them, lying all along the circuit of the walls in the strange, confused poses of bodies from which the energy of life had departed.

‘Savages,’ he whispered, vehemently. ‘This is Agamemnon’s work!’

‘I suppose this is the price we Trojans have to pay for our defiance,’ Astynome said. ‘Perhaps if we hadn’t fought so hard we would have been shown more mercy. Perhaps not, I don’t know. Maybe all great civilisations have to end like this, otherwise we might rise up to challenge the gods themselves.’

Eperitus put his arm around her and pulled her closer, cursing the armour that stopped him feeling the warmth of her body against his.

‘Do you wish things had turned out differently?’

‘This destruction saddens me, and I’m sad I will never see my father again or return to Chryse. But also I’m happy. This is the past – that burning, crumbling city over there is the past – but you are the future. I have you and we have life, and we will bring more life into this world. The war’s over and we’re together. That’s something to be hopeful about, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ he answered, before kissing her on the cheek and standing upright. ‘And now I had better find Odysseus again. He gave me permission to see that you were alright, but he also wanted me to find him at the Council of Kings once I’d spoken with you. Do I have your permission to leave?’

Astynome smiled and nodded. Eperitus left the way he had come, stealing a last glance at her as he negotiated the precarious gangplank to the sand below.

Chapter Forty-six

THE LAST KING OF TROY

The Council of Kings were seated in a wide double-circle before the Scaean Gate, partly beneath the shade of the sacred oak tree where Achilles had killed Hector. A handful of Agamemnon’s bodyguard kept watch over the commanders of the army, though there were no enemies left alive in Ilium to do them harm. The only remaining Trojans now were women, and as Eperitus approached the assembly he noticed several standing beneath a canopy a few paces away from the Council, their hands bound with rope. Hecabe, Cassandra and Andromache – Hector’s wife – were among them, looking grief-stricken and dishevelled, and Eperitus realised these were the remainder of Troy’s royal household. To his surprise he saw Helen there, too, though unlike the others her clothes were fresh and her face and hair clean. Her chin was held defiantly high, but her eyes were fixed on the broken stones at the foot of the city walls where the Greeks were still busily hurling down the parapets that had withstood them for so long. Eperitus followed her gaze and saw the body of a small child among the rubble by the gates, where he had been thrown to his death. Eperitus turned his eyes away and headed towards the noisy ring of men.

Food was being served as he joined the Council, allowing him to slip in unnoticed and take his place next to Odysseus. A slave brought him a krater of wine and a plate of roast meat, fresh from the sacrifices the kings had made earlier that morning to thank the gods for their great victory. He had passed the place of slaughter on his way up from the ships: a dozen gore-drenched altars built of stones from the walls of Troy, the ground around them soaked dark with the blood of the hundreds of beasts that had been slain. Large numbers of men were still busy cutting up the carcasses, roasting the different parts of the animals, tending the fires and doling out the meat onto platters. The stench of the blood and the hammering of cleavers had reminded Eperitus of battle.

‘Where were you?’ Odysseus asked, leaning towards Eperitus as he folded a slice of meat in a piece of bread and prepared to put it in his mouth. ‘The Council’s nearly finished.’

‘Already? I thought it’d take all day.’

‘No. Everyone’s in a hurry to get on with things and go home. Can’t you sense it? There isn’t a man here who doesn’t want to finish the business of tearing down the walls, distributing the plunder and setting off.’

Eperitus put the food in his mouth and looked about at the battle-worn kings, princes and captains of the army, eating, drinking and talking among themselves as they waited for the debate to resume. This was probably the last time he would see any of them, he realised, now that the great expedition that had brought them together was finally over. Agamemnon, as ever, sat at the head of the circle. Eperitus eyed him coldly: the feelings of hatred he had stifled for so long were now gaining strength again, and the thought he would sail off to continue his life at Mycenae was galling. With difficulty, he pulled his gaze away and turned it to the other members of the Council. Nestor and Menelaus were on either side of the King of Men, while a pair of Mycenaean soldiers stood guard over the three of them, dressed in their impressive but outdated ceremonial armour. All the other great names were there, too: Diomedes, flanked by his faithful companions, Sthenelaus and Euryalus; Neoptolemus, wearing his father’s splendid armour as he sat beside Peisandros; Philoctetes and Teucer, the two greatest archers in the army and now firm friends; Little Ajax; Idomeneus of Crete; Menestheus of Athens; and all the other noble warriors who had braved the dangers of the Trojan horse, to their eternal glory.

‘And you, old friend?’ Eperitus asked. ‘You must be keen to haul up the anchor stones and set sail? To get back to Penelope and Telemachus.’

Odysseus could not hide a grin at the thought, but his eyes were less certain.

‘The heart’s eager, but the mind is afraid,’ he replied. ‘My whole body’s crying out to hold Penelope again and to embrace my boy for the first time since he was a baby. And yet the idea terrifies me, too. What if Penelope doesn’t love me any more? What if Telemachus hates me for abandoning him at such a young age? I would in his place – wouldn’t you?’

The doubt in his intelligent, green eyes was genuine, but Eperitus laughed it off and threw an arm about his shoulder.

‘Stop worrying. Remember the message Penelope sent with Omeros? Didn’t she say she was desperate for you to return, and that Telemachus is longing for his father? When we finally sail back into that tiny little harbour, it’s going to be the greatest homecoming in the whole of Greece. And,’ he added, with a hint of solemnity, ‘don’t forget she said that Eupeithes is threatening his old tricks again. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can deal with him and his cronies.’

Odysseus simply nodded and turned his attention back to the other kings. A soldier had arrived and was handing Agamemnon a large clay tablet marked with tightly packed symbols. The king showed it to Nestor and they discussed its contents in hushed voices. Eperitus tipped out a slop of wine in libation to the gods and raised the krater to his lips.

‘So, what did I miss?’ he asked.

‘There were some heated arguments about how the plunder should be shared –’

‘Nine-tenths to Agamemnon and the scraps to be divided equally between the rest of us?’ Eperitus asked, sceptically.

‘Surprisingly, no,’ Odysseus answered. ‘He wanted a full half, but that received a lot of complaints and he backed down without much of a fight. Perhaps he’s content with the destruction of Troy and the knowledge the Aegean will be controlled by Mycenae from now on. Either way, he agreed everything should be split equally, depending on the number of ships each king brought with him.’

Eperitus raised his eyebrows. ‘And the captives?’

‘The same, to be decided by lot. Except for the high-ranking women, that is. They were brought before the assembly and allotted by Agamemnon – Cassandra to himself, Hecabe to me, Andromache to Neoptolemus, Helen to Menelaus –’

‘Why Helen?’ Eperitus asked, glancing back over his shoulder at where the women stood. ‘I saw her with the others as I came up from the ships, but she can hardly be thought of as a prisoner.’

‘Agamemnon insisted, much to his brother’s distaste. I think he’s always known she left Sparta willingly, and this is his way of punishing her for that – by parading her like a common captive and letting her know what he really thinks of her. But she didn’t play along with him. If Agamemnon was expecting humility, he got nothing but defiance. You saw she was still wearing a Trojan dress – despite the fact Menelaus has kept a chest of her old clothes on his galley for the past ten years – and that her hair was plaited in the Trojan style? She even had the nerve to address the Council in the Trojan tongue, as if to say she thought of herself as a Trojan and never wanted to be rescued in the first place.’

Agamemnon seemed to be concluding his conversation with Nestor and had taken his golden staff in both hands. Guessing the debate would resume again soon, Eperitus took a final swallow of his wine and handed the empty krater to a slave.

‘What did Menelaus think to that?’ he asked in a hushed voice as the other conversations began to die down

‘I think he enjoyed seeing Agamemnon embarrassed,’ Odysseus whispered. ‘After all, whatever his brother does to Helen now, he does to Menelaus also. And I don’t know what has passed between Helen and Menelaus since last night, but I think they’ve come to an understanding with each other about the past. They know their marriage has to work, if only because of the price that has been paid to win Helen back again. So if she wants to play games and put Agamemnon in his place, then Menelaus seems happy to go along with it. He knows she’ll still be going back to Sparta with him.’

‘Now I almost wish I’d been here to witness it – at least, to see Agamemnon’s face.’

Agamemnon rose from his seat, his golden staff in his hand, and walked out to the centre of the Council. The last few conversations trailed away and all eyes now focussed on the King of Men.

‘I’ve received the full tally of all items retrieved from Troy,’ he announced, ‘classed by type – gold, silver, copper, bronze, wood, wool, silk and so on – and measured by weight. The total weight of each item will be divided by the number of ships in the fleet, of which there are one thousand, one hundred and eighty-seven. Each –’

‘My lord!’

The shout rang out from the Scaean Gate, from where a Mycenaean soldier was running towards the Council. He was not one of Agamemnon’s bodyguard, though the quality of his armour indicated he was a lesser noble.

‘My lord Agamemnon,’ he panted.

‘What is it?’ Agamemnon replied coldly.

‘We’ve found the boy you were looking for. Hector’s son.’

‘Astyanax?’ the king asked. ‘You’re certain? Then bring him here at once.’

The guard signalled to a group of soldiers by the gate. They parted and a single man came forward carrying an infant boy in his arms. A scream pierced the hush that had spread across the Council and Andromache ran out from beneath the canopy where the Trojan women stood, followed closely by Helen.

‘Keep them back!’ Agamemnon ordered.

Two guardsmen threw down their spears and caught hold of the women, pinning their arms to their sides and pushing them back towards the canopy. Menelaus stepped forward angrily, but Nestor restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. In the same moment, the circle of kings parted and the soldier carrying Astyanax entered. He placed the boy down in the middle and left again, following his officer back to the gates. Astyanax, barely old enough to sit up, looked around at the faces of the Greek commanders, showing no signs of fear. He even produced a smile at the familiar sight of armed men.

‘So,’ Agamemnon announced, ‘Hector’s son has been found. Behold, men of Greece, the last king of Troy sits before you!’ There was a ripple of uncertain laughter as Agamemnon stooped to lift the child onto his arm, the sceptre still balanced in his other hand. ‘Your mother swore by all the gods that you were dead, boy, though I knew she was lying – women have no sense of honour, after all. And now we’ve found you, we have to decide what to do with you, don’t we? Or, more to the point, who will do it.’

‘Leave him alone!’ Helen screamed.

Agamemnon ignored her, bouncing the boy playfully on his arm while looking about at the members of the Council. Eperitus glanced across at Andromache, who was on her knees with her face in her hands, being comforted by Helen. He knew how she felt, having watched helplessly as the King of Men had murdered his own daughter. For he already knew what Agamemnon intended to do with Astyanax, and the thought of it as he looked at Hector’s son – so similar in looks to his valiant father – filled him with horror. And a sudden determination to stop it.

‘It’s obvious what should happen to the boy,’ crowed a familiar, but unexpected voice.

A stooped figure cloaked in black with the hood pulled over his face rose from the outer ring of chairs and pushed his way into the centre circle. Agamemnon offered him the staff, and as he took it the man flicked back his hood to reveal his bald head and thin, pale face. His dark eyes stared about at the Greeks and there was madness in them.

‘He has to die,’ Calchas finished his statement. ‘If he lives he will grow up to rebuild Troy and avenge the death of his father.’

‘But who will kill the child, Calchas?’ Diomedes called out. ‘Will you?’

Calchas scowled at the Argive king.

‘Thus speaks the man whose father failed to defeat Thebes, leaving his son to finish the task. Do you want your children to endure another war like this one, Diomedes, just because you don’t have the ruthless courage to expunge your enemies? Scorn my words if you wish, but unless you want a new Troy to rise from the ashes then Astyanax must die!’

Calchas thrust the staff back into Agamemnon’s hand and returned to his seat, letting his doom-filled words settle on the Council.

‘I say kill the boy,’ Little Ajax grunted.

His words were met by a smattering of nods and murmurs of agreement.

‘Too many Greeks have died because of Troy, my own son among them,’ said Nestor. ‘Astyanax must die. We have no choice.’

Neoptolemus stood up and pointed with a snarl at the child in Agamemnon’s arms.

‘Kill him and be done with it!’

Others stood now, angrily voicing their support in an attempt to drown out the wailing of the Trojan women. Eperitus saw the smile on Agamemnon’s face, and before he knew what he was doing he stood up.

‘No. He’s just a child. Give him to me and I’ll bring him up as my own son.’

Silence fell on the assembly and every eye turned on Eperitus. In an instant, Odysseus was standing beside him with his hand on his arm.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he hissed.

‘Trying to save the boy,’ Eperitus replied, his voice low but filled with determination. ‘And if you allow this murder to go ahead, Odysseus, you’re just as bad as they are.’

Odysseus looked into his eyes and bit on his lip, unable to reply. Then Agamemnon put the child back down in the dry grass and stared at Eperitus with an icy gaze.

‘You heard the Council,’ he said. ‘The boy has to die. There’s no debate on the matter, Eperitus; it’s already decided.’

‘I’ll not stand by and watch you murder this child in cold blood, just like you did Iphigenia!’

He saw the shocked reaction on the faces of the Council, who seemed to collectively sit up and suck in breath. But his only thought now was for Astyanax: if he could at least fight for the boy, he might make up in some small way for his failure to save his own daughter. He fixed his stare on the Mycenaean king, whose usually aloof façade had given way to a look of intense hatred.

‘Then your desire is granted,’ Agamemnon seethed. ‘You will not stand by and watch him killed. You will be the one to kill him!’

‘Never,’ Eperitus snapped.

‘I order you to do it!’

Eperitus spat on the ground and drew his sword. Several of the kings reached for the hilts of their own weapons, while the guards behind Nestor and Menelaus raised their spears and aimed them nervously at the Ithacan. Then, seizing the long tail of hair behind his neck, Eperitus sawed through it and tossed it at Agamemnon’s feet.

‘I don’t answer to you any more, Agamemnon. None of us do. The oath we took has been fulfilled and you’re no longer the King of Men. You’re just the king of Mycenae now, and I’m not a Mycenaean!’

‘Eperitus is right, he doesn’t have to follow your orders any more,’ Diomedes said. Then, slipping a dagger from his belt, he sawed off the long mane of hair that had not been cut since the start of the war and flung it onto the dirt. ‘And neither do I.’

Agamemnon was speechless with rage and his fury only seemed to increase as one by one the other kings, princes and captains who formed the Council began cutting away the tails from the back of their own heads and throwing them into the circle. When, at last, Menelaus and Nestor did the same, he finally realised that his hegemony over the Greeks had ended.

‘This doesn’t change the boy’s fate,’ he said. ‘You, the Council, decided that he should die, not me alone. And if none of you has the courage to do it, then I will throw him from the walls myself.’

Eperitus stepped forward to protest again, but Odysseus pulled him back to his seat.

‘Agamemnon’s right. The decision was taken by the whole Council; you can’t defend the boy against all the kings of Greece.’

‘Give Astyanax to me,’ Neoptolemus announced before Eperitus could react. ‘If he’s going to grow up to avenge his father, then as Achilles’s son I’m the one who stands to lose the most if he lives. Besides, Andromache is my woman now; I don’t want her pining for a bastard child when she’ll be bearing sons for me.’

‘And do you think she would ever forgive you for killing him, Neoptolemus?’ asked Odysseus. ‘More likely she’ll put a knife into you when you’re sleeping. No, I’ll kill the boy.’

Eperitus watched incredulously as his king crossed the circle and picked up the small child, wrapping his faded purple cloak about him.

‘Odysseus, no!’ he said, rushing forward and seizing his forearm. ‘What are you doing?’

Suddenly Odysseus’s face transformed with rage and he shoved his captain hard in the chest, sending him staggering backwards to collapse between Little Ajax and Teucer. He tried to get up again, but the two men held him fast.

‘I’m a father,’ Odysseus said, tight-lipped as he faced the Council. ‘This is not something I do with pride; I do it with shame. But I’ll do it because it has to be done – not for you, Agamemnon, nor the Council, but for the future of Greece.’

He pushed his way out of the ring of commanders and walked slowly towards the Scaean Gate, turning once to stare back accusingly at the members of the Council. They looked away guiltily and Agamemnon picked up the tablet from where he had put it down in the grass.

‘We have unfinished business,’ he said, looking down at the markings on the tablet. ‘Yes, here we are. The weight of gold found in Troy was –’

His words faded into the background as Eperitus tried to see Odysseus through the ring of seated men, but Little Ajax and Teucer kept him pinned between them. They would not let him go, he realised, until Odysseus had reappeared on the walls and thrown Astyanax down to his death. Quickly his mind scanned back over what had happened, wondering if there was anything he had not understood, some statement that could justify Odysseus killing a child. But there was nothing, nothing at all. He felt numb, unable to comprehend what was happening. Once again, he was lying helpless while a child he had tried to protect was murdered.

A woman’s scream shook the Council from its half-hearted dissection of the plunder list. All heads turned to the walls, then higher still to the top of the tower that protected the Scaean Gate. There stood Odysseus, Astyanax held high above his head. The child’s white clothes blew in the westerly wind, and then with a howl of anger Odysseus hurled him down to perish on the stones below.

Chapter Forty-seven

THE DEAD CHILD

Shaking off Teucer and Little Ajax, Eperitus sprang to his feet and ran from the shocked assembly towards the gates. The child’s body lay among the wreckage of stone beneath the tower, his head dashed in but with surprisingly little blood spattered over the huge blocks on which he had fallen.

‘Wait!’

Eperitus turned to see Peisandros’s stocky physique sprinting towards him.

‘What are you going to do?’ the Myrmidon commander asked as he caught up with him. ‘I mean, if you’re going to confront Odysseus about this, then give me that sword first.’

‘We’re old friends, Peisandros,’ Eperitus replied. ‘You know me better than that by now.’

‘Angry men have been known to do rash things.’

Eperitus shook his head, but handed Peisandros his sword anyway. ‘I just want to know why. Why would he do that?’

Peisandros stared down at Astyanax’s body. ‘I don’t know, but I’m coming with you.’

They ran through the gate and entered the doorway that led into the dark interior of the tower. Eperitus’s eyes adjusted quickly and spotted the wooden ladder ascending to the next floor. The two men climbed it but found the room above empty except for a pile of spears in one corner and shields stacked against the foot of the wall. A dusty shaft of grey light fed into the gloom from a hatchway above and without hesitation Eperitus continued climbing. He reached the top of the tower and saw Odysseus standing against the parapet, looking out at the smoking ruins of Troy. As he clambered through the narrow square in the wooden floor, half-followed by Peisandros, Odysseus looked at them both and raised a finger to his lips. The angry words that Eperitus had been about to hurl at his king fell dead.

‘Are you alone?’ Odysseus asked them.

They nodded, mystified, and then Odysseus leaned across and tipped the stack of shields forward to reveal Astyanax, alive and smiling at them. Peisandros almost fell back through the hatch.

‘But –’ Eperitus said. ‘But –’

‘You saw me throw him from the walls?’

Peisandros rushed back to the opposite wall and looked down at the body still on the stones below.

‘Come back from there, you fool,’ Odysseus ordered. ‘Do you want the Council to see you?’

‘But how’s it possible?’

Odysseus raised his eyebrows. ‘Most things are possible, with a little deception. After you tried to save Astyanax, Eperitus, I remembered there was the body of an infant on the rocks by the gate – he was thrown down from the walls just as the Council was convening this morning. When I took Astyanax through the gate, I simply picked the boy’s corpse up as I went past. Once inside the tower, I swapped Astyanax’s princely garments for the plain sackcloth the dead child was wearing, then threw him down from the top of the tower. The head was already a mess, but I’m hoping nobody will look too closely at the body. The hardest part was carrying them both up the ladder – Astyanax under my cloak, and the other dangling by his ankle.’

Peisandros knelt by the child and offered him a thick, dirty finger. Astyanax took it and pulled, laughing at the Myrmidon.

‘So what are you going to do with him?’ Eperitus asked. ‘You can’t leave him here. He’ll just be found and thrown from the walls anyway. And if the Council find out –’

‘I didn’t have time to think about that,’ Odysseus confessed, ‘but I think I have the answer now.’

‘Oh?’

‘You, Peisandros. Neoptolemus is your leader and Astyanax’s mother has been allotted to him.’

‘So?’

‘So you smuggle the boy on board with you and take him back to Phthia. There’re plenty of soldiers doing the same with other Trojan boys; I’ve seen it – they haven’t the heart to throw them from the walls, so they’re disguising them as girls and taking them back to Greece. You can do the same and bring Astyanax up among your own family.’

‘What?’

‘And make sure you tell Andromache that her boy is safe, so she can watch him grow up from a distance. But Astyanax is never to know his true identity, you understand?’

‘Well, of course, but –’

‘That’s settled then,’ Odysseus smiled. ‘You’ve always been a good man, Peisandros. I’ll make sure you get a little extra from the plunder, too. Just to help you feed the additional mouth when you get home, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ Peisandros sighed.

Astyanax tugged at his finger and giggled, causing the Myrmidon to laugh out loud, despite himself.

As they walked back to the ships at the end of the day, with the sun already melting into the distant edge of the Aegean, Eperitus turned to his king.

‘You took a big risk for the sake of that child. A child you’ve never even seen before, and the son of your enemy.’

‘I hold no enmity towards Hector,’ Odysseus replied. ‘He was just a man fighting for his homeland, and now his soul is in Hades where it can’t harm any more Greeks. If I took a risk, it wasn’t for Astyanax’s sake.’

‘Then whose?’

Odysseus smiled at him.

‘Yours. When I realised why you wanted to save the child – because you’d been unable to save Iphigenia, and because that failure has eaten away at you for ten years – I knew I had to help you. If I took a risk in doing what I did, then I did it for your sake Eperitus. Who else’s?’

‘Thank you,’ Eperitus said, quietly.

They reached the Ithacan galleys, which were turning black against the crimson sunset.

‘And now,’ Odysseus said, looking up at the muddle of masts, cross spars and rigging, ‘I suppose we had better think about going home.’

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Despite not appearing directly in The Iliad or The Odyssey, the story of the wooden horse is probably the most iconic and familiar of all the myths associated with the Trojan War. The idea of a simple trick succeeding where ten years of brute force had failed has an appeal that has stood the test of time. Naturally, there isn’t a thread of historical evidence for the horse – after all, mythology is not history – though many have tried to interpret it in more realistic terms. Perhaps the most convincing is the suggestion, first put forward by the Romans, that the horse was a metaphor for an ancient siege tower. I preferred the courage and desperation of the original story, with the surviving heroes of the Greek army (except Agamemnon, of course) hiding in a wooden horse and hoping their enemies will take the bait.

The oracles that foretold the fall of Troy are less well-known. To the ancient Greeks the gods were as much a part of life as working, fighting, eating and sleeping. The fact that everything rested “in the lap of the gods”, as Homer puts it, was unquestioned, so to have the outcome of the war depend on the fulfilment of divine prophecies was only natural. As ever, there are a variety of different versions of who predicted what and when, so I have chosen the ones that I believe best suit the story I’m trying to tell.

In the original myths, Helenus is a genuine seer whom the gods entrust with the final oracles that point to the fall of Troy. He even appears as a warrior, if only briefly, in The Iliad. But with two prophets already in the book – Calchas and Cassandra – and innumerable fighting men, I decided to rob him of these virtues and make him a charlatan instead. Though Odysseus was not sent to fetch the bone of Pelops, and the guardian of the tomb is entirely my own invention, he was sent to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros and steal the Palladium from Troy. Disguised as a beggar, he entered the city, met Helen and gleaned important information from her before returning later with Diomedes and making away with the effigy.

Even with all the oracles fulfilled, Troy would not have fallen if Odysseus had not thought up the greatest military ruse of all time. This makes him the most effective hero of the whole siege and recognises that wars are ultimately won by brains rather than brawn. He also had the idea of leaving behind a man to persuade the Trojans the horse should be taken into the city rather than burnt on the plain. In the myths this job was done by Sinon and not by Omeros, who does not appear in any of the original tales.

One of the drawbacks of trying to condense such a vast collection of stories into a comparatively short narrative is that much has to be cut out. Regrettably, one such edit was the tale of Lacoön. Yet another Trojan seer, he protests the folly of bringing the wooden horse inside the city walls, but is cut short when Apollo sends two sea-serpents to crush him and his twin sons to death. The horrified Trojans take this as a sign that the horse is to be accepted, whatever their suspicions.

The horrific sack of Troy, with its widespread murder and rape, is typical of the end of any great siege where the victorious warriors take out their pent up anger on the city’s population. Aeneas was one of the few males to escape – though not with the help of Odysseus – and according to the Romans his ancestors later went on to found the city of Rome. Antenor and his family also escaped (with the help of Odysseus), but poor Astyanax did not. Some versions have the boy murdered by Neoptolemus, others by Odysseus. I have been kinder to both Astyanax and Odysseus in my account.

You will not find Eperitus in any of the myths. He, his love affair with Astynome (who appears in The Iliad as Chryseis) and his feud with his father are all inventions of my imagination. I wanted at least one major character whose fate, unlike those of Odysseus and the others, is entirely in my own hands!

And so the war is over, but not the adventure. In fact, the greatest chapter in the whole saga is just about to begin. As Odysseus turns toward home he is ignorant of the new challenges the Fates are lining up before him. From man-eating songstresses, seductive witches and one-eyed monsters, to the very depths of Hades, he must call on all his courage and wit if he is ever to return home to his beloved Penelope.