The Women of Troy

24

After yet another night of shallow sleep and convoluted dreams, Calchas is woken by a peremptory rapping on his door. Still dazed, he crawls to answer it and finds, standing on his threshold, flanked by guards, one of Agamemnon’s heralds.

“Come in,” he says, eagerly. Though even as he speaks, he remembers the bucket in the corner. “No, no, wait, I’ll come out.”

Fingers trembling, he reaches for his best cloak and wraps it round himself, feeling even in his agitated state a moment of reassurance as good-quality wool settles onto his shoulders. He is a priest, after all—a high priest being summoned to see a king. Yes, a powerful and mighty king—yes, yes, all that—but priests do have their own authority, even, or so he tells himself, in the presence of kings.

This burst of confidence carries him all the way to the steps of Agamemnon’s hall. It’s gloomy inside—only a couple of lamps lit; his feet, shuffling through the rushes, release a cloud of tiny, stingless insects. On the threshold of Agamemnon’s living quarters, the herald holds up his hand and Calchas is obliged to stop. Jumped-up little pipsqueak. A man of no ability whatsoever, there are fish with more brains, given this job solely because of his impressive appearance and noble birth. Oh, and of course the right accent—let’s not forget that! And yet his position gives him daily access to Agamemnon, access which, for weeks now, has been denied to Calchas. Feeling querulous and ill, he peers over the herald’s shoulder into the darkness beyond, but can see nothing. There’s no glimmer of light coming from under Agamemnon’s door—no voices either. He strains to hear, but the only sound’s a rustle in the rushes behind him. When he turns, he sees another herald and, behind him, red-eyed and bad-tempered, Odysseus. Calchas bows low, but receives only a grunt in reply.

What’s Odysseus doing here? Obviously, he has great influence—the man who brought this interminable war to a victorious conclusion—and, if you can believe the gossip, he’s more powerful now than he’s ever been. Nestor’s ill—some people say very ill—and Agamemnon’s quarrelled with his brother, so he’s probably leaning more heavily on his few remaining counsellors. A conference, then, rather than a consultation? A review of what’s gone wrong, and why?

They stand there, each desperate to know why the other has been summoned, but reluctant to ask. It’s dangerous to admit ignorance—though it can also be dangerous to claim knowledge you don’t possess. Normally, in such circumstances, conversation turns to the weather, but that’s scarcely an option here, since “the weather” is precisely the point at issue. So, Calchas smiles vaguely at nothing in particular, while Odysseus paces up and down, and hums, irritatingly, under his breath.

At last, there’s a movement in the darkness. Agamemnon’s door opens to reveal a circle of lamplight and there, his back to the light, his face in shadow, but instantly recognizable from his decidedly well-rounded physique, is Machaon, the king’s physician. Calchas’s heart bumps. Is Agamemnon ill? Is that why they’ve been summoned? If so, that’s a worse crisis even than the gale. Stepping to one side, he bows to Odysseus to indicate that he takes precedence—you should always let your enemies precede you into trouble, and anyway, being last into the room might give him a few precious minutes to assess the situation before he’s called upon to speak.

Agamemnon looks ill, extremely ill. That’s Calchas’s first impression, but then that’s what Machaon’s presence has primed him to expect. Deep shadows under the eyes, three rows of bags—he looks as if he hasn’t slept in years—and his skin’s the creamy yellow of old ivory. But he’s certainly not presenting himself as an invalid. He’s fully dressed, wearing a gold torque round his neck, sitting on the chair that serves him as a throne. Behind his head, the rich gold-and-ivory inlay on the back gleams in the lamplight. This is clearly intended to be a formal audience. Only Machaon, going around lighting more lamps, seems at ease, but then, by all accounts, he spends a lot of time in this room. Arguably, these days, he has better access to Agamemnon than any of the kings.

Odysseus puts his hand over his heart and bows low. Calchus kneels to touch Agamemnon’s feet. He feels the great man’s toes cringe, and knows that behind his back Odysseus and Machaon will be exchanging glances, despising the Trojan way of showing honour to a superior. They don’t like this, the Greeks, they think it’s a sign of servitude, whereas their own upright stature establishes them as splendid, worthy, independent, virile men. What fools they are. He steps back into the shadows and settles down to listen. He’s desperate to hear what Odysseus has to say, but nobody can say anything until Agamemnon speaks.

While they wait, Calchas glances round the room, his tongue flickering out to moisten his lips. He notices that the bronze mirror, pushed well back against the wall, is draped in black, as mirrors often are after a recent death. The custom springs from the superstition that mirrors are a door through which the dead can re-enter the mortal world. So, Agamemnon fears the dead? Well, there are plenty of them to fear—young men with all their lives ahead of them do not go down into the darkness reconciled. Is this what he fears—the anger of the defrauded young? No, probably not. It’s more likely to be one particular man he fears.

“It would have been better to have died in Troy,” Agamemnon says, “than live the way I live now. Priam sleeps better than I do.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t want to join him, would you?”

Odysseus’s words come out jarringly upbeat, dismissive of Agamemnon’s obvious distress. Careful, Calchas thinks.

“I have bad dreams,” Agamemnon goes on, addressing Calchas directly now, as if he’s the only other person in the room—and though it’s flattering to be the focus of the king’s attention, it’s dangerous too.

Calchas says, hesitantly, “A lot of people seem to be having disturbed nights. I think perhaps we’re all wondering what we’ve done to offend the gods…”

We, he says, though he doubts if anybody in this room regards him as “one of us.” Once before, he’d angered Agamemnon, but then he’d had Achilles’s protection. Nobody, then, would have dared touch him, not even the kings, not even Agamemnon himself. But now Achilles lies under the earth and Calchas is alone. Flustered, he begins to tell Agamemnon about the sea eagle, caught by a rogue wave, unable to take off with its prey, but he tells the story badly, his fear making him stumble over the words, and long before he’s finished speculating—cautiously—about what the sign might mean, Agamemnon’s waving it aside.

“But we know all that! We know we can’t leave. Fuck’s sake, man, tell me something I don’t know.”

“We-ell,” Calchus says, “I do have one or two ideas, but it’s going to take time and…” Stop gabbling. “Do you have any thoughts? Sometimes the gods speak directly to a king.”

“Huh, I’ve had plenty of time to think, lying here night after night—and my first thought was: it’s him.”

He gestures towards Machaon, who looks alarmed—as well he might—but Agamemnon’s eyes are staring straight through him at the shrouded mirror. “Cloth’s bloody useless,” Agamemnon says. “Need more than cloth to keep him out.”

“Who is it you mean?” Odysseus asks.

“Achilles, of course.”

Agamemnon says the name reluctantly, and indeed, at that moment, Calchas feels a chill run round the room: the fear of the supernatural, the uncanny…Or is it, perhaps, the fear of madness?

“Do you still see him?” Machaon asks.

But, like Odysseus before him, he gets the tone wrong: this is the jolly-the-patient-along voice of an experienced physician. In response, Agamemnon simply stares at him until Machaon’s glad to look away.

Fear’s thick in the room now, as unmistakable as the stink of rancid fat. “How often does he appear?” Calchas asks, but deferentially; he’s too wily a bird to make Machaon’s mistake—and, in any case, he can’t rule out the possibility that Achilles does actually appear.

“Every night.” A jabbing finger delineates the precise spot. “There.”

“Does he speak?”

Agamemnon shakes his head.

“Why do you think he can’t rest?”

“Well, he never was much good at resting, was he?” Odysseus asks—only just not jeering.

Once again, he gets the tone wrong—Odysseus, who never gets the tone wrong. There’s something almost reckless about him today—as if, after ten long years of navigating the quicksands of Agamemnon’s whims, he simply can’t do it anymore. But he’d better start taking it seriously, because however illusory Achilles’s appearances may be, there’s nothing illusory about Agamemnon’s power.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Agamemnon says. “I promised him twenty of the most beautiful women in Troy—that’s true, isn’t it?” He stares at Odysseus, who reluctantly nods. “Well, so far, by my reckoning, he’s had one. The wind changed after Polyxena was sacrificed. Less than an hour after…”

“Yes,” Odysseus agrees. “I’d only just gone on board.”

“Well, then? Don’t you think that was Achilles saying, ‘Where’s the other nineteen?’ ”

Agamemnon sits back in his chair and closes his eyes. For one horrible moment, he seems to be nodding off to sleep. Perhaps he really is ill. He certainly isn’t speaking with anything like his usual authority; he isn’t even projecting his voice properly. From where Calchas is standing, right at the back of the room, it’s difficult to catch some of the words. This is the result of too many sleepless hours alone, following a thread of meaning though a labyrinth of fear. Of course, it’s nonsense—worse than nonsense, blasphemous. As if any mere mortal—even great Achilles—could produce this disturbance in nature. It’s so obviously the work of a god. But how to say so, without appearing to contradict Agamemnon, who may, at any moment, rouse himself from his drugged stupor and start insisting that more girls be sacrificed on Achilles’s burial mound, that only by keeping his promises down to every last detail can he hope to appease that voracious ghost. How to stop him? Calchas knows he’ll get no help from the other two. Odysseus thinks of nothing but his own self-interest, and Machaon can’t assert his own faith in opposition to this madness, because Machaon has no faith. They’re both rational men; they’ll deplore the need for further human sacrifices—but they’ll go along with it too.

Pushing Machaon aside, Calchas kneels and places his cupped hands round Agamemnon’s knees—the position of a supplicant.

“What you’ve told us is deeply troubling, sir. Perhaps I might be allowed to take a day or two to think about it—and to pray. I need to consider the signs. It may be some god is acting through Achilles’s spirit. If I could just have a little more time…”

“Yes, yes.” Agamemnon swats his hands away. “Take as long as you like. I’m not sure it’s Achilles anyway. I said that was my first thought. I think we all know what’s really going on here. My brother, taking that bloody woman back. Thousands of good men dead and all he can think about is fucking that whore. Do you know he’s offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to Pyrrhus? That girl was intended for my son. Right from birth.”

“Pyrrhus won’t accept,” Odysseus says.

“Course he bloody will—he won’t be able to resist it. Ungrateful little shite.”

Bewildered, Calchas stands up and backs away, wishing he dare risk a glance at Odysseus, but there must be no suspicion of collusion. Agamemnon’s eyes are constantly darting from face to face and in his state of mind men readily begin to imagine conspiracies where none exists. He’d been so sure Agamemnon was blaming Achilles…Now, he has no idea what it’s about.

Abruptly, Agamemnon stands up. “Anyway, the other reason I brought you here”—this is once again addressed to Calchas—“is to marry me.”

“Marry you?”

“Fuck’s sake, man, was your mother a parrot? Yes, marry me. And I want you two”—he nods at Odysseus and Machaon—“to be my witnesses. We-ell?” He looks from face to face. “Cheer up, everybody! This is supposed to be a joyful occasion.”

“Yes,” Odysseus says, hastily. “Joyful, indeed.”

There’s a rustle in the next room. A moment later, the door opens and Cassandra walks into the room. She’s wearing a long blue tunic with silver bands woven through her hair. Behind her, comes a dumpy little woman with straw-coloured hair, evidently her maid. Cassandra looks dazed. Apollo’s priestess, raped in Athena’s temple—and the Greeks ask which god they’ve offended? There’s two, for a start.

“Come on, then!” Agamemnon says. “Marry us.”

Struck dumb, Calchas takes the scarlet band from his own head and winds it round their wrists, reciting the familiar prayers by rote, without needing to think about them—and just as well, because his mind’s a perfect blank. As he ties the knot, he notices that the girl has bruises round her wrists—blue bracelets—and thinks, vacuously, that they match her robe. Vows are exchanged. She stumbles over hers; Agamemnon pronounces his loudly and clearly, with total conviction, though he must know the marriage is unlawful. He already has a wife and, though kings are allowed any number of concubines, it is the custom to have only one wife. Apart from anything else, this produces a clear line of succession, since it’s always the queen’s eldest son who inherits. Cake is produced, together with a dish of strong wine. They all break off pieces of cake, dip them in the wine and eat, though Calchas’s portion turns to clag and sticks in his throat. Odysseus swallows his with ease, but then he’d swallow anything Agamemnon handed out. And then it’s over, a short, indecently casual ceremony.

As Calchas unwinds the band from round their wrists, he does what he’s promised himself he won’t do—he looks straight into the girl’s face. A goat’s eyes stare back at him, the same brilliant yellow, the same numbed look of a sacrifice—and then the moment passes and she’s a girl again, a girl with bruises round her wrists. Now he looks more closely, he notices red marks on either side of her mouth, as if she’s been gagged as well. Poor Cassandra, gagged one way or another all her life, most powerfully by other people’s unbelief. No good will come of this impious, unlawful union. He only hopes the curse that follows will spare him. He was acting under orders, after all.

Odysseus proposes a toast. Agamemnon thanks him and then it’s Machaon’s turn. Cups are raised, congratulations offered and accepted. “And now piss off, all of you,” Agamemnon says, waving them towards the door.

As they back out, they see him take Cassandra’s hand and lead her into the next room.

In the hall, Machaon releases his breath with an audible pouf. “What do you make of that, then?”

“What’s in that stuff you’re giving him?” Odysseus asks. “He was half asleep.”

“Nothing wrong with my sleeping draughts. You’re not supposed to take them with strong wine.”

“Yeah, like he’s ever not going to drink!”

Machaon says, “For a moment, there, I thought he was talking about more sacrifices. Girls.”

“And he’d do it too,” Odysseus says.

Calchas feels in equal measure alarmed and exasperated. Nobody seems to question why Achilles, who’d loathed Agamemnon when he was alive, who’d never voluntarily spent an hour in his company, should choose to spend the afterlife standing at the foot of his bed.

“Where’s your thinking got you?” Machaon asked.

Calchas shakes his head.

“What about Little Ajax?” Machaon says. “Raping a virgin priestess in the temple of a virgin goddess…? Isn’t he the front runner?”

“Nah, he’s too useful,” Odysseus says. “If it comes to war with Menelaus, we’re going to need all the allies we can get.”

War? Calchas still hasn’t spoken and he’s becoming ever more convinced that silence is his best option. Sometimes, at night, he lies awake and doubts his faith. In his darkest moments, it seems to him that all his agonizing over the will of the gods is no more than self-deception. Only now, listening to this talk of “front runners” and the need for alliances, he knows it’s not true. Without vanity, he knows himself to be a different kind of man. Not better, he doesn’t claim that—but different. Somewhere in all this he thinks a real truth lies buried, and he won’t be able to rest till he finds it.

“So,” he says, not bothering now to hide the sarcasm. “Who’s my best bet? Who do you think I should blame?”

“I’d stick with Achilles, if I were you,” Machaon says. “At least he’s dead.”

Odysseus pulls a face. “No, I’d go for the ‘ungrateful little shite.’ ”

“Pyrrhus?”

“Why not? Unless you enjoyed having his foot up your arse?”

They move off together, laughing. Calchas follows more slowly, bracing himself to face yet another tussle with the wind. The slight lull that often comes in the last few hours before dawn is already over. As he steps out onto the veranda, vicious little gusts blow specks of grit into face.

I’d go for the “ungrateful little shite.” Unless you enjoyed having his foot up your arse?

Immediately after it happened, he’d consoled himself with the thought that very few people had witnessed it. With any luck, he’d thought, the gossip would be confined to Pyrrhus’s compound—and might be a nine-day wonder even there. Of course, after all his years in the camp, he should have known better. The fact that nobody’s mentioned it to him means nothing; they’d all have been sniggering about it behind his back. Ignore it. But he can’t ignore it; it gnaws away at him, night after night, like a rat in his intestines. The damage to his reputation is real, and in this camp men live—and die—for reputation. Reputation is all-important. If people start to believe they can treat him with contempt, that’s dangerous—and it doesn’t just devalue him; it’s an insult to the god he serves.

Calchas looks up at the stars. The wind’s doing crazy things, making them swarm and dance like fireflies. After a few seconds he’s so dizzy he’s glad to look at the ground again. He wishes he could talk to somebody, but there’s nobody he can trust. Hecuba? Yes, perhaps—though really a priest should derive his solace solely from his god—that’s what he was taught, in the temple of Apollo in Troy. Though it had never really worked for him, even then. He’d always found his solace in the arms of strangers, at night, in Priam’s orchards, under the trees. He’d so much like to be back there, just once, before he dies.

Out of some primitive impulse, he tries to pray, to ask for mercy, though he knows the gods have none—particularly not the god he serves.

Lord of light, hear me,

Son of god, hear me,

Slayer of darkness, hear me…

But the long-familiar litany fails to soothe. He walks on, and on, wanting to tire himself out, before he goes back to the hut where he eats and sleeps alone. It’s getting lighter now, the stars are beginning to fade, until finally, out of the heaving grey mass of the sea, the sun rises, as small and hard and cold as a stone.