The Women of Troy

2

An hour later, he’s on the palace steps in the thick of the fighting. Seizing an axe from a dying man, he starts hacking his way through the door. The press of fighters pushing up the steps behind him makes it hard to get a good swing—he shouts at them to get back, to give him room, and four or five blows later there’s a gap just wide enough to get through—and after that it’s easy, everything’s easy. Hurtling down the corridor, he feels his father’s blood pounding through his veins and shouts in triumph.

At the entrance to the throne room there’s a solid wall of Trojan guards, the Greek fighters already grappling with them, but he veers off to the right, searching for the secret passage that leads from Hector’s house—where his widow, Andromache, now lives alone with their son—to Priam’s private apartments. This is the information Odysseus tortured out of his captive prince. A door in the wall, half hidden by a screen, leads into a dimly lit passage shelving steeply downwards—the cold smell of musty, unused places—and then a flight of stairs takes him up into the bright light of the throne room, where Priam stands in front of an altar, motionless, expectant, as if his whole life has been a preparation for this moment. They’re alone. The sounds of Greeks and Trojans battling on the other side of the wall seem to fade away.

In silence, they stare at each other. Priam’s old, shockingly old, and so frail his armour weighs him down. Pyrrhus clears his throat, an odd, apologetic sound in that vast stillness. Time seems to have stopped, and he doesn’t know how to make it start again. He moves closer to the altar steps and announces his name, which you must do before you fight: “I am Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.” Incredibly, unforgivably, Priam smiles and shakes his head. Angry now, Pyrrhus puts one foot on the bottom step and sees Priam brace himself—though when the old man finally throws his spear it fails to penetrate the shield, just hangs there for a moment, quivering, before clattering to the floor. Pyrrhus bursts out laughing, and the sound of his own laughter frees him. He leaps up the steps, grabs a handful of Priam’s hair, drags the head back to expose the scrawny throat and—

And nothing…

For the last hour, he’s been in a state of near-frenzy, feet scarcely touching the ground, strength pouring into him from the sky—but now, when that frenzy is most needed, he feels it draining from his limbs. He raises his arm, but the sword’s heavy, heavy. Sensing weakness, Priam twists out of his grasp and tries to run, but trips and falls headlong down the steps. Pyrrhus is on to him at once, clutching the mane of silver hair, and this is it, this is it, now, now, but the hair’s unexpectedly soft, almost like a woman’s hair, and that tiny, insignificant detail’s enough to throw him. He slashes at the old man’s throat, misses—stupid, stupid—he’s like a ten-year-old boy trying to stick his first pig, hacking away, cut after cut and not one of them deep enough to kill. With his white hair and pale skin, Priam looked as if he hadn’t a drop of blood in him; oh, but he has, gallons and gallons of it, he’s slipping and slithering across the floor. At last, he gets a grip on the old bugger, kneels on his bony chest and, even then, he can’t do it. He groans in despair, “Achilles! Father!” And, incredibly, Priam turns to him and smiles again. “Achilles’s son?” he says. “You? You’re nothing like him.”

A red mist of rage gives Pyrrhus the strength to strike again. Straight into the neck this time, no mistake. Priam’s hot blood pumps over his clenched fist. That’s it. Over. He lets the body slip to the floor. Somewhere, quite close, a woman’s screaming. Bewildered, he looks around and sees a group of women, some with babies in their arms, crouched on the far side of the altar. Drunk with triumph and relief, he runs towards them, arms spread wide, and shouts “BOO!” into their faces—and laughs as they cower away.

But one girl stands up and stares back at him—goggle-eyed, face like a frog. How dare she look at him? For a moment, he’s tempted to strike her, but pulls back in time. There’s no glory to be gained by killing a woman, and anyway, he’s tired, more tired than he’s ever been in his life. His right arm dangles from his shoulder, as lifeless as a spade. Priam’s blood tightens on his skin, stinking, that fishy, ferrous smell. He stands for a moment, looking down at the body, and then on impulse kicks it in the side. No burial for Priam, he decides. No honour, no funeral rites, no dignity in death. He’ll do exactly what his father did to Hector: strap the old man’s spindly ankles to his chariot axle and drag him back to the camp. But first, he needs to get away from all the screaming and sobbing, and so, blindly, he stumbles through a door on his right.

Dark in here, cool and quiet; the cries of women sound fainter now. As his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, he sees a rack of ceremonial robes and, beside it, a chair with the vestments of a priest draped over the back. This must be Priam’s robing room. Standing just inside the door, he listens, feeling the room shrink away from him, just as the women did. Everything’s silent, empty. But then, suddenly, he catches a movement in the far corner. Somebody’s hiding, over there in the shadows, he can just see the outline of a shape. A woman? No, from the glimpse he had, he’s almost sure it was a man. Pushing aside the rack of clothes, he edges forward—and then almost laughs aloud with joy, with relief, because there, straight ahead of him, stands Achilles. It can’t be anybody else: the glittering armour, the flowing hair—and it’s a sign, a sign that he’s been accepted at last. He walks confidently forward, peering into the dark, and sees Achilles coming towards him, sheathed in blood; everything’s red, from his plumed helmet to his sandalled feet. Hair red too, not orange, not carroty, no, red like blood or fire. At the last moment, face to face, he reaches out and his tacky fingers encounter something hard and cold.

Close now, close, almost close enough to kiss. “Father,” he says, as his breath clouds the mirror’s shining bronze. “Father.” And again, less confidently now: “Father?”