Fall of Kings (26 page)

“Cold night,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

The officer glanced out to sea. “A lot of mist tonight.” He sucked in a deep
breath. “Keep a good watch, Cephas.”

“Yes, sir,” Cephas answered. A good watch! All that ever moved in the
darkness were rodents. This entire exercise was a waste. If the Mykene did come,
they would sail into the Bay of Troy and besiege the city. Anyone with a
strategic brain understood that.

“Good man,” the officer said, turning and descending the steps. Cephas
watched until the door of the hut closed behind him.

“Well, that’s him taken to his bed,” he told the youngster. “So let’s stretch
out and get some rest.”

“Are you sure?”

“He won’t come out again. He never does. He’ll be in his bed by now.”

“Well, I am tired.”

“Hunker down, lad. We’ll have a snooze and wake long before anyone else is up
and around. Don’t you worry. I sleep lightly. At the first sound of movement
I’ll be awake and alert. Twenty years of soldiering will do that.”

The boy stretched out on the wooden floor. Cephas took one last look out at
the empty beach, then sat down with his back against the stockade wall.

He closed his eyes.

Achilles stood on the prow of the lead ship as the invasion force glided
toward the Bay of Herakles under the starlight. Dressed in a dark tunic, two
swords belted at his hip, he leaned on the rail, staring through the mist and
watching for any enemy galleys that might be patrolling.

He saw only a small fishing boat with an old man casting his net. The
fisherman looked up as the galley sailed past, then returned to his task. The
old man seemed weary. Several of Achilles’ warriors picked up bows. “Leave him,”
he told them. “He is no threat.”

The galley sailed on. His shield bearer Patroklos moved alongside him.

“No sign of Dardanian ships,” the blond warrior said. “The falling stars
showed the gods are with us, I think.”

“Perhaps,” Achilles replied, “but I would sooner rely on our own strength of
arms.”

Another warrior moved to the prow, the stocky shaven-headed Thibo. As always
before a battle he had braided his long red beard.

“You should not be risking yourself, my king,” he said. “Not for the taking
of a little fort.”

“You think I should hide on the ship?”

“It is not about hiding, Achilles,” Thibo argued. “One well-aimed arrow and
we’ll have no king.”

“That argument could be used for any battle,” Achilles told him. “Agamemnon
wants the fort taken first and the summer palace secured. He has given me and my
Myrmidons that task. It is an honor. What king would allow his men to take risks
he was not prepared to suffer?”

Thibo chuckled. “I don’t see Agamemnon here with us. Or Idomeneos. Not even
Odysseus.”

“They are all on their way,” Achilles said. “And none of them lacks courage.
Most especially Odysseus.” He smiled. “I saw him back on Ithaka, rescuing his
lady. A sight I will not soon forget.”

Patroklos leaned in. “Another battle you should not have taken part in. By
the gods, Achilles, that was madness.”

“Aye, it was, but madness of the noblest kind. Is everyone prepared?”

“We all know what is expected of us,” Thibo said. “We’ll not let you down.”

“I know that, Redbeard.”

As the galley’s hull scraped the sand, Achilles leaped lightly down to the
beach. He loped across the sand to the entrance of the pass. Keeping close to
the cliff wall on the left, he gazed at the stockade some sixty paces distant.
There was no sign of movement on the wall. This surprised him. According to the
most recent reports, there should be fifty men guarding the fort and two
sentries on the wall at all times. Moving back from the entrance, he raised his
arm. More dark-garbed warriors leaped down from the galley, making their way
swiftly to where Achilles waited. Four of the fifty men were archers. Calling
the lead bowman to him, Achilles whispered, “There are no sentries visible.”

The man looked relieved. The plan had been for archers to kill the Trojan
sentries silently—no easy task when shooting arrows at night toward men in armor
on a high wall.

“Stay back here with your men until the wall is taken,” Achilles told him.

The sky was starting to lighten, the dawn not far off. Achilles swept his
gaze over the waiting warriors. He had handpicked them with care. They were
fearless and able.

Gesturing them to follow him, Achilles ran down toward the stockade. The tall
lean figure of Patroklos came loping alongside on his right. To his left was
Thibo.

As he ran, Achilles continued to scan the stockade wall. Could this be a
trap? Might they have a hundred archers lying in wait? His mouth was dry. If so,
they would show themselves when Achilles and his men were around thirty paces
from the wall. At that point the attackers would be at optimum killing range.

Achilles ran on. Fifty paces to go. Forty.

Thibo cut across him from the left. Patroklos moved in from the right. They,
too, had estimated the killing range and were forming a shield in front of him.

For the next few paces Achilles’ heart was pounding. His eyes were raking the
ramparts, expecting at any moment to see archers rearing up, bows bent,
bronze-headed shafts notched to the string.

But there was no movement, and the Thessalian force reached the foot of the
stockade. Achilles swung toward Patroklos, who was standing with his back to the
wall. The slim warrior nodded, cupped his hands, and steadied himself. Achilles
lifted a foot into the linked hands and levered himself up. Using the wooden
wall for balance, he stepped up again, this time to Patroklos’ shoulder.

He was just below the parapet now. Straightening his legs, he glanced over
the battlements. Two sentries were asleep a little way to his right. Climbing
smoothly to the ramparts, he drew both swords and moved quietly toward the
sleeping men. In the last of the moonlight he could see that one of them was
little more than a boy.

That was all he would ever be.

Achilles’ sword plunged into the lad’s neck. The dying boy gave a low,
gurgling groan. The second sentry opened his eyes. He saw Achilles and tried to
cry out. Achilles slammed his second blade into the man’s throat with such force
that it cut through the spine and buried itself in the wooden wall beyond.

Dragging his sword clear, Achilles ran down the rampart steps to the gate. It
was held closed by a thick bar of timber. Putting his shoulder to it, Achilles
lifted it clear and opened the gates.

Silently the warriors entered the barracks building, creeping forward to
stand alongside each bed. Achilles waited at the door until all the men were in
place. Lifting his hand, he gave the signal for them to ready themselves. Swords
glinted in the gloom, blades poised over fifty doomed men.

Achilles’ hand slashed downward. Fifty swords plunged home. Some of the
victims died without ever waking; others cried out and struggled briefly. None
survived.

Walking from the barracks, Achilles made his way to the gates. He could see
sailors from his galley bringing armor, helms, and shields for his warriors.
Beyond them more soldiers were gathering on the beach. Two sailors approached
him, bearing his armor and shield. Achilles strapped on his black breastplate,
settling the shield in place on his left arm.

He glanced up. High on the cliffs above was King’s Joy.

According to the spies, it was still the residence of Paris and Helen.
Agamemnon had ordered that Helen be captured, Paris and the children put to
death. Achilles understood the need for the children to be slain. If allowed to
live, they would, when grown, seek blood vengeance against the men who had
killed their father. Killing the children of enemies was therefore regrettable
but necessary.

Despite that, Achilles fervently hoped that Helen and her children were
absent this night.

High in the palace of King’s Joy, Helen lay awake in her bed, listening to
her husband pace the floor. These nights Paris scarcely slept, and she listened
to the soft, relentless sound of his bare feet padding back and forth on the
rugs of the antechamber.

Helen sighed. She loved her husband dearly but missed the quiet scholarly
young man she had married long before this dreadful winter with its constant
rumors of war and invasion. Long before the death of Dios, the pressure had
changed Paris beyond all recognition.

When they had met four years earlier, Helen had been a refugee from Sparta.
Timid and quiet, she had been terrified in this strange foreign city, with its
haughty jeweled women who looked with disdain at her plain clothes and plump
little body.

Brought up in the harsh life of the Spartan court, raised among boys and men
whose only thoughts were of war and conquest, Helen had found Paris delightfully
different. His shyness hid a wry sense of humor, and his curiosity about the
world was entirely at odds with the young men she was used to. He taught her to
read and write, for he was gathering a scriptorium of documents from all the
lands of the Great Green. He pointed out to her the various colored birds that
flew over Troy and explained how they traveled from land to land with the
seasons. He had a water tank made of marble and silver and brought her sea
horses to keep in it so that together they could watch the births and deaths and
daily lives of those small creatures. When they married quietly, she was full of
joy and felt that the rest of her days would be blessed by the gods.

The blackness of night outside was turning to dark gray, and Helen listened
for movement in the next bedroom, where her two children were sleeping.
Four-year-old Alypius rarely slept past dawn, and once awake, he always woke his
little sister, Philea. But the silence now was total apart from the soft padding
of bare feet.

Throwing back the covers, she pulled a warm shawl around her shoulders, then
stepped out into the antechamber.

Paris was still dressed in the heavy brown robe he had been wearing the
previous day. His head was down, and he failed to notice her.

“You should rest, my love,” she said, and he turned around. For a heartbeat
his face looked gaunt and gray and exhausted. Then he saw her, and his features
lit up.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, coming over to her and taking her in his arms.
“I keep dreaming of Dios.”

“I know,” she said. “But the dawn is coming, and you must have some rest. I
will sit with you and hold your hand.”

He slumped down on a chair, and she saw with despair his face falling into
its familiar lines of grief and guilt.

“I should have done something,” he said for the thousandth time.

Over the winter she had found only three ways to reply: “You are not a
soldier.” “It all happened so quickly.” “There was nothing you could have done.”
But this time she said nothing, merely held his hand.

She glanced out of the balcony doors, where the darkness was fading toward
dawn, and a movement caught her eye. She frowned.

“Look, my love. What’s that?”

Paris followed her gaze; then they both stood and walked, entranced, onto the
balcony. The dark sky to the east was alive with hundreds of bright lights
dropping toward the land. Each appeared and then disappeared in a flash.

“They are moon fragments,” he told her, his voice full of wonder.

“Are they dangerous?” Helen shot a nervous glance back toward the room where
her children slept.

He smiled for the first time in days. “Most people believe the moon is
Artemis’ chariot, but I think it is a hot metal disk which throws off these
splinters. Sometimes they stay in the sky, and we call them stars, but some fall
to earth, as these have. It is a lucky omen, my love.” He put his arms around
her, and she could feel the tension easing from him. “They are far away and will
not harm us.” He yawned. “Perhaps I will sleep now for a while.”

She sat on their bed and held his hand, daydreaming as the sky grew brighter
and the palace started to wake. In the courtyard far below someone dropped a
piece of heavy pottery, which smashed amid loud curses, and within moments Helen
could hear her son scrambling out of bed next door. There was silence for a long
while, and she wondered what he was up to. Then she heard cries of alarm from a
distance, and Alypius came running into the room, dressed only in his
nightshirt, his dark hair flying and a look of excitement on his face.

“Papa, Papa, there are ships! Lots of ships!”

“Sshh! Papa’s sleeping.” Helen dropped Paris’ hand and put her arms around
the boy.

He squirmed away. “Come, you must see! Lots of ships!”

Then fair-haired Philea came toddling into the room, clutching a ragged doll
made of blue cloth. “Shipth!” she lisped.

Paris awoke and sat up groggily. “What is it?”

“It is nothing, husband. They have seen some winter ships. It is nothing.”
But in the distance she could hear shouts and the cold clash of metal, and her
heart suddenly was clutched by dread.

Paris arose and walked out to the balcony. As he looked to his left, he
gasped, and Helen saw him start to tremble. She ran to his side. Far below lay
the Bay of Herakles, which normally was a brilliant blue in the dawn light. Now
the bay and the wide sea beyond were filled with ships as far as the eye could
see. Scores already were drawn up on the sandy beach, and hundreds more were
heading east toward them out of the light sea mist. From the height of the
palace they could hear nothing, and the ships moved in an eerie silence.

The sandy beach was full of armed men, and a solid line of them was making
its way up toward the palace. Dawn light sparkled off their helms and spear
tips. Helen could see that they already had overrun the defensive stockade of
the beach garrison.

She leaned over the balcony wall. Directly below them was the main palace
courtyard. Soldiers and servants were running to defend the gates. Even as she
watched, she heard the solid boom of a battering ram against timber.