Fall of Kings (31 page)

Polydorus had fought in Thraki years earlier, but his experience on the
battlefield was limited. Yet he knew Agamemnon could field many times the number
of warriors Priam could. Hektor’s surprise attack had won the day, he thought as
he watched the enemy soldiers streaming back toward the pass. But what of
tomorrow?

He glanced past the king to Prince Polites, who also was swathed in
sheepskin, his red-rimmed eyes watching the battle anxiously. As if he felt the
Eagle’s gaze, Polites turned and gave him a rueful smile. Polydorus knew that
Polites shared his opinion: The war was not over, not by a long way.

To his father, Polites said nervously, “The battle was already going our way
when the Trojan Horse arrived. Antiphones would have won the day eventually,
Father, although with far more casualties.”

Priam spit on the floor at his feet. “Pah! Antiphones is a fat fool. And you
are an idiot. You know nothing of war. You should be down there fighting, not up
here watching from a safe distance.”

Polites flushed. “I am not a warrior, Father. You chose me as your
chancellor, to look after your treasury. I serve the city in my own way.”

Priam turned on him venomously. “And how is the treasury, Polites? How well
are you looking after it for me? Is it overflowing?”

Stung by the words, Polites said heatedly, “You know very well, Father, we
have to pay for this war. Your mercenaries down there have to be paid for, and
if they think we are losing, they will demand even more of our wealth. We need
more tin and copper to make bronze armor and weapons, yet we have to go farther
afield, and our desperation puts the prices up. Now we badly need tin, and the
Xanthos
is our only hope.”

Strangely, that seemed to cheer the king. “The
Xanthos,
yes,” he said
with pleasure. “I trust Aeneas will be here soon or he’ll miss the fighting
altogether. I was looking forward to seeing Agamemnon’s ships in flames.”

Polydorus turned to look down at the battlefield again. The enemy forces were
retreating to the earthwork they had built to protect the pass. Some seemed to
be fleeing blindly, others retreating in good order. Mykene, he thought, or
Achilles and his Myrmidons, his elite guard. They would not show their backs to
their enemy. He suddenly felt a moment of kinship with the disciplined soldiers,
enemy or not. He remembered the Mykene hero Argurios holding the stairs, mighty
in his courage and dying with his love Laodike after saving Troy for her sake.
Polydorus cherished that day as the best of his young life.

“My lord, perhaps we should return to the palace,” he suggested. “It will be
getting dark soon, and the fighting will be over. Even my young eyes cannot see
what is happening so far away and in failing light.”

The king sniffed. “Then I must find myself an aide with better eyesight,” he
said, but he allowed himself to be helped back to the stairwell.

As they descended the gloomy tower steps cautiously, Polydorus heard the old
king repeating to himself, “My Hektor is back, and the rats will flee to their
holes.”

For two days there was little movement from the armies of Agamemnon. Driven
back behind the reinforced earthwork that protected the landward side of the
pass, the western forces showed no heart for a renewed attack.

The Trojans, who had put every soldier who could stand up into battle for
days on end, took the precious time to honor their dead, treat the wounded, and
sleep. Hektor was tireless, laying defense plans with his generals, touring the
House of Serpents and the barracks hospital to encourage his wounded and dying
men, and walking the field of battle where the Trojan army lay in wait for
Agamemnon’s next attack.

Kalliades could see the gray sheen of exhaustion on his features when they
met on the plain of the Scamander on the third day.

“You need rest, Hektor,” the old general Lucan told him, as if he heard
Kalliades’ thoughts. “Troy needs all your strength for the coming battles.”

Hektor said nothing, and Lucan went on: “And we are too close to the enemy
lines. A well-placed arrow could find you and end all our hopes.”

Hektor and Lucan, with Banokles and Kalliades, stood a mere hundred paces
from the enemy earthwork, now bristling with sharpened stakes to deter an attack
by riders. The massive earthwork formed a semicircle, protecting the head of the
narrow pass. On the cliffs above the pass and on the white walls of King’s Joy
the Trojans could see the glint of armor as enemy warriors watched and waited.

“What are you, his mother?” Banokles asked irritably. He made no secret of
the fact that he disliked the old general, and Kalliades thought the feeling was
mutual.

Lucan smiled thinly, and his eyes were cold. “If you had ever met Hekabe the
queen, Mykene, you would not ask such a foolish question.”

Hektor was staring up at the cliffs, and he appeared not to hear. Then he
said, his voice distant, “I will not die from an arrow wound, General.”

“Did his soothsayer tell King Priam the manner of your death?” Lucan asked,
his tone skeptical.

Hektor visibly shook off his reverie and clapped the general on the shoulder.
“No, old friend, but Agamemnon would ensure an archer who killed me would suffer
a cruel and lingering death. He has other plans for me. He would see me shamed
and laid low in public by Achilles or another champion.”

“Ajax Skull Splitter is here. I saw him in the thick of it,” Banokles said
helpfully.

Kalliades nodded. “I saw him, too. Killed two of our men with one sweep of
that great broadsword.”

“Still carrying that old tower shield, too.” Banokles’ face, normally grim
these days, lightened at the memory. “Big heavy thing. No one else was strong
enough to carry it all day. Like an ox, he was. Still is, I suppose.”

Hektor suddenly threw his head back and laughed, and many of the soldiers
resting nearby smiled, the sound was so infectious. “I am sure Agamemnon has
many champions eager to take me on, Banokles. I have heard of Ajax. He is a
mighty warrior.”

Thinking of Ajax brought to Kalliades’ mind the young soldier who had saved
his life.

He asked, “Does anyone know the name of a young Trojan who also carries a
tower shield?”

Hektor said without hesitation, “Boros. He and his brother are from Rhodos,
although their mother was Trojan. The brother, Echios, is dead, I’m told. Both
Scamandrians.”

There was no reproach in his tone, but Kalliades felt foolish. He was an aide
to the general of the Scamandrians, yet he knew few of his soldiers. Hektor
could greet every man fighting for Troy by name, and he knew the names of their
fathers. Only the mercenaries from Phrygia, Zeleia, and the Hittite lands were
unknown to him.

Lucan pointed up toward the pass and asked impatiently, “When will we strike
them, Hektor?”

Kalliades and Banokles glanced at each other. They all had been present that
morning in the Amber Room at the palace when Priam had demanded an immediate
attack on the pass and King’s Joy.

Hektor, sitting at ease in a great carved chair, a goblet of water in his
hand, had said patiently, “Attacking the pass would be suicidal, Father. We
could take the earthwork, though it would be costly in casualties, fighting
uphill and unable to use the Trojan Horse. Then we could fight our way to the
pass. But within the narrowest part of the pass there is only room for swordsmen
to fight two abreast. Pitting their best warriors against ours would win a
stalemate.”

“Except,” he went on, his words soft but emphatic, “they hold the cliffs
above. They would be raining arrows and spears down on our fighters. It would be
suicidal,” he repeated.

The king strode up and down the great room, his robes swirling around bare
feet.

“Then we must attack from the sea,” he said after a while. “The
Xanthos
will use its fire hurlers to destroy Agamemnon’s ships.”

“That would indeed be a gift from Poseidon,” Hektor responded patiently. “If
we could coordinate an attack from the sea at night, we could send climbers to
take the cliffs, then King’s Joy. But this is daydreaming, Father. Our ships are
blockaded by Menados’ fleets. They are useless to us in the Bay of Troy. And we
do not know where the
Xanthos
is.”

“Wrecked by Poseidon on some foreign shore, perhaps,” Antiphones added. He
was sitting on a couch with one leg raised on cushions. He had suffered a wound
to his thigh. His face was pale, and he was clearly in pain, his normally jovial
manner subdued.

Priam stopped walking and stood as if deep in thought, his mouth working.
Then he said craftily, a gleam in his eye, “We will attack from the sea! The
Xanthos
will use its fire hurlers. We’ll see how Agamemnon likes that!”

Losing patience at last, Hektor raised his voice. “We do not know where the
Xanthos
is, Father! And my wife is on board. Would you send the ship into
battle with Andromache at risk?”

Priam was startled by his son’s unaccustomed tone, and his voice became
querulous. “Where is Andromache? Where is she? Is she here?” He gazed around
anxiously as the other men looked away, embarrassed.

Kalliades dragged his mind back to the present. Hektor was saying, “We can
keep the enemy bottled up in the bay indefinitely. They cannot fight their way
out of the pass any more than we can fight our way in. Agamemnon may call
himself the Battle King, but the other kings accept his command only as long as
there are battles to fight. As time passes, they will quickly tire of one
another’s company, and quarrels will start. They will all be heading home soon
if there is no sign of the treasure of Priam they’ve been promised.

“Achilles loathes Agamemnon, I’m told, and is here only to avenge his dead
father. Old Nestor is here because he fears Agamemnon’s power. Only Sharptooth
and his Kretans can be relied upon.”

“And Odysseus?” Kalliades asked. “What of the Ugly King? He is a man of
honor.”

“He is indeed,” Hektor responded heavily. “He has thrown in his lot with the
Mykene and will not be moved.”

Banokles had been watching the enemy forces. “Look!” he said suddenly, “what
are they doing?”

Fifty or so soldiers had moved some distance out of the pass and were digging
feverishly.

“Shall I tell our archers to shoot them?” Lucan suggested.

Hektor shook his head. “They are too far away for accuracy, and it would
merely be a waste of arrows. We cannot afford to lose more weapons.” His face
became grave, and Kalliades guessed he was thinking about the perilous state of
Troy’s armory. Khalkeus of Miletos had been recalled from bridge building at
Dardanos to take charge of the smiths laboring night and day to renew bronze
swords and spears. Hektor had ordered that every man fighting for Troy should
have a bronze breastplate and helm, even though it meant the elite troops had to
go without bronze greaves and their shoulder and arm guards.

The shortage of tin meant that most of the forges were dark, and the
bronzesmiths were being pressed into duty as stretcher bearers and gate guards.
Kalliades knew of a young bronze worker, a master of his craft, who was
slaughtering injured horses and butchering the dead ones for meat. The whole
city awaited the return of the
Xanthos
and its hoped-for cargo of tin.

“They’re digging a second earthwork,” Kalliades said, shading his eyes.

“Let them,” Hektor replied, turning away. “They are wasting their time and
energy building more defenses. I’m not going to attack them. And it will only
hamper any attack they make.”

“But the king,” Lucan said angrily. “He ordered you to attack, lord.”

Hektor looked the old man in the eye until the general dropped his gaze. Then
Hektor walked away.

Kalliades mounted his horse and rode slowly around the battlefield. The Ilos
regiment was in the front line, drawn up in defensive squares, although the
soldiers were relaxing, lying asleep or eating, staring into the flames of their
campfires.

Behind them were the Scamandrians. He rode along their lines, looking for the
telltale tower shield, but he could not find Boros. He wondered why it bothered
him. In each pitched battle of his soldier’s life he had been saved hundreds of
times by a comrade’s well-placed sword or shield, just as he had rescued others.
Kalliades gave a mental shrug. Perhaps it was simply that he himself once had
carried a tower shield, long lost during the palace siege. Now he favored a
round leather and wood buckler strapped to his arm, which gave him more
flexibility in battle. The front lines of the Mykene phalanx were armed with
waisted tower shields of horn and hide, which worked well for them as they
attacked like a giant tortoise but gave them less maneuverability when fighting
in a melee.

Having toured the entire army, noting Hektor’s deployment of the regiments,
the Eagles, and the Trojan Horse, Kalliades returned to the front line of the
Scamandrians to find Banokles. His comrade had stripped off his old battered
breastplate and was lying on his back in his undershirt, gazing at the darkening
sky.

Kalliades stepped down and handed his mount to a horse boy, then sat beside
the powerful warrior. Another youngster brought two cups of watered wine and a
plate of meat and corn bread. Kalliades thanked him.

He nudged Banokles and handed him the wine. Banokles sat up and took it. He
sipped the wine, and after a while he asked, “Do you think they’ll attack
again?”

Kalliades glanced around, but there was no one within earshot. “Agamemnon’s
ambition and Achilles’ need for vengeance will feed their determination,” he
responded, “at least for a while. Yes, I think they will attack again. But they
must come through the pass, so they cannot use the phalanx. It will be a
death-or-glory charge.”

“I always liked that one,” Banokles said. “It worked for us. It might work
for them. Not a soft-bellied puker up there.” He gestured with his head in the
direction of the pass.