Fall of Kings (42 page)

“What will you wager, old king?” Patroklos asked.

“Five of my ships against Achilles’ breastplate.”

Achilles raised his eyebrows. “Why
my
breastplate?” he queried.

“Because it is well known that Patroklos has not a copper ring to his name
and always reneges on his wagers. You, on the other hand, are a man of honor and
will pay your friend’s debts, as you always do.”

Patroklos grinned, uncaring, and Achilles shrugged. “So be it,” he said.
“What if Patroklos climbs the wall and is killed when he reaches the top?”

“Then the wager stands and you win five Ithakan ships.”

The young warrior tied his braided blond hair back at his neck, kicked off
his sandals, and ran at the wall, leaping lightly onto the first high stone.
Then, finding easy hand-and footholds, he swiftly climbed to the point where the
wall became vertical. There he paused, looking up. He found a handhold to his
right and, stretching, just managed to catch the tips of his fingers to it. He
moved his feet up carefully one at a time, then looked for a new handhold to the
left. There wasn’t one. The top of the huge stone he was clinging to was far
above his searching hand.

Seeing his predicament, the Ithakans began jeering, but Odysseus hushed them.
He glanced at the top of the wall. He could not see sentries in the darkness but
knew they were there.

Patroklos carefully moved his right foot up to a narrow crack in the stone.
He wriggled his bare toes as far as he could into the poor foothold. He glanced
up again to check where he was going. Then, taking a deep breath, he leaped for
the top of the stone. He just made it, clinging with his fingertips. His right
foot slipped, but he managed to get his right hand to the top of the stone and
held on, scrabbling for a foothold.

But the sound had alerted the sentries. Odysseus saw a soldier peer over the
battlements high above and pull back quickly, shouting to his fellows. An archer
leaned over with his bow, an arrow to the string. Patroklos was an easy target.

Then, from his right, Odysseus saw a flash of movement. In a heartbeat
Achilles had drawn a dagger and thrown it at the bowman high above them.
Odysseus saw it flash through the air, turning over and over in the moonlight,
and thunk into the dark shape of the bowman’s head. It was an impossible feat:
so small a target, at such a height, and in starlight.

Achilles dashed forward. “Get down, Patroklos, now!”

His shield bearer quickly climbed down the wall, jumping down the last
section, and the two ran back to the Myrmidons who were covering their retreat,
shooting arrows up at the gathering Trojan bowmen. Patroklos was laughing when
they reached the waiting Odysseus.

“Well, old king,” he said. “What of our wager now?”

“You did not reach the top of the wall.”

“I was stopped by enemy action.”

“Enemy action was not taken into account. It was a flawed wager.”

Patroklos shrugged amiably, and they all returned to the palace. But word had
reached Agamemnon of the young warrior’s climb, and the next day the Battle King
had come up with the doomed plan to scale the walls and take the Scaean Gate.

Odysseus smiled to himself as he walked back through the sunlit town two days
later. He liked Patroklos. Everyone did. He was always cheerful, often playing
the fool to amuse his king, and he was as brave as a lion. Strange, Odysseus
thought, that the fact that Patroklos clearly liked Achilles made the Thessalian
king, often brooding and uncommunicative, more well liked among his troops.

Patroklos provided some entertainment through the long days; that was much
needed by Odysseus, who spent as little time as possible with Agamemnon and the
western kings. Quarrels always broke out among them. Nestor and Idomeneos seldom
spoke after Sharptooth suddenly had withdrawn his archers from the field one
day, leaving Nestor’s troops without cover as they attacked one of the lower
town’s palaces. Sharptooth avoided Odysseus, for the Ithakan king never failed
to remind him that he owed Odysseus his gold and silver breastplate, wagered on
Banokles’ fistfight long ago at Apollo’s Bow. And Agamemnon and Achilles now
loathed each other and were constantly at war over something, even falling out
over the ownership of a female slave, the daughter of a priest. Odysseus knew it
would suit Agamemnon well if Achilles were to die at Troy. When they returned at
last to their homelands, he would not want such a strong king as a neighbor and
potential enemy.

As he walked through the lower town, the Ugly King looked around with
sadness. There were few palaces in this part of Troy. Here had been the homes of
craftspeople—dyers, potters, textile workers—and many of the servants to the
great houses of the mighty. Before the war there had been children running
through the streets and alleyways, colorful marketplaces in every square,
traders making deals, arguing and laughing, often fighting. Now all was
desolation, and the stink of death was everywhere. Bodies had been cleared from
the streets, but the Trojan families that had been killed in their homes were
still there, the corpses corrupting in the warmth of early summer.

In the distance he could hear the words of a funeral chant: “Hear our words,
O Hades, Lord of the Deepest Dark.” Dead warriors of the western armies went to
the funeral pyre after an honorable ritual. The families killed by them were
left to rot.

Deep in thought, Odysseus arrived at the hospital. It once had been the Ilean
barracks, then a hospital for the Trojan wounded, who had been slaughtered when
the lower town had been captured. Now it held the injured and dying soldiers of
Agamemnon’s armies. Odysseus hesitated before going in. He planned to visit his
wounded men but did not relish the duty. Pausing before the doorway, he met the
young healer Xander coming out. The boy looked tired beyond words, his tunic
covered in blood, both dried and fresh. There were even blood specks among the
freckles on his face.

“Odysseus!” the boy cried, his features lighting up. “Are you here to see
your men? You are the only king to visit his wounded troops, apart from
Achilles.”

“How is Thibo? Is he dead yet?”

“No, he has left here. He will be back in action in days. He is very tough.”

“You are the toughest among us, lad,” Odysseus said, laying a hand on the
boy’s shoulder. “Dealing with the stench and the screams of the dying every day,
the horrors of gangrene and amputations. Even the bravest soldiers avoid this
place. I confess I would rather be anywhere else.”

The boy nodded sadly. “The enemy—I mean, your armies brought few surgeons and
healers. They rely on whores and camp followers to help the wounded. The women
have stronger stomachs than the soldiers, but they have no skill. White-Eye
works all day and all night. I fear for him. Did you know Machaon died?” Xander
seemed dazed with exhaustion, and his thoughts were wandering. “I’m told he died
at noon on the day your troops took the Scamander. But he spoke to me, I heard
him, late that day, in the mist. He tried to get me to leave. But I was too
slow. I should have returned to the city while I still could. I let him down.”

He gazed at Odysseus, his eyes brimming with tears. The king pushed him
gently down onto a wooden bench outside the makeshift hospital.

“You are tired, lad, tired beyond reason. When did you last sleep?”

The boy shook his head dumbly. He did not know.

“I will see to it that you get more help. Is my man Leukon here?”

Xander nodded, seeming too tired to speak.

“Listen to me, lad,” Odysseus urged. “When the city falls, you must leave
here straightaway. Leave this place and get down to the Bay of Herakles as
quickly as you can. There are always Kypriot ships there, bringing supplies.
Board one of them and tell the master I sent you.”

But Xander was shaking his head. “No, Odysseus, I cannot. If the city falls,
I must try to help my friends. Zeotos is still at the House of Serpents, and
other healers. And there is the lady Andromache and her son. She is my friend. I
am a Trojan now, even if I am aiding your warriors.”

Suddenly angry, Odysseus cursed and grabbed the young healer by the front of
his tunic. “Listen to me, lad,” he rasped, “and listen to me well. I have seen
cities fall, too many to count over the years. Soldiers become animals at such
times. Every civilian, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered when the gates
open. None will escape. If you are there, they will kill you, maybe even someone
you helped, whose life you saved. You will be no more to them than a lamb among
the wolves.”

Xander shook his head again, but Odysseus could see that he was too tired to
argue. He let the boy go, and they sat in silence for a while. Odysseus
unstrapped his breastplate and removed it with relief.

Then Xander asked quietly, “When will Troy fall, do you think, Odysseus?”

“Days or years. Tomorrow—or in ten years’ time. I don’t know, lad. I’m just a
foot soldier in this story of heroes.”

He sighed and spoke quietly, as if to himself. “I made a pledge I sorely
regret, a pledge to Agamemnon that his enemies would be my enemies, his friends
my friends. Well, the man has no friends. But I swore to stand by his side until
his enemy is defeated. So I will stay here until the city falls to us, whenever
that is. Then I will take my men and return to my ships and sail away. And I
will live with it, boy, though it will not be easy.

“I also have friends in Troy, Xander, friends I have known a lifetime. But I
will not be running into the city to help them. They are beyond help. Everyone
living behind those walls is dead, lad. They may be walking Troy’s streets,
breathing her air, eating, sleeping, or making love. But they are all dead.”

After dawn the next day the kings of the west gathered in the House of Stone
Horses. Odysseus took grim amusement from the fact that Agamemnon had moved into
Helikaon’s palace. The Golden One had delivered many crippling blows to the
Mykene king, sinking his ships, killing his Followers, raiding his coastline.
The destruction of Menados’ fleet had been a humiliating defeat. Agamemnon’s
eagerness to capture his palace in Troy, a home Helikaon cared little for and
seldom resided in, revealed a lot about the Battle King. All the servants had
fled long since, and the rooms were bare. Odysseus chuckled to himself. Never
underestimate the pettiness of powerful men, he thought.

In the
megaron
were the kings with some of their aides. Black-bearded
Meriones, one of Odysseus’ oldest friends, was beside his king, Idomeneos, and
Patroklos lounged in a window, idly watching the empty street below. Kygones,
the Fat King of Lykia, was accompanied by his nephew Sarpedon, by all accounts a
formidable fighter. Some were breaking their fast with meat and corn bread.
Odysseus sipped at a goblet of water.

When Agamemnon arrived, his normally calm demeanor seemed disturbed.

“We lost a supply train last night,” he told them without any form of
greeting. “Sixteen carts of grain, wine, horse feed, and dried meats and fish,
coming here from the Bay of Herakles. The Trojan Horse struck on the Scamander
plain, more than three hundred of them. They killed the guards and drivers and
took the entire train of wagons. A detachment of cavalry was sent from King’s
Joy, and they killed them, too, and took their horses.”

There was silence in the
megaron,
and then Odysseus said, “It could
have been predicted. Sending supply wagons across the plain with less than a
regiment to protect them is more than foolishness. They are rabbits sitting
waiting for a pack of hounds.”

“Yet you”—Agamemnon pointed a thin finger at the Ithakan king—“travel with
your men back and forth to King’s Joy all the time. You have not been attacked.”

“One fat old king is hardly worth the effort of killing,” Odysseus replied.

“I have lost five more ships to Helikaon the Burner,” Menestheos of Athens
told them. “The
Xanthos
and the Trojan fleet attacked ten of my galleys
off Lesbos two days ago.”

“Did he burn them?” Idomeneos asked, his voice like the noise of a galley
being dragged across pebbles.

“No. Three were rammed and two captured, the crews killed. But I have a fleet
of fifty beached at the Bay of Herakles. They must be protected. We must not
forget that Helikaon destroyed an entire fleet in the Bay of Troy.”

“We are not likely to forget,” Agamemnon spit in a rare display of anger. “My
fleets patrol the seas off the bay,” he told Menestheos. “The
Xanthos
will not get through to attack them.”

“Helikaon will not try,” Odysseus pointed out. “He wants our ships there so
we can all leave. He has nothing to gain by attacking them. But he will take any
supply ship the
Xanthos
finds.”

“You seem to know well what is in your friend Helikaon’s mind,” Idomeneos
commented scornfully.

Odysseus sighed. “I speak only common sense. Troy’s best hope is that our
supplies fail and we are forced to give up our cause. The
Xanthos
at sea
and the Trojan Horse on land could between them leave us all starving by summer.
Soldiers need to be fed, and fed often.”

“The riders of the Trojan Horse also need supplies,” Agamemnon replied. “As
the summer goes on, they will not be able to live off the land, and their horses
will need feeding. They might be tempted to attack our supply wagons, even if
heavily defended. We might use that to our advantage.”

Odysseus asked him, “Was Hektor leading last night’s attack?”

“He was,” the Mykene king answered. “This is one piece of good news. Hektor
no longer commands in Troy. He is out leading raiding parties.”

“Then who does command in the city?” Sharptooth asked. “Priam? The rumor is
that he has lost his mind. They are friends of yours, Odysseus.” He sneered.
“Who orders Troy’s defenses now?”