The Song of Troy (31 page)

‘Well, sire, looking at the formidable array of allies here today, I can’t see that you’ll have need of the men of Dardania to help crush the Greeks. When your need is genuine, I’ll bring an army. But not in the spring.’

‘My need is genuine next spring!’

‘I doubt that.’

Priam struck the floor with his ivory sceptre; the emerald in its head gave out blue sparks. ‘I want your men!’

‘I can’t pledge anything without my father the King’s explicit permission, sire, and I have not got it.’

Beyond speech, Priam turned his head away.

As soon as we were alone, consumed with curiosity, I quizzed Paris about that strange argument.

‘What lies between your father and Prince Aineas?’

Paris tugged my hair lazily. ‘Rivalry.’

‘Rivalry? But one rules Dardania, the other Troy!’

‘Yes, but there’s an oracle which says that Aineas will rule Troy one day. My father fears the word of the God. Aineas knows the oracle too, so he always expects to be treated like the Heir. But when you consider that my father has fifty sons, Aineas’s attitude is quite ridiculous. My theory is that the oracle refers to another Aineas some time in the future.’

‘He seems a man,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Very attractive.’

Liquid eyes gleamed at me. ‘Never forget whose wife you are, Helen. Stay away from Aineas.’

The feeling between me and Paris was waning. How could that have happened, when I had fallen in love with him at first glance? Yet it had, I suppose because I soon discovered that despite his passion for me, Paris couldn’t resist the urge to philander. Nor, in the summer, his urge to frolic in the vicinity of Mount Ida. In that one summer between my arrival in Troy and the advent of the Greeks, Paris disappeared for six full moons. When he finally returned, he didn’t even apologise! Nor could he be brought to see how I suffered in his absence.

Some of the Court women did everything they could think of to make my existence prickly and unbearable. Queen Hekabe loathed me; she considered me her beloved Paris’s ruination. Hektor’s wife, Andromache, loathed me because I had usurped her title of Most Beautiful – and because she was terrified Hektor might succumb to my charms. As if I could have bothered! Hektor was a prig and a nuisance, so up and down and rigid that I soon deemed him the most boring man in a court of boring men.

It was the young priestess Kassandra who terrified me. She would sweep around the halls and corridors with her black hair streaming wildly, her eyes stark with madness, her white face ravaged. Every time she saw me she would launch into a shrill diatribe of abusive nonsense, words and ideas so tangled that no one could see their logic. I was a daimon. I was a horse. I was the agent of misrule. I was in league with Dardania. I was in league with Agamemnon. I was the downfall of Troy. And so on, and so forth. She upset me, which Hekabe and Andromache soon discovered. That led them to encourage Kassandra to lie in wait for me; they hoped, of course, that I would confine myself to my room. But Helen is made of stronger stuff than that. Instead of retreating, I got into the annoying habit of joining Hekabe, Andromache and the other high noblewomen in their recreation chamber, there to irritate them by stroking my breasts (they really are gorgeous) under their scandalised eyes (not one of them could have bared her own collection of loose beans in the bottom of a bag). When that palled I would slap the servants, spill milk on their boring tapestries and lengths of cloth, engage in monologues about rape, fire and plunder. One memorable morning I enraged Andromache so much that she flew at me with teeth and nails, only to discover that Helen had wrestled as a girl, and was more than a match for a carefully nurtured lady. I tripped her up and walloped her on the eye, which swelled, closed and blackened for almost a moon. Then I went round coyly whispering that Hektor had done it.

Paris was always being nagged to discipline me; his mother in particular badgered him constantly. But whenever he sought to remonstrate with me or beg me to be nicer, I laughed at him and gave him a litany of the offences the other women committed against me. All of which meant that I saw less and less of Paris.

In early winter the first disquiet gripped the Trojan Court. It was rumoured that the Greeks were gone from the beach, that they were raiding up and down the Asia Minor coast to strike at cities and towns far apart. Yet when heavily armed detachments were sent to investigate the beach, they found the Greeks very much present, ready to issue out and skirmish. Even so, word of the raiding became positive as winter drew on; one by one Priam’s allies sent word that they could no longer honour their promises of armies in the spring. Their own lands were threatened. Tarses in Kilikia went up in flames, its people dead or sold into slavery; the fields and pastures for fifty leagues around were burned, the grain taken and loaded on board Greek ships, the stock slaughtered and smoked for Greek bellies in Kilikian smokehouses, the shrines stripped of their treasures, King Eetion’s palace looted. Mysia suffered next. Lesbos sent aid to Mysia, and in its turn was attacked. Thermi was razed to the ground; the Lesbians licked their wounds and wondered whether it might be more politic to remember the Greek half of their ancestry, and declare for Agamemnon. Then when Priene and Miletos in Karia succumbed, the panic increased. Even Sarpedon and Glaukos, the double Kings, were forced to stay at home in Lykia.

We received news of each fresh strike in a most novel way. The message was brought by a Greek herald who stood outside the Skaian Gate and shouted his news for Priam to the captain of the western watchtower. He would detail the city sacked, the number of dead citizens, the number of women and children sold into slavery, the value of the spoils, the dippers of grain. And he always ended his message with the same words:

‘Tell Priam, King of Troy, that Achilles the son of Peleus sends me!’

Trojans grew to dread the mention of that name, Achilles. In the spring Priam had to endure the presence of the Greek camp in silence, for no allied forces arrived to swell his ranks, nor money to buy mercenaries from the Hittites, Assyria or Babylonia. Trojan money had to be carefully conserved; it was the Greeks who now collected the Hellespont tolls.

A certain greyness entered both Trojan hearts and Trojan rooms. And, as I was the only Greek in the Citadel, everyone from Priam to Hekabe asked me who was this Achilles. I told them as much as I could remember, but when I explained that he was hardly more than a lad – though of splendid stock – they doubted me.

As time went on fear of Achilles grew greater; the mere mention of his name turned Priam pale. Only Hektor displayed no evidence of fright. He burned to meet Achilles. His eyes would light up, his hand seek his dagger each time the Greek herald came to the Skaian Gate. Indeed, to meet Achilles became such an obsession with him that he took to offering at every altar, praying for the chance to slay Achilles. When he sought me out to quiz me, he refused to believe my answers.

As autumn of the second year arrived, Hektor lost patience and begged his father to let him lead the whole Trojan army out.

Priam stared as if his Heir had gone mad. ‘No, Hektor.’

‘Sire, our investigations have revealed that the Greeks left on the beach number less than half of the total Greek strength! We could beat them! And when we do, Achilles’s army will have to return to Troy! Then we’ll beat him!’

‘Or be beaten ourselves.’

‘Sire, we outnumber them!’ Hektor cried.

‘I don’t believe that.’

Hands clenched, Hektor kept finding new reasons to convince the terrified old man that he was right. ‘Then, sire, give me leave to go to Aineas in Lyrnessos – with the Dardanians added to our reserves, we
would
outnumber Agamemnon!’

‘Aineas doesn’t wish to involve himself in our dilemmas.’

‘Aineas would listen to me, Father.’

Priam drew himself up, outraged. ‘Authorise my son, the Heir himself, to
beg
from the Dardanians? Are you out of your mind, Hektor? I’d rather be dead than bow and scrape to Aineas!’

At which moment I chanced to see Aineas. He had only just entered the Throne Room, but he had heard enough of the exchange at the dais. His mouth was drawn down; his eyes went from Hektor to Priam, the thoughts behind them veiled. Before anyone important noticed him –
I
was not important – he turned and left.

‘Sire,’ said Hektor desperately, ‘you can’t expect us to remain within our walls for ever! The Greeks are intent upon reducing our allies to ashes! Our wealth is dwindling because our income is gone and provisioning ourselves is costing more and more. If you won’t let me lead the whole army out, then at least let me lead out raiding parties to catch the Greeks unaware, harry their hunting parties and make them stop these insolent expeditions to our walls to insult us!’

Priam wavered. He dropped his chin into his hand and thought for a long time. After which he sighed and said, ‘Very well. Get you to drilling the men. If you can convince me that this isn’t a foolhardy scheme, you may do as you ask.’

Hektor’s face shone. ‘We won’t disappoint you, sire.’

‘I hope not,’ said Priam wearily.

Someone in the Throne Room began to laugh. I looked around, surprised; I had thought Paris away again. But there he stood, laughing helplessly. Hektor’s expression darkened; he stepped down from the dais and pushed his way through the crowd.

‘What’s so amusing, Paris?’

My husband sobered a little, threw an arm around Hektor’s shoulders. ‘You, Hektor, you! Fussing about mere skirmishing when you have such a lovely wife at home. How can you prefer war to women?’

‘Because,’ said Hektor deliberately, ‘I’m a man, Paris, not a pretty boy.’

I stood turned to stone. My husband was not only a fool, he was also a coward. Oh, the humiliation! Feeling all the contemptuous looks around me, I walked out.

Two beautiful fools, Paris and I. I had given up my throne, my freedom and my children – why did I miss them so little? – to live in prison with a beautiful fool who was also a coward. Why
did
I miss them so little? The answer was easy. They belonged to Menelaos, and somewhere in my mind I now had to lump Menelaos, my children and Paris into the same unpalatable parcel. Was there ever a fate worse for a woman than to know that not one person in her life is worthy of her?

Needing fresh air, I went to the courtyard below my own apartments, and there paced up and down until my pain abated. Then, turning quickly, I ran full tilt into a man coming the other way. We put out our hands instinctively; he held me at arm’s length for a moment looking curiously into my face, the last traces of his own anger dying out of his dark eyes.

‘You must be Helen,’ he said.

‘And you’re Aineas.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t come to Troy often,’ I said, very much enjoying looking at him.

‘Can you think of one reason why I should?’

No point in dissimulating. I smiled. ‘No.’

‘I like the smile, but you’re angry,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘That’s my own business.’

‘Quarrelled with Paris, have you?’

‘Not at all,’ I answered, shaking my head. ‘To quarrel with Paris is as difficult as taking hold of quicksilver.’

‘True.’

Whereupon he caressed my left breast. ‘An interesting fashion, to bare them. But they inflame a man, Helen.’

My lashes fell, my mouth turned up at its corners. ‘That’s nice to know,’ I said, low voiced. Expecting a kiss, I leaned towards him with my eyes still shut. But when, feeling nothing, I opened them, I found he had gone.

Boredom a thing of the past, I went to the next assembly intent upon seducing Aineas. Who was not present. When I asked Hektor very casually what had become of his cousin from Dardania, he said that Aineas had packed his horses in the night and gone home.

17

NARRATED BY

Patrokles

The states of Asia Minor nursed their wounds, sullenly crouching back against the vast mountains which belonged to the Hittites. They were frightened to move to Troy and frightened to band together in any one place because they had no idea whereabouts we Greeks would strike next. Actually we defeated them before we so much as sailed on our first campaign; all the advantages lay with us, cruising down the coast just too far out to be spied from land, mobile beyond any move they could make, for there were no easy roads between the various foci of settlement in that land of river valleys between rugged ranges. The Asia Minor nations communicated by sea, and we ruled the sea.

During the first year we intercepted many ships bearing arms and food for Troy, but these convoys ceased after they realised that we Greeks benefited, not Troy. We were too many for them; none of the cities dotted up and down that very long coast could hope to marshal resistance strong enough to defeat us in battle, nor were their city walls able to keep us out. Thus we sacked ten cities in two years, far down past Rhodos to Tarses in Kilikia, as close to Troy as Mysia and Lesbos.

When we ranged the seas Phoinix always gave charge of the feeder line between Assos and Troy to his second-in-command, and sailed with us in command of two hundred empty ships to accommodate the spoils. Their bellies rode low in the water when we shook our sails free of the smoke of a burning city, our troop vessels creaking with extra plunder. Achilles was ruthless. Few were left behind to breed future resistance. Those we could not carry into slavery or sell to Egypt and Babylon were slain – old crones and withered men, those no one had any use for. His was a hated name along that shoreline, and I could not find it in my heart to condemn them for hating Achilles.

As we entered our third year Assos stirred and came to life sluggishly; the snow was melting, the trees in bud. We knew no quarrels or differences, for we had long forgotten any loyalties save those we owed to Achilles and the Second Army.

Sixty-five thousand men were quartered at Assos: a core of twenty thousand veterans who never left for Troy, thirty thousand more who stayed with us for the duration of the campaign season, and fifteen thousand tradesmen and artificers of all kinds, some of whom remained in Assos year round. One of the permanent leaders always garrisoned Assos in case of attack from Dardania while the fleet was away; even Ajax took his turn at this, though Achilles always sailed. As I would not be parted from Achilles, I always sailed too. He was a fierce commander, one who never gave quarter or listened to pleas for surrender. Once he donned armour he was as cold as the North Wind, implacable. The object of our existence, he would say to us, was to ensure Greek supremacy and leave no opposition against the day the Greek nations would begin to send their surplus citizens to colonise Asia Minor.