The Song of Troy (58 page)

Agamemnon inclined that imperial, whitening head. ‘Sing, Alphides of Salmydessos.’

He passed his fingers tenderly across the stiff strings to draw out his beloved lyre in slow melodic pain; the song was sad and yet glorious, a song of Troy and Agamemnon’s army before its walls. He cast us rapt for a very long time, for such a titan of a poem isn’t sung in two or three moments. We sat with our chins on our hands, and not an eye was open or a cheek dry. He ended with the death of Achilles. The rest was too sorrowful. Even now we found it hard to think of Ajax.

‘All gold in death, he who was always gold in life,

His beautiful mask wafting thin and unfluttered,

His breath gone forever, his shade dissolved away.

Heavy his clasped hands sheathed in golden gloves,

All his mortality melted, his glory become mere metal,

Peerless Achilles, his brazen voice struck to silence.

O divine Muse, lift my heart, let me give him life!

Through my words let him be clothed in living gold,

Let his footsteps ring hollow with fear and dread,

Let him stride across the plain before sullen Troy!

Let me show him shake back his long golden plumes,

Remember him gleaming like the splendid sun above,

Running tireless through the dewed grasses of Troy

With the ribbons on his cuirass nodding the rhythm,

Glorious Achilles who was the lipless son of Peleus.’

We praised the harper Alphides of Salmydessos long and loud through aching hearts; he had given us a taste of immortality, for his song was sure to live far longer than any of us. I think it was that we still breathed, yet were in the song. The load was too heavy to bear.

When the applause finally ended I wanted to be alone with Odysseus; a gathering of men seemed alien to the mood the harper had inspired in us. I looked across at Odysseus, who understood without having to defile the moment with words. He got up, turned towards the door, and gasped audibly. Because a sudden silence had fallen on the room, all our heads turned his way. And we gasped.

At first the likeness was uncanny; with the spell of the song still strong on us, it was as if Alphides of Salmydessos had conjured up a ghost to hear his music. I thought, Achilles has come to listen too! But who has given him the blood to allow his shade substance?

Then I looked more closely and saw that he wasn’t Achilles. This man was as tall and as broad, but he was many years younger. The beard was hardly stiff and the stubble a darker gold, the eyes more amber. And he owned two perfectly formed lips.

How long he had been standing there none of us knew, but from the suffering in his face it must have been long enough to have heard at least the conclusion of the song.

Agamemnon rose and went to him with arm extended. ‘You are Neoptolemos, son of Achilles. Welcome,’ he said.

The young man nodded gravely. ‘Thank you. I came to help, but I set sail before – before I knew my father was dead. I learned it from the harper.’

Odysseus joined them. ‘What better way to learn such awful news?’ he asked.

Sighing, Neoptolemos bowed his head. ‘Yes. The song told it all. Is Paris dead?’

Agamemnon took both his hands. ‘He is.’

‘Who killed him?’

‘Philoktetes, with the arrows of Herakles.’

He tried to be polite, to keep his features impassive. ‘I am sorry, but I don’t know your names. Which is Philoktetes?’

Philoktetes spoke. ‘I am he.’

‘I wasn’t here to avenge him, so I must thank you.’

‘I know, boy. You would rather have done it yourself. But I happened on the rogue by chance – or with the connivance of the Gods. Who can tell? And now, since you don’t know us, let me introduce us. Our High King greeted you first. Next was Odysseus. The rest are Nestor, Idomeneus, Menelaos, Diomedes, Automedon, Menestheus, Meriones, Machaon and Eurypylos.’

I thought, how thin our ranks have grown!

Odysseus, an ecstatic Automedon and I took Neoptolemos to the Myrmidon stockade. It was a longish walk, and news of his arrival had preceded us. All along the way soldiers emptied out of their houses, standing in the bitter sun to cheer him as wholeheartedly as they had used to cheer his father. We discovered that he was like Achilles in more than looks; he acknowledged their wild joy with the same quiet smile and careless wave, and like his father he lived unto himself, he didn’t spread his character lavishly on everyone he came in contact with. As we walked we filled in the gaps in the song, told him how Ajax had died, told him of Antilochos and all the others who were dead. Then we told him about the living.

The Myrmidons were drawn up on parade. Not a single cheer until the boy – he couldn’t have been more than a bare eighteen – had spoken to them. Then they pounded the flats of their swords against their shields until the noise of it drove Odysseus and I away. We strolled to the other end of the beach and our own compound.

‘And so it draws to an end, Diomedes.’

‘If the Gods know the meaning of pity at all, I pray it draws to an end,’ I said.

He blew a wisp of red hair out of his eyes. ‘Ten years… How curious that Kalchas was right about that. I wonder was it a fluke, or if he really did have the Second Sight?’

I shivered. ‘It isn’t politic to doubt priestly powers.’

‘Maybe, maybe. Oh, to shake the dust of Troy from my hair! To sail the open seas again! To wash away the stench of this plain with clean salt water! To go somewhere the air is windless, and the stars shine without competition from ten thousand campfires! To be
purified
!’

‘I echo all that, Odysseus. Though it’s hard to believe too that it’s almost over.’

‘It will finish with a cataclysm to rival Poseidon.’

I stared. ‘You’ve worked out how to do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Before the moment? Diomedes, Diomedes! Not even for you! But it won’t be long until the moment.’

‘Come inside and let me bathe those lash stripes.’

Which made him laugh. ‘They’ll heal,’ he said.

The following evening Neoptolemos came to dinner.

‘I have something in trust for you, Neoptolemos,’ said Odysseus after the meal was over. ‘It’s my gift to you.’

Neoptolemos glanced at me, puzzled. ‘What does he mean?’

I shrugged. ‘How can any man know except Odysseus?’

He came back wheeling a huge tripod, on it spread the golden armour Thetis had begged from Hephaistos Fire. Neoptolemos jumped to his feet stammering something I didn’t understand, then reached out and touched the cuirass delicately, lovingly.

‘I was angry,’ he said, tears in his eyes, ‘when Automedon told me you’d won it in debate with Ajax. But I must ask your pardon. You won it to give it to me?’

Odysseus grinned. ‘You’ll fit it, lad. It should be worn, not hung up on a wall or wasted on a dead man’s relatives. Wear it, Neoptolemos, and may it bring you good luck. However, it will take some getting used to. It weighs about the same as you do.’

We got into a few minor skirmishes during the five days which followed; Neoptolemos got his first taste of Trojans, and licked his lips. He was a warrior, born to it and hungering for it. Only time was his enemy, and that he knew. His eyes told all of us he understood that his was to be a minor role in the closing moments of a great war; that the laurel wreaths would be woven for other brows, brows which had endured the full ten years. Yet in himself he was the deciding factor. He brought hope, fury and renewed enthusiasm; the eyes of the soldiers, Myrmidon or Argive or Aitolian made no difference, followed him with doglike devotion as he rode in his father’s chariot wearing his father’s armour. To them he
was
Achilles. And all the while I continued to watch Odysseus, avid for the summons to council.

It came half a moon after Neoptolemos arrived, from one of the imperial heralds: the next day, after the midday meal. I knew it was useless to try to pump Odysseus, so after we finished supper together I assumed a completely disinterested air as I listened to him pick a subject up and toss it as lightly and deftly as a tumbler his gilded ball. He took my attitude very well, only collapsing into helpless laughter when, very dignified, I took my leave of him. I could have kicked him, but I still smarted from that whipping more than he did, so I refrained; I made do with a pungent description of his ancestors instead.

They all came to Agamemnon’s early, like hounds on the leash sniffing fresh blood, dressed carefully in their best kilts and jewels, as if they were going to a formal reception in the Lion Room at Mykenai. The imperial chief herald stood at the foot of the Lion Chair calling out the names of those present to an underling whose job it was to commit them to memory for posterity.

‘Imperial Agamemnon, High King of Mykenai, King of Kings;

Idomeneus, High King of Crete;

Mehestheus, High King of Attika;

Nestor, King of Pylos;

Menelaos, King of Lakedaimon;

Diomedes, King of Argos;

Odysseus, King of the Out Islands;

Philoktetes, King of Hestaiotis;

Eurypylos, King of Ormenion;

Thoas, King of Aitolia;

Agapenor, King of Arkadia;

Ajax, son of Oileus, King of Lokris;

Meriones, Prince of Crete, Heir to Crete;

Neoptolemos, Prince of Thessalia, Heir to Thessalia;

Teukros, Prince of Salamis;

Machaon, Surgeon;

Podalieros, Surgeon;

Epeios, Engineer.’

The King of Kings nodded to his heralds to leave, and handed Meriones the Staff of Debate. He then spoke to us in the very stilted language of formal pronouncements.

‘After Priam, King of Troy, did break the sacred covenants of war, I did commission Odysseus, King of Ithaka, to devise a plan to take Troy by stealth and trickery. I am informed that Odysseus, King of Ithaka, is ready to speak. You are all called upon to witness his words. Royal Odysseus, you have the floor.’

Smiling at Meriones, Odysseus got up. ‘Keep the Staff for me.’ Then he took a rolled-up piece of soft pale hide from the table in the centre of the room and walked to a wall we could all see. There he flipped the hide open and pinned it securely to the wall with a little jewelled dagger in each of its four corners.

To the last one we stared at it blankly, wondering if we were the victims of a hoax. Admittedly well done in its way, it was a drawing etched thickly on the hide in black charcoal: a sort of a horse done very large, and to one side of it, a vertical line.

Odysseus looked at us enigmatically. ‘Yes, it is a drawing of a horse. No doubt you’re wondering why Epeios is here with us today. Well, he’s here with us today so that I can ask him some questions and he can give me some answers.’

He turned to Epeios, as bewildered as he was uncomfortable in this exalted company.

‘Epeios, you’re held the finest engineer Greece has produced since Aiakos died. You’re also held to be the finest wood worker. Look at the drawing carefully. Note the line beside the horse. The length of that line is the height of the walls of Troy.’

Mystified, we all looked as intently as Epeios did.

‘First of all, Epeios, I want your opinion on something,’ said the King of the Out Islands. ‘You’ve had ten years in which to observe the walls of Troy. Tell me: is there any battering ram, any siege engine in the world capable of demolishing the Skaian Gate?’

‘No, King Odysseus.’

‘Very well, then! A second question: using what materials, craftsmen and facilities you have right here now, could you build me a huge ship?’

‘Yes, sire. I have shipwrights, carpenters, masons, sawyers and plenty of unskilled labour. And I estimate that there’s enough timber of the right kind within five leagues of here to build you a fleet of such ships.’

‘Excellent! Now the third question: could you build me a wooden horse the size of this animal on the chart? Note the black line again. It is thirty cubits, the height of the Trojan walls. From which you will see that at its ears the horse is thirty-five cubits tall. And – question four – could you build this horse on a wheeled platform capable of holding its weight? And – my fifth question – could you make the horse hollow?’

Epeios began to smile; evidently the project tickled his fancy. ‘Yes, sire, to all your questions.’

‘How long would it take you?’

‘A matter of days only, sire.’

Odysseus unpinned the hide and tossed it to the engineer. ‘Thank you. Take this and go to my house. I’ll see you there.’

We were totally at a loss. Our faces must have been studies in bewilderment, apprehension and suspicion, but as we waited for Epeios to depart Nestor began to chuckle, as if he suddenly saw the most exquisite joke of all his long, long life.

Odysseus flung his arms wide and grew in height until he seemed to tower; he was off now, which meant none of us could have either swayed or stopped him. Gesturing magnificently, he made his voice ring around the rafters.

‘That, my fellow Kings and Princes, is how to take Troy!’

We sat mumchance and stared at him.

‘Yes, Nestor, you’re right. So are you, Agamemnon. First of all, a horse that size will hold within its belly, I estimate, about one hundred men. And if the sortie is silent, nocturnal and unsuspected, one hundred men will be quite sufficient to open the Skaian Gate.’

The queries came thick and fast from every quarter of the room. Doubters yelled, enthusiasts cheered, and pandemonium ruled until Agamemnon climbed off the Lion Chair to take the Staff from Meriones and drum it on the floor.

‘You may ask all your questions, but in a more orderly way – and after me. Odysseus, sit down and pour yourself some wine, then explain this scheme in every little detail.’

The council broke up as darkness was falling; I accompanied Odysseus back to his house. Epeios was waiting patiently, the hide chart open before him; it now contained several more and smaller drawings. I listened idly as the pair of them discussed technical matters – the things Epeios would need, the approximate length of time the task would take – the necessity for absolute secrecy.