Doctor Who: The Myth Makers (4 page)

playing skittles, most of them, with old thigh bones and a skull which had seen better days; and pretty soon I found myself outside the Commander’s quarters – the wartent of Agamemnon.

And a fairly squalid sort of affair that was! Made, as far as I could tell, of goat-skin – and badly cured goat-skin at that – it flapped and sagged in the humid air, each movement of the putrid pelts releasing an unmentionable stench, which. one hoped, had nothing to do with the evening meal! Because, as I could see through the open tent-flap, Agamemnon himself and a dinner guest were busily attacking the light refreshment with all the disgusting gusto of a dormitory feast in a reform school.

And how did I know it was Agamemnon, you may ask? It was impossible to mistake him – one has seen portraits, of course, and heard the unsavoury stories: a great coarse bully of a man, who looked as though he deserved every bit of what was coming to him when he got home. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow! The Furies must have been off their heads, hounding his family the way they did. A justifiable homicide, if ever there was one, I’d say! But that, of course, is another story; and far off in the future, at that time.

No, it was Agamemnon all right: those rather vicious good looks and the body of an athlete run to seed look fine on the Mycenaean coins, but not in the flesh. And there was plenty of that in evidence; relaxed and unlaced as he was, after a hard day beating the living daylights out of the domestic help, I suppose, and generally carrying on. A sprinkling of the latter cowered cravenly in the offing, playing ‘catch the ham-bone’ amid a shower of detritus which the master tossed tidily over his shoulder, while otherwise engaged in putting the fear of god into Menelaus.

For that’s who his companion was, without a doubt; apart from an unfortunate family resemblance, there was a wealth of sibling feeling concealed in their gruff remarks.

‘You drink too much,’ belched Agamemnon, with his mouth full – or at least, it had been full before he spoke. Now... well, never mind. ‘Why can’t you learn to behave more like a king, instead of a dropsical old camp follower? Try to remember you’re my brother, and learn a little dignity.’

Blearily, Menelaus uncorked himself from a bottle of the full-bodied Samoan. ‘One of the reasons I drink, Agamemnon, is to forget that I’m your brother! Ever since we were boys, you’ve dragged me backwards to fiasco – and this disastrous Trojan escapade takes the Bacchantes’ bath-salts for incompetence! If not the Gorgon’s hair-net,’ he added, anxious to clinch the matter with a telling phrase. ‘Ten foul years we’ve been here, and... well, I’m not getting any younger. I want to go home!’

‘You won’t get a lot older if you take that tone with me –

brother or no brother! What’s the matter with you, man? Don’t you want to see Helen again? Don’t you want to get your wife back?’

‘Now I’m glad you asked me that – because, quite frankly, no, I don’t. And if you’d raised the point before, you’d have saved us a great deal of trouble. If you want to know, I was heartily glad to see the back of her.’

Agamemnon looked shocked. ‘You shouldn’t talk like that in front of the servants,’ he said, lowering his voice to a bellow.

‘Well, it wasn’t the first time she’d let herself be – shall we say – abducted?’ said Menelaus, raising his to a whisper. ‘There was that awful business with Hercules, remember? And if we ever do get her back, I’ll wager it won’t be the last time either. I can’t keep on rushing off to the ends of the Earth after her.

Makes me a laughing stock...’ He recorked himself, moodily.

‘Now, you knew perfectly well what she was like before you married her. I warned you at the time, no good would come of it. But since you were so besotted as not to listen, it became a question of honour to get her back. Of
family
honour, you understand?’

‘Not to mention King Priam’s trading concessions, of course!

You’re just making my marriage problems serve your political ambitions. Think I don’t know?’

Agamemnon sighed deeply. The effect was unpleasant, even at a range of several yards. Candle flames trembled, and sank back into their sockets: as did his brother’s blood-shot eyes.

‘There may be some truth in that,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t say there is, but there may be. However, I must remind you that these ambitions would have been served just as well if you had killed Paris in single combat, as was expected of you. That’s what betrayed husbands do, damn it! They kill their wife’s lovers.

Everybody knows that. And Paris was quite prepared to let the whole issue be decided by such a contest – he told me so. So don’t blame me because you’ve dragged us into a full scale war –

because I won’t have it.’

Menelaus looked aggrieved. ‘But I
did
challenge him, if you remember? First thing I did when I noticed she’d gone! Ten rotten years ago! And the fellow wouldn’t accept.’

‘True,’ said Agamemnon, giving a grudging nod with a chin or two. ‘So you did, and so he wouldn’t. He’s as cowardly as you are!’

‘Once and for all, I am not a coward! I wish you wouldn’t keep on.’

‘Well, if you’re such a fire-eater, why don’t you challenge someone else, then – if only for the look of the thing? Why not challenge Hector, for instance?’

In a vain attempt to increase his stature, Menelaus staggered to his feet, ‘Are you demented? Not even Ajax would go against Hector, it would be suicide!’

‘Now you don’t know till you’ve tried, do you?’ asked his brother, reasonably. ‘I think this is a very good idea of yours.

Tell you what, I shall issue the challenge first thing in the morning on your behalf. That will lend credibility, won’t it?’

And no doubt he would have done, too. Menelaus obviously thought so, and blanched beneath his pallor to prove it.

But at this moment Achilles made the entrance for which he’d been rehearsing. He had wisely discarded any elaborate form of words in favour of the simple, dramatic announcement:

‘Hector is dead!’ – and he waited stauesquely for his well-earned applause.

To his surprise, he didn’t get it. Mind you, Menelaus did mop his brow and sink back on his quivering buttocks: but Agamemnon’s reaction was perhaps not all that could have been desired by a popular hero of the hour. Generals are not used to having their master-plans so abruptly rebuffed... He tapped the table with a fist like diseased pork.

‘When?’ he inquired irritably. ‘How in Hades did that happen?’

‘This afternoon,’ explained Achilles, rather lamely – his whole effect spoiled. ‘I slew him myself, after an hour or so of single combat,’ he added hopefully, trying to recapture the original impetus.

‘Oh, you did, did you? Well, congratulations, of course. Still

– there’s another good idea wasted!’

‘What do you mean “wasted”?’ pouted the understandably crestfallen combatant; ‘Here, have I been wearing my sandals to shreds...’

‘Yes, yes, yes – of course you have,’ agreed Agamemnon, too late for comfort, ‘it’s just that Menelaus here was about to challenge him, weren’t you? Well, now we’ll just have to think of something else for him to do, damn it! Still, you mustn’t think I’m not pleased with you, because I am. You’ve done very well –

better than anybody could have expected. So, why don’t you sit down and tell us about it?’

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Achilles, rather stiffly, ‘I think I’d prefer to make my report officially, tomorrow morning – before our assembled forces, if that could be managed.’

‘I suppose something might be organized on those lines...’

‘But for the moment, I have other more important news!’

‘More important than the death of Hector? What a busy day you’ve been having, to be sure. Go on, then.’

Achilles took a deep breath. This, you could tell he felt, was the high spot. ‘At the height of my battle with Hector, there came a sudden lightning flash, and Father Zeus appeared before me!’

There was a silence, during which Menelaus spilled his wine.

‘Eh?’ he enquired nervously.

‘It’s all right, Menelaus,’ comforted his brother, ‘he’s been listening to too much propaganda, haven’t you Achilles? Mind you, I don’t say we couldn’t use a story like that – it’s quite a good notion in fact. But you mustn’t go taking that sort of thing seriously – or you’ll lose the men’s respect.’

‘But it’s true, I tell you!’ said Achilles, stamping petulantly,

‘He appeared from nowhere, in the shape of a little old man...’

Agamemnon considered. One had
heard
of these cases, of course. ‘Hmm... did he, indeed? And where is he now, this little old man of yours?’

‘I’m afraid I have to report that Odysseus and his men took him prisoner!’

Now it was Agememnon’s turn to attempt the leaping to the feet routine. He succeeded only partially – then thought better of it, and did the table-thumping trick again instead. ‘They did
what
?’

‘Odysseus mocked him. Then they seized him – and they’re dragging him back here now. I ran ahead to warn you..

‘You did well.’ Recognition at last! ‘Perdition take Odysseus!

After all, you can’t be too careful these days. It
may
, in fact,
be
Zeus – and then where would we all be?’

‘Precisely,’ agreed Menelaus, taking another large gulp of his medicine.

‘
May
be Zeus?’ trumpeted Achilles, indignantly, ‘I tell you, he appeared out of thin air, complete with his temple.’

‘Oh, he would do – that’s what he does!’ moaned Menelaus.

‘Heaven help us!’

‘Be quiet, Menelaus!’ said Agamemnon. ‘Guard, go seek the Lord Odysseus and command his presence here.’

But it wasn’t a good day for Agamemnon; for the second time in as many minutes, his initiative was frustrated by events.

Even as the guard struggled to attention, preparatory to completing his esteemed order, Odysseus himself barrelled through the tent-flap.

‘Command?’ he questioned, bubbling with menace, ‘who dares command Odysseus?’ And he flung the good Doctor into the centre of the appreciative audience before him.

7

It was not, perhaps, the dignified entrance the Doctor would have chosen, left to himself; but with his usual resilience, he determined to make the best of a bad job. Rather neatly he did it too, in my opinion.

‘Exactly!’ he said, before Agamemnon could attempt to stand on ceremony, ‘That is what I should like to know! Who
is
in command round here?’

Absolutely the right tone, under the circumstances – because so unexpected, you see? And you could tell Agamemnon was somewhat disconcerted by it.

‘I... er... that is to say, I have that honour,’ he replied defensively.

‘Ah, just so. Then you, I take it, are Agamemnon?’

‘Well, most people, you know, call me Lord Agamemnon –

but let that pass for the moment.’

‘I would prefer to – at least until we see whether you are worthy of the title.’

‘Most people find it advisable to take that for granted.’

‘Dear me, do they now? Then perhaps you will explain why this mountebank, Odysseus, presumes to be a law unto himself –

insults your guests, and even dares to laugh at Zeus?’

‘Careful, dotard!’ rumbled Odysseus. ‘It seems,’ he said to the company at large, ‘that times upon Olympus are not what they were, and gods must go a-begging.’

The remark had a mixed reception: Menelaus, for instance, got under the table, while Achilles looked angry and Agamemnon thoughtful.

‘Odysseus will be reprimanded,’ he conceded. ‘If, that is, you are who you say you are.’

‘Should that make any difference? Whether I be god or man, I come to you in peace.’

‘Quite so. But if I may inquire, with all respect, which are you?’ Not wishing to commit himself at this point, the Doctor passed the buck.

‘Didn’t Achilles tell you?’

‘Achilles is a good lad, but impressionable. Whereas Odysseus, with all his faults, is a man of the world, and perceptive with it – and he seems to disagree. Now, you see my quandary? I suppose I can hardly ask for your credentials, can I?’

‘I would not advise it,’ said the Doctor, hastily, ‘I suggest, however that you treat with me honour – as befits a stranger.’

Achilles was feeling a bit left out of things, and tried to grab some of the action. ‘Of course he’s right – of course we must –

and it’s what I’ve been
trying
to do. Fools, don’t you see, he’s Zeus and he’s come to help us?’

A good try – but he still hadn’t won the meeting over, not by a long sight. The Doctor knew it, and made what he took to be a shrewd point.

‘Look here, suppose for a moment that I
were
an enemy, then what could one man do, alone, against the glory that is Greece, eh?’

‘A neat phrase,’ admitted Agamemnon.

‘And a good point,’ added his brother, confirming the Doctor’s opinion and emerging cautiously from hiding.

‘Which only you would be fool enough to take,’ snarled Odysseus, out of patience. ‘The man is a spy! Deal with him –

and be brief, or I shall undertake it for you!’

Achilles bounded forward, in that impetuous way of his.

‘After I am dead, Odysseus, and only then!’

Odysseus could make a concession, if he had to. ‘If you insist,’ he smiled, ‘I shall be happy to oblige you, giant killer.’

But Agamemnon lurched mountainously between them.

‘Silence, both of you! This needs further thought, not sword-play.’

‘Then since my thoughts seem to be of such little account,’

said Odysseus, ‘allow me to withdraw. I for one, want no dealings with the gods – I need a breath of pagan air!’

And he stormed out into the night, to the relief of the rest of those present. Only Achilles seemed inclined to pursue the matter, and knelt at the Doctor’s feet, almost cringing with unsought servility.

‘Father Zeus, I ask your pardon, the man is a boor. If you command me I will let the pagan air he values into his blasphemous guts.’

‘Oh, do get up, my dear fellow, there’s a good chap,’ said the Doctor embarassed. ‘No, Achilles – whether he knows it or’not, Odysseus is one of my most able servants. He is the man who will shortly bring about Troy’s downfall.’ (He must have read my book, you see? Which, of course, I hadn’t written at the time.)