Helen of Troy (81 page)

The war was everywhere now—in the voices of the shopkeepers and horse-boys and stonecutters, in the eyes of the foreigners, refugees who jammed our streets, in the quick grabs of thieving children and the glazed look of old widows. The food sacks had vanished from the vendors, wine was a private, hoarded commodity, and goats were kept out of sight lest they be taken. Fuel was meager, or many more altar fires would have been sending their smoke skyward in offerings. No one wanted to use up their meat or their wood that way, so only voices, which were free, could supplicate the gods. Most able-bodied men had taken to the field, and only the children and the infirm and the women were left to walk the streets. The young had lost their eagerness for war, bewailing the day it had ever started. And the stealing of the Thracian horses had further dispirited the Trojans: they knew the prophecy that Troy would never fall once these horses had drunk from Scamander water, and they had not reached the Scamander. There remained only the hope that the unknowing Greeks might allow them to do so later. Otherwise two of the five prophecies leading to the fall of Troy would have been fulfilled.

The sun shone strong on that day, the day that changed the course of the war. We could see little from where we were, save the swirls of dust. Sometimes the din of battle would carry on the winds, but that told us nothing. Nonetheless, the remaining Trojans lined up on the walls, straining to see, to hear.

Evadne and I returned to my chambers. She bade me lie down, and I obeyed. She lit incense, letting its musky sweet smoke curl about the room, in no hurry to slip out the windows.

“We can see better from here,” she said. “Without our eyes.”

“I can no longer see faraway things,” I said.

“Yes, you can,” she whispered, stroking my closed lids. “Do you truly believe it was Aphrodite who brought you down to the plain when Paris faced Menelaus?” She laughed softly. “It was your own vision. The goddess sought, as usual, to confuse you. Now let yourself fly there.”

I breathed the dense scent of the sandalwood and camphor. I felt my arms go limp, felt myself float above the couch.

Evadne took my hand. “I am with you. We go together. When we are there, open your eyes.”

When she told me, I opened my lids. Or thought I did. Or did I dream? I did not see the walls of the familiar chamber but stood next to Paris, who was dirty and tired. He was muttering as he fumbled with a strap for his armor. Hector was stamping nearby, ordering the men about. Antimachus was there, too, patrolling, directing the arrangement of chariots. They were worried about being able to cross the deep ditch in front of the palisade wall guarding the enemy camp and the ships. It was exactly the same sort of defense we had at Troy around the lower city, and it was designed as ours was: to stop the chariots.

Hector was yelling, saying that they would never retreat until they had driven the ships out to sea. He gave the command, too early it seemed to me, but in battle to be too late is fatal. The chariots charged. They were unable to cross the barrier.

Hector left his chariot and assaulted the gates and wall before him on foot, with his bare strength, flanked by Aeneas and Paris. The Lycians were right beside him, and the first to reach the gate. Later Hector was described as being “like a god,” and perhaps he was. He threw an enormous boulder at the gate, and its wood shuddered and gave way, its bolts broke, and the Trojans poured in, war cries resounding.

Now they were in the very Greek camp itself. Like ants in an anthill taken by surprise, the Greeks scattered, running here, there, everywhere. Some took refuge on the ships, others rushed for their huts, still others rallied and attacked. Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus were nowhere to be seen; the wounded leaders hid themselves.

The fighting was so confusing and hot that I only saw flashes of different moments. Hector and others set fire to some of the ships, making a pretty blaze. Ajax—the large one, not his smaller comrade—stood his ground on a ship’s deck and held Hector at bay. He brandished a bronze-tipped pike twice the normal length—but then, he was almost twice the size of a normal man—and challenged Hector. Hector managed to feint and strike off the end of Ajax’s pike, so it became merely an unwieldy pole.

Taunts tainted the air on both sides, so that a deaf man would have the advantage, hearing none of it.

Now Odysseus appeared, squealing like a woman with hot water poured on her arm. But he could do little, because of his wounds.

“Take to the sea, cowards!” a Trojan cried, he and his men charging toward the ships.

But gradually the assault faltered. The ships did not flee, and only a few were actually on fire. Mysteriously the tide of battle turned and the Trojans began falling back. Paris was safe, as were the other commanders. But as they were retreating, Ajax leapt from his ship and grabbed one of the huge boulders used to secure them. He hurled it at Hector, and it struck true, knocking him flat. His comrades swarmed around him and pulled him away, safe beyond the ditch. He was unconscious and spitting blood.

Night fell. I saw, dimly, the curtain of darkness fluttering around me, but still I did not move. To move was to disrupt the vision, and I might never be able to rekindle it. I was not hungry, nor was I tired, but floated where those things were of no concern.

Paris was lying down, pillowing his head on his arms, his helmet beside him. His greaves were off, as was his breastplate, but he kept on his heavy linen corselet. His eyes stared dully; he looked stunned, and kept turning toward Hector. His sword and his bow were carefully laid side by side. Beside him Deiphobus was rubbing his arms with oil and boasting about the day’s kill. He glanced over at the stricken Hector, but there was none of Paris’s sadness about his face. He coveted Hector’s place as commander. How nakedly this showed, in the firelight, when he thought no one saw.

Antimachus was striding about the camp, encouraging his men. In such a time an Antimachus was what was needed. All men have their place.

In the dawn everything changed again. Achilles appeared, striding out in his armor. Achilles! What had become of his quarrel, his refusal to fight? Confused, the Trojans fell back. Hector stirred, recovering himself just in time to see Achilles lowering over the trench. “It is prudent to pull back,” he said. The arrival of Achilles changed all tactics. True, he was only one man, but there were so many prophecies and legends about him that he must be treated as more than one.

The very presence of Achilles and his fresh troops infused new courage into the weary Greeks, and now they attacked with vigor. Suddenly the Trojans’ measured regrouping turned into a rush toward the city walls. The chariots careened madly and the men on foot ran as fast as they were able. The Greeks pursued, catching up to the slower ones, and gave battle.

Achilles led. Achilles caught up with the Lycians and attacked Sarpedon, their leader. The men faced one another, cast spears. Sarpedon fell, and Achilles exulted. A fierce fight broke out for the body of Sarpedon, but it seemed to disappear and no one saw where it went.

Emboldened, the Greeks rushed toward the city, and a company of them tried to scale the walls, again targeting the weaker section. But our repairs held. Now, their prey close enough at last, Gelanor’s men lobbed the scorpion bombs into their midst; the clay containers burst and released their stinging, biting contents. The men fell off the ladders and crawled and beat their way back from the walls, screaming.

And then, his golden armor gleaming, Achilles assaulted the walls himself, as if he would climb them with his bare hands. Running fast and leaping as high as his strong legs would spring him, he reached almost halfway up the steep slanted sides, then slid back. A hail of arrows sought him, but he was too close to the wall for them to strike. Stones dropped, more scorpion bombs, but three times Achilles almost mounted the wall, screaming like an eagle in flight. Later someone even claimed that his fingertips curled around the top, and then that he was pushed back, as if by an invisible bronze shield. Yelling, he tumbled back to the ground, landing heavily on his knees.

Then he was surrounded by Trojans, and he disappeared in their midst; in an instant he staggered out, wounded and reeling. He was assaulted from behind by a nameless soldier. Then Hector suddenly blocked his path, raised his spear, and felled him.

He lay flopping and flailing on the ground. Hector, taking his spoils, yanked off the helmet, held it high. Then he tossed it aside, bent over. It was the armor of Achilles, but underneath was Patroclus. It was Patroclus he had killed. And I heard Patroclus murmuring the words, “You, too, will die soon. Destiny and death hover over you, death by the hands of Achilles, the shining son of Peleus.”

Hector grunted and yanked his spear out of the lifeless body. He gave no sign that he had heard, or heeded, the words. He looked up at the walls, where his countrymen were calling out to him, urging him and his men to come inside. “I’ve work to do first,” he called. He began stripping the golden armor from the dead man, pulling off the finely carved breastplate and throwing it atop the shield, tossing the greaves beside it, setting the helmet like a beacon above them. These were the trappings of a king, the famous armor given by the gods to Achilles’s father, and a worthy prize. Hector called for a cart, and the prize was thrown in. Now the corpse of the fallen Patroclus lay bloody and naked. Before Hector and his men could add it to the wagon to ride beside the armor, Menelaus and another man rushed out from the Greeks and began fighting Hector for it. Each side grabbed a limb and fought like jackals over a carcass, pulling, jerking, growling. I was surprised at the ferocity of Menelaus with his wounds. At length the Greeks won control of the corpse and bore it back to their camp, guarded by the two Ajaxes.

“Inside, inside!” the people were chanting on the walls. “Celebrate your great victory!”

“When the battle is finished, when the Greeks depart,” cried Hector. He insisted on staying out in the field himself with his men. But the rest he allowed to return for the night. Perhaps he did not want to face Andromache, knowing he would not have the strength for a second parting.

The Scaean Gate creaked open as the guards pulled back the heavy doors, and the soldiers stumbled in, dust-covered and dragging. Their families, eagerly awaiting them, rushed them off to warm baths and food, while those without families went to the soldiers’ mess. Behind them the wounded were carried through the city and taken to the growing quarter on the other side where the sick, maimed, and dying were laid out in rows, tended day and night by women and physicians.

Andromache had hidden herself away in her chamber, weaving. She did not come out on the ramparts or wait for Hector except in privacy. Some thought it pride, but I knew it was fear.

“Awaken, my lady.” Evadne was whispering to me. “Awaken, he comes.”

But I had never been asleep in the true sense. I was suspended like smoke somewhere between waking and sleep, between here and elsewhere. Coming back was difficult, like being pulled by a long rope down to the ground. I fought to stay where I was, but the pull was too strong.

“Helen.” Standing by the couch was Paris, very much as I had seen him in my vision. He was dirtier now, his armor bore dents and ugly deep scratches, but his person was safe. “We fought well! Oh, how can you have slept through it all?”

I sat up. How could I tell him that I had seen it all? And would that ruin his recounting it for me? “Had you not returned, I would never have awakened. Better that way,” I said. I touched his hair, the gold dimmed with dust and sweat.

“We fought all the way into the Greek camp.” He pulled off his breast-plate. Hector and Aeneas and I led the charge through the gate—Hector smashed it wide open with a boulder. Then we set fire to the ships!”

“Glorious!” I said.

“We spent the night in the field. We thought to continue at first light and burn the rest of the ships, but it was not to be.”

“But we saw smoke . . .”

“Only smoke from the night before. But almost as the sun rose, Achilles appeared, leading fresh troops. We could not get close enough to set more ships aflame.”

“Achilles . . .” Oh, I could not tell him what I had seen. I must hear it all afresh, and hearing it from Paris would make it new for me. “I thought he was sulking, refusing to fight.”

“Perhaps—so we thought—he had been singed by our fires, angry that we had come so close, shocked that we had wounded the leaders. Or perhaps he saw his chance, since Agamemnon was down. In any case, there he was, rallying the Greeks, and gradually they pushed us back.”

“He had the power to put fresh heart into them.”

“Fresh legs, in any case. The Myrmidons had not fought yet, sitting out their time with their leader, so they were eager to fight. He led them right up to the walls of Troy—surely you saw
that
?”

“Oh, yes, but the crowd was so thick. Tell me.”

“He tried to climb the walls himself. His fury and his speed almost drove him over the top. But Antimachus was yelling that something was wrong. Anyone who had seen Achilles run could see that this man was slower. And his spear-throws did not go as far as they should. So when Hector killed him—”

“Easily,” I said. “Easily?”

“Too easily. It should not have been the surprise it was to Hector to find that it was Patroclus, not Achilles, inside the armor.”

“Did he truly have no idea?”

“He was caught up in the fighting, and fooled by the armor. So, yes, it was a shock. He took the armor and it’s here now, displayed in Priam’s palace.”

“I heard it said that no one but Achilles could wear it, it was so heavy and unwieldy, but clearly that was not so.”

“Hector means to wear it. Tomorrow we go forth to fight again,” said Paris. “But that is tomorrow.”

I embraced him, holding him close even with his sweat-soaked corselet next to me. Aphrodite forgive me, but the sweat of a lover smells better than any of her perfumes. I do not think I have ever seen him look more lovely; perhaps it is true that war is a man’s ornament as jewelry is a woman’s.