The Armour of Achilles (10 page)

T
he sun was low in the west before Odysseus and Eperitus dismissed the replacements. The inspection had been delayed by Odysseus’s report to Agamemnon, where his news of victory had been questioned at great length by the King of Men, aided by Menelaus and Nestor. Now, as the men began to stream back from the beach and into the camp where the rest of the army were preparing their evening meals, the king of Ithaca and the captain of his guard stood looking at the Aegean Sea beyond the black hulks of the Greek fleet, contemplating the merits of the newcomers.

‘There’s not a man among them who’s fit enough yet,’ Odysseus said, his face sober with concern. ‘Those mercenaries will flag in a prolonged battle, but the lads from home wouldn’t even make it through a skirmish.’

‘They’ve been crammed on to those galleys for days,’ Eperitus replied. ‘It’s bound to have left them a bit weak and groggy. But I’ll make sure they’re put through their paces over the next few days.’

‘They need more weapons training, too,’ Odysseus added, looking up at the pink skies scored with lines of purple cloud as if great claws had been drawn across the heavens. ‘The hired men will be able to stand their ground, but from what we saw of the others the Trojans would cut them to pieces without breaking into a sweat.’

‘Did we expect anything else?’ Eperitus asked, raising an eyebrow and grinning at his friend as they turned and walked back in the direction of the camp. ‘But don’t worry – I’ll see they know how to fight, too, before we inflict them on the enemy. Besides, I’d trust our own countrymen more than I would those mercenaries. At least they have a sense of loyalty and honour.’

‘What good’s honour in this place?’ Odysseus said. ‘Omeros was right: remembering who we were and what we’ve left behind is the only thing that’s going to win this war – that and ruthless determination.’

‘Honour is the lifeblood of a fighting man,’ Eperitus protested. ‘Without it we’re nothing more than murdering brigands. You’re a king, Odysseus, you should know that.’

‘I’m a king of nothing unless this war finishes soon. And the longer we fight the Trojans the more our sense of honour and humanity is dying out anyway. You saw how the men were by the time we sacked Thebe – brutal and merciless, like wild animals. I’ve watched it growing in them as the years have passed, and the Trojans are no better. It’s despicable, but perhaps we have to abandon our notions of honour and become the worst kind of savages if we’re ever to see our homes again.’

‘If that’s what’s needed, then perhaps it’s best we never return to Ithaca at all,’ Eperitus said.

They walked between the weathered tents where the men were seated around small fires, eating smoked mackerel and bread washed down with wine from home. Eperitus looked at the new arrivals, sitting in twos and threes among the men for whom Ithaca was nothing more than a faded memory dressed up in nostalgia. For a short while they would listen to news from their homeland, of their loved ones and of the places they had once known as intimately as they knew their own bodies. Then the wine that had been fermented on Samos would help them forget and instead they would tell the newcomers stories of the war against Troy and of the kings and heroes whose names were already becoming legend. How long, Eperitus wondered, before the newcomers would also lose their identities as Greeks? How long before they became longhaired barbarians, carrying captured weapons and married to foreign wives who spoke a different tongue? How long before their honour faded and was stained with acts of black cruelty?

‘Well, I have no intention of dying here, with or without my honour,’ Odysseus said, looking determined. ‘You and I are going to prove Palamedes has been passing our plans to the Trojans, and once we’ve stopped him I’ll think up a new way to defeat Hector once and for all.’

‘That’s assuming Palamedes
is
the traitor, Odysseus. And I can’t see how you’re going to prove that.’

‘I’ll find a way,’ Odysseus replied confidently. ‘The gods will reveal it to me. But now I’m going to my hut; Agamemnon, Menelaus and Nestor tired me out with their questions, and I need time alone to think about this news from home.’

Eperitus watched him pick his way through the campfires to his hut, his shoulders sagging with the burden of what was happening back on Ithaca. It was hard for any man to be away from his family for so long, and whatever Omeros had told him had concentrated that sense of separation. But Odysseus was also a king, and the threat of rebellious nobles when he was trapped in a war on the other side of the world was not an easy load to bear. Unfortunately, it was not a load Eperitus could share, though he wished he could.

‘Eperitus?’

He turned to see Astynome standing behind him. She was barefoot, as usual, and her white chiton was covered by the green cloak he had found for her a week ago in Lyrnessus. In her outstretched hands was a krater of wine.

‘I brought this for you,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s Ithacan. Perhaps it will remind you of your home.’

He took it and raised the dark liquid to his lips. After a long day with nothing but water the wine was cool and refreshing.

‘Thank you. Try some.’

He passed the krater back to her, but instead of taking it from him she placed her warm hands beneath his and lifted the cup to her mouth, watching him with her dark eyes as she drank.

‘It’s good,’ she said, removing her hands from his. ‘Polites gave me a whole skin of it for you. It’s at your hut, with the food I’ve prepared. Come.’

She led the way between the various campfires, walking with her head high and her long black hair cascading down her back. The Ithacan soldiers looked up as she passed them by, staring desirously at the fine, proud features of her face but looking away as soon as they saw their captain a few paces behind her. It was obvious they assumed she was more than just his slave, an assumption he was happy for them to make; after saving her from Eurylochus and his cronies at Lyrnessus, he did not intend to allow the rest of his men to force themselves upon her.

A large fire was burning close to his hut as they approached. Arceisius was stirring the contents of a large pot that hung over the flames, while Polites, Eurybates, Antiphus and Omeros sat around the hearth drinking wine and talking with animated gestures. Sparks and smoke rose into the air and the delicious aroma of stewed meat filled Eperitus’s nostrils, making him suddenly aware of how hungry he was. His comrades greeted him enthusiastically as he sat down beside them, while Astynome took the ladle from Arceisius’s hands and insisted that she be allowed to serve the meal she had cooked. She poured some of the stew into a wooden bowl and passed it to Eperitus, watching closely for his reaction. As the rich sauce touched his lips he thanked the gods he had been fortunate enough to find such an excellent cook and nodded his approval.

‘It’s good. Very good.’

Astynome smiled with satisfaction.

‘Of course it is,’ said Antiphus, holding up his bowl. ‘We’ve eaten better in the past week with Astynome’s cooking than we have during the whole of this war. Haven’t we, Polites?’

Polites nodded and watched as his own bowl was filled. Silence followed as the men ate, while Astynome passed them baskets of bread and busied herself mixing the wine. She filled Eperitus’s krater first and hardly took her eyes off him as she served the others. When she had finished, Arceisius insisted that she fill her own bowl and join them about the fire. She tried to refuse, claiming it was not right for a slave to eat with free men, but the rest would not accept her excuses and eventually she agreed, though awkwardly at first.

It pleased Eperitus to see how well his friends had taken to her, and he knew it was not simply because she was an attractive woman. Despite her display of humility about eating with them, there was a fire in her spirit that defied the fact she was a captive among enemies. She had a natural nobility that came not from birthright, but from her character. Eperitus had quickly come to respect her for it in their short time together, and it seemed the others recognized it too.

As darkness descended the men turned naturally to conversation. While Astynome slipped away to fetch bread and mix more wine, Antiphus made Arceisius tell them all about Melantho and how he had managed to fool the poor girl into marrying him. Next came the tale of the capture of Lyrnessus, Adramyttium and Thebe, which Arceisius and Eurybates wanted in every detail. Antiphus indulged them, while Polites and Eperitus contributed very little – Polites due to his natural quietness and Eperitus because he did not want to offend Astynome. Then it was the turn of Omeros, who fetched his tortoiseshell lyre and began to sing to them of Ithaca and the homes and people they had left behind. Astynome sat down at Eperitus’s shoulder, enchanted by the poet’s skill even though he sang about a place she had never seen and knew nothing about. Eventually, with the stars filling the sky and the conversations of other campfires slowly dying out around them, Omeros finished singing and declared it was time for him to sleep. The others nodded and unrolled their furs, while Astynome stood and walked to where her blanket lay beside the wall of Eperitus’s hut.

Eperitus watched her remove her cloak and roll it up to act as a pillow. Every night since the sack of Lyrnessus he had watched her do the same, making her bed little more than an arm’s length away from him as they prepared to sleep beneath the stars. Tonight, he decided, should be no exception.

He stood and walked over to her.

‘Sleep in my hut,’ he said, a little awkwardly. ‘If you wish.’

She looked at him mutely.

‘You can make your bed close to the hearth,’ he continued. ‘I have plenty of furs, and it’ll be warmer than out here. Astynome, I’m not asking you to—’

‘No, of course not,’ she finished, embarrassed by his attempt to explain himself. ‘I’d be glad to have a roof over my head again. You’re kind, my lord.’

He gave her a half-smile, but felt even more awkward than before and quickly looked away. Astynome laid a hand on his forearm, then picked up her blanket and cloak and entered the hut.

The return to the Greek camp was followed by two weeks of training the Ithacan recruits for war. Replacements were of no use unless they could fight, and Odysseus was determined the newcomers would be as ready as they could be to face the battle-hardened Trojans. The task would not be an easy one: their fighting ability, stamina and physical strength differed greatly, but were generally poor and far below the standard of the rest of the army. Before they could be risked in battle they would have to learn how to use their weapons in attack and defence, manoeuvre as a body of men, and understand orders. Equally important, they would need to attain a level of fitness that would allow them to fight in full armour, all day long if necessary, with the vicious Trojan sun beating down on their shoulders.

Early each morning, Odysseus and Eperitus would march the replacements out on to the plain above the camp, where they were put through their paces until the sun sank into the Aegean and the light began to drain from the world. The pampered Ithacans, who had never known anything other than the sheltered lives of islanders, were driven to the limits of their endurance and beyond. Long marches were followed by weapons training and drill. Exhaustion ensued, making the recruits sloppy and careless, but the slightest inattention invariably led to a blow from the staff Eperitus had armed himself with. Each night they would stumble back to their tents, drained of all energy, bruised, ravenous, and always desperate for sleep. And before the first inkling of dawn was in the sky again, Odysseus, Eperitus and a handful of the other veterans would kick them awake and march them back on to the plain for a new day of drills and exercises.

Eperitus was enjoying the period of training. The mercenaries were developing quickly, and even the ordinary Ithacans – who for the most part had been farmers and fishermen before the call to war – were starting to show promise. But most of all he looked forward to the evenings, when he would sit with his comrades around the campfire, discussing the progress of individual recruits while eating the food that Astynome’s skilful hands had prepared. Sometimes, when he was not too exhausted by the day’s training, Omeros would join them and sing songs about gods, monsters and long-dead heroes, strumming gently on his battered lyre until he could keep his eyes open no longer. And at the end of the night Eperitus would lie awake in his bed, listening to the sound of Astynome’s gentle breathing from the other side of the hut, wondering what would become of the girl he refused to think of as his slave. Whenever he raised the subject of sending her home to her family – reminding her that he had only ever agreed to take her under his protection – she seemed strangely reluctant to discuss the matter. Equally strange was the pleasure he took from her reluctance. For a man who had always been content to look after his own needs, having another person in his life brought benefits he had never guessed at. Astynome could cook, of course, but she could also wash, darn, clean, oil, polish and a host of other things he had never before given much mind to. Suddenly, the many holes in his tunics and cloaks had all been repaired and his armaments gleamed with an almost embarrassing lustre. She was also strong enough to chop wood or carry clay pithoi filled with water, and yet gentle enough to knead the tension from his back and shoulders after a long day’s weapon training. But despite all these talents, he valued her most for her company. She did not have the cowed dullness of many slaves. Instead, she was opinionated, lively, fiercely patriotic, often rude, and yet never malicious. She would interrupt the men’s conversations with astute comments as she served their wine, or hold long discussions with Omeros about the history and legends of Troy, sometimes teaching him snatches of songs in her own language, made more beautiful by the softness of her voice. She was a gift of the gods, and yet Eperitus knew such gifts were the envy of others and rarely belonged to one man for long.