The Armour of Achilles (35 page)

T
here were six guards on the southernmost gate and not one of them was able to refuse the wine that Astynome brought to them. After all, it was a gift from Prince Achilles, she told them – his best wine, offered in celebration of the end of the official mourning period. Equally, none of the guards was able to resist the powerful drug that Odysseus had added to it and soon they lay slumped by their posts, snoring loudly.

It took but a moment for Odysseus and the others to take their places and open the gates, allowing Eperitus to slip out on to the moonlit plain. The night was already reaching its zenith and he knew that he had to be quick if he was to intercept the Trojan king and his ransom-laden wagon. Fortunately, the gibbous moon shed its silvery light over the plateau, illuminating the numerous rocks and gullies and the newly raised barrows of the dead, and with his exceptional hearing he was soon able to hear the faint squeaking of a wooden axle under stress. Following the direction of the noise, his sharp eyes quickly picked out a humped shape moving in an arc to the east of the walls, obviously trying to avoid detection by the patrols that the Greeks had once been in the habit of sending out, though the practice had waned after the death of Palamedes.

Eperitus ran to intercept the wagon. As he got closer he could smell the pungent odour of fresh human sweat mixed with the reek of the mule’s hide; he could also see that there were two men in the cart, both hooded. After glancing around for any sign of an escort, of which there was none, he hid behind a rock and waited until the cart was but a few paces away.

‘Good evening, my lords,’ he said, emerging from his cover and raising his hands before the mule.

The animal stopped and one of the men threw back his hood. It was Idaeus, Priam’s herald.

‘We’re simple farmers going about our business. Let us be!’

‘It’s a little late to be off to market, isn’t it? And your Greek’s very good for a simple farmer.’

‘But farmers we are, nonetheless, and I’ll remind you that both armies respect our right to move about the land. Your leaders wouldn’t be best disposed towards you if we stopped supplying the Greeks with food now, would they?’

Eperitus laughed. ‘And what food do you have in the back of your cart, friend? I’m feeling a little hungry myself. Perhaps if you give me a bite to eat I’ll let you pass.’

‘You won’t find anything you can stomach back there, lad,’ said Priam, tipping back his hood. His black wig was gone, revealing thin strands of grey hair that clung to his white scalp. ‘And we’re no more farmers than you are, as well you know.’

‘I know, my lord,’ Eperitus answered, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. ‘You are King Priam, and this is your herald, Idaeus. You’ve come with a ransom for the body of your son, and I’ve been sent to escort you in safety to Achilles’s hut.’

The two men looked at each other in surprise.

‘Then the noble Lord Achilles knows I’m coming?’

‘No,’ Eperitus answered, standing and placing a hand on the mule’s yoke. ‘You have a faithful subject, Astynome, daughter of Chryses, who loves you and doesn’t want to see you come to harm. She journeyed ahead of you to seek my help, and I agreed to bring you to Achilles in safety.’

‘The daughter of Chryses the priest? Yes, I know her,’ Priam said. ‘A pretty girl and no doubt you are in love with her. That’s good. But I also know your face from somewhere.’

‘I am Eperitus, my lord, commander of the army of King Odysseus. We came to Troy ten years before, with Menelaus and Palamedes.’

Priam’s eyes narrowed a little and then he smiled.

‘Of course. I nearly had you killed, and perhaps I should have done – Menelaus, above all. But there’s no point ruing past judgements, not now. Lead on, Eperitus.’

The gates swung open as they approached and Odysseus ushered them through, bowing to King Priam as he joined Eperitus. Together, they led the cart down to the southernmost corner of the bay, where a faint trail of grey smoke was rising up from the roof of Achilles’s hut. They passed between the fires of the Myrmidon camp, where the men were asleep beneath their blankets, and halted the wagon a few paces from Achilles’s hut. Odysseus helped Priam down while Idaeus remained on the bench, huddled beneath his thick double-cloak. Eperitus disappeared behind the back of the cart.

‘What do you want?’ the guard asked brusquely, lowering his spear as Odysseus and Priam approached.

‘Do you realize who you’re talking to, man?’ Odysseus snapped. ‘Stand aside and let me in.’

The guard straightened up at once. ‘Sorry, sir, but I can’t do that. Lord Achilles is still grieving for Patroclus and has given orders for no one to enter, not even King Agamemnon himself.’

‘He’ll let us in,’ said Eperitus, coming up behind the guard and striking him over the head with the pommel of his sword.

Odysseus pushed the flax curtain aside and stepped in, followed by Priam and Eperitus. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, painting the walls of the hut orange and casting flickering shadows behind the captured weapons and armour that hung there. The lone figure of Achilles sat in a great wooden chair at the side of the hearth; he was bent over, looking at something white and bulbous held between his hands. He looked up in surprise and quickly hid Patroclus’s skull in a fold of his robe.

Before Achilles could do or say anything, Priam threw back his hood and fell to his knees before him, locking his arms about the prince’s legs in supplication. Taking one of Achilles’s hands in his, he pressed his lips to its knuckles and began to weep.

‘King
Priam
?’ Achilles said, shocked.

He looked questioningly at Odysseus and Eperitus, who said nothing.

‘Have mercy, my lord,’ Priam said. ‘Pity an old man who has seen so many of his children slain. Pity me! I had fifty sons, the best men in the whole of Ilium, and now but nine are left to me. And those I would gladly see dead if I could bring back the one whose life you took before the Scaean Gate.’

He laid his forehead on Achilles’s thighs and sobbed, his once muscular frame shaking as his tears fell on to the Greek’s legs. Achilles looked down at him in disbelief, not knowing what to do or say.

‘It’s for his sake that I’ve come,’ the old king continued. ‘Won’t you give up your anger at Hector and release his body to me? You cannot harm him any more by denying him a burial, but you are
killing
me. Have mercy, Achilles; accept the ransom I have brought – my own son’s weight in gold and many other lordly gifts besides. Show compassion to a father who has forced himself to do something no man should ever do, to kiss the hand of the man who murdered his son.’

He seized Achilles’s hand again, gripping it firmly as he pressed his lips to the tanned skin. Achilles looked down at him, his other hand hovering over the old man’s head as if ready to push him away. Then the tension seemed to leave his body; his chin dropped slightly and his hand moved to Priam’s head, stroking the thin strands of grey hair. And both Odysseus and Eperitus could see the tears rolling down his cheeks.

‘You . . . you remind me of my own father, Peleus, on the day I left Phthia for Aulis. He knew he would never see me again and he came to me dressed not in his kingly robes, but in sackcloth, weeping as if already in mourning for me. He begged me not to go and I turned my back on him.
I turned my back on my own father!
But I will not turn my back on you, Priam. The gods themselves have sent you here, and I will not ignore them. As of this moment my feud with Hector is ended. I will accept your ransom and the honour it brings to my name, and in return you shall have Hector’s body.’

And with that he folded Priam’s old head in his arms and wept openly.

It was a long journey back to the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, overlooking the moon-silvered trail of the Scamander and the ghostly walls of Troy, where Eperitus left Priam and headed back to the Greek camp. The old king had not spoken a word since Hector’s body had been laid in the back of the cart and he had planted a simple kiss on his son’s white forehead. Mounting the wagon with Idaeus at the reins, he had drawn his hood down across his face and allowed the mule to be led away again. Odysseus had only accompanied them to the gates, but was still there with the others when Eperitus returned in the pitch blackness, the moon having slipped behind the distant hills.

Odysseus insisted Eperitus return to his hut, where Astynome was waiting for him. He found her asleep in his bed, her dark hair spread across the white fleece and one arm on top of the furs that hid her naked body. Eperitus laid a hand on her shoulder and the coldness of his fingers woke her.

She smiled up at him, sleepily. ‘Is he safe?’

Eperitus nodded. ‘And Achilles relented. Tomorrow the whole of Troy can mourn her greatest son.’

She sat up and the furs fell away, revealing her white breasts. Eperitus took the cloak from his shoulders and hung it about her.

‘You’ll get cold.’

‘Not if you join me.’

‘But you need to leave before dawn. If anyone recognizes you—’

‘Don’t worry, my love. The farmer who brought me will return after sunset tomorrow and take me back the same way. I’m yours until then.’

Eperitus could not keep the smile from his lips and had to stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her.

‘What about your master? If he misses you, you’ll be punished.’

Astynome shook her head and removed Eperitus’s cloak from her shoulders. Then she unbuckled the belt from around his waist and reached down to untie his sandals.

‘He knows I’m here,’ she said, lifting his tunic over his head so that he was naked before her. ‘Join me.’

She moved aside as he slipped into the bed beside her, then swept the heavy furs back over them both. She ran her fingers through his dark hair and looked into his eyes before kissing him, slowly and gently. Hesitantly, he slipped his arm about her waist and pulled her warm body against his.

‘What is it, Eperitus?’ she asked, drawing away from another kiss and staring at him with concern. ‘You seem . . . I don’t know . . .
sadder
than before. Is it . . . do you no longer want me?’

He narrowed his eyes in brief confusion, then smiled. ‘Never, Astynome. I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. Every day without you has been . . .’ He shook his head, not knowing how to describe the anguish of wanting her and knowing she was in the one place he could not reach her.

Astynome touched his cheek affectionately. ‘Then what is it?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose you’re right. Something is wrong with me, and it’s this war. There was a time, in the early years, when the fighting was hard but not dishonourable.
Xenia
was still observed, as were truces and parleys; the dead were respected and prisoners sold or exchanged. There was free movement for those who did not bear arms and their neutrality was never violated. But things have changed: small atrocities and acts of vengeance have chipped away at the honour of both sides, leaving us bitter and hateful. I’ve seen it affect Odysseus and even myself, a little. But Achilles’s reaction to Patroclus’s death was too much for me.’

‘Perhaps the nature of war itself has shifted, Eperitus,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you are clinging to ideals that have become meaningless. But even so, doesn’t Achilles’s change of heart absolve him, at least in part?’

‘No, not in my eyes. He treated Patroclus like a god, even made human sacrifices to his corpse! And his defilement of Hector was an affront.’

‘The rumours have been heard in Troy,’ Astynome said, running a finger thoughtfully down Eperitus’s chest and to his hard stomach. ‘He was a very great man and deserved better, much better. We Trojans loved him and his death has filled us with despair. But there is yet some hope, even of peace.’

She glanced up at him, running her tongue thoughtfully along her bottom lip. Eperitus sensed she had something else to say and waited.

‘Eperitus, my love, there was another reason for my coming here.’

‘Yes?’

‘My master in Troy found out about you from my father. He doesn’t approve, of course – being a warrior who has spent years fighting the Greeks – but he mentioned your name to another of the commanders, a powerful man call Apheidas.’

Eperitus felt his muscles tense and his jaw set. He stared hard at Astynome, who looked guilty suddenly.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. It was more urgent that Priam was brought to the camp safely, and then everything happened so quickly. But . . . but I have a message for you from this Apheidas.’

‘Do you know who he is?’ Eperitus said, gripping her arm more fiercely than he had intended. ‘Did he tell your master anything about me?’

Astynome reached up and touched his dark hair, avoiding looking into his brown eyes.

‘He says he is your father. I always thought there was more of the Trojan about you than the Greek, my love.’

‘He’s a dangerous man, Astynome. Don’t trust him.’

‘He says he wants to meet with you on neutral ground, in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. Whenever you are ready.’