The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus) (15 page)

Helenus stormed from the palace in a fit of rage, so incensed at Deiphobus’s victory that he did not know where to go or what to do with himself. He stomped across the courtyard, cursing his brother, Priam, Helen and all the gods in turn, before bawling at the guards to move aside as he almost ran down the slope to the lower tiers of the citadel. He yelled obscenities at the few soldiers patrolling the streets of Pergamos, then threw himself down a side alley and began beating his fists against a solid wooden door until his fury was exhausted and he slid down the cold stone doorpost to sit huddled in the dirt.

After a while a shadow fell across him. He looked up and saw Apheidas towering above him, a halo of stars crowning his dark head.

‘Come with me,’ he ordered.

He pulled Helenus to his feet and led him through the shadowy streets to a two-storeyed house adjacent to a small temple of Apollo beneath the outer walls. They crossed the modest courtyard to a low portico at the front of the house, which was supported by two simple columns. Apheidas pushed open the double doors and stepped directly into the main hall. The large chamber was in darkness but for the circular hearth that glowed at its centre. The four columns that surrounded the fire seemed to dance as the flickering light of its flames licked across them, warping in and out of the shadows as if moving to an unheard music. The walls of the main hall were almost lost in the dense shadows, but where the blush of the firelight reached them Helenus could see scenes of fierce battles painted on the white, smoke-stained plaster, in which lines of red-skinned warriors fought furiously for mastery over each other while the dead and dying lay piled beneath them.

‘They take on a life of their own in the gloom, don’t you think?’ Apheidas commented. ‘The firelight makes them move as if they were actually fighting.’

Helenus looked at them wide-eyed and nodded, enthralled by the depictions of battle – something he had only ever witnessed at a distance from the city walls.

‘It looks terrifying.’

‘War is,’ Apheidas agreed, ‘even after all these years. But fear is the lowest price a man has to pay for immortality – most have to die, like Hector and Achilles. And Paris, of course. Have you thought any more what you will do – about Helen, I mean?’

The commander looked straight into Helenus’s eyes, reinforcing the seriousness of his question. Helenus frowned in confusion, before blinking and looking away to the murals on the walls.

‘What do you mean,
do
about Helen? Didn’t you hear what Priam said? He gave her to Deiphobus. They’re being married at this very moment, while I stand here listening to your nonsense.’ A flicker of anger tightened his lips and concentrated his brow. ‘And tomorrow I’ll be forced to tell the oracles to Priam, despite everything. Your stupid plan didn’t work, Apheidas! All you’ve done is made my father angry at me.’

‘So it didn’t work,’ Apheidas said with a shrug, his tone flat and unapologetic. ‘When things go wrong in battle, a good commander adapts and changes his plans. You’ll have to do the same, that’s all.’

‘
That’s all
? What are you talking about?’

Apheidas did not reply, but turned and shouted so that his voice boomed around the hall.

‘Astynome? Astynome! Where are you, girl?’

A door opened to the right of the main entrance and a servant entered. Though her face was hidden in shadow, she was wiping her hands on the front of the old dress she wore and her long legs and naked feet were visible beneath the raised hem. Helenus’s tongue flicked across his lips at the sight of her bare flesh.

‘Yes, my lord,’ Astynome said, dropping the hem from her hands as she emerged from the shadows.

The servant’s face took Helenus by surprise and made him momentarily forget his anger. She had fierce, dark eyes that hid deep passions Helenus would never understand, and her black hair and suntanned face gave her a wild beauty that was both alluring and yet far beyond his reach, challenging the young prince’s sense of pride and arrogance.

‘Bring us wine and something to soak it up with,’ Apheidas commanded, falling into one of the dozen chairs that surrounded the hearth.

He waved Helenus into its neighbour, unaware of the dark, hateful look Astynome shot him before disappearing back through the same door she had come in by.

‘Now, Helenus, do you want to marry your sister-in-law or don’t you?’

‘You
know
I do.’

‘Then what are you prepared to do to win her?’

He stared hard at the prince, who, despite his sense of royal superiority, struggled to hold the commander’s challenging gaze. He was rescued by the reappearance of Astynome, who carried a small table by a leg in one hand and a basket of bread in the other. Helenus’s eyes broke away from Apheidas’s and turned to the servant girl, admiring the curves visible beneath her dress as she set the table down between the two men and laid the basket on it. His licentious stare followed her out of the hall and then back in again as she returned with plates of cold meat and a bowl of fruit. Finally, she fetched a skin of wine and two kraters, which she filled and passed to the men while they looked on in silence. A moment later she had retreated into the shadows, there to wait on their needs.

Apheidas stretched across and poured a slop of wine into the flames, whispering a perfunctory prayer of thanks to the gods before drinking greedily. Helenus followed with his own libation and the two men started on the food, rolling slices of meat into the flat bread and cramming them into their mouths. After their immediate hunger and thirst were satisfied, Apheidas leaned back, belched and looked at Helenus.

‘So, my prince, I’ll ask you again: what are you prepared to do to win Helen?’

‘I fail to see what I
can
do. By now the ceremony will be over and Deiphobus and Helen will be man and wife. Unless you’re suggesting I kidnap her, as Paris did –’

‘Of course not,’ Apheidas said with an impatient frown. ‘But there is a more effective way to end a marriage. Indeed, it has ended many thousands of marriages in the past decade.’

Helenus shifted uncomfortably in his chair, watching Apheidas as he lifted his empty krater for Astynome to refill.

‘You mean death,’ the prince said. ‘With Hector and Paris killed and so many other losses already this year, my father isn’t likely to send the army out to face the Greeks in open battle again. The chances of Deiphobus being slain by an enemy spear or arrow –’

‘Don’t be so naïve,’ Apheidas snapped. ‘I’m saying
you
need to kill Deiphobus. And don’t look so shocked. You’re an ambitious lad, Helenus; with your brother out of the way not only will you be able to marry Helen, you’ll be next in line for the throne! And Priam is ageing quickly. Since the death of Hector his will to live has faded; it won’t be long before his mighty spirit is led away to the Underworld. And what then? Would you have Deiphobus become king, with Helen as his queen? Or would you rather see yourself ruling Troy, with the most beautiful woman in Ilium at your side?’

Apheidas leaned forward as he spoke, his handsome face bathed in the orange glow of the hearth. His tone was forceful and persuasive, not in the least bit afraid as he talked of fratricide and treason. And his barbed words had snagged in Helenus’s mind, feeding on his anger and exciting his pervasive lust for power. He imagined himself seated on Priam’s magnificent throne with Helen beside him, while all the elders and commanders of the army prostrated themselves in obedience at his feet. Then a cough and a small movement broke the chain of his thoughts. Looking up, he saw Astynome refilling Apheidas’s krater for a second time, though her gaze was fixed on Helenus. Her penetrating stare seemed accusative, pouring cold water on his fantasies. Was his resentment so strong that he was prepared to kill his brother? And if it was, would his ambition then have the patience for his father to die naturally, or would he be tempted to hasten the process himself? Indeed, once awoken, the lion of ambition was not an easy creature to put to sleep again.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘You can,’ Apheidas countered. ‘I will be at your side to help you. Don’t you
desire
Helen?’

‘Of course I do, but by now she’s married to Deiphobus. And I’m no warrior; what chance would I stand against him?’

Apheidas reached out and snatched his wrist, pulling him to his feet.

‘Come with me.’

He led the prince to a side entrance, thrusting the panelled door open with the heel of his free hand. At once, Helenus could feel the cool night air on his skin and smell the mingled aromas of wet foliage and damp soil. They stepped out into a square courtyard, filled with fruit trees and shrubs and surrounded by a pillared cloister. It was dark, the only light coming from the few stars that winked between the tattered edges of a thin screen of cloud. At first the garden seemed silent and still, slumbering in its own gloom. Then Helenus became aware of a low hissing that hovered at the edge of his hearing, enticing his senses and focussing them as they searched for the source.

‘What’s that noise?’ he asked.

‘That way.’

Apheidas pointed to a path that led between high bushes to the centre of the garden. Helenus hesitated a moment, then followed the line of flagstones to a border of low shrubs surrounding a large, black square in the ground. From the edge of the garden he had thought it to be a pond, but as he got nearer he noticed there was no hint of reflection in its dark waters and that a flight of stone steps descended into its depths on one side. Realising he was looking at a pit, and that the strange hissing sound was emanating from its heart, he stepped closer.

‘Careful,’ Apheidas warned. ‘Fall in there and Priam will have lost another son.’

Helenus nevertheless edged forward and looked down. The darkness was deep and all-consuming at first, as if a hole had been torn from the living world to reveal the black chasm of Tartarus below. As he stared he became aware that something at the base of the Stygian pit was catching the starlight, causing it to glisten weakly in a hundred different places. Then he saw the points of reflected light were moving – faint, slithering signs of life that seemed to intensify and spread as he watched, until the whole of the void was filled with a hideous writhing. He stepped back and shuddered.

‘Snakes! So this is where you keep the sacrifices for Apollo.’

Apheidas nodded. ‘My ancestors have always been devotees of the archer god. We were warriors, not priests, but one of our duties before my father was exiled from Troy was to breed snakes for the temple. He carried it on in Alybas, after he fled to Greece, and I revived the tradition when I returned to Troy. Apollo’s priests place a high value on serpents as sacrifices, but they have other uses too. Their venom, for instance.’

He placed an arm around Helenus’s shoulders and steered him back towards the main hall.

‘You don’t need to kill Deiphobus with your own hands. The right kind of snake left somewhere that only your brother will find it; a quick bite on the hand; then Helen will soon be your wife and you’ll be next in line to rule Troy.’

Helenus shook off Apheidas’s heavy arm as they reached the cloister.

‘I don’t know what you hope to gain from this, Apheidas,’ he said, turning to face him, ‘but you’ve overestimated my abilities. I’m not sure I can do what you’re suggesting.’

‘Have you already forgotten your anger after you were humiliated in the palace?’ Apheidas said, forcefully. ‘Don’t you care that Priam chose Deiphobus over you, or that he just expects you to give him the oracles tomorrow evening? He and your brother treated you like a child, but it’s up to
you
to prove you’re a man.’

‘But I’m
not
a man!’ Helenus protested. ‘At least, I’m not the man
you
think me to be; nor am I the sort of man Deiphobus and my father are. I hate them for humiliating me tonight, but I couldn’t easily take their places. Even if I was to do all you say, murdering my brother and taking the throne when Priam dies, who am I to rule over such a great city as Troy? In peacetime it would be difficult enough, but with an army of Greeks laying siege to Ilium it’d be almost impossible. Besides, the walls aren’t as impenetrable as we thought. The oracles my … the oracles that were revealed to me predict Troy will fall if the Greeks can do three things – I told you that! If Agamemnon finds out what they are –’

‘He won’t,’ Apheidas said through clenched teeth, his impatience becoming evident. ‘And you aren’t as weak as you think. With my help Helen will be yours and you will be the one to inherit your father’s throne.’

‘Stop pressuring me!’ Helenus shouted. ‘Don’t you realise your words are treasonous, that I could have you killed for the things you’ve said tonight?’

Apheidas stared at him through narrowed eyes.

‘That would depend on whom Priam believed – a defiant, ambitious son with everything to gain from his father’s death, or a loyal captain claiming he was coerced into joining a plot against the throne. But let’s not succumb to our tempers, Helenus. Take some time alone, here in the garden, to think on what I’ve said. If you want Helen, I’ll be waiting by the hearth to discuss what we can do. If your anger and ambition aren’t matched by your courage, then you can return to the palace and neither of us will mention this incident again – to one another or to anybody else. Do you agree?’

Helenus gave a surly nod and turned to look at the dark garden, waiting until he heard the door shut behind him before releasing a long breath and letting his shoulders slump in despair. He quickly tensed again when he saw a figure emerge from the shadows beneath one of the cloisters.

‘Don’t be afraid, my lord.’ It was the servant girl, Astynome. ‘I followed you into the garden to see if you would agree to kill Deiphobus.’

‘The testament of a maid won’t help Apheidas if he intends to accuse me of plotting against my father.’

‘I’m not here on his orders.’

‘Then why?’ Helenus asked, moving further away from the door to the main hall and nearer to the girl. ‘To see if I really am a traitor? And how would you feel if I’d have agreed to your master’s plot?’