The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus) (55 page)

The clouds remained, threatening rain yet refusing to weep for the destruction of Troy. Like the stone lid of a sarcophagus, they continued to press down claustrophobically over the whole of Ilium and to the far horizon of the Aegean. The bright light of morning was stifled to a dull gloom, and the Greeks emerging from the insanity of the night were left reflecting on their crimes and debauched excesses.

When a summons arrived calling for Odysseus to attend the Council of Kings at the Scaean Gate, Eperitus asked, and was given, leave to return to the ships and check on Astynome’s welfare. He passed the heaped booty being stacked in orderly piles on the plain between the walls and the bay, for later distribution among the victorious army, and looked for the familiar, blue-beaked galleys of the small Ithacan fleet. With a thousand vessels beached or anchored in the hoof-shaped harbour it took him a while, but eventually he was greeted by the calls of a skeleton crew as he approached the gangplanks that had been angled down onto the sand. To his surprise, every man was clean-shaven, making them hard to recognise without the beards they had worn for so many years.

‘The oath’s been fulfilled,’ Eurybates explained, seeing Eperitus’s curious look as he helped him up the last part of the gangplank and onto the deck. He stroked his jaw uncertainly, unfamiliar with its smoothness. ‘Troy’s in ruins and Helen’s back with Menelaus, so we’re free to shave and cut our hair again.’

‘I suppose we are,’ Eperitus replied. ‘But
all
of you? Most of you had beards before the war, and I thought Polites was born with one.’

‘I wanted a change,’ Polites defended himself.

‘Have you seen Odysseus?’ asked Antiphus, approaching from the stern with Omeros at his side.

Antiphus’s hairless face was gaunt and bony, but Omeros’s baby cheeks looked much more natural without the desperate, downy growth that had covered them for the past few months.

‘The king’s alive and well. Where’s Astynome?’

The others all looked at the stern, where a young, helmeted soldier was leaning back against the rear of the ship with his elbows on the rail. As Eperitus stared at him, trying to picture his grubby, smoke-stained face with a beard, the soldier removed his helmet and shook out his long black hair. It was Astynome.

Eperitus left his comrades and hastened to the rear of the galley, where he was met with a warm embrace and a long kiss. When he finally pulled his lips away from hers, he looked down in amazement at her leather breastplate, the greaves about her shins and the short sword hanging from a scabbard in her belt. Astynome stood back and opened her arms so that he could admire her more fully.

‘I had to strap my chest down with bands of cloth before I could get the armour to fit,’ she explained, tapping her fingers on the cuirass, ‘and this sword’s beginning to weigh me down a bit, but other than that I could almost be an Ithacan. Don’t you agree?’

‘You lack one important thing: a sprig of the chelonion flower – the badge we Ithacans wear to remind us of our homeland. Here.’ He took the fragment that remained of his own chelonion from his belt and tucked it into hers. ‘Now you’re an Ithacan warrior. And a more brutal, fearsome figure I’ve never seen before.’

Her grimed face broke with a smile and she slapped his breastplate playfully, before allowing him to take her into his arms and kiss her again.

‘So, are you going to tell me why you’re dressed as a soldier? Especially as a Greek, your despised enemies.’

‘Omeros’s idea, after Agamemnon’s men started searching the ships for plunder and captured Trojans.’

‘On what grounds?’ Eperitus asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

‘For fair redistribution,’ she replied, raising her eyebrows questioningly. ‘I wanted to dress as a slave, but Omeros said they were even taking women who’d been with the army for years, unless they could prove otherwise.’

Eperitus laughed. ‘
Now
, I understand. They shaved their beards so that you wouldn’t stand out. See how much they love you already?’

‘Me? Not me, Eperitus – you! They love you as much as they do their own king. It’s clear from the way they talk about you both – and fret about you when you’re not here. They protected me because I’m
your
woman, not for any gallant notions of defending an escapee from Troy.’

He gave a dismissive shrug to hide his embarrassment and turned away to look at the still-burning city with its columns of black smoke driven at angles by the westerly wind.

‘Did you go after your father?’ she asked, cautiously.

‘Yes.’

She put her arm about his waist and kissed his shoulder. ‘I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Oh? Then did he escape?’

‘He’s dead. He took his own life. Right up until I entered his house last night, I’d always thought I would be the one to kill him. Then it all changed. The gods had other plans, I suppose. It’s strange, but now he’s gone I wish he hadn’t died in such an ignoble way. For all his wicked, misguided ambitions, he was a great warrior – the greatest I’ve ever had to fight. The only satisfaction I take from the whole thing is that I didn’t have to kill him myself.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

He kissed her forehead.

‘It’s strange, though. I should be happy that he’s dead, but instead I just feel …
empty
. Now the war’s over and he’s gone, I’m not sure what lies ahead any more. For the first time since he exiled me from Alybas and gave me a purpose in life, my future’s suddenly uncertain again.’

‘So like a man,’ Astynome smiled, shaking her head. ‘You spend years not knowing whether today’s going to be your last one on earth, then the moment the danger’s removed and your life is safe again you feel lost, as if your whole reason for existence has been taken away. Well, it hasn’t. You have me and together we will make a home on Ithaca and populate half the island with our children. That’ll keep you occupied!’

He laughed and brushed his fingertips over the small but distinct cleft in her chin, admiring the beauty that layers of smoke and dirt could not hide.

‘It sounds like a good way to stay busy. And perhaps,’ he whispered, with a glance towards the rest of the crew, sitting on the benches and chatting, ‘we’ll be able to make a start before the fleet sails.’

He kissed her and raised a hand to touch her breast, only to find the hardened leather of her borrowed cuirass. She laughed, her mouth so close he could feel the brush of her breath on his lips. Then her smile faded and she pulled back, looking down at his chest and frowning.

‘But your need for vengeance hasn’t been satisfied yet, has it? Your father’s dead, but –’

‘But Agamemnon still lives,’ he finished. ‘I know.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘It’s hard for a warrior to accept injustice, especially when done to someone he loves. What would you do if a man murdered your daughter?’

‘I’m a woman, not a warrior. I would weep for the child, and eventually I would start again. You must do the same, Eperitus. You know you cannot face Agamemnon – if you do you will die – but if you swallow your hatred for him then you can have another daughter with me. Reclaim the life he took from you; don’t let him prevent you from being a father a second time. And then be the parent your own father was not. Don’t you see you have the power to destroy everything, or to make everything right again?’

Her words had a feminine logic, full of hope and the desire to renew and nurture life. Eperitus sighed.

‘Even if I had a chance to kill Agamemnon, I couldn’t take it,’ he said, turning to lean his forearms on the bow rail and look again at the ruins of Troy. ‘I swore to Clytaemnestra I would not, so I have to be satisfied that she will repay him for his crimes. And yet I wish I could just do
something
.’

Astynome joined him, resting her head against his shoulder. Together they watched the teams of men working at every point of the walls, dismantling the battlements stone by stone and sending the huge blocks tumbling to the ground below. Progress was slow, but already the great defences had lost their sense of order and uniformity, taking on a frayed look as if the seas had risen up and smoothed away their edges. The perfection that the gods had made was being destroyed by men in an act of sacrilegious vandalism. From the streets behind the walls came the hiss of fire and the occasional crash of yet another building succumbing to the flames. These sounds were dominated, though, by the incessant beating of hammer and pick, as those structures that the fires were not bringing down were made unusable by the hands of the Greek army, its tight discipline restored now after its fanatical rampage of the night before. Other soldiers were still busy carrying out the plunder from the city and placing it in carefully arranged heaps outside the walls, marching back and forth in lines like ants.

‘So ends Troy,’ Astynome sighed.

‘As long as the stones remain, the city can be rebuilt,’ Eperitus replied.

‘But who will build it? With every male dead, who will come back and restore Troy to anything like her former glory? And look! There’s another. They’ve been doing it all morning!’

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face against his armoured chest. Eperitus looked and saw two men on top of one of the towers, holding a small boy between them. The boy struggled when he understood why they had taken him up to the battlements, then the men pitched him over the broken parapet and his body was dashed to death on the stones below. Only then did Eperitus see the other boys, scores of them, lying all along the circuit of the walls in the strange, confused poses of bodies from which the energy of life had departed.

‘Savages,’ he whispered, vehemently. ‘This is Agamemnon’s work!’

‘I suppose this is the price we Trojans have to pay for our defiance,’ Astynome said. ‘Perhaps if we hadn’t fought so hard we would have been shown more mercy. Perhaps not, I don’t know. Maybe all great civilisations have to end like this, otherwise we might rise up to challenge the gods themselves.’

Eperitus put his arm around her and pulled her closer, cursing the armour that stopped him feeling the warmth of her body against his.

‘Do you wish things had turned out differently?’

‘This destruction saddens me, and I’m sad I will never see my father again or return to Chryse. But also I’m happy. This is the past – that burning, crumbling city over there is the past – but you are the future. I have you and we have life, and we will bring more life into this world. The war’s over and we’re together. That’s something to be hopeful about, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ he answered, before kissing her on the cheek and standing upright. ‘And now I had better find Odysseus again. He gave me permission to see that you were alright, but he also wanted me to find him at the Council of Kings once I’d spoken with you. Do I have
your
permission to leave?’

Astynome smiled and nodded. Eperitus left the way he had come, stealing a last glance at her as he negotiated the precarious gangplank to the sand below.

T
HE
L
AST
K
ING OF
T
ROY

T
he Council of Kings were seated in a wide double-circle before the Scaean Gate, partly beneath the shade of the sacred oak tree where Achilles had killed Hector. A handful of Agamemnon’s bodyguard kept watch over the commanders of the army, though there were no enemies left alive in Ilium to do them harm. The only remaining Trojans now were women, and as Eperitus approached the assembly he noticed several standing beneath a canopy a few paces away from the Council, their hands bound with rope. Hecabe, Cassandra and Andromache – Hector’s wife – were among them, looking grief-stricken and dishevelled, and Eperitus realised these were the remainder of Troy’s royal household. To his surprise he saw Helen there, too, though unlike the others her clothes were fresh and her face and hair clean. Her chin was held defiantly high, but her eyes were fixed on the broken stones at the foot of the city walls where the Greeks were still busily hurling down the parapets that had withstood them for so long. Eperitus followed her gaze and saw the body of a small child among the rubble by the gates, where he had been thrown to his death. Eperitus turned his eyes away and headed towards the noisy ring of men.

Food was being served as he joined the Council, allowing him to slip in unnoticed and take his place next to Odysseus. A slave brought him a krater of wine and a plate of roast meat, fresh from the sacrifices the kings had made earlier that morning to thank the gods for their great victory. He had passed the place of slaughter on his way up from the ships: a dozen gore-drenched altars built of stones from the walls of Troy, the ground around them soaked dark with the blood of the hundreds of beasts that had been slain. Large numbers of men were still busy cutting up the carcasses, roasting the different parts of the animals, tending the fires and doling out the meat onto platters. The stench of the blood and the hammering of cleavers had reminded Eperitus of battle.

‘Where were you?’ Odysseus asked, leaning towards Eperitus as he folded a slice of meat in a piece of bread and prepared to put it in his mouth. ‘The Council’s nearly finished.’

‘Already? I thought it’d take all day.’

‘No. Everyone’s in a hurry to get on with things and go home. Can’t you sense it? There isn’t a man here who doesn’t want to finish the business of tearing down the walls, distributing the plunder and setting off.’

Eperitus put the food in his mouth and looked about at the battle-worn kings, princes and captains of the army, eating, drinking and talking among themselves as they waited for the debate to resume. This was probably the last time he would see any of them, he realised, now that the great expedition that had brought them together was finally over. Agamemnon, as ever, sat at the head of the circle. Eperitus eyed him coldly: the feelings of hatred he had stifled for so long were now gaining strength again, and the thought he would sail off to continue his life at Mycenae was galling. With difficulty, he pulled his gaze away and turned it to the other members of the Council. Nestor and Menelaus were on either side of the King of Men, while a pair of Mycenaean soldiers stood guard over the three of them, dressed in their impressive but outdated ceremonial armour. All the other great names were there, too: Diomedes, flanked by his faithful companions, Sthenelaus and Euryalus; Neoptolemus, wearing his father’s splendid armour as he sat beside Peisandros; Philoctetes and Teucer, the two greatest archers in the army and now firm friends; Little Ajax; Idomeneus of Crete; Menestheus of Athens; and all the other noble warriors who had braved the dangers of the Trojan horse, to their eternal glory.