The Armour of Achilles (24 page)
Eperitus did not spare himself a moment to exult over the small victory. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and ran to where Arceisius was struggling to fight off his attackers. Already two lay dead, but four still lived and were trying to form a circle around the reckless but skilful Greek, whose wildly swinging blade kept them at arm’s length. Then Eperitus was upon them, burying his sword into the liver of the left-most Trojan and killing him instantly. The others, already dismayed by Arceisius’s ferocity and seeing Diomedes’s chariot approaching, quickly turned and fled.
‘I’m taking Nestor back to the camp,’ Diomedes announced as Sthenelaus reined the pair of horses in beside the Ithacans. ‘Join Odysseus with the rearguard and tell him I won’t abandon him. He just needs to hold on until I can organize a counter-attack.’
Sthenelaus gave a tug on the reins and the horses kicked forward. As they broke into a gallop, Diomedes turned back to Eperitus and cupped his hands around his mouth.
T
HE
R
EARGUARD
T
he Greek camp was in turmoil. Beneath the wind and rain, the bellowing thunder and staccato flashes of lightning, thousands of exhausted men stood or sat, many wounded and many more leaderless and confused. Some were without their weapons, which they had discarded on the battlefield, while others had run down to the ships in blind panic, expecting the walls to tumble and fifty thousand Trojans to come rushing in on them at any moment. But in the thick of the chaos order was being restored. Kings, princes and captains shouted orders and marshalled what was left of their armies, sending some to man the walls and others to defend the gates, through which a constant stream of stragglers was pouring into the relative safety of the camp. The fact that they were able to do so was down to the fighting rearguard that had been organized from the broken units of a dozen Greek states and were at that moment repelling wave after wave of Trojan infantry. It was only a matter of time, though, before their resolve collapsed and they, too, were driven back to the walls.
Agamemnon stood in his chariot and looked around in anger and despair. He did not blame himself for what had happened – it was clearly the work of the gods – and yet he burned with shame that, not so far away, Achilles would be sitting in his hut laughing at his misfortune. He would no doubt be boasting to his Myrmidons that the Greeks were nothing without him, and that the great King of Men himself was unable to stop Hector and his allies.
He surveyed the chaos with as much restraint as he could muster, his eyes offended by the sight of soaked and bedraggled soldiers and his ears assailed by the groans of the wounded. How could his splendid army have been reduced to this? Then he saw the once-proud kings who had sworn to help him raze Troy to the ground: Menelaus, brooding and sulky at the defeat; Diomedes, tending to Nestor’s wounds as if he were the old man’s nursemaid; Idomeneus, busy organizing the defenders on the walls in an effort to cover his disgrace on the plains; and the two Ajaxes, who dared to look at Agamemnon with disdain, though they were clearly incapable of stemming the Trojan victory themselves.
‘Shame on you!’ Agamemnon shouted, succumbing to his wrath at last. ‘Shame on you all! Call yourselves Greeks? Greek women, perhaps! I remember your boasts at Aulis, when you feasted night by night in my tent and said that each of you was worth a hundred Trojans. It seems to me the whole crowd of you couldn’t stand up to Hector alone.’
‘I can and
have
!’ Great Ajax shouted, drawing the sword Hector had given him after their duel and holding it aloft as evidence.
‘It wasn’t any of
us
who ordered a retreat,’ Diomedes added, furiously. ‘But I promised Odysseus I would go back for him, and now I’ve brought Nestor to safety I intend to keep my word. My Argives will ride out to help the rearguard, but who will come with us?’
‘We will,’ Great Ajax answered, indicating Little Ajax and Teucer.
‘And I will,’ said Menelaus, leaping up into his chariot and turning to the soldiers around him. ‘Spartans! Now is not the time to sulk over a setback or mourn the day’s dead. If any of you still call yourselves men, then take up your spears and follow me.’
And with a roar of anger the Greeks followed their kings back to the causeways.
By the time Diomedes had left Eperitus and Arceisius, the tide of battle had already washed over them and left them behind the main force of Trojans. But the gods had not abandoned them and somehow – perhaps mistaken for Trojans by the companies of enemy spearmen and cavalry they passed through – they found their way across the field of bodies to the last wall of Greek shields. There were but two or three thousand of them, flanked by troops of horsemen on either side who struggled to master their mounts in the intense storm. But even here the two Ithacans were almost killed by a volley of their countrymen’s spears as they approached, only saving themselves by waving their arms and calling out in Greek.
They joined a group of Euboeans as a shower of arrows and spears fell among the rearguard, felling several and announcing a new attack. Moments later a horde of Trojans came screaming at them. The Greeks stood their ground and drove their assailants back again after a short but ferocious fight that left many dead on both sides. Then Eperitus heard the familiar voice of Odysseus over to their right, ordering the ever-dwindling force of men to resume the steady march back to the camp. As the rearguard lifted their shields and shouldered their spears, many casting anxious glances over their backs, Eperitus gestured to Arceisius and ran to the centre of the line where he had heard Odysseus. The king saw them approach and greeted them both with an embrace, giving Eperitus a look that told him their earlier argument was forgotten. Then the recently constructed ramparts around the Greek camp came into view through the squalls of rain and the men gave a cheer. This was immediately followed by another hail of arrows falling out of the rain-filled skies and tumbling more men into the thick mud. A new attack followed and was repulsed again, but before long as they recommenced the march towards the walls – which were now tantalizingly close – they heard the snorting of a large number of horses, followed by the shouts of men and the tramping of hoof beats behind them.
‘This is it,’ Odysseus announced. ‘They’re sending the cavalry to break us.’
The Greeks had faced the Trojan cavalry on many occasions over the years of the war and had learned to fear them. But they had also learned how to fight them. Odysseus shouted orders for the front rank to kneel and the second and third ranks to create a wall of spears – an obstacle that only the most disciplined animal would attack. The order was relayed along the line and Odysseus shouldered his way into the front rank, with Eperitus and Arceisius flanking him. Kneeling and planting the butts of their spears into the soft ground, they looked into the pelting rain and saw the long lines of horsemen approaching at a disciplined canter. Eperitus’s keen eyes could see the fear on the animals’ faces as the thunder ripped open the sky above and bolts of lightning tore down into the sea away to their right. Any moment now the riders would stab their heels into the horses’ flanks and goad them into a charge; the thunder above would then be matched by a thunder in the earth itself as thousands of hooves tore up the ground in a frenzied sprint towards the lines of bronze spear points. Whether they would carry it through depended on their training, the command of the rider, the storm-induced panic and the discipline of the tired spearmen, for if any of the Greeks broke and fled, the horses would herd into the gaps and bring a terrible destruction upon them.
D
ISHONOURABLE
P
RIDE
T
he whole Greek camp seemed to be groaning with pain and misery. Wounded men lay everywhere among the tents and huts while their comrades tended to their injuries, or tried to shut out their cries and find much-needed sleep. Though the storm had passed on to leave a cloudless, star-filled sky, the earth was still sodden from the heavy rain and the soldiers were chilled to the bone as they tried to dry their clothing around the countless campfires. The unexpected catastrophe and loss of life on the battlefield had left their mood sullen and despairing, while beyond the walls the fires of the victorious Trojan army were as innumerable as the stars above, threatening another day of intense fighting and death. And if the walls did not hold, then nothing would prevent Hector from torching the ships and bringing about the utter annihilation of the Greek army.
Eperitus was pondering these things as he followed Odysseus through the camp towards Agamemnon’s tent. Though the force of chariots and cavalry led by Diomedes had caused great slaughter among the Trojans and enabled the rearguard to slip back behind the protection of the walls, it had only been a small success in a day of resounding defeat for the Greeks. With the Trojan army now besieging the camp, no man could draw any kind of solace from the day’s struggle. Some tried to encourage their comrades or subordinates by recalling Calchas’s prophecy of victory in the tenth year, but such remarks were met with scorn or bitter sneers. There was hardly a man who did not know in his heart that the next morning would bring only more loss, humiliation and death.
Chief among the doubters, it seemed, was Agamemnon himself. Rumours had swept through the camp that the once proud King of Men was declaring the war as good as lost and blaming everyone but himself for the defeat. Odysseus had tried to scotch the rumours among his own men, telling them Agamemnon had summoned the Council of Kings to his tent and together they would devise a way of beating Hector. But as he and Eperitus entered the vaulted pavilion, with its canvas walls billowing pregnantly in the wind, they found the tales of Agamemnon’s mood were not exaggerated.
As the last of the council took their seats, the Mycenaean king faced the grimed and bloodied circle of leaders with a look of angry despondency in his eyes.
‘Greeks,’ he announced, clutching at his golden sceptre, ‘comrades in suffering, can any of you deny that Zeus has finally decided between myself and Priam? Is there a man among you foolish enough to say the Son of Cronos hasn’t given victory to the Trojans? We sailed here in the greatest fleet the world has ever seen, expecting to conquer swiftly and share the rich spoils of Troy. But who now can look out from the ramparts we built in our foolish pride and not know the doom of our army is camped on the plain?
‘Let us take to our ships, then, while we still can, and leave this place of sorrow to its true masters. If the choice is retreat with ignominy or death with honour, then let us unfurl our sails at dawn and go home.’
If Eperitus hated the cold, emotionless king who had murdered his daughter to wage war against Troy, he had felt no less contempt then for the defeated fool who stood before the men who had elected him their leader, lamenting his treatment at the hands of the gods and declaring defeat because of a single day’s fighting. But as the kings and princes looked at each other in silence, Diomedes stepped out from among them and snatched the sceptre from Agamemnon’s undeserving hand.
‘Is it just three days since you called me a coward in front of the whole army, my lord?’ he sneered. ‘Three short days, in which you’ve managed to throw away a tenth of your men and let the Trojans push us back inside the boundaries of our own camp. Then I congratulate you: you’ve gained a triumph very few of
us
could have achieved! But now you’ve excelled yourself with this talk of sailing home. Zeus may have given you a splendid sceptre and the command of all the Greeks with it, but one thing he did not give you was
courage
. Go, then! No one will stop you – you’re the King of Men, after all. And if there are any who want to go with you, then let them. In fact, let every Greek leave Ilium, for all I care; Sthenelaus and I will fight on alone with our Argives, until Troy falls or the last of us is sent down to Hades. For we are men of honour, warriors who will not return home in shame. We choose to stay and fight.’
Diomedes’s speech was met with a chorus of approval, many of the kings leaping to their feet and beckoning for the sceptre, keen to add their own words of rebuke for Agamemnon. But Diomedes had already given the staff to Nestor, who held up his hands and refused to speak until the last man had returned to his seat.
‘My lord Agamemnon, Diomedes is right to rebuke you. For one thing, the fleet is in no condition to sail: timbers have rotted, sails are moth-eaten, and ropes are frayed to snapping point. But even if our ships were seaworthy, why would any of us want to leave now? Have we fought for ten long years to leave empty-handed, when victory can still be claimed even at this dark time?’
‘Victory!’ Agamemnon snorted. ‘So the years have finally caught up with your brains, Nestor, as well as your body. Why do you try to placate me with false hopes when you know the gods are against us?’
‘You
conveniently
forget my wife is still a prisoner of the Trojans!’ Menelaus snapped, glowering at his brother. ‘If Nestor says we can still win then
I
want to know what he’s got in mind.’
‘Haven’t you already guessed?’ Nestor replied. ‘Victory lies with one man – Achilles. If Agamemnon will forget his pride and offer to return Briseis, the greatest warrior we have may yet come to our aid. Even Hector won’t stand against
him
, and with his battle-hardened Myrmidons still fresh they’ll sweep the Trojans from the field. What do you say, Agamemnon?’
Nestor had voiced the hope of every man present, who now turned as one to the King of Men. But Agamemnon stared down at his feet as if his aged adviser had not spoken.
‘What do you say, my lord?’ Great Ajax insisted, rising to his feet. ‘Will we approach my cousin for his help, or turn tail and flee like an army of washerwomen?’
Agamemnon lifted his face and fixed his cold blue eyes on the king of Salamis.
‘Do I have a choice in the matter? It seems to me now that the gods aren’t so much with Priam and the Trojans as with
Achilles
. Ever since I argued with that man nothing has gone right for me: not only has my army been decimated, but my enemies are ensconced before the gates and unless I humble myself at the feet of that stubborn young goat even my most trusted advisers and allies will turn upon me. Then so be it!’
He stood and crossed the floor of his tent, seizing the sceptre from Nestor and rounding angrily on the others.
‘Go to Achilles! Offer him whatever you see fit from my wealth – gold, slaves, as many tripods and cauldrons as his vanity requires; even my best horses if he demands them. And if that won’t appease his cursed pride, then offer him part of my kingdom and Menelaus’s too – after all, it’s your damned wife we’re here for,’ he added, staring down his brother’s unspoken protest. ‘And tell him Briseis is his, untouched by me. I give him my word on that.’
There were tears of anger on his face as he shook the sceptre at the commanders of his army.
‘Just make sure he submits himself to my authority again. If
I
can debase myself for his sake, then the least he can do is accept my peace offering and save us from the Trojans. After all, even the will of the gods can be turned by a show of humility. And if you’re determined on this course – which is
not
what I would do, if you gave me a choice – then, for the sake of all the gods, send someone he’s going to listen to. You, Odysseus; you can win any man’s heart with your words, whether honest or deceitful. And you, Ajax; you’re Achilles’s cousin and there’s no man closer to his heart, other than Patroclus. Go at once. We’ll await your return here, though you go with a fool’s hope.’
And so Ajax and Odysseus – accompanied by Eperitus – left the assembly and walked along the sand towards Achilles’s hut. The low groaning of the wounded was all around them, like the strained breathing of an injured animal, and yet as they approached the tents of the Myrmidons they were met by the sounds of laughter and feasting. It irked Eperitus to hear the skilled strumming of a lyre drifting out across the beach, while a voice sang softly of long-dead heroes and their feats. Were Achilles and his soldiers somehow unaware of the suffering of the rest of the army, he wondered, or was this their way of mocking them for daring to face the Trojans without their help? He looked out at the black ocean to his right and prayed to Athena that he would contain his growing anger.
The Myrmidons’ tents were pitched a short distance away from the rest of the camp, at the southernmost point of the bay. It was a psychological detachment as well as a physical one, and the difference between the two camps had never been more noticeable to Eperitus than it was to him then. The numerous fires that sent columns of orange sparks twisting into the night sky were a world away from the misery he had temporarily left behind, while the groups of warriors who sat drinking wine and chattering noisily among themselves seemed like figures from a forgotten past, where pain and suffering were just words in a story. They fell silent, though, as the three men appeared among them, and watched with muted fascination as they made their way towards Achilles’s hut at the upper edge of the beach. It was from here that the song that seemed to mock the suffering of the rest of the army was emanating. Smoke rose from a hole in the apex of the hut’s roof, while four armed men guarded its entrance. They quickly moved back at the sight of Odysseus, Ajax and Eperitus and waved them inside.
The interior was dimly lit by the low flames of the hearth, but by the orange light the newcomers could see a dozen Myrmidon nobles lying on fleeces and picking at the remains of a meal. Many had half-naked slaves in their arms and in the darkened corners of the hut Eperitus could see the dim outlines of figures coupled together, making no effort to quieten their exertions. On the opposite side of the fire, seated on the floor with his back propped against a stool, was Achilles. A lyre was in his hands, his fingers stroking the strings with greater skill than any bard Eperitus had ever heard. He sung of Meleager and the Calydonian boar, and his voice threw a web of enchantment over his audience that even the sounds from the corners of the hut could not disrupt. Patroclus was at his side, leaning against the same stool and stroking his fingers through the back of Achilles’s long blond hair.
As he recognized Ajax, Odysseus and Eperitus, Achilles stopped his song and gave the lyre to Patroclus. He stood and clapped his hands twice.
‘Out, all of you!’
At once the nobles jumped to their feet, spilling the slaves from their laps or hauling them up by their wrists and dragging them towards the door. The noises from the corners of the hut stopped abruptly as six or seven naked figures left the shadows, the women clutching their clothing to their chests as the men herded them unsympathetically outside. When only Achilles and Patroclus remained, the prince leaned forward with a smile and took each of the visitors’ hands in greeting.
‘Welcome, friends,’ he said with warm enthusiasm. ‘I was expecting Agamemnon to send someone, but you don’t know how pleased I am he chose you. Be seated.’
He nodded to Patroclus, who fetched three heavy chairs draped in purple cloth from the shadows.
‘Fetch wine, too,’ Achilles added. ‘Not too much water, though. And bring more meat, Patroclus. No one’s visited my hut in nearly a week and I want to show these men a real welcome.’
‘Some of us have been
fighting
,’ Ajax growled, squeezing himself into his chair.
Achilles glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, smiling as he cleaned bits of meat from his teeth with his tongue.
‘Let’s not be bitter, cousin. You know how much I love a scrap, but you also know the offence that forced me to withdraw from this war. Which, I imagine, is what you’ve come to talk about. But first let us share wine and meat together, as friendship demands.’
Patroclus entered with a large bowl of mixed wine, which he placed on a bench before drawing cups for Achilles and his visitors, frowning at the menial task he had been relegated to. As the four men poured their libations to the gods and drank, a soldier brought in the sides of a sheep and a goat and laid them out next to the bowl of wine. Achilles began jointing and carving up the meat at once, while Patroclus tended to the fire and prepared the spits. While the Myrmidons busied themselves with the meal and Odysseus and Ajax leaned in towards each other to speak in low voices, Eperitus looked around at the large hut with its deep shadows. The wide floor was covered in the soft fleeces of sacrificed sheep, many of which had been misplaced and rucked up by the exodus of noblemen and their slaves. The walls were hung with a collection of weapons and armour that Achilles had stripped from his more illustrious victims as tokens of his victories, while in the gloom against the far side of the hut was a rack from which hung Achilles’s own armaments: his long sword and dagger in their ornately worked sheaths; his bronze greaves with silver clips at the ankles; his round, leather shield with its scooped bottom edge, giving it the shape of a waning moon; his sculpted bronze corslet with the dents and scars of many battles upon it; and his black-plumed helmet with its grimacing visor. As Eperitus stared into its empty eyeholes, he was reminded of the many times he had seen Achilles wear it into battle and the terror that the mere sight of it had instilled in his enemies. How different would the outcome of the day’s fighting have been if the helmet had been seen among the ranks of the Greek army?