by Peter Tonkin
As I turned to descend the stairs, I found comfort in the calculations. We had lost few of our soldiers in the three-tiered assault. We retained a formidable fighting force, therefore. By the same token our prisoners appeared to need little in the way of guarding and were unlikely to pose any threat if we had to face a force coming up from the south. This, like the mysterious murder of Prince Mynes and the others, could well turn out to be a good thing for the people of Lyrnessus. I had heard of more than one occasion where a commander in Achilles’ potential position with Sarpedon drawn up against him had ordered all prisoners killed rather than lose the fighting force represented by their guards. Or, worse, suddenly find a potentially disruptive enemy unit at his rear if the prisoners broke loose.
ii
I arrived down in the palace to find myself in the midst of a bustle as the Lyrnessan prisoners were being moved to their new if temporary quarters under the watchful eyes of our leaders. In a way, this was a benefit to them, for it got them out of the city and away from their destroyed and smouldering homes, their dead, stripped, stinking and half-eaten menfolk.
‘Each of our fighting vessels has a crew of fifty warriors and ten ship handlers ashore with two more on watch aboard,’ Odysseus was emphasising to Patroclus and Aias. ‘Most of the supply ships’ crews are happy to remain aboard and need not enter into our calculations. Each group of men ashore has their own camp with shelter, a central eating area, latrines dug and so-forth. If we assign a group of prisoners to each one of them, we double the size of each camp but also give the prisoners shelter, facilities and guards all at the same time.’
‘As well as breaking them up and making things more difficult for anyone seeking to organise any kind of large-scale resistance or escape,’ observed Patroclus approvingly.
‘All each crew has to do is to erect a secure area the prisoners can be kept in and assign guards to keep watch on them through the night,’ Odysseus continued. ‘That will work well for the Myrmidons and the Cephallenians. Can we count on your Locrians to control themselves Aias? Remember, the prisoners are now under Achilles’ protection and he plans to pass them to Agamemnon. Undamaged.’
‘Yes,’ said Aias uneasily as he turned to go. ‘But I’ll go and make sure the message gets through to all of them. In person. I have to oversee matters at King Idas’ camp in any case now that he’s dead.’
‘Good,’ said Odysseus. He turned to Patroclus. ‘You may tell your men to feed as normal. They all have meat for their cooking fires and wine to wash it down with. I will assign teams to bring bread and water for the prisoners. And in the meantime, we will arrange a feast to be held in the megaron here as the first step in the funeral rights for King Idas and any other of our Achaean nobles requiring a full ritual. I will send word when the food is ready but we will have to hold another, more formal, celebration tomorrow. There is no time now to prepare and cook the oxen, bulls, boars and rams that the full rites require. Nor will there be time for the ceremony of the chariots until tomorrow. Nor, of course, will we have the chance to collect sufficient timber for the pyres until tomorrow or the day after. Especially as the woods might well be full of refugee citizens and soldiers escaped from Lyrnessus lying in ambush. Especially if my well-travelled rhapsode is right and there are secret tunnels leading in and out of the city.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And in the meantime, of course, I not only have my duties as captain, commander and king to perform, I also have to discover who it is has caused such a stain upon Prince Achilles’ honour.’
Patroclus hurried away and Odysseus stood motionless for a moment, stroking the dark copper curls of his beard, clearly ordering his priorities in his mind. ‘Captain?’ I said as I approached him. ‘Where will the princess be kept?’
‘I had thought to secure her with Thalassa’s crew,’ he answered, his mind still elsewhere. ‘I planned to set Elpenor and Perimedes to watch over her, just as they are doing – from a distance - now.’
‘And Achilles is content that you should guard his prize for him?’ I wondered.
‘Yes,’ said Odysseus. ‘He took her as his prize at my suggestion simply to stop Aias raping her and her reaction to his gesture has unsettled and angered him. He wants nothing to do with her until she makes an apology that is equally as public as her accusation. In the mean-time, she is my responsibility as the whole thing was my idea in the first place. So, as I say, I had planned to take her to my camp and perhaps even house her aboard Thalassa.’
‘Will she leave King Euenos, then?’ I wondered.
‘Ahh,’ he sighed. ‘By the gods you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. I would hesitate to take the king out of his palace in his current state and the princess is unlikely to leave the place without him. And that also begs the question of whether she would be happy to leave the sick and wounded. Or, indeed, the bodies in the Temple of Teshub. All of which will furnish her with excellent excuses for staying here where I will find it most difficult to keep an eye on her. And she is undoubtedly someone who needs the closest of eyes kept on her.’
‘Captain…’ I hesitated. ‘Wouldn’t it be an effective way of keeping the princess close and under your eye if you persuaded Achilles to announce, in his magnanimity, that he plans to include Prince Mynes and the other dead Lyrnessan leaders in the Achaean funeral rites? That way Princess Briseis, in the absence of King Euenos, as the last person of royal blood in Lyrnessus could be included in all the rituals, standing between you and Prince Achilles.’
Odysseus blinked. Raised his eyebrows. Then a slow smile spread across his face. ‘A cage of ceremony for our restless lioness. An excellent plan.’ He paused, eyes still sparkling as his smile became pensive. ‘Are you certain that it would be proper to include a woman, even a princess, in the rituals?’
‘I understand Anatolian practises include women, even if we Achaeans tend not to.’
‘I had heard the same. It will take some careful negotiation, though, especially if we want her to attend the feast tonight with her people’s blood still fresh on all of us. I’d better find Achilles at once – and Aias, come to that. Can I trust you to put the idea to the princess? Obviously, she’ll have to stay in the palace, and clearly she will need her attendants and so-forth. Hepat will have to stay here with her women also to tend to King Euenos. Demir the chief steward will be able to supply more servants as well. I dare say we should extend an invitation to King Mnestheus down in the blood room into the bargain. But one step at a time. See how the princess reacts first.’
***
I turned to go, as did he – but after a step or two he called to me. ‘If my wife Queen Penelope were in Briseis’ position, she’d probably need sufficient warning to change her clothes before the feast if she agrees to come; especially if they were in the same state as Princess Briseis’. But I’m not sure robes will be so high on the princess’ current list of priorities.’
‘The sooner I put the idea to her, the more time she’ll have to think things through, no matter what her immediate priorities are,’ I said.
‘And there’s a danger even in that,’ he answered. ‘In the time it might take Queen Penelope to decide on her attire, only the gods know what devious schemes Princess Briseis is capable of hatching. Talking of which, if she’s going to stay in the palace after all, then I suppose I had better move up here with a squad of men I can trust absolutely. Still, on we go. She’s with Mnestheus down in the blood room. You had better start there.’ He turned away.
Why was I not surprised that he knew where she was? Knowing the captain, he would have eyes on her at all times. Even apparently at her most helpless, she was still far too dangerous to leave unobserved. At least if my idea worked it would make the task of watching her an easier one. Except for the fact that she was far more familiar with the labyrinthine palace than we were, whether or not she admitted knowing about any secret tunnels. If we ever allowed her to slip away, she would be harder to catch than smoke.
Elpenor was standing at the doorway o
f the blood room when I got there, hulking in the shadows, hardly smaller than the statue of Teshub. ‘She’s over with King Mnestheus,’ he said before I even opened my mouth. Some of his captain’s uncanny acuity was clearly rubbing off on him, I thought, as I began to weave my way through the lamps and the wounded men they illuminated. After the first few steps, however, my thoughts turned to how I was going to approach the elderly king and the princess with the idea which I was sure they would find unpalatable to put it mildly.
By the greatest of coincidences, they were both bending over Prince Glaucus when I reached them. The prince was awake and the three seemed to be engaged in an intense conversation, but because of the sighs and groans all around me I could not make out what they were saying. Inevitably, the princess saw me first as I approached. She and Mnestheus straightened. Glaucus closed his eyes and drifted back into a sleep, deepened no doubt by medicinal herbs. ‘Well?’ snapped Briseis, ‘What does General Odysseus want now?’
I took a deep breath and sent a mental prayer to Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt as I considered my quarry who suddenly looked every bit as fierce as the cornered lioness Odysseus had likened her to. Especially as her peplos robe was even more bloodied than before. ‘It has been decided that we Achaeans will hold at least four days of formal ceremonies to honour our royal dead, starting with a feast later tonight’ I began.
Briseis glanced at Mnestheus and back again to me. ‘Is four days sufficient?’ she demanded ironically. ‘Achaean heroes are so…’
I never heard what Achaean heroes were because I simply ploughed on. ‘King Odysseus and Prince Achilles wish you to consider whether our rituals would satisfy the requirements of your gods. If so, perhaps Prince Mynes and others of royal blood could be included and honoured in our observances.’
A heartbeat of silence stretched into a moment and then further still. Princess Briseis stood as tall and straight as a reed on a riverbank, her grey eyes fastened unblinkingly on me as her mind raced. ‘So,’ she said softly. ‘There is more to this than meets the eye is there not? I’m beginning to learn that this is always the case with your cunning King Odysseus. If we allow my husband and brothers to become part of your rituals, then who else must be included? Our priests – the missing priests of Teshub, if they are in hiding rather than in flight towards Sarpedon. How convenient would it be if they were forced by the ceremonials’ requirements to reappear. So too the priests of Anu in whose temple your dead king lies, many of whom are with us tending the wounded here in the blood room while some of your priests of Poseidon and Apollo keep watch there while others no doubt are working with your own physicians. As well as our priests, our royal household would have to be present. And those of royal blood.’ She stopped speaking and I felt it wiser to hold my peace as well. ‘But, except for King Euenos who is far too ill to be included, there is only one person of royal blood left alive.’
‘King Odysseus and Prince Achilles would be honoured if you would join in the ceremonies, beginning with a feast tonight,’ I said.
‘Do Achaeans have a place for women?’ she asked sceptically. ‘I thought they did not. I heard it was all man to man – like your princes Achilles and Patroclus.’
iii
I was able to answer honestly from experiences gained in my earlier, roving, life. I was so pleased to be able to reply that I missed entirely the suggestion lying behind her words about Achilles and Patroclus. ‘No, Princess, the Achaean customs do not. But as I’m sure you know, women have an important place in the rites as enacted here in Anatolia and in the Hittite lands beyond. I’m certain that elements of your ceremonies could be included without insulting our gods and goddesses.’
Princess Briseis laughed aloud, shyly covering her mouth as she did so, her modest gesture somewhat undermined by the fact that her hand was thick with blood. ‘King Odysseus must indeed be desperate to trap me here if he is willing to upset your capricious Achaean gods,’ she observed. ‘But I appreciate the gesture. And the fact that your king will have calculated that his kind offer will ensure my continuing accommodation in my own rooms here rather than in whatever Myrmidon-barred cage Prince Achilles had originally planned for me.’ Her hand fell, her smile faded.
‘And you will be safer here, majesty, than you would be in Prince Achilles’ hands,’ inserted Mnestheus, ‘should his desires at any time run in the same direction as Prince Aias’.’
‘No matter where Prince Achilles holds the princess,’ I said, ‘he would deal with her honourably at all times. We have already established, I believe, that his honour is unimpeachable.’
‘Oddly enough, I’m beginning to believe that,’ she said. ‘But if I have to trust any of you Achaeans, it would be your King Odysseus. It is his men I know who are keeping watch on me. Which I find strangely comforting, given the way things are at the moment.’ She met my gaze, her own suddenly wide and innocent, almost child-like and trusting. Those fathomless grey pupils seemed to suck me in like pools full of deadly naiads – like those said to have pulled Hercules’ companion Hylas to his watery death. Further convincing me that I was dealing here with an intelligence that was equal to Odysseus’ and a cunning that was possibly even superior to his. But her comment reminded me of something else – of Odysseus’ warning that if the people who killed the royal princes lying in the Temple of Teshub were still nearby, then the princess might indeed need the protection of the men Odysseus had watching her. As, indeed, I might as well.
I took a breath to steady myself. ‘My captain said if you were agreeable to the overall proposition, I should approach Hepat and Demir the chief steward in the matter of your personal attendants and so forth…’
A shadow of amusement entered that deceptively open expression once again. ‘You need not bother. I will see to everything necessary myself. I’ll summon both Hepat and Demir and set them to work replacing my servants as best they can. I sent all my girls south with the others who would likely be more of a hindrance than a help when we observed your ships first descending on Thebe. We knew we were bound to be next. We didn’t even wait for the first Theban refugees to arrive.’
I had to ask, ‘Then why wasn’t your city better prepared for our assault, Princess?’
All the seductive warmth and humour vanished from her face as fast as if I’d slapped her. ‘Let’s see if your brilliant King Odysseus can work that riddle out as well as all the others!’ she snapped.
And so the bustle of the afternoon spread into the evening and night, seeming to intensify as it did so. This was a progression that struck me particularly on my return after I had run back to my quarters aboard Thalassa to wash, change, and collect my lyre. As Briseis said, Hepat found half a dozen young women to look after the princess while Demir was permitted to search out a team of non-combatant masculine servants from amongst the prisoners. Then, under watchful guard, they arranged the seating for the first feast as the Myrmidon cooks prepared the meal. ‘Until we discover for certain what killed Prince Mynes and his brother, we cannot take any risks with the food,’ Odysseus warned as he passed through the megaron to check on the progress in person. A wise precaution everyone agreed. Cephallenian soldiers, acting as servants, would oversee the wine and water. The Locrian army would supply the guards on the megaron’s doorways. And so matters proceeded.
By the time I got back to the megaron with my lyre slung over my shoulder, tables were positioned along the outer edges of the room with space behind them for the diners’ seating. This was well away from the walls themselves because the sheer stones were covered with bright hangings. Sconces carefully positioned between the hangings held flaming torches brightly ablaze and the tables themselves were dotted with three-flamed lamps. Just as the tables stood in from the brightly covered walls, so they were set back from the blazing fire that now roared in the central pit. Around its golden brightness, the carcases of our impending feast hung on a range of spits, each being turned by one of the cooks’ helpers. To those of us who had smelt little more than woo
dsmoke and death all day, the fragrance of the roasting meat was simply dizzying. I came closer to the fragrance than most, because tucked against the column facing the centre of the high table was a simple stool whose position I checked nervously more than once. I would occupy that later. But as the time appointed for the feast to start arrived, I was content to pass through the bustle and head out into the reception area where the others were beginning to assemble.
***
The main reception area was as brightly lit as the megaron, and here the celebrants came together in twos and threes, freshly washed and changed out of their blood-covered armour and into clean tunics and robes. Their conversation was either guarded or non-existent. Each of us, perhaps, was too well aware that quite recently the place had been packed with dead and dying. I for one could not get out of my head the memory of King Idas’ life-blood bursting out of his mouth and nose every time I glanced towards the spot where he had died. Briseis also seemed almost haunted from the moment of her arrival, her gaze flashing uneasily from place to place as though the Lyrnessan corpses were still all piled there and the tiled floor was still thick and slippery with congealing blood. However, with the aid of the women Hepat had found for her, she had changed into more formal, spotlessly clean, attire. Her hands and face were washed and her night-black hair carefully arranged; its height and luxuriance now in marked contrast to much flatter style from our earlier meetings. Despite the best efforts of Odysseus and even Achilles, she maintained a stony silence. Mnestheus was also present, leaving the priests of Anu and his other helpers to oversee the blood room and pass out such bread and water as might be required by the patients. He too was clean, formally dressed and silent. The agonising wait did not last long. Demir appeared, claimed our attention and led us through to be seated, fed and watered.