The Anger of Achilles

by Peter Tonkin

  As though it had taken control of me, I stepped towards it, only just beginning to register that the light was coming from near floor-level behind the great altar laden with royal corpses. That was immediately disorientating, because I remembered how the altar had been positioned when Odysseus stood looking down at the dead men with the statue right behind him. The altar was no longer in exactly the same place. And as that truth struck me, so did the revelation that I understood what was going on. There was a secret tunnel here that the two women were at the point of entering! I took another step forward, sucking in a breath to call out – without even registering how pointless and dangerous that might be under the current circumstances. But events overtook me before I could do anything. I realised that the women were not going into the tunnel at all. They were hesitating at its mouth. Someone was coming out of it instead.

  Glancing around as the light behind the altar grew relentlessly brighter, I stepped back and back again until I could hide behind the angle of the doorway with almost all of my body out in the tunnel that led up to it. The gathering brightness revealed the two women also stepping back and it was intense enough for me to identify Princess Briseis. Her companion was one of Hepat’s helpers, either Thalia or Khloe. But then my attention was claimed by the figure emerging from the secret tunnel. He was tall, gaunt, hairless. The lamp-light gave his skull-like face a sheen of gold, except for the straight slit of his lipless mouth, and glittered in his bulbous eyes. The effect was unsettlingly similar to the light gleaming off the statue of Teshub. ‘You wish to speak with me?’ he said, his voice thin and dry. I only understood enough Anatolian to facilitate a trade deal or to order food and drink. But the conversation never became too complicated for me to follow.

  ‘Indeed I do, Gul-Ses,’ Briseis answered. ‘The Achaeans wish to include the princes and my brothers in their death rituals. Will this anger the god if I allow it?’

  ‘I would need to commune…’ Gul-Ses answered, hooding his eyes in thought.

  He was obviously about to say more but Briseis impatiently cut him off. ‘I have no power and little influence or choice in the matter. The alternatives are to bury them without any ritual at all or to throw them into the street with their soldiers for the ravens and the dogs. Which, I am certain, would not please the god either. It would certainly not please me as wife to one and sister to three.’

  ‘Then what alternative is there?’ demanded Gul-Ses, speaking as though he was Briseis’ equal. ‘Why do you bring this to me when you see the answer yourself?’

  ‘Because it occurs to me that if you and your priests can hide away or come and go in secret, then perhaps there is a way that you could take the bodies yourselves and perform the required rituals in secret. That would please both the god and me.’

  ‘I have no doubt you are right, Princess,’ said Odysseus stepping out of the shadows behind me and into the light at my side. ‘But I’m afraid we could not possibly allow it.’

  ***

  He had hardly finished speaking before the temple was full of light and guards. Gul-Ses looked around, clearly calculating whether there was any chance of a return to his secret tunnel – or, indeed, out through more ordinary points of egress. But there was no chance at all. Briseis stood, rigid with outrage as she realised she had been out-thought, tricked and trapped. Her companion, tearful once more, sank to her knees and hid her face in her hands. I wondered whether it was only the princess’ pride that stopped her doing the same.

  Odysseus stepped past me and I followed him without a second thought. Side by side, therefore, we crossed the temple as his guards fanned out behind us, some carrying swords and others carrying torches. The laden altar had been moved away from the statue’s feet and a cleverly engineered entrance opened by lifting a square stone from the floor while moving another from the wall, both counterweighted by the look of things. I had seen such devices in Egypt but only rarely this far north. A set of steps led down into darkness. Odysseus strode past Gul-Ses and paused, glancing back. Perimedes, close behind us, passed his king and captain the torch he was carrying and Odysseus led the way down yet deeper into the hill beneath Lyrnessus. He held the torch high in his left hand. His right fist rested on the hilt of his sword. I would have followed him immediately but Perimedes gently restrained me, stepping forward and down. As he did so, he drew his own sword and his dagger. I glanced back before I followed him, assuring myself that there were more torches, swords and daggers close behind me too as well as a good number encircling Gul-Ses, Briseis and her tearful handmaiden. Then, wide eyed and short of breath, with my pulse thundering in my ears, I stepped down into the unknown.

  It was the snakes I noticed first. Not real snakes, thank the gods, but carvings of snakes and paintings of snakes all intertwining on the walls, mouths wide, fangs sharp, cleft tongues questing. They were disturbingly realistic and seemed to give off a chill that intensified as we went on down. By the time we reached the foot of the stairs to enter yet another tunnel whose stone roof stood taller than a tall man, our torches were redundant as there were others already burning low amongst the serpents on the walls. I for one hoped that our swords were superfluous as well. But given the place and the situation, only a fool would have proceeded unarmed.

  My fears proved groundless. The tunnel led to a series of small rooms where half a dozen priests of Teshub cowered. They had clearly not been here long, and a glance around the place suggested that they had not planned to stay much longer either. There were some supplies of food and water. This clearly was not the way to whatever subterranean cistern contained Lyrnessus’ water supply. Nor, at first glance, did there seem to be any other way out, though Odysseus left Perimedes and a squad of soldiers searching the place as we led our priestly prisoners back up to their temple, their princess and, judging the group as a whole, the man who was clearly their High Priest, Gul-Ses.

  Odysseus stopped between Princess Briseis and the high priest, looking thoughtfully from one to the other. For once I had no idea what was going through his mind. But when I looked at Briseis once more I thought I saw something lurking beneath the outrage in her expression. Something I couldn’t quite fathom, but which I suddenly found disturbing.

  I was still wrestling with these thoughts when Elpenor appeared at the doorway. Odysseus glanced across at him at once. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You need to come, General,’ said the massive oarsman. ‘The blood room…’

  Because Odysseus instantly looked back at Briseis, I found myself doing the same. And, sure enough, there was a gleam in her eye that was in unsettling contrast to the expression of outrage and defeat she had worn so recently. Without a further word, Odysseus was in motion – and so was I. We almost ran out into the corridor, pushing past the last of the guards to arrive, led by King Eremanthus.

  ‘Keep everything secure in there,’ ordered Odysseus with a gesture over his shoulder. ‘The princess stays under guard at all times.’ He handed the king of Zakynthos his torch and pushed on.

  We strode along the tunnel, climbed the steps and walked along the corridor to the megaron. Odysseus and Elpenor proceeded, their footsteps still speeded by urgency. I was still close behind them when we arrived at the blood room and I knew something was wrong at once. Mnestheus’ assistants – reduced to only a few by the lateness of the hour and the fact that most of their patients were asleep, I guessed - were all bunched together. Without, slowing, Elpenor stooped and caught up a lamp, then led us on across the crowded room. Long before we got there, I had worked out precisely where we were going but I had absolutely no idea of what we were going to find there.

  The three of us arrived at the side of Prince Glaucus’ bed all at once. There was little enough to see, for the prince had pulled the cover right up over his head and so only the vague hump of a body remained. Elpenor stooped once again, took the corner of the cover and jerked it back. I stood there, gaping, as my mind raced trying to comprehend what I could see and the implications that arose from it. Kin
g Sarpedon’s cousin was gone. In his place lay King Mnestheus, eyes wide, mouth agape, with the handle of a dagger sticking out of the side of his motionless breast.

  4: The Chariots

  i

  I had never seen Odysseus so angry. I’m surprised he got any sleep at all; I’m surprised any of us did, after that terrible discovery. There was no point in moving the corpse and nowhere more suitable to put it. Mnestheus was left where he was pending closer examination next morning and removal to a temple – either of Teshub or Anu - to be prepared for a formal funeral ritual with the others of royal blood. Odysseus also planned to complete his examination of the bodies in the Temple of Teshub next day before Gul-Ses and his helpers did anything more in preparation for the rituals. These would begin when the bodies were moved onto platforms outside the city walls so that our twenty and more chariots could parade around them while funeral orations were offered to the gods. Also, if necessary, tears and lamentations. The platforms would then become the bases of funeral pyres. Locks of hair would be committed to the fire in the Achaean tradition either before or when the pyres were finally lit. The bones of the dead would be collected in due course from amongst the cold ashes, sealed in urns packed with the fat of sacrificial oxen, and buried. Were they to die in battle, great warriors such as Odysseus, Patroclus and Achilles would be buried with their weapons and armour beneath mounds that would in time become sacred to their memory. I was not expecting to see many mounds erected at the end of this ceremony. On the one hand, there were kings and princes; on the other, there were no heroes.

  So, before we retired, we sealed the blood room with guards on the door. No-one was allowed in except for half a dozen nurses who were not allowed out again. Then we searched the palace. But as Gul-Ses and the priests of Teshub proved, there were places there we would never find, let alone examine in any detail. We certainly stood little chance in the dark with most of the searchers reeling from fatigue in the first place. Everyone we questioned, from Gul-Ses to Hepat and Demir, swore they had no knowledge of any further hidden rooms or tunnels. The chief handmaiden and the plump steward, both sleepily dressed in their night-attire, even maintained that they knew nothing of any tunnel leading to the underground chamber containing the city’s water supply. There was a series of wells in the agora which allowed access to it from above and that was all they knew. The only person likely to know more, they said, was King Euenos and whatever he might have known was far beyond our reach now. Short of torture there was no way to loosen their tongues. Both Achilles and Odysseus had already ruled torture as dishonourable and if they regretted that decision under the new circumstances, they showed no sign of changing their minds. Neither the escaping prince Glaucus nor the physician’s brutal murderer was discovered, therefore. We all retired, exhausted and utterly defeated. Even so, we didn’t give up until it was nearly dawn, then we tried to grab some sleep despite Odysseus’ ill-tempered demands.

  Briseis was just as enraged. It was easy enough to see why they were both, like Achilles, so angry. The golden prince’s honour was his most precious possession because within it lay the promise of his immortality, just as surely as eternal fame lay in his speed and invincibility. Both Odysseus and Briseis held their cunning in equally high regard. However, it seemed, both of them had been outfoxed with almost casual ease.

  ‘She saw through my plan,’ Odysseus was still fulminating the next morning as we dragged ourselves to breakfast in the megaron, attended by Demir and his cohort of slaves and servants led by Khloe and Thalia. The oikonomos had survived the nearly sleepless night well, I thought. He was freshly washed and resplendent in a clean robe and so were the girls. ‘She saw that I had called off the guards from the passageways to tempt her into action and guessed I must have hidden them in the rooms along the tunnel to the Temple of Teshub, ready to catch her in any secret act she was planning. And yet she walked into my trap willingly and was happy to reveal the priests’ hiding place in the certainty that I would have all the palace guards with me, at entirely the wrong end of the building.’

  ‘At the right end, for her purposes,’ I said, perhaps unwisely, earning an uncharacteristic glare from my captain.

  ‘But what did she gain from that?’ asked Achilles, glancing across at Patroclus who frowned, shrugged, and continued to eat the bread and honey he preferred, hungrily eyeing a platter of honey-cakes apparently destined for King Euenos, who had an equally sweet tooth, even afflicted as he was.

  ‘Well,’ I suggested, ‘there was little point in keeping Gul-Ses and his acolytes hidden if the bodies of her husband and brothers were due to be prepared to be part of our funeral customs. The priests of Teshub would do that sort of work best. Hopefully well enough to turn aside any anger the local god might feel at having his rituals joined to ours.’

  ‘She distracted me from what she herself was actually planning,’ continued Odysseus just as though I hadn’t said anything at all. As he spoke, he crushed a flat bread as though he wished it was the princess’s throat. His hands were an oarsman’s as well as a warrior’s; all broad palm and thick thumb, with calloused fingers that were long, muscular and incredibly powerful. Olive oil oozed out between them like green blood and pooled on the table-top. ‘Her actions gave Glaucus his chance to escape and return to Sarpedon with full details about our strength and disposition. But she too was duped by whoever took the opportunity she herself had created - not to escape like Glaucus but to murder poor old King Mnestheus for some reason I haven’t yet begun to fathom.’

  ‘Could Glaucus not have done it?’ wondered Achilles. ‘If the old man was standing in the way of the escape princess Briseis had constructed for him?’

  ‘Unlikely, highness,’ I said. ‘King Mnestheus was part of it himself. I’m certain that when I went into the blood room looking for the princess to invite her to the feast yesterday evening, she and the king were deep in conversation with Glaucus. He closed his eyes when I arrived and seemed to faint, either drugged or too weak to stay awake. But such things can be easily feigned. As, I assume, can the apparent severity of a leg wound. Especially if the physician himself is helping with the deception.’

  ***

  Odysseus nodded and continued to grumble. ‘She walked into my trap in order to make sure that I fell into hers. And Mnestheus’ murderer used both of our traps against him – and, indeed, against us.’

  ‘On purpose?’ I wondered. ‘Or simply by chance?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ demanded Patroclus, surrendering at last and reaching for the king’s honey cakes.

  ‘It means,’ answered Briseis as she crossed the megaron towards us with Perimedes at one shoulder and Elpenor at the other, ‘Did the murderer know enough about our plans to use them against us or did he – or she – simply grasp a chance that was offered by the fates?’

  There was a brief silence, then Odysseus rose, wiping the crushed crumbs off his fingers and making room for her to sit beside him, nearest to the pile of warm flatbreads, the oil and olives, honey and figs, milk and water.

  ‘I know which I’d rather believe,’ she continued, settling into her place. ‘And I’m sure King Odysseus would agree with me. I think that being a plaything of the fates is far preferable to finding one’s self outwitted by a dangerous, potentially murderous, enemy. Especially under the current circumstances, when we don’t yet know why he struck or who he plans to strike down next.’

  The probability being, I thought, recalling our conversations about death-lists, that he plans to strike one of us.

  What little sleep the princess had enjoyed seemed to have revived her. Even without the formal make-up she wore last night, her newly-washed cheeks held some colour and her eyes were clear, the thickness of her lashes making the need for kohl redundant. She had put on a less formal chiton than the one she wore to the feast – and a much cleaner one than the bloodstained robe she wore before that. She seemed to have decided to make the best of her situation, too. She made small talk about the weather
while she ate a flat loaf dipped in oil, with a handful of fat green olives and a fig, sipped some milk and then demanded that the girls bring her cheese.

  As she completed her meal, she turned to Odysseus. ‘What part of the ritual have you planned for today?’ she asked. Her tone was that of simple query, lacking the bitter edge her words had held yesterday. Her face a mask of innocent enquiry, her grey eyes wide. These facts made me suspicious at once, and it was clear that Odysseus shared my thoughts. ‘The ritual of the chariots must be completed,’ he answered guardedly. ‘And the bodies carefully covered in preparation for pyres to be constructed tomorrow. The covering is essential as we do not want the scavengers to desecrate them in the mean-time, as they are doing to the bodies in your city streets. When I have the opportunity, I will arrange for as many of your people as possible to be cremated or buried outside the city, beyond the East |Gate perhaps, so that the dogs and ravens will stop defiling them and they have a chance to rest in peace. Then, to return to ceremonial matters, the more formal feast must be held tonight. As soon as we are finished here, the butchers and cooks will get to work.’

  Aias caught the last of this as he entered, also looking fresh, recently washed, barbered and changed into a clean tunic. Clearly he, like the princess, had benefitted from whatever sleep he had managed to enjoy. ‘My men are driving oxen, bulls, boars and rams all to the slaughter,’ he announced. ‘It is my friend and general King Idas who is at the heart of our ritual after all, so I’m taking charge of that. Once the animals are slaughtered in the required manner and the ritual prayers have been said, the Myrmidon butchers and cooks may take them and begin their preparations. In the meantime I will send men to Idas’ tent and ship to gather together any possessions we might place on the pyre beside him tomorrow.’

  ‘My chariot is the fastest and my horses are the strongest,’ said Achilles. ‘With your permission, Odysseus, I will arrange for all the chariots to be readied. It seems to me that with Glaucus gone and Sarpedon possibly near, the faster we complete the rituals and set sail for Troy again, the better.’