The Anger of Achilles

by Peter Tonkin

  The removal of the tunic revealed the pale curves of the old king’s chest, the flesh stained with the blood that had soaked into the cloth pressed hard against it. Odysseus lifted the arm to reveal the coarse-haired arm-pit. And there, side by side, so close as to have been indistinguishable beneath the bloodied linen tunic, were two stab wounds. ‘It is not the sort of knowledge that a princess would normally be privy to or, indeed, interested in,’ said Odysseus. ‘But as you have led men into battle and for all I know might wish to do so again, it is worth remembering that a blade wedged in a wound such as this one will stop the blood from flowing freely. Therefore it was clear to me from the outset that King Mnestheus had been stabbed twice. On the one hand the knife was obviously wedged in place but on the other hand he had bled copiously, swiftly and fatally. Perhaps his murderer was anxious, fearful even. But there seems little doubt in my mind that the killer struck twice in rapid succession. Blood poured out of the first wound, no doubt rendering Mnestheus helpless and faint immediately. Perhaps disorientating the killer by its volume and its heat. To make things certain, the killer clasped him round the face – you can just see the outline of a bloody palm-print in his beard where a hand went over his mouth, no doubt to ensure his silence as he died. The second wound held the blade tightly, as you discovered. So the murderer had to leave it there when he put the corpse in Glaucus’ bed, pulled the cover up and crept away.’

  ‘Why is this worthy of so much attention?’ wondered Briseis, glancing across at the stony-faced Gul-Ses.

  ‘For two reasons. First, of course, because the dagger may tell us something about the man who wielded it. But secondly because it makes clear something that was not so obvious before. That the killer as well as the boy’s corpse and the bedding itself, must have been soaked with Mnestheus’ blood. He must have been almost exactly beneath Mnestheus when he stabbed with one hand and closed the other over the old man’s mouth. Mnestheus would have started to collapse immediately the blood started pouring out of him. The knife went in again. Mnestheus must have collapsed bodily onto his killer immediately afterwards. The murderer would have had to fight his way out from under the corpse as he tried to retrieve his knife. He can’t have dared invest much time in this. He had to get the body back to the spare bed and so he did. But at that double price – the loss of the knife and the bath in the blood. Even if he has managed to wash himself, he will never have cleaned what he was wearing. It is possible that there is a pile of bloodstained clothing hidden somewhere close by.’

  ‘And,’ added Briseis pensively, ‘someone wearing a suspiciously fresh, clean tunic.’

  ‘Let us look more closely at the body,’ said Odysseus. ‘It may have more to tell us.’ He glanced up at the priests of Teshub. ‘While we do that, I would like Prince Mynes and the others stripped so I can examine them also.’

  Gul-Ses frowned and for a moment I thought he was going to argue, but then his gaze met Briseis’ and he capitulated. ‘Of course, Majesty. They, like the late king here, will need to go to Teshub wearing ceremonial robes in any case.’

  Odysseus grunted. He was less than pleased with the response but apparently willing to let it go at that. Further argument would only slow matters, I thought. No doubt Odysseus saw that too and was willing to act accordingly. He was at work almost immediately, speaking as he examined Mnestheus. ‘Eyes first and most, hands last and least,’ he said – as I had heard him observe on other similar occasions. ‘That means our hands, of course. Not the victim’s. You knew the old physician, princess. Can you see anything unusual or unexpected about the body, besides the stab-wounds?’

  ‘Well, I have never seen him stripped so I cannot give a detailed answer,’ said Briseis. ‘But in general, he seems to be fit for his age, if somewhat stooped – as might be guessed from his work in the blood room and others like it. I am surprised by how muscular his arms in particular are. And by the size of his hands. I had never paid particular attention to his hands before.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Odysseus spread the hands in question wide. ‘You observe that the palms and digits are calloused,’ he said. ‘But the thickening of the skin is something from long ago. The callouses are soft and are overlain by more recent things – such as these stains. Not only from blood, of course, but from handling herbs and so-forth. Calix mentioned distillations of poppy, I think, as well as mandragora and valerian.’

  ‘So his hands confirm what we already knew,’ said Briseis, taking the hand Odysseus had been examining and spreading it herself. ‘That he was a warrior grown too old to wield weapons, who made potions and treated wounds or illnesses instead.’

  ‘Just so,’ agreed Odysseus. Then he fell silent for a heartbeat. ‘But may I observe, Princess, that your own hands tell a story of their own? I must admit I have taken some interest in them since I noticed your habit of hiding them behind your back and the care with which you returned my ring.’

  iv

  Briseis stepped back. As though they had a will of their own, her hands vanished behind her back once more. Odysseus gave a weary smile. ‘It is too late for that, Princess. I remember what I have seen quite clearly. I do not need to observe it in the flesh to tell the story. A part of the story, I imagine, for there is more still to come is there not?’

  Briseis stood tall, her chin up, her eyes as cold and grey as winter mountaintops.

  ‘Your hands,’ Odysseus continued, ‘are unlike the hands of any princess or queen I have ever met. Not only have they been stained with blood as thoroughly as the clothing you were wearing when we first met, they also share with those of Mnestheus here and indeed those of Calix, the stains of the drugs the physician was using. Both on your fingertips and around your fingernails which are unusually short and ill tended for a woman in your position. I realise that this is all because you have been as active as anyone in caring for the wounded. But I think we can go further than that, can we not? Because in those places where Mnestheus’ hands are calloused, as, indeed, are my own, your hands have blisters. Yesterday, there were red marks and some tell-tale signs but today the blisters have filled and become more noticeable. I am already aware that you have at some stage been wearing your husband’s badges of office to command a last stand here in the palace. Your hands suggest that you did more than give the orders – you wielded sword and dagger yourself. The dagger, of course, you were holding at the very moment we first saw you. Whether your shoulders also bear the marks of wearing a cuirass I cannot tell, but the state of your hair as you faced Aias with your dagger at your own throat barricading the corridor leading to the megaron suggested immediately to me that you had at some stage been wearing a helmet. So, I asked myself, are you a secret Amazon? I know Queen Hippolyta fought with Hercules and King Theseus a generation and more ago. I hear Queen Penthesilea is considering bringing her fearsome Amazons from the wilds of Thrace to join King Priam against us. But I was surprised to say the least to find that you had also taken arms, even though your continuing battle against we Achaeans has moved into new areas – such as helping Glaucus to escape, I suspect. I look forward to learning what else you have planned.’

  No sooner had he finished speaking than he turned away, moving along the altar to the body of Prince Mynes, which was distinguished by the fact that Gul-Ses had left the prince’s badge of office in place. Other than his loin cloth, it was all the dead body wore. Odysseus paused, looking down, then with a gentle hand he closed the prince’s wide golden eyes staring at the ceiling. I stood where I was, watching the princess because she seemed to be on the very edge of speech, as though the words were just about to burst forth from her. But before she could begin to speak, Odysseus carried on. ‘Now this is unexpected,’ he said quietly. ‘Prince Mynes’ hands are soft. There is no sign of any thickening to the skin at all. Even my rhapsode here has callouses on his thumb and fingertips from playing on his lyre. But your husband’s hands are as soft as I assume yours must have been before you leaped to your palace’s defence. Now what story doe
s that suggest?’

  ‘That he was no warrior,’ I blurted.

  ‘Indeed. But his father was. Did you not notice the hand King Euenos used to try and close his robes? He was a warrior of experience and note according both to his reputation and his hands. But not Prince Mynes. Nor, indeed, the prince’s twin prince Ephistrophos.’ He turned to Briseis. ‘Had they not been sent to Chiron up on Mount Pelion for schooling in the arts of war?’

  It was not Briseis who answered, but Gul-Ses. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Here in Anatolia under the wing of Teshub and indeed the dipsioi old gods, there is the tradition of the Priest King. A king who leads his people not in war but in prayer.’

  ‘And Mynes was a priest king?’

  ‘He was in training,’ answered Gul-Ses. ‘As was Prince Ephistrophos. They were nearing the last of the rituals and mysteries. They were close to Teshub.’

  ‘The idea being, of course, that the Priest King does not need to fight wars because his gods will fight them for him. That they will send plague and pestilence to strike his enemies down. Will shake the earth and shatter their fortifications. Will send flood and fire when his people call.’

  ‘That’s not much use when High King Agamemnon is at the gates and the gods are slow to act,’ I said.

  ‘Princess,’ Odysseus turned towards her. ‘Surely no wise king would have allowed such a thing. Who had King Euenos trained to lead his army in case the great god Teshub was, as my rhapsode observes, slow to answer Prince Mynes’ prayers?’

  ***

  ‘The king was a proud and stubborn man,’ said Briseis, the words seemingly torn out of her mouth like teeth. ‘Perhaps he was too reliant on his own strength, for he was fit and active, aging but by no means old. As a number of his prettiest handmaidens can attest. He led his people from his youth and it never occurred to him that there might come a time when he could not do so. Certainly not that the time would arrive as soon or as abruptly as it did. And, being the man he was, he looked down on his priestly son who preferred prayers to swords and robes to armour. Yet the king himself had too much respect for the gods to banish the priests and reclaim his son by force. In any case, he and Mynes hardly spoke to each-other towards the end. My brothers tried to mediate, but Euenos simply counted them as being amongst Mynes’ faction, under the power of Teshub and Gul-Ses and dismissed them all accordingly.’

  ‘Though I can tell from their hands that they were happier than the prince to rely on swords and spears as well as prayers. They fought but they do not seem to have died in battle. A conundrum we will examine more closely in due course. But I interrupted. I apologise.’

  ‘You are right. They wished to fight but it made no difference in the end. In the end, I was the only one of his family he would talk to and it amused him to treat me almost as though I was the son the old gods had stolen from him. He would discuss tactics with me although it never occurred to him I would ever use the knowledge. In the same way, he showed me the basics of sword play and how to throw a spear. It was a game that suddenly became serious.’

  ‘But it was the great god…’ Gul-Ses began.

  Odysseus cut him off. ‘At the moment of greatest danger, when not Agamemnon but Achilles was at the gate…’

  ‘The gods struck him down. Teshub, Anu, Jarri – god of plague and pestilence… Your own great god Apollo who is also lord of the plague… who knows?’ Briseis shrugged. ‘But I was there and I saw it. He had been ailing; I see that now. Once in a while I saw him limping; favouring his left arm… But he spoke of no sickness and weakness, indeed his appetite seemed to grow stronger. Until the instant I’m describing. One moment he was standing at the top of the watch-tower surrounded by his senior commanders, bellowing orders as your fleet approached in the distance with Thebe in flames behind it. The next he lay twitching on the ground, halt and helpless – just as you saw him yesterday.’

  ‘How was it that you were there at such a time?’ asked Odysseus.

  ‘I had just brought him wine and a platter of the honey cakes he loves so much,’ she answered. ‘He took a handful, stuffed them into his mouth, reached for the wine and collapsed. He was lucky not to choke on them. He has never recovered.’

  ‘So Prince Mynes was now in charge of the city’s defences?’ asked Odysseus, his face set in a frown as he considered the terrible dangers the situation had presented to those behind the city walls as we were sailing towards them, preparing for battle.

  ‘Yes,’ just the tone of her answer seemed to speak.

  ‘A situation he was not fit to fill?’ probed Odysseus. Then, seeing her expression he pushed on, ‘for which he had never been properly prepared or trained.’

  ‘All of the defences relied upon King Euenos,’ she answered. ‘Even the commanders on the watch-tower with him were only ever allowed to act under his direct orders. That’s why they were there and were the first to see him fall. There was panic when he was struck down so publicly, especially when his condition could not be hidden from the citizens and became more widely understood. The situation had been growing worse in any case because of the influx of refugees from Thebe with their stories…’ She paused, took a deep breath to steady herself and asked questions whose answer she clearly feared but had to know. ‘Is it true that Agamemnon slaughtered not only King Eetion but the entire royal family for trying to hold out against him, wife, sons, daughters, grandchildren, all of them? So that the only one of his royal line left alive now is his daughter Andromache, wife to Prince Hector of Troy? That he stripped Chryseis naked in the agora marketplace, in spite of the fact her father Chryses is High Priest of Apollo, stripped and exhibited her stark naked so that everyone could see the true worth of the prize he was awarding himself?’

  ‘The first rumour is true,’ said Odysseus, ‘Though it was Achilles who actually killed the king; Agamemnon killed the rest of his family as a warning to others, especially King Euenos here in Lyrnessus, because he did not want another lengthy siege wasting our time and distracting his armies from their true mission. The second is not. He treated Chriseis with respect in public at least. So, to return to your story, the King Euenos was struck down, the prince was ill-suited to replace him, the commanders were leaderless and the citizens were panicking. What happened then?’

  ‘My husband, his brother and my brothers all met together in the Temple of Teshub and prayed for guidance. When none was given them, they too began to panic. Mynes and Ephistrophos decided to surrender. To throw the gates open and beg for your mercy.’

  ‘But, just in case Achilles was as brutal as Agamemnon,’ added Odysseus, ‘as many non-combatants as possible were sent south to Sarpedon. That at least was a wise move. Who organised that?’

  Once again, Briseis stood as silent as a statue, chin high, eyes wide, mouth shut.

  Odysseus read a good deal of meaning more than I did into that silence, however. ‘If, as I suspect, it was you who organised it, Princess, then my respect for you has grown even greater than before. As has my watchfulness for any other secret plots you have in mind.’

  ‘But the city didn’t surrender,’ I pointed out. ‘Why was that?’

  v

  ‘King Euenos had watched what was happening in distant Thebe before he was struck down and so he had prepared for a siege,’ answered Briseis. ‘Prince Mynes declared that, as the food would not need to support a lengthy blockade after all, he was going to sacrifice to Teshub and hold a great feast. Which he did. He gave permission for everyone left in the city to eat and drink their fill. He made a point of course of supplying the best of everything to the priests of Teshub – both those from our temple, and those who had come to us fleeing from Thebe. He and Ephistrophos ate and drank a massive meal in the megaron. And both of them were stone dead by morning.

  ‘So, as it is obvious that you did not attend the fatal feast,’ said Odysseus, ‘Nor your brothers I would calculate – beginning to step back from the men they were starting to see as priest-ridden cowards I assume. It was held only
for the princes. And, in any event I would speculate that you would have allowed your disagreement with the new policy, your disgust, perhaps, at such a cowardly approach, become a sort of wall between you, your husband and his brother as they prepared to throw open the city gates.’

  Briseis did not react to this. She simply continued, ‘So, when you, Achilles, Patroclus, Aias and the rest rode your chariots out in challenge, there was simply no-one of royal blood in Lyrnessus to answer you.’

  ‘And yet,’ I persisted, ‘the gates remained closed. Why were the princes’ wishes overruled? Was everyone still fearful that Achilles would be as brutal as Agamemnon?’

  Briseis looked at Gul-Ses, who, reluctantly, supplied an answer once again. ‘Not only that, though as the princess has said, the rumours were terrifying. Amongst the refugees from Thebe there was a famous mantis named Sutekh, a seer-priest. A priest of Teshub, you understand, but one to whom the great god granted the gift of prophesy. A mantis such as the seer Calchas of Argos who guides your High King Agamemnon, I understand. Like the priestess Pythia who is the oracle at Delphi. Like King Priam’s daughter Cassandra who has the gift of prophesy in Troy. We welcomed Sutekh to our temple of course and he told us the commands of Teshub in return. And, naturally, he and his followers joined us for the feast Prince Mynes had ordered, though we priests did not, of course, share any of the food prepared for the royal princes. Next morning, when Sutekh heard that the princes had been struck down after the meal, he ordered that their bodies be laid out on our altar here. Then he prayed until Teshub spoke to him. He said that Mynes had angered Teshub by his decision to surrender. In doing this he was robbing the great god of an opportunity to display his infinite power by saving the city, thus demonstrating his strength in the face of the puny Achaean gods such as Ares, Poseidon and Apollo. Sutekh told us that the city should close its gates and fight to the last man in the certainty that Teshub would bring a great victory in the end.’