The Anger of Achilles

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘They used our boat,’ I said. I looked back to where Odysseus and his men were still crouching at the fire-bright doorway. The loss of time taken by Odysseus turning to shout at us had robbed him of his only chance for a closer inspection of the corpses. The three of them still crouched there, however, taking one long last look into the heart of the inferno. My experiences with Odysseus made me suspect he would also be searching in the flame bright room for more clues as to what had gone on in there. Eyes first and most… I thought, echoing his wise dictum. But even as I drew in breath to shout to him about what I had discovered in the hope of making up for some of the damage Briseis and I had caused, the wind backed just as Odysseus feared it might. Suddenly the smoke and flames were coming at us with disturbing force.

  ‘Used our boat?’ It was unusual for the princess to be slow on the uptake.

  ‘Yes!’ I replied. ‘They must have pushed it out here then lowered the gold over the side here and down into it,’

  iv

  ‘Of course! You’re right!’ said Briseis. Even in the face of the new danger, she turned and called, ‘Captain Odysseus! Whoever took the gold lowered it over the side here down into the boat we came out in!’

  Odysseus was leading his men back towards the stern at rowing deck level and he paused beside us at the first rowing bench. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘They lowered the chest from here. Once in the boat, the weight of the gold would have seemed like nothing! They could easily have moved it wherever they wanted.’ He hesitated. ‘But they didn’t move it far – apparently only to where we found the boat. Why take it ashore there I wonder?’ He waited a moment more at the splintered gap in the side, looking down. Then he nodded once, and all five of us were scrambling over the benches and the oars back towards the stern as the wind carried the conflagration along the hull above us, washing the elevated walkway with fire, turning the watery trail to steam, wrapping flames around the mast like bright golden ivy and setting the sail on fire along with the ropes that held it all in place. ‘We need to hurry,’ said the captain. ‘The rigging won’t last much longer now and we want to be well clear before the mast comes down.’

  I was in the best position to scramble off the burning ship and into our boat when we reached the stern so I led the way. Briseis followed, then the others. Had the vessel not been secured to the ship it would have pitched us all into the water at once. Even with everyone except Elpenor and myself settled, the little hull rocked quite wildly as the line was loosened. I was in an uneasy crouch, my legs unwilling to fold so that I could be seated as securely as the others and the instant the rope came off and the boat tossed, I went over the side. I panicked at once, floundering and fighting to get my head above water. But then a surprising thing happened. I found my feet. Literally. I discovered that I was standing on solid sand, and I straightened. A moment later I was upright and secure, the water up to my shoulders. A wave slapped me in the face and I choked, but my panic had vanished. I could have waded ashore without too much trouble, had Elpenor not reached down and lifted me bodily back into the boat. I sat there looking down as the chill seeped through my soaking himation. The brightness of the burning ship was just strong enough for me to see the puddle gathering at my feet.

  Then, once again, Elpenor’s careful work with the pole steadied us and guided us back to the beach where we had first come aboard. We beached the boat and Odysseus examined it, but apart from the splintered side, the puddle I had left and Elpenor’s damp footprints, there appeared to be nothing to see of any importance. Odysseus and his men ran on up the beach towards the blazing wreck and the soldiers milling helplessly around it. The next part of the night was clearly going to be taken up with moving the two vessels nearest to King Idas’ fire ship out into the bay so that the hulk could burn itself out without endangering the rest of the Locrian fleet.

  ‘It looks like Aias’ two guards were the first to get a funeral pyre,’ observed Briseis as we watched the captain and his crewmen hurrying away just as the flaming mast and spars fell majestically onto the hull we had so recently escaped from. Even though the conflagration had grown and intensified, we were standing at the outer edge of the brightness and the fact that it was coming from just above sea-level caused one or two strange effects. Odysseus, Perimedes and Elpenor cast long shadows that stretched almost endlessly across the sand towards us. And the sand at our feet was thrown into relief as though tiny ripples were mountain ranges at sunset. ‘Look at this,’ said Briseis.

  She was looking down at her feet, so I did the same but I could see nothing remarkable. ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she answered.

  I sighed, thinking this was just another of her rude dismissals, but no: ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here except a few footprints and the water dripping from your himation. And if that boat was used to carry a chest full of gold to this spot on the beach, then there should be quite a big disturbance where it was brought ashore – footprints, puddles, drag-marks and so-forth. But, instead of that, apart from your puddle and our footprints, there’s…’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ***

  ‘Which means in turn that the treasure chest came ashore somewhere else on the beach and then someone brought the boat back to where we found it,’ Briseis continued.

  ‘That means they must have wanted to hide where they actually came ashore,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes, but I think we can work out a little more than that. Odysseus found a trail of water along the deck of the burning ship and so he realised whoever came aboard her must have waded out to her. You proved how easy it would be to do that yourself.’

  ‘When I fell in but still managed to stand up.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But why do that?’ I wondered. ‘Why wade out, pushing the boat instead of getting into it? Why push it back with the chest aboard and still not get in it? I mean it’s a strong vessel. It carried three big men as well as you and me. I don’t suppose the gold would have weighed more than Elpenor and Perimedes combined and it was nowhere near being overloaded. A couple of men could have got in with the chest quite easily.’

  ‘How do you know they didn’t get into it?’ Briseis demanded.

  ‘Because it was dry. The puddle of water that came off my himation after Elpenor lifted me aboard was the only serious wetness there. Other than that, it was just Elpenor’s damp footprints, really.’

  ‘So,’ said Briseis pensively, ‘whoever took the boat and the gold and murdered Aias’ guards into the bargain was no sailor. They could push a boat from here to there and back again but they couldn’t pole it like Elpenor or, I guess, row it. Which rules out almost everyone here. If we assume that the thieves weren’t women, then who could they be? Even the palace slaves are pretty handy around boats – Lyrnessus was a port city after all.’

  ‘A port city attacked by a navy,’ I said. ‘’There can’t be anyone here who doesn’t know their way around a boat.’

  ‘Except for one group of people,’ said the princess. ‘Only one that I can think of. The priests.’

  ‘Our priests are all sailors as well as warriors,’ I said, a step behind her logic. ‘As you would expect priests of Poseidon to be…’

  ‘Not your priests,’ she said as though speaking to a very stupid infant. ‘Our priests. Well, not my priests – my husband’s priests. The priests of Teshub.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I said. ‘Gul-Ses and his acolytes. And probably the priests from Thebe as well. This strange mantis Sutekh and his followers.’

  She sighed impatiently. ‘What we need to do,’ she said, ‘is to search along the beach until we find where they actually brought the chest ashore.’

  ‘Looking for footprints, puddles, drag marks…’ I echoed what she had said earlier.

  ‘And maybe more than that,’ she said. ‘Because this seems to have been well-planned so far, therefore we should assume they have come up with a better idea than simply trying to carry the chest off t
he beach.’ She huffed once more in a most unprincesslike manner. ‘But unless we can get some light, there’s nothing more we can do until sunrise.’

  I looked around at once. There were fires, lamps and even torches in the Locrian army’s camp immediately inland of us, but of course any one of these big enough or bright enough to be of use to us was already in the possession of someone who needed it – someone such as the soldiers guarding the tents, the supplies and the prisoners from the city. None of whom were likely to part with their torch on the say-so of a halting rhapsode or a princess who was herself supposed to be enslaved, secured and possibly imprisoned.

  We were on the point of giving up when a pair of Locrian soldiers came tramping up the beach. As they approached, we could see that they were in full armour and wearing swords as well as carrying torches. Briseis stepped back into the shadows and I followed her. We knelt on the cool sand behind a low dune with little more than our heads peeping over the top. ‘At the very least we can follow them,’ she whispered. ‘Those torches are throwing a good deal of light down towards the tide-line.’ Then she fell silent as the guards came past, too involved in the conversation they were having to notice us.

  ‘What sort of guard duty is this?’ grumbled one of them. ‘Guarding our tents, our supplies and our prisoners I understand. But who in the name of Hades is going to be stealing King Aias’ precious horses in the middle of the night?’

  ‘You know he fusses over them as though they were his children,’ said his companion. ‘He has hopes that one day they’ll outdo Achilles’ horses Xanthos and Balios. And remember, one of Prince Achilles’ other horses was stolen last night so it’s not surprising… Besides, don’t be so quick to complain,’ the soldier continued. ‘It’s easy duty. And you’re looking on the wrong side entirely. It’s because no-one’s likely to come after these stinking beasts that this is such a gift. We’ll settle down, make ourselves comfortable and get some sleep. We couldn’t risk doing that at any other guard post I can tell you. And, better still, it keeps us well away from trying to put out that god-cursed fire. Which I cannot say for the poor bastards we’re relieving…’

  v

  As they strode on down the beach, Briseis and I rose to our feet and fell in behind them, moving silently across the sand. We stayed as close to them as we dared, our eyes fastened on the light their torches cast down onto the tideline. If I could take her at her word, Briseis was searching for puddles, footprints and drag marks showing where the treasure had been man-handled ashore and spirited away. For myself, I was half expecting to find an open chest, empty of gold, because it seemed logical to suppose that men who were ruthless enough and cunning enough to get this far – priests of Teshub or not – would see in a flash that if the gold was too heavy to be moved all at once, then the best idea would be to split it up, share it out and let each man carry his portion away.

  When I put this idea in a whisper to Briseis, she shrugged and shook her head. ‘No matter how carefully they planned,’ she breathed, ‘it would have taken time, light and lengthy negotiation to decide who got what portion of the loot. None of which are in great supply on a benighted beach in the middle of an army which the thieves were actually trying to rob.’

  I nodded. She had a point. I was still trying to extend that thought into an assessment of what the robbers might actually have done when the answer became obvious.

  ‘There!’ Breathed Briseis.

  Just for an instant at the furthest reach of the puddle of light we were following, the sand at the tideline was wildly disturbed. A boat had been drawn up here. Men had come and gone, most, if not all, dripping wet. Something had been dragged across the beach and something else had left tracks… Before I could quite determine what these extra marks in the sand were, the light had moved away. The two Locrian soldiers were walking inland. We stopped where we were. We should have foreseen this, I thought. But then it dawned on me that perhaps Briseis had. If so, I had no idea what she planned to do next, other than going back to the shore and using a combination of sea-sounds and starlight to follow the tide-line back to the beached ships and Odysseus’ Thalassa. But then, it seemed, the gods took a hand.

  As we watched the two soldiers walking away with their torches, it became obvious where they were heading. Some distance beyond them, there was a watch-fire blazing merrily. ‘What can they be keeping watch over this far from the main camp?’ I wondered. The question was truly idle, for I had yet to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together.

  ‘Don’t you see it yet?’ hissed Briseis. ‘Don’t you understand?’ She hesitated a moment longer, then she made up her mind and was ready for action. ‘We’d better follow them. Given everything that’s happened so far tonight, I have a strong suspicion I know what they’re going to find.’ She was in motion at once, a shape of deeper darkness in the shadows. I followed her, cudgelling my wits in an attempt to follow her reasoning and comprehend what she was talking about.

  In the distance, the torches came to a halt beside the watch fire. They hovered there like fire-flies drawn to the brighter flames. Then they began to move away. They had approached leisurely along the beach. They departed as quickly as they could, heading straight back for the centre of the Locrian camp. As they ran, the guards with the torches were shouting, their words too indistinct for me to make out.

  ‘Quick!’ said Briseis. ‘We’ve just got time. If we hurry!’ That last phrase was aimed at me, of course. Stung, I did my best to comply. Even so, she arrived at the watch-fire first and by the time I caught up with her, she had found a torch and lit it. Holding it high, she began to explore, with me at her shoulder. The first things we found were the dead guards. I would have taken time to examine them according to Odysseus’ dictum – eyes first and most… But Briseis was too impatient for this. Torch aloft, she strode forward until she came to a makeshift fence, beyond which there was nothing more to see. She went along this for a little way, marching towards the sea, until she found a place where the fence had been broken down. She brought the torch nearer to the ground here, and revealed the very same markings I had failed to recognise in the moment I had glimpsed them at the tideline. Hoofprints and wheel tracks.

  ‘Of course!’ I breathed. ‘They stole Aias’ chariots and horses. They used one of the chariots to carry the treasure chest and make good their escape.’

  ***

  I had never seen anyone as angry as Aias. Not Odysseus when he realised he had been outwitted by both Briseis and the murderer. Not even Achilles who was notorious for his temper, and who had already lost one of his horses, Pedasos, to Sarpedon’s cousin Glaucus. ‘My chariots!’ snarled the King of Locris. ‘My four battle chariots and all of my horses!’ He kicked the nearest of the two dead guards lying at his feet. ‘If these two weren’t dead already I’d have them executed on the spot!’ He paused, speechless with outrage. Then he sputtered, ‘And with all the horses gone I can’t even send anyone after them!’

  ‘I have horses,’ said Achilles. ‘I can send riders chasing them.’

  ‘Not before daylight,’ warned Odysseus who was kneeling beside the dead guards as Elpenor held a torch close above him. ‘Unless you want horses with broken legs and riders with broken necks.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ breathed Briseis, her lips so close to my ear that it tickled and her breath was hot against my chilled cheek ‘Aias is apparently not so worried about the treasure.’

  ‘It wasn’t his,’ I whispered.

  ‘Even so, I’d have thought he would have been planning to keep it – Idas was his ally, part of his army…’

  ‘Well,’ said Odysseus as he stood up. ‘There’s nothing more for us to do here. Aias, I’m sure you will want to have these bodies moved to somewhere more suitable. That’s four soldiers you’ve lost tonight, all because of Idas’ gold. In the mean-time, we need a roll call of our armies and of our prisoners – to the extent such a thing is possible. We need to find out who took the gold. They, like the horses and the ch
ariots will be notable by their absence.’

  ‘It will be the priests,’ said Briseis, loudly. ‘The rhapsode and I worked out that it had to be the priests.’

  ‘Then their absence will be easy to establish,’ said Odysseus. ‘That’s more work for you and your men, Aias. Your Locrians were guarding them.’

  ‘At least your idea of splitting the prisoners into small groups assigned to specific units and camp-sites should make counting heads easier,’ said Achilles.

  ‘I’d have thought the units would have learned a good deal about the prisoners assigned to them already,’ added Patroclus. He was clearly a little less than sober – perhaps all the funereal toasts at the feast had made him slur his words ever so slightly. ‘And as the priests weren’t assigned until after the ritual of covering the corpses, they’ll be obvious as new faces – either by their presence or by their absence.’

  There was a general grumble of agreement, then we all began to troop back towards the city. ‘Of course,’ whispered Briseis, so close that our shoulders rubbed together as we walked, ‘Aias might not be too worried about the missing gold because he knows exactly where it is. All this fuss about his horses and his chariots could just be a ruse to throw us off his track.’

  ‘Would he kill his own men? Set fire to one of his own ships? I wonder…’

  ‘I wouldn’t put anything past him. I’d call him a snake except that if I did I’d be giving snakes a bad name. Maybe upset the snakes in the secret rooms beneath the temple of Teshub. How dangerous would that be!’

  ‘And I’d say that chest certainly contained a fortune large enough to tempt a king. I’ll mention it to Odysseus in the morning. But I’m frozen in this damp himation and I’m utterly exhausted. The only things I plan on doing for the rest of the night are drying off, warming up and sleeping.’

  I meant nothing in those words more than what I said, but somehow I had managed to tempt the gods. I was clearly not alone in feeling exhausted. At the city gates. Odysseus stopped and turned to Perimedes. ‘Guide the princess and my rhapsode back to the palace then return to me,’ he said. ‘I will be at my tent inland from Thalassa, waiting for a report of who’s present and who’s absent from amongst the prisoners we Cephallenians are guarding.’