The Song of Troy

by Colleen McCullough

‘Where is he?’ she asked, voice steady.

  ‘Before Agamemnon’s house.’ Odysseus still wept.

  Brise stroked his arm and smiled. ‘There’s no need to grieve, Odysseus. He will be immortal.’

  They had rigged up a canopy over the bier to keep off the rain; Brise ducked under its edge and stood looking down at the ruins of that magnificent man, water and blood matting his bright hair, his face drained and still. I wondered if she saw what I did: that the lipless mouth looked right in death, though it never had in life. Owning it, his was the face of the quintessential warrior.

  But what she thought, she did not say, then or ever. With perfect tenderness she leaned over and kissed his eyelids, took his hands and folded them on his chest, tucked and patted at the shift until it suited her idea of rightness.

  He was dead. Achilles was dead. How could we ever bear it?

  We mourned him for seven full days. On the last evening as the sun was setting we laid his body on the golden death car and ferried him across Skamander to the tomb in the cliff. Brise went with us, for no one had the heart to banish her; she walked at the end of the long cortege with her hands folded and her head bent. Ajax was the chief mourner, held the head of Achilles in the palm of one hand as they carried him into the chamber. He was clad in gold, but not in the golden armour. That Agamemnon had taken into custody.

  After the priests had said the words, fitted the golden mask over his face and poured out the libations, we filed slowly out of the tomb he shared with Patrokles, Perithesileia and twelve noble Trojan youths. Strangest of all those many strange events and portents was the atmosphere inside the tomb; sweet, pure, ineffable. The blood of the twelve youths in the golden chalice was still liquid, still richly coloured crimson.

  I turned back to make sure Brise was following, to find that she knelt by the death car. Though I had no hope of reaching her, I ran into the tomb, Nestor by my side. We couldn’t speak as she laid the knife down with the last of her strength and sank upon the ground. Yes, that was proper! How could any of us face the light of a day that knew no Achilles? I half bent to pick up the knife, but Nestor stopped me.

  ‘Come away, Automedon. They want no others here.’

  The funeral feast was held the following day, but there were no games. Agamemnon explained.

  ‘I doubt anyone has the heart to compete. But that isn’t why. The why lies in the fact that Achilles didn’t want to be buried in the armour his mother – a Goddess! – commissioned from Hephaistos Fire. He wanted it awarded as a prize to the best man left alive before Troy. Instead of funeral games.’

  I didn’t disbelieve him, exactly, but Achilles hadn’t mentioned this to me. ‘How, sire, can you possibly decide that? By feats of arms? But sometimes they’re not indicative of genuine greatness.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said the High King. ‘For that reason, I’m going to make it a contest of words. Any man who thinks that he’s the best man left alive before Troy, step out and tell me why.’

  Two contenders only stepped out. Ajax and Odysseus. How odd! They represented the two poles of greatness: the warrior and the – what did one call him, the man who worked through mind?

  ‘Yes, fitting,’ said Agamemnon. ‘Ajax, you brought his body in. Odysseus, you made it possible to bring the body in. Ajax, speak first and tell me why you think you deserve the armour.’

  We all sat on chairs to either side of Agamemnon, I with King Nestor and the rest because I led the Myrmidons now. There were no others present.

  Ajax seemed to be as troubled as he was wordless; he stood there, the biggest man I have ever seen, without a thing to say. Nor did he look well; there was something wrong with his right side from face to leg. When he had walked forward he had dragged that leg, nor did the right arm move in a natural way. A little stroke, I thought. He’s had a little stroke. Carrying his cousin so far has strained the weakest part of him, his mind. And when finally he did speak, he kept pausing painfully to search for a word.

  ‘Imperial High King, fellow Kings and Princes… I am the first cousin of Achilles. His father, Peleus, and my father, Telamon, were full brothers. Their father, Aiakos, was a son of Zeus. Ours is a great lineage. Ours is a great name. I claim the armour for myself because I bear that name, come from that line. I can’t let it be awarded to a man who is the bastard of a common thief.’

  The row of twenty men stirred, frowned. What was Ajax doing, to slander Odysseus? Not that Odysseus protested; apparently deaf, he looked at the ground.

  ‘I came to Troy voluntarily, as did Achilles. No oath bound either of us. I didn’t have to be unmasked when I feigned madness, but Odysseus did. Only two men in this great host fought Hektor in hand to hand combat – Achilles and I. I need no Diomedes to do my dirty work for me. What use would the armour be to Odysseus? His weak left hand couldn’t hope to cast Old Pelion. His red head would sink beneath the weight of that helmet. If you doubt my right to my cousin’s property, then throw it into the middle of a pack of Trojans, and see which one of the two of us pulls it out!’

  He limped to his chair and sat down heavily.

  Agamemnon looked embarrassed, but it was plain that most of us agreed with what Ajax said. Puzzled, I studied Odysseus. Why did he lay claim to the armour at all?

  He moved forwards and stood loosely with his feet apart, the redness of his hair pronounced in the light. Red-haired and left-handed. No divine blood there, for sure.

  ‘It’s true that I tried to get out of coming to Troy,’ said Odysseus. ‘I knew how long this war would last. Oath notwithstanding, how many of you would voluntarily have joined this expedition if you’d had any idea how long you’d be away?

  ‘As for Achilles, I’m the sole reason why he came to Troy – I and none other saw through the plot to keep him in Skyros. Ajax was there, but he didn’t see. Ask Nestor, he’ll confirm it.

  ‘As for ancestry, I ignore Ajax’s vile insinuation. I too am a great-grandson of almighty Zeus.

  ‘As for physical courage, do any of you doubt mine? I don’t have a better body than anyone else to bolster my valour, but I do very well in battle. If you doubt that, count my scars. King Diomedes is my friend and lover, not my minion.’

  He paused, as much at ease with words as Ajax was ill at ease. ‘I’ve laid claim to the armour for one reason only – because I want to see it disposed of as Achilles himself wished.

  ‘If I cannot wear it, can Ajax? If it’s too large for me, it’s certainly too small for him. Give it to me. I deserve it.’

  He threw his arms wide as if to say that there was no contest at all, then returned to his chair. Many wavered now, but that couldn’t matter. Agamemnon would decide.

  The High King looked at Nestor. ‘What do you think?’

  Nestor sighed. ‘That Odysseus deserves the armour.’

  ‘Then so be it. Odysseus, take your prize.’

  Ajax screamed. His sword was out, but whatever he intended to do with it was not done. Even as he sprang out of his chair, he pitched full length on the ground and lay there. Nothing we did could rouse him. In the end Agamemnon ordered a stretcher brought, and eight soldiers bore him away. Odysseus put the armour in a hand cart while the Kings dispersed, saddened and dispirited. I went looking for wine to take the sourness out of my mouth. By the time that Odysseus had finished speaking we had known what he intended to do with his prize – give it to Neoptolemos. Maybe in Troy that would have been possible as a direct gift, but armour belonging to a dead man in our part of the world was either buried with him or put up as a prize at his funeral games. A pity. Yes, as things turned out, a great pity.

  Night had long fallen when I gave up trying to get drunk. I walked the deserted streets between the tall houses seeking a light, any place which might offer me comfort. And there it was at last, a flame! Burning inside Odysseus’s house. The curtain was still drawn back from the doorway, so I staggered in.

  He was sitting with Diomedes, sitting watching the dying embers of a fire and brooding. His
arm was thrown about the Argive, his fingers slowly caressing the Argive’s bare shoulder. An outsider looking at their solidarity, a masterless dog, I knew a fresh surge of loneliness. Achilles was dead. I led the Myrmidons, I who had not been born to that command. Terrifying. I came into the circle of light and sat down wearily.

  ‘Do I intrude?’ I asked then, a little tardily.

  Odysseus smiled. ‘No. Have some wine.’

  My stomach turned over. ‘No, thank you. I’ve been trying to get drunk all night without success.’

  ‘So alone, Automedon?’ Diomedes asked.

  ‘More alone than I ever wanted to be. How can I take his place? I’m not Achilles!’

  ‘Rest easy,’ Odysseus whispered. ‘I sent for Neoptolemos ten days ago, when I saw the shadow of death darken his face. If the winds and Gods are kind, Neoptolemos should be here soon.’

  The relief was so enormous I almost kissed him. ‘Odysseus, for that I thank you with all my heart! The Myrmidons must be led by the blood of Peleus.’

  ‘Don’t thank me for doing the sensible thing.’

  We sat talking desultorily while the night passed away, each drawing comfort from the others. Once I fancied I heard a commotion in the distance, but when it died down quickly I turned my attention back to what Diomedes was saying. Then came a great shout; this time all three of us heard. Diomedes got up, pantherish, reaching for his sword, while Odysseus sat uncertainly, his head cocked. The noise grew; we went outside and moved in its direction.

  It drew us down towards Skamander and finally to its bank, where we kept a pen of consecrated animals for the altars, each one individually chosen, blessed, and marked with a sacred symbol. Some of the other Kings were ahead of us, and a guard had already been posted to keep the merely curious away. Of course we were let through immediately, and joined Agamemnon and Menelaos as they stood by the fence around the pen peering at some object looming in the darkness. We listened to insane laughter, to a gibbering voice rising higher and higher, shouting names up at the stars, shrieking its rage and derision.

  ‘Take that, Odysseus, you spawn of thieves! Die, Menelaos, you crawling sycophant!’

  On and on it went while we probed the night fruitlessly. Then someone handed a torch to Agamemnon, who raised it above his head and sent its light out in a widening pool. I gasped in horror. The wine and the empty belly I hadn’t wanted to fill revolted; I turned aside and spewed. As far as the light of the torch could reach was blood. Sheep and cattle and goats lay in lakes of it, their eyes glazed and fixed, their limbs lopped off, their throats cut, their hides showing sometimes dozens of wounds. In the background Ajax capered with a bloody sword in his hand. His mouth was open in that chilling laughter when it was not screaming abuse. A terrified little calf dangled from his hand, beating its hooves against his unyielding bulk while he hacked at it. Each time he struck he called the calf Agamemnon, then went into another peal of laughter.

  ‘To see him come to this!’ Odysseus whispered.

  I managed to control my heaving. ‘What is it?’ I gasped.

  ‘Madness, Automedon. The outcome of different things. Too many blows to the head over the years – too much grief – perhaps a stroke. But to come to this! I pray he never recovers enough to understand what he’s done.’

  ‘We have to stop him!’ I said.

  ‘By all means try, Automedon. I don’t have any ambition to tackle Ajax in a fit of madness.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Agamemnon.

  So all we did was stand and watch.

  With the dawn his madness lifted. He came to his senses ankle deep in blood, stared about him like a man in a nightmare – at the dozens of consecrated animals surrounding him, at the blood which covered him from head to foot, at the sword in his hand, at the silent Kings watching from beyond the fence. He still held a goat in his hand, drained of life, hideously mutilated. With a shriek of horror he dropped it, understanding at last what he had done in the night. Then he ran to the fence and leaped it, flying away from the place as if the Furies pursued him already. Teukros broke away from us to follow him; we remained where we were, shaken to our marrow.

  Menelaos recovered his powers of speech first. ‘Are you going to let him get away with this, brother?’ he asked Agamemnon.

  ‘What do you want, Menelaos?’

  ‘His life! He’s killed the sacred animals, his life is forfeit! The Gods demand it!’

  Odysseus sighed. ‘Whom the Gods love best, they first drive mad,’ he said. ‘Let it alone, Menelaos.’

  ‘He has to die!’ Menelaos insisted. ‘Execute him, and let no man dig his grave!’

  ‘That is the punishment,’ Agamemnon muttered.

  Odysseus struck his hands together. ‘No, no, no! Leave him be! Isn’t it enough for you, Menelaos, that Ajax has doomed himself? His shade is condemned to Tartaros for this night’s work! Let him alone! Don’t heap more coals on his poor, crazed head!’

  Agamemnon turned away from the carnage. ‘Odysseus is right. He’s mad, brother. Let him atone as best he can.’

  Odysseus, Diomedes and I walked down through the streets and the murmuring, shivering men to where Ajax lived with his chief concubine, Tekmessa, and their son, Eurysakes. When Odysseus knocked on the bolted door Tekmessa peered fearfully through the shuttered window, then opened to him, her son at her side.

  ‘Where’s Ajax?’ asked Diomedes.

  She wiped away her tears. ‘Gone, sire. I don’t know where, except that he said he was going to seek forgiveness of Palladian Athene by bathing in the sea.’ She broke down, but managed to go on. ‘He gave Eurysakes his shield. He said it was the only one of his arms not tainted by sacrilege, and told us that all the other pieces were to be buried with him. Then he gave us into the care of Teukros. Sire, sire, what is it? What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing he understood, Tekmessa. Stay here, we’ll find him.’

  He was down by the shore where the tiny waves lapped gently at the fringe of the lagoon and a few rocks dotted the gravelly sand. Teukros was with him, kneeling with his head bent over, stolid Teukros who never spoke much but was always there when Ajax needed him. Even now, at the last.

  What he had done spoke mutely for itself: the flat rock a few fingers above the gravel, its surface cracked from some blow of Poseidon’s trident, the sword handle wedged to its hilt in the crack, blade upwards. He had shed his armour and bathed in the sea, he had traced an owl in the sand for Athene and an eye for Mother Kubaba. Then he had positioned himself above the sword and fallen on it with all his weight; it had taken him in the centre of his chest and clove the backbone. Two cubits of it protruded beyond his body. He lay with his face in his own blood, his eyes closed, traces of madness still in his features. His huge hands were slack, the fingers gently curved.

  Teukros raised his head to look at us bitterly, his eyes as they rested on Odysseus plainly saying that he knew who was to blame. What Odysseus thought I couldn’t begin to guess, but he didn’t falter.

  ‘What can we do?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Teukros. ‘I’ll bury him myself.’

  ‘Here?’ asked Diomedes, aghast. ‘No, he deserves better!’

  ‘You know that’s not true. He knew it. So do I. He’ll have exactly what the laws of the Gods say he deserves – a suicide’s grave. It’s all I’m able to do for him. All that’s left between us. He must pay in death, as Achilles paid in life. He said that before he died.’

  We went away then and left them alone, the brothers who would never again fight with the little one under the shelter of the big one’s shield. In eight days they were both gone: Achilles and Ajax, the spirit and the heart of our army.

  ‘Ai! Ai! Woe! Woe!’ cried Odysseus, the tears running down his face. ‘How strange are the ways of the Gods! Achilles dragged Hektor by the baldric Ajax gave him. Now Ajax falls on the sword Hektor gave him.’ He writhed painfully. ‘By the Mother, I am sick unto death of Troy! I hate the very smell of Trojan air.’

  29


  NARRATED BY

  Agamemnon

  The days of open fighting had gone; Priam locked the Skaian Gate and looked down on us from his towers. A handful of them remained, only Aineas still alive among their great ones. With his most beloved sons dead, Priam was left with the worthless to console him. It was a time of waiting, while our wounds healed and our spirits slowly revived. A curious thing had happened, a gift from the Gods no one had dreamed of: Achilles and Ajax seemed to have entered into the very substance of every Greek soldier. To the last one they were determined to conquer the walls of Troy. I mentioned the phenomenon to Odysseus, wondering what he thought.

  ‘There’s nothing mysterious about it, sire. Achilles and Ajax have been transformed into Heroes, and Heroes never die. So what the men are doing is taking up the burden. Besides which, they want to go home. But not defeated. The only vindication for the events of these last ten years in exile is the fall of Troy. We’ve paid dearly for this campaign – in our blood, in our greying hair, in our aching hearts, in the faces so long unseen we can hardly remember the beloved lineaments, in the tears and the bitter emptiness. Troy has chewed its way into our bones. We could no more go home without smashing Troy into dust than we could profane the Mysteries of the Mother.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I’ll seek counsel of Apollo.’

  ‘He’s a Trojan far more than a Greek, sire.’

  ‘Even so, his is the oracular mouth. So we’ll ask him what we need to enter Troy. He can’t deny the representation of a people – any people! – a truthful answer.’

  The high priest, Talthybios, looked into the glowing bowels of the sacred fire, and sighed. He was no Kalchas; a Greek, he used fire and water to divine, saving animals for simple sacrificial victims. Nor did he announce his findings at the augury itself. He waited until we were assembled in council.

  ‘What did you see?’ I asked then.

  ‘Many things, sire. Some of them I couldn’t even begin to understand, but two things were fully revealed.’