Chasing Odysseus

by S. D. Gentill

  “Well that’s just rude,” Lycon replied, smiling.

  Unloading the steeds, they loosed them to return as they had come, and prepared to unseal the tunnel and climb up into the city. A rope was fastened about the supplies, so they could pull them up once they were out. Machaon climbed first, but his father and brother were close behind him.

  It was the screaming that struck Machaon initially ... thousands of terrified voices merged into a single tortured wail. And then, the smell of fear. He realised that he had emerged into the midst of a battle. It was night, but Troy was aglow with fire as the city burned. Greek forces surged through the streets, slaughtering the citizens of Troy. It was too late to warn Agelaus and Lycon. There was no time to grieve their mistake, their premature celebration.

  He picked up the sword of a fallen soldier and tossed another to his brother. Agelaus retrieved a lance from the body of a man.

  “We must find Priam.” The old Herdsman was grim, he did not hope greatly for the life of the king.

  They made their way slowly, through streets slippery with the blood of their countrymen, towards the palace. They fought as they had to, and both the sons of Agelaus killed men in battle for the first time. Neither took pleasure in it for despite their Amazonian mothers, they were Herdsmen. The faces of the warriors who died upon their swords stayed with them. The wet thud, as flesh gave way to blade; the final fear in the eyes of courageous men.

  When they reached the palace, it too had been overrun. The Greeks had left it on fire to cremate the corpses within. The mutilated body of Priam, King of Troy, lay at the altar of Zeus in the once magnificent courtyard. He had died on his knees in a place that should have provided sanctuary.

  Machaon thought briefly of Hero and her faith in the King of Gods.

  “Let’s hope Zeus is taking better care of our sister,” he muttered to Lycon, as their father knelt to farewell his king, to close the dead stare of his old friend.

  “Agelaus!”

  They turned to the voice. It was Aeneas, Priam’s nephew. He looked down on the body of Priam, defeated. “Troy is lost,” he said. “Save yourselves if you can.”

  Agelaus embraced him. “Aeneas,” he said clasping the prince’s shoulders. “How many of your house survive?”

  Aeneas shook his head. “We were nearly all dead before the walls were breached. Of the fifty sons of Priam, only Scamandrios may still live. And myself, my father and my son. I know not of the women.”

  “We must take you to safety,” Agelaus said. “The house of Troy must not be extinguished here. Where is your family Aeneas? And Scamandrios?”

  “I have not seen Scamandrios for some time, but the others I have hidden in the royal stables.”

  “Good, good!” Old Agelaus was pleased. Another tunnel under the city opened from beneath the stables. He turned to his sons. “Go,” he said. “Bring whoever you can to the stables, but be careful. We do not want to alert the Greeks. We cannot save anyone if they discover that there are routes out of Troy.”

  Machaon and Lycon embraced their father quickly and left him to return to the stables with Aeneas whilst they went in search of survivors. They found fallen Greek soldiers — for the Trojans were fighting back in places — and took their armour and their swords. The ploy worked and they were able to gather many Trojans from under the eyes of their enemies. Some came screaming, believing that they were being taken for slaughter. The sons of Agelaus used the fear to further disguise themselves.

  Only once did Lycon hesitate; only once did the blood and bewildered, grasping terror of the streets of Troy see him stop, overwhelmed. Machaon’s arm was there.

  “Ly, come on.” Machaon pulled his brother close. “Just stay with me.”

  Lycon nodded mutely.

  They saw other Herdsmen taking citizens towards the passages out of the city. They returned time and again to the stables. Agelaus opened the seal of the tunnel and pushed the frightened people through. Prince Aeneas refused to be the first to leave Troy. He assisted the Herdsmen, comforting and encouraging his subjects to move quickly and quietly into the tunnel.

  Finally Lycon ran into the stables. “Greeks ... marching this way,” he said, breathlessly. “We must go now.”

  Aeneas lifted his father upon his back, for the old man was too feeble to walk. Machaon grabbed the prince’s small son. They descended into the shaft and Lycon pulled the wooden panel closed.

  Machaon urged and bullied the Trojans into moving quickly, physically dragging those who baulked at the dark closeness of the tunnel. Some fought him, begged to return to children and lovers left behind. He responded quietly, but held firm against their pleas. There was no going back now; the fate of Troy had been written in blood and flame. The gods had turned away. Aeneas’ son cried for his mother. The child’s tears were hot, his anguish raw. Machaon held him tightly, his stomach knotted with a certainty that the boy was now motherless. Somehow, the Herdsman managed to hold off rebellion, and moved the survivors forward.

  Agelaus and Lycon remained behind to push out the supports of the shaft. Lycon took the greater weight, but though old, Agelaus had strength still. They ran as the tunnel immediately behind the opening caved in, ensuring that they could not be followed.

  Royal Aeneas spoke to his people, demanding that they be calm. The way ahead was black and the Trojans were undone by the savagery and magnitude of their loss. They shrank from the passages, which appeared to descend into the grim depths of Hades itself. The darkness pressed them against the damp hewn walls. Their city and most of their people burned above their heads. The earth around them seemed to scream as it received the blood of Troy.

  Machaon and Lycon discarded the Greek armour gladly. It was not the way of Herdsmen to wear breastplates or helmets, and these belonged to the destroyers of Troy. The red stain of battle, however, could not be so easily removed.

  The return to Mount Ida was long and difficult. The people were distraught, their courage spent. They stopped often to rest and to weep.

  Machaon put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Lycon was four years younger than he, too young for what they had seen and done in Troy. The boy was brave, unflinching, but he could not hide the horror and the grief in his eyes. Machaon spoke gently to him.

  “Ly, are you all right?”

  “It’s gone, Mac. Troy is gone.” Lycon’s voice was unbelieving, as if the citadel had vanished before his eyes. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’ll survive, protect who we can and we’ll rebuild.”

  Lycon did not appear to hear him. “The whole city ... all those people ... ”

  Machaon faltered, unsure, then calmly, “Our father will know what to do. The city is not everything, Ly.”

  It was nearly sunset of the following day when the exhausted survivors emerged in one of the many hidden vales of Ida. They drank from a small stream and gazed down upon the flames that engulfed all but the white stone walls of their city. The beach was again crowded with ships, as the Greek forces celebrated the fall of Troy.

  Agelaus spoke anxiously with his sons. “The people will become angry very soon. They are grieving and hungry. They will need food.”

  “They are safest here,” replied Machaon, “where they are hidden from the Greeks.”

  Agelaus agreed. “We can bring food and wine from the caves on the northern slopes. Let us go now and we shall be back before dark.”

  “All right, Father.” Machaon looked around at the Trojans who sat by the stream sobbing, or simply staring into the distance. “If we hurry we can return before they notice we are gone.”

  The Herdsmen walked quietly away from the crowd up the steeper slopes of the small woodland valley.

  “Where do you go, Agelaus?” The voice was hard and rang with authority, but it was not Aeneas.

  They turned, startled. It was Scamandrios. The son of the dead King Priam looked very much like Paris, but his eyes were cold.

  “Scamandrios!” exclaimed Agelaus. “You
are alive.”

  “Does it surprise you, Agelaus?” Two score of Trojan soldiers came over the rise and joined the prince. The people the Herdsmen had brought through the tunnel pressed closer too, delighted by the sudden appearance of Prince Scamandrios and his men.

  Aeneas stepped forward and embraced him. “I thought you had perished, cousin,” he said. “I am glad to see you.”

  “I too am glad to see you, cousin Aeneas. I thank the gods that I arrived in time — before Agelaus betrayed you to the Greeks.”

  Trojan soldiers emerged from the trees and surrounded the Herdsmen. Machaon and Lycon instinctively reached for the swords which they had not discarded with the Greek armour. Agelaus placed a restraining hand on the shoulder of each of his sons.

  “We do not betray you,” he said peaceably. “We go only to bring food to your people, as the Herdsmen have always done.”

  “The Herdsmen!” Scamandrios’ voice dripped with scorn. “It was they who showed the Greeks how to breach the walls of Troy.”

  There was stunned silence.

  “The Herdsmen are faithful,” Agelaus said clearly. “We have shown the Greeks nothing.”

  “How then, did the Greeks enter Troy? They were within its walls before the gates were opened. Only you know the secret ways into the city!”

  “The Greeks did not come by the way of the Herdsmen,” replied Agelaus. “Come, Scamandrios, you cannot believe this! We have been loyal all the years of the war.”

  The soldiers moved in suddenly and seized the Herdsmen. Their swords were taken. The crowd started to murmur angrily, suspicious gazes falling upon the men who had led them out of the burning citadel.

  Aeneas spoke in their favour. “Agelaus and his sons delivered us from Troy.”

  “And into the hands of Agamemnon and the Greeks, if I had not arrived. Tell me cousin, how did they find you? What were they doing in Troy on the night it was sacked?”

  Aeneas said nothing, for he had discovered the Herdsmen over the body of King Priam.

  “No matter, cousin,” continued Scamandrios. “Agelaus himself shall tell us when I have finished with him.”

  The soldiers brought Agelaus forward as Machaon and Lycon struggled in vain to protect their father.

  The crowd murmured their approval, eager to blame someone for their grief and their loss.

  “They wore the armour of the Greeks when they seized me,” came one voice and others followed.

  Scamandrios stared at Agelaus’ defiant eyes for a moment. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Bring me the boy.”

  Agelaus’ face changed as Lycon was dragged forth. Machaon looked on helplessly.

  “Paris would tell me of the loving father he had, before he knew mine,” sneered Scamandrios. “Of the Herdsman who loved him before he was a prince. I think perhaps the screams of your son may loosen your tongue.”

  Lycon’s face was rigid. He glanced at his brother and, for a heartbeat, Machaon saw his fear. Agelaus looked stricken. The crowd cheered and taunted. Aeneas was torn between his cousin and the men who had helped them.

  Then, Machaon laughed loudly. “You are an idiot, Scamandrios,” he scoffed. “Do you not know that Lycon is a foundling, an orphan? He is neither my brother nor the son of my father — I am the only true son of Agelaus!”

  Lycon looked so obviously wounded that Scamandrios knew Machaon’s words to be true. His eyes were chilling. “As you wish, son of Agelaus.”

  He motioned to the soldiers. Machaon was dragged forward and Lycon thrown back beside his father.

  Machaon’s gaze did not falter. He was angry now. “What say you now?” Scamandrios demanded of the distraught old man.

  “The Herdsmen are faithful,” replied Agelaus, speaking for the honour of his sons and his brethren, as well as himself. But his face was ashen.

  Scamandrios signalled to his soldiers again. “Flog him.”

  “Cousin, no!” Aeneas remembered that Machaon had carried his son out of Troy.

  “Would you challenge my authority, Aeneas?” Scamandrios was calm. “I am the only surviving son of Priam. I claim the throne of my father ... such as it is.”

  Aeneas shook his head, but he said nothing. Scamandrios’ right was undeniable.

  The soldiers bared the back of Machaon and Agelaus was tortured by each lash that fell upon his cherished son. The crowd jeered and applauded at first, and then, as the flogging continued, they quietened, silenced by the brutality of it. Yet noble Agelaus refused to admit to the accusations of the last prince of Troy.

  Machaon’s back was striped with blood, and his body jerked with every strike, though he did not make a sound.

  Agelaus’ face was fevered, weeping in open anguish. Consumed with horror and desperate grief, he lunged at the soldier who held him. Somehow, the old man took the Trojan’s sword.

  “Father no!” Lycon cried, but too late.

  A soldier drove his sword into the ribs of the Herdsman and gentle Agelaus fell. Lycon was allowed to kneel by his father as the old man gasped for breath, blood frothing at bluing lips as he looked to his boys.

  Machaon choked, unable to speak or act, but still, merciless Scamandrios was not appeased. He ordered the beating to continue, so that as he died Agelaus would see the anger of Troy on the body of his son.

  In the end, Machaon too fell, and only then did Scamandrios permit the flogging to stop. Lycon still knelt by the body of his father, retching. Those who watched thought the boy maddened with grief, for they had not before witnessed the howl of the Herdsmen.

  “For nine years we devised stratagems and ploys to bring them down, to no avail — and then when by our blood and toil, victory was finally ours, Zeus seemed to grudge it to us.”

  The Odyssey Book III

  BOOK V

  CADMUS HAD FIRST SEEN the smoke on the distant horizon at the break of day. He and the sons of Brontor had known what it meant, but had not spoken of it. It was too far for Hero to see. There was no need for her to be faced with the horror of what was happening until absolutely necessary.

  Now that they approached the slopes of Ida, the smoke took on an orange hue and Hero could smell what her eyes failed to perceive.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Cadmus whispered to her. “The smoke is from Troy, not Ida. We’ll find father, and then do what we can.”

  Hero was not comforted. She knew the Herdsmen would try to bring as many Trojan citizens as possible to safety through the tunnels. Surely then, the Greeks would turn on Ida. They would know that Agelaus had tricked them all those years ago, and that the Herdsmen served only Troy. She was terrified for her father and brothers and all of their people. As she clung tightly to Cadmus, she could hear the rapid beating of his heart and she knew that he was not as calm as he would have her believe.

  They climbed Ida from the northern slopes — it was the most wooded and difficult route, allowing the Herdsmen to come and go without notice.

  Cadmus could now see the inferno that was Troy; the funeral pyre of a city so great that he’d believed it would outlast the mountain itself. He could hear Hero praying into his back, but he said nothing.

  Kelios raised his head and howled, and soon they were answered by the calls of their brethren. Cadmus could not hear his brothers or Agelaus, but there were many howls missing from the call.

  Within moments, several Herdsmen found them. Brontor embraced his sons and told them all of the sack and fall of Troy.

  “Who opened the gates?” Cadmus asked. The walls had always kept Troy impenetrable.

  Brontor shook his head. “The Greeks themselves. Only they know how they entered the city to do so.” He stopped and then spoke in a voice racked with anguish and shame. “Prince Scamandrios accuses the Herdsmen.”

  “He does what!” Cadmus was outraged, as were the sons of Brontor.

  Brontor went on grimly. “Priam is dead, the other princes are dead, even the infant son of Prince Hector was thrown from the walls ... there is only Scamandrios, and he cl
aims that only the Herdsmen could have breached the walls and allowed the Greeks to open the gates from within.”

  “Where is Scamandrios?” Cadmus said.

  “He is on Ida with his soldiers,” Brontor replied. “He has declared the Herdsmen ‘the betrayers of Troy’, and he has already killed many of us.” Sadly, Brontor listed the names of their brethren, captured and executed as traitors that day. Their deaths had been brutal, their bodies desecrated.

  Cadmus and Hero listened in both shock and grief.

  “And what of Agelaus and my brothers?” Cadmus asked, taking his sister’s hand.

  “We do not know,” Brontor said. “They went into the tunnels, but they must have taken a different route back ... unless they died in Troy.” He looked at Hero, who barely suppressed a cry of fear and pain. “We have been checking each opening. Otherwise, our people are either accounted for, or dead. The Herdsmen have no friends, either Greek or Trojan. We must go into hiding.”

  “Where haven’t you checked?” asked Cadmus, his voice shaking slightly.

  “There is but one place left. The vale adjoining the pastures which hold the largest herd. It is hidden from the Greeks, but Scamandrios knows these mountains well, and he seeks your father.”

  “We shall find them first.” Cadmus urged his horse forward.

  They approached the vale carefully, riding through the trees rather than along any path. Hero prayed again, calling on every god she could think of to protect her father and brothers. They dismounted whilst still behind the rise that hid them from those within the vale. Cadmus and Brontor crept silently to the crest to see who was within.

  Cadmus recognised his father and brothers immediately. They were being held by Trojan soldiers. The royal cape of Scamandrios identified the prince, but there was another who wore the colours of Priam’s house.

  “Aeneas,” breathed Brontor, obviously relieved. “He is a man of honour.”

  “Then why are my father and my brothers captives?” asked Cadmus tersely.

  Scamandrios and Aeneas appeared to be arguing.