Aeneas lobbed a pebble into the spring. ‘True. The rats desert in droves. In the field we’ll probably be outnumbered. On the other hand’--jabbing a thumb to massive ramparts frowning from the bluff--‘you’ll never take the citadel by storm.’
‘We’ll starve you into surrender.’
‘Rubbish! A leaguer lasting years? Economically and politically out of the question. Fields and flocks left masterless for more than a harvest or two spell ruin for the landlord; nor will prudent rulers quit their kingdoms for as long. You face an impasse, sire--and the war henceforth brings neither side advantage.’ Flinty eyes examined my face. ‘Would you consider coming to terms provided Helen is restored to her husband?’
I smiled. ‘Come, Aeneas--you know as well as I that the causes of contention lie deeper than Helen’s abduction. Incidentally, how is she faring now Paris is dead?’
Aeneas’ lumpy countenance wrinkled in amusement. ‘Another of Priam’s sons, Deiphobus, has taken her under his wing. Helen doesn’t seem to mind exchanging lovers. A hussy if ever I saw one.’ Ruefully he scratched a bristly beard. ‘My apologies, sire--forgot she’s your sister by marriage.’
I disclaimed offence, took my leave and strolled thoughtfully back to camp.
* * *
The plain of Troy was neutral ground, open to friend and foe alike to come and go as he pleased. As time went by tension relaxed so far that our people climbed the plateau, explored the empty township and strolled without impediment round the walls. (But the gates stayed closed to Achaeans.) Odysseus, who frequently roamed about the ramparts, one day entered my Hall where I sat over wine with Diomedes and excitedly reported he had found a secret entrance into the citadel.
‘There’s an opening at the base of the wall near the Dardanian Gate which is large enough to admit a man crawling--a narrow culvert trickling water that probably drains a well.’
I said, ‘We can hardly storm Troy on hands and knees in single file up a muddy drain!’
‘No--but if a small party can creep inside, and steal to the gates--’
‘Do it at night,’ Diomedes exclaimed, ‘and open the gates to stormers mustered in darkness below the hill!’
‘Exactly,’ said Odysseus. ‘We’ll surprise the garrison and then--’
‘Hold your horses, gentlemen,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ve no idea where the conduit leads--it may be blocked by a grating. We need a lot more information before committing ourselves to such a speculative venture.’
‘Then,’ said Odysseus, ‘I’ll explore the passage tonight. Will you come, Diomedes?’
The King of Argos eagerly assented. I swallowed wine and pondered. These headstrong Heroes propounded a warlike operation while a truce was supposed to be reigning. Two principal leaders, moreover, proposed hazarding their lives on a dangerous patrol whose rewards were extremely dubious. They saw the doubt in my face and renewed persuasion. Both were irked by idleness, bored to desperation and avid for any wildcat exploit to relieve the daily tedium.
Eventually, battered by argument, I yielded against my will.
The couple went out on a rainswept night, evaded Trojan pickets--both we and the enemy, truce notwithstanding, patrolled our lines after dark--skulked through the town and crept towards the Dardanian Gate. Odysseus found his bearings and led his companion, belly to ground, to a hole in the foot of the wall. When Diomedes saw the small black cavern his courage nearly failed: only Odysseus’ whispered taunts persuaded him to enter.
Blindly, in total darkness, they climbed on hands and knees, slipping in slime, clawing in mud while spines scraped a jagged-rock roof. Odysseus emerged at the side of a well, the water lapping his chin. Reaching above his head he found the rim, hauled himself up and stretched a hand to Diomedes.
They sat on the well-head, panting, recovered nerves and breath, fumbled in the dark and found themselves in a small square shrine belonging to The Lady. After finding an exit that led to a street Odysseus stole an offering from the altar--a woman’s effigy made from clay--as proof of his exploit. (A sacrilegious act for which he will surely be punished.) They slid down the drain, escaped unscathed and stumbled back through teeming rain.
I called a council of all the leaders and announced the patrol’s discoveries. Odysseus’ plan met general disapproval. Far too chancy, Nestor declared: one alert sentry spelt disaster. Menelaus said acidly the enemy weren’t half-wits: they would hear our stormers gathering and stand to arms all night. Heroes, in truth, are opposed to night operations on principle despite successes proved in the past by Atreus and myself.
I let the discussion rage. Agapenor wanted a conventional escalade with ladders. (Remembering Thebes in the War of the Seven I inwardly quailed.) Achilles, strangely for so aggressive a character, flicked foxy eyes from face to face and uttered never a word. Ascephalus of Orchomenos languidly wondered whether some sort of siege engine could be contrived which, rammed against a wall, could shelter escaladers while they climbed to the parapet.
A hazy recollection entered my mind. Gelon years before, had sketched a wooden tower, mounted on wheels, tall enough to top the enemy battlements. Though at the time I dismissed the contrivance as impractical and cumbersome I resolved to let the Scribe refurbish his idea. We would need to employ every possible means--secret entrances, siege engines, straightforward escalade--to force entry into Troy.
I dismissed the council, sought Gelon and told him my requirements. He made a fuss, of course, protesting that accounting supplies fully occupied his time, disclaimed all knowledge of warlike arts--and asked to be shown the ramparts. Together we crossed the plain, climbed the plateau and examined the stretch near the Tower of Ilion where Nestor said the wall was poorly constructed. Gelon noted the height from ground to parapet and moved his lips in silent calculation.
‘Well, Gelon,’ I said, ‘can you design a machine?’
He cocked his head at the massive ramparts, ignored a cheerful Trojan sentry who shouted a quip from the parapet and said, ‘You want a device, sire, that will protect a storming party from missiles while mounting to the top?’
‘Just that.’
Gelon sighed. ‘I can but try.’
* * *
I often encountered Aeneas on the plain; the more I saw the man the more I liked him. A rugged exterior concealed a calculating brain that shrewdly appraised the factors in every situation and reached realistic conclusions--a mentality, in fact, which strongly resembled mine. (The Dardanian, however, had old-fashioned notions of honour.) We fell into the habit of meeting by appointment at the spring, strolled around together or hunted duck that thronged the flooding rivers--Aeneas, an exceptional archer, could hit a mallard flying. While shooting one day on Simoeis’ marshy verges he drew me apart from the guards and said without preamble, ‘You harbour a traitor, sire.’
‘Inescapable, I suppose, in all this fraternization, and probably not deliberate. Heroes, spearmen, even followers meet together and gossip. They can hardly tattle military secrets that only the leaders know.’
‘Your traitor is a leader, his perfidy is deliberate. I loathe treachery, sire--an unforgiveable crime--and dislike the man who betrays you.’
‘His name?’
‘Achilles.’
I felt both furious and dismayed. The rogue attended councils and was privy to our strategy. Aeneas studied my face, and said, ‘Apparently Achilles met Priam’s daughter Polyxena laundering at the spring, courted and enraptured her--a foolish, gullible woman--and prevailed upon the silly bitch to admit him through the Scaean Gate by night. I’ve dealt with the guard commander,’ he finished grimly.
'An amorous assignation, merely. He--‘
‘No. Achilles, once inside, went straight to Priam.’
I gulped. ‘How much has he told?’
‘At winter’s end you’ll renew the attacks, and construct an engine to scale the walls.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘Isn’t it enough? Doubtless, nearer the time, Achilles will steal int
o Troy again and tell us your detailed plans.’
I checked a sigh of relief. The treacherous pig had not disclosed the culvert--though he would certainly blab the secret when he again contacted Priam. I strung my bow, and brooded. Accuse Achilles to his face? He’d deny the charge--and where was proof? Aeneas could hardly be summoned to bear witness at an Achaean leader’s trial; while an unverified accusation might lead to a Myrmidon mutiny. The ruffians had shown themselves staunch fighters; and we could not afford a further drain from forces depleted by battle and plague.
I notched an arrow, loosed at a drake mallard paddling in the reeds, missed and made a decision.
‘When Achilles next enters Troy, could you arrange he meets with an ... accident?’
Not a quiver of emotion stirred Aeneas’ saturnine features. ‘Easily. Precisely the solution I had in mind.’
I said fervently, ‘You’ve put me in your debt--a debt I will repay. When Troy falls--’
‘You bay for the moon!’ he said sharply.
‘Aeneas, you’re an experienced warrior, able to appreciate the realities of war. Skirmishes and battles have purged your garrison’s strength, you’ve lost Hector, Sarpedon, Memnon and other distinguished leaders. Troy’s allies are rapidly deserting. The city is doomed. One day, soon or late, Achaeans will be pouring through her streets, breaking into houses and butchering every man. You’re Dardanian, not native to Troy. Abandon the city before that dreadful day!’
‘My name,’ said Aeneas sombrely, ‘is not Achilles. I stay faithful to my friends.’
I said in exasperation, ‘I’m simply trying to save your life! Do this at the least: when the storm begins nail a lion skin to your door; and I’ll tell my men to leave the house inviolate.’
Aeneas frowned blackly, strung his bow, loosed at the duck I had missed and skewered it clean through the breast.
* * *
A warm wind breathed from the south, the rivers’ waters shrank between their banks. A verdancy of springing grasses tinged the plain. Carpenters went to work on Gelon’s drawings, sawed pinewood planks and built his strange machine.
The engine was, in effect, a hollow oblong tower hinged on a six-wheeled carriage that formed a floor where twenty men crammed arm to arm could stand. After hauling the contraption below the walls the escalding complement would enter by a door on the outer side and, by releasing bolts, let the tower tilt upon its pivots till the upper end rested against the parapet. The summit sprouted four hook-shaped projections sheathed in bronze which were intended to grapple the battlements. (Some enterprising craftsman fashioned the bronze in the form of horses’ heads; hence the machine became commonly known as the Wooden Horse.) When the tower’s top rested against the parapet the crew would mount ladders fixed inside and, protected by the tunnel’s wooden walls, erupt upon the defenders.
Such was the theory. I watched the huge construction grow, and voiced my doubts to Gelon. Weight, I said, was a major snag: how many men would be needed to tow it? He reckoned a team of a hundred hauling on ropes. Would the haulers not be vulnerable when they came within missile range? Gelon spread his hands. Certainly there would be casualties--but would they not be fewer than an unprotected escalade on ladders?
I quelled misgivings, and formulated plans for the final assault on Troy. Remembering the traitor in our ranks I confided my schemes to a trusted few: Menelaus, Diomedes, Odysseus and Nestor. (Ajax brooded alone, stalking the camp in solitude and muttering to himself. Clearly he tottered on lunacy’s brink.) After tentatively mooting a night attack--a proposal unanimously rejected--I sketched the outlines of an orthodox assault which involved hauling the siege engine to the wall by the Tower of Ilion. When the occupants had scaled the wall they would fight to the Scaean Gate nearby and open it from within. Meanwhile diversionary attacks would be made elsewhere on the ramparts’ circuit. (A course that stubborn prejudice against night operations imposed, one I had no faith in, and here related merely to demonstrate my flexibility, afterwards, in swiftly altering tactics to counter unforeseen misfortune.)
On a balmy day that heralded spring Achilles disappeared. Carrying bow and quiver he had strolled alone from the camp before dusk and gone, so he said, to the evening flight at a pool in Scamander’s marshes. When he failed to return by dawn Myrmidons sent out searchers who trawled the river’s reed-speared verges, hunted in gullies and hollows, questioned Trojans met on the plain. Sorrowfully they abandoned the hunt and mourned their leader as dead, supposing he stumbled in darkness and drowned in the river. I pulled a long face, shed hypocritical tears, sacrificed a bull and held funeral games in his honour.
(A hint of Achilles’ perfidy must have leaked. His Homeridaian bard invented a romantic assignation with Priam’s daughter Polyxena and his murder by the woman’s jealous lover. I never spoke to Aeneas again, all the Trojan witnesses are dead, so the truth of Achilles’ end will never be known--and speculative guesses are better left unsaid.)
We were rid of a villain; now we lost Ajax, a truly gallant Hero.
Myrmidons traditionally divide a fallen leader’s arms and possessions among his kindred; with Achilles’ death presumed his comrades distributed horses, armour, booty and slaves among men who claimed connections with the House of Peleus. They entirely forgot Ajax, Achilles’ cousin and nearest available relative--a comprehensible omission: Ajax was seldom seen about the camp.
Someone told the Hero as he morosely moped in his tent; an unintended slight removed the remnants of his reason. Seizing a sword he rampaged through the tents, careered to a yard where cattle were corralled and, imagining himself beset by enemy warriors, struck ferociously at random and slaughtered several beasts.
Machaon sped to restrain his patient. Ajax, bellowing madly, ran the physician through. His death cry brought the lunatic to his senses, he stared at the body in stupefied horror, gave a moan of utter despair and, before anyone could reach him, planted his sword hilt-down on the ground and fell on the point.
The blade entered his armpit and pierced a lung. We carried Ajax to his tent. He died before dawn.
* * *
Envoys came from Priam and declared a formal end to the winter’s truce. I kept them talking and surreptitiously told Nestor to re-occupy Thorn Hill. When the heralds drove back to Troy they saw the mound had become a Pylian stronghold, turned back to protest and received abrasive answers.
I called leaders together, made them study Gelon’s street map, gave comprehensive orders for assaulting Troy at daybreak--I shall not rehearse a scheme which ended the day in disgrace--and insisted they tell their warriors, on pain of a tortured death, to spare the house where a lion skin draped the door.
When dawn stroked rosy fingers across the eastern sky a hundred sturdy slaves towed our war-winning engine from camp. Behind an Argive war-band the tall unwieldy edifice crawled slow as a snail along the track, creaked and rocked on its carriage, swayed dangerously over ruts and bumps. After the tower lurched on a rock and all but fell on its side I halted the laborious progress and sent ahead gangs to clear boulders and stones. Gelon, anxiously twittering, fixed guy ropes to the timbers which warriors walking alongside kept tautened as preventers to check the dangerous swaying.
Not till noon did the creeping procession reach Thorn Hill.
Followed close by a volunteer crew that Odysseus commanded the ponderous contrivance arrived in the citadel’s view. Trojans immediately poured from the gates and massed on the plateau. I scrutinized shifting, glittering spears and advanced Menelaus’ Spartans to strengthen the Argive vanguard, brought Myrmidons and Cretans forward in support. Achaea’s Hosts were now in battle order, prepared to repel assaults on the cumbersome engine they guarded. The troops crawled on, matching their speed to the straining slaves who tugged the carriage’s towlines.
I anticipated encounter before we reached the plateau and a hard-fought battle afterwards to cover the tower’s uphill haul to the walls. In mid-afternoon we reached the start of the slant, and arrows thumped the
shields of Diomedes’ men. Then, to my astonishment, the Trojans retreated precipitately within the gates. One moment the ground above was a bristle of bronze-barbed spears; at the next the hill was deserted, and helmets thronged the battlements. I concluded that the spectacle of Achaea’s massive forces had altered Aeneas’ mind; he decided to blunt our attack on Troy’s impregnable walls.
Consequently our siege engine was granted an unopposed climb to the goal. An unexpectedly auspicious event--except that in mounting the slope the damned contraption stuck.
Slave gangs pushed and tugged till sweat streams coursed their bodies; impatient, angry warriors slammed spearshafts across bent backs. Heroes dropped weapons and manned the ropes, lent additional weight to the pull. Huge wooden wheels churned a dagger’s-length up, settled mulishly back in the ruts. More hurtful than spent arrows that fell around the tower were the insults and derision singing high from enemy throats. We wrestled and fought till shadows lengthened, and hardly shifted the brute a single pace.
An impossible situation, ridiculous as well. I admitted defeat. ‘The operation’s cancelled,’ I told a furious Diomedes. ‘Withdraw your men, and the Spartans. We’ll leave this useless gadget, return to camp and try again tomorrow.’
Pursued by Trojan taunts that grew fainter as we went Achaea’s humiliated Hosts retreated across the plain. Stopping at Thorn Hill I told Nestor the shameful story. The old man swallowed a giggle, straightened his face and sympathized. A wineskin he produced moistened my sand-dry gullet, and I glowered at the faraway engine perched halfway up the hill.
A human torrent seethed from the Scaean Gate, flowed down the track and surrounded the Wooden Horse.
‘They’ll probably burn it,’ I growled. ‘Damned good riddance!’ Trojans swarmed round the wheels, a distant shouting travelled on the windless evening air. Incredulously I saw the tower move. Foot by muscle-racked foot they hauled it up the path, reached the plateau’s rim, tugged slowly to the gate. There the engine stopped, for its height overtopped the lintel. Aeneas’ men busily shifted huge stones, demolished the lintel, created a gap to admit their useless prize. Gradually the Horse disappeared from sight, and Trojans began to repair the breach they had opened.
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