Odysseus: The Oath

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  That evening Patroclus hadn’t spoken much. He had been occupied with the weapons, sharpening swords and spearheads, polishing shields, greaves and breastplates to a mirror-finish, but he’d certainly heard everything. He never missed a word.

  When I got up to go back to my tent and rest for a while, Achilles walked back with me along the seashore.

  ‘It’s a beautiful night,’ he said, watching the clouds pushed by the wind.

  ‘You’re right; this wind passed by our homes before coming here.’

  ‘You want to go home, don’t you?’

  ‘Not at any cost,’ I answered. ‘If you start a war you have to win it, and we haven’t won.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘The sound of the sea reminds me of my island,’ I said. ‘You?’

  ‘My mother,’ he answered.

  We walked in silence for a while, listening to the undertow.

  ‘Your mother?’ I said then. ‘They say she’s a goddess of the depths.’

  Achilles smiled, like he did when he was thinking of death.

  THAT NIGHT, I got an idea fixed in my head: I wasn’t interested in counting the enemies I’d downed, or weighing the booty that had accumulated at the ship’s prow. I wanted to find a way into the city. I had to know what gave them the strength to fight with so much tenacity. And what resources they had; how were they managing to get what they needed to survive despite such a long siege? I was tired of sitting back and waiting for something to happen. I’d had no news of my land, my family, for such a long time and I couldn’t understand why. Just thinking about it drove me mad.

  I told myself that there were only two ways out. The first was to leave for home. I’d kept my promise, respected my oath, but things hadn’t gone the way they should have. I couldn’t besiege that city for all eternity. But I would be the first to leave, and probably the only one. The shame of it would forever taint my family name, and I could never allow that to happen.

  The second way out was to cause the city to fall, and I had to find a way to do just that.

  A few days later I summoned my comrades Euribates, Sinon and Eurylochus and laid out my plan.

  ‘Tomorrow when we go into battle, you stay at my side and behind me. If Athena allows me, as I fervently hope, to fell an enemy, you’ll snatch away his body, strip it and put his clothing and arms in a safe place. When evening comes and the Trojan warriors are going back through the city gates, I’ll don the armour, soil my face and body with blood, and mix in among them. I’ll look like just another warrior returning home wounded after a bitter battle.’

  ‘What if you’re discovered? They’ll surely torture you,’ Eurylochus said to me.

  I showed him a pointed spike. ‘No. If that should happen, I’ll use this, and all they’ll have to torture is a lifeless body.’

  ‘Which they wouldn’t bury – you’d be left to the dogs!’ replied Eurylochus.

  ‘I’ve decided. Nothing or no one can change my mind or convince me to do otherwise.’

  We didn’t go into battle again for eight long days; the Trojans never left the city for that whole time, despite our taunts as we lined up on the battlefield every day. When they finally decided to come out, the fighting was as keen and cruel as it had ever been, if not even more so. I drew up with my warriors far from the most illustrious of our combatants, who hurtled forward on chariots drawn by fiery steeds, and when the approach of night brought an end to the clash and each side hastened to carry off their fallen, I hid with my most loyal companions behind the wild fig tree, stripped off my arms and put on the garb of a Trojan warrior that I myself had downed with a spear thrust; Eurylochus finished him off with his sword. I dabbed the blood soaking through the dead man’s tunic on my face as well so that I looked both horrible and pitiful. I joined a small group of enemies who were hurrying towards the main gate just as it was closing. Seeing that I was limping, they actually gave me a hand, grabbing me under the armpits and hoisting me up the crooked steps that led to the Skaian Gate.

  Just a short time passed before I found myself alone and I melted away down a dark little road.

  26

  EVERY NOW AND THEN I’d run into groups of warriors who were patrolling the roads or helping the wounded, but most of them were busy carrying the dead up towards the eastern hill where the pyres had been raised. An entire forest had been cut down to build them, so funeral rites could be celebrated for the heroes who had given their lives for their homeland. I could hear weeping and moaning, muted at that distance, echoes of agony . . . When no one could see me I was free to run and move quite swiftly from one side of the city to the other. I wanted to reach the citadel, I needed to see the walls, the gates, the palace and all the other landmarks from above. I already had some idea of how the city was laid out, since I’d been there with Menelaus, but many things had changed. Bulwarks had been added and the stone itself had been cut to eliminate any footholds which could have been used to climb to the top of the walls. There was even an earthen rampart – we didn’t know it existed! – which protected the camp of the Trojan allies: the Thracians, Phrygians, Lycians and those from the other nations of Asia. Thousands and thousands of warriors who often faced us alongside Priam’s army. At other times they were absent, back at home sowing seed or gathering the crops in their fields.

  The citadel was close: I was high enough to see the pyres burning in our own camp, and the others blazing on the eastern hill of Troy. The harbour, once crawling with ships, was deserted now. I tried to impress every detail in my mind before darkness fell and obscured everything. I finally arrived as far as the greatest of the sanctuaries, dedicated to Athena, on the highest part of the citadel. A mystery for me: how could the goddess turn her gaze from the city that honoured her so greatly? Surrounding the sanctuary on all sides were lines of bronze-clad warriors gripping heavy spears, casting long shadows. The torch light projected them onto the pavement.

  I approached and waited for the right moment to discover the reason why so many warriors were drawn up to protect a sanctuary, a sacred enclosure that no one would dare to violate. How could I possibly get by the row of warriors on guard? I crept as close as I dared, remaining in the shadows of the portico which flanked the southern wall of the citadel, trying to spot a weak point in their defences. I decided that I’d have to distract them somehow, and I threw my helmet as far away as I could towards the opposite end of the portico. The bronze rang out loudly when it hit the wall and then again each time it bounced on the pavement. A few of the guards rushed towards the source of the noise. Others lit torches from the brazier to see what was happening and in the meantime I slipped unseen up to the entrance. The door was not completely closed, as if someone had just gone in and was planning on leaving. I entered. From outside I could hear shouting and commotion, and then the steps of the guards approaching. I looked through the crack in the doorway and I could see them closing ranks around the sanctuary again. Now my problem would be getting out.

  I turned towards the interior and saw a woman standing perfectly still in front of the statue of Athena, which was very small, no more than three cubits high, representing the goddess on her feet, with a spear in hand and a helmet on her head. It wasn’t made of metal or wood. It seemed to be sculpted from a stone, but one I wasn’t familiar with. Rough and porous, with crystals that glittered and turned red as they reflected the light of the torches and the brazier. The statue’s eyes were framed by lashes and brows and were made of mother-of-pearl, and they seemed to be staring at you no matter where you were in the sanctuary. The young woman standing in front of the image wore a richly decorated gown and a gold diadem in her hair; she was clearly a royal princess and this explained why armed guards were surrounding the sacred enclosure. One of Priam’s daughters! But who could it be? Or might she be the wife of Hector the exterminator?

  I kept moving, light and invisible as a ghost, until I was facing her. I could see her face and her expression and the big tears flowing from her eyes. Sad,
terrified eyes. Should I abduct her, take her back to our camp? No. I would never commit such a detestable act inside a sanctuary.

  The princess wet the statue’s feet with her tears, saying a prayer through her sobs that I could not understand, and then she turned towards the exit. The door was bolted shut behind her and I listened to the footsteps of the warriors as they marched off, escorting her back to her home. I was alone with the goddess and I approached the image.

  There was something very disturbing about it. The mother-of-pearl eyes were fixed and staring, and yet they pierced through you. The spear seemed to be vibrating in the goddess’s hand. Although the strain of such an intense confrontation made my own eyes frantic to seek out a distraction, I was certain, almost certain, that as I looked away, the goddess’s eyelids opened and closed. I felt it happen; the air in the sanctuary was moving in short, fast puffs. It was unnatural in the closed space I was in.

  ‘Show me a way out!’ shouted my heart, but all I heard in return was a distant grumbling of thunder. A sudden bolt of lightning lit up the sky, revealing the opening in the ceiling from which the fumes of the burning incense and torches could escape towards the heavens.

  The goddess had answered me!

  I climbed up a pillar all the way to the ceiling and pulled myself through an open hatch onto the rooftop. The moon was just breaking through the storm clouds and it lit up the whole city with a light blue glow.

  The city was silent now. The Trojans sought respite from their daily sorrows in sleep. Their lives must have been agony. We Achaians were all warriors, accustomed to giving and receiving death, but they were a community of families, with wives, husbands, sweethearts, sons and daughters, parents: grief was multiplied beyond measure within the limits of the walls, like the echo of a shout rebounding from the cliffs of a rocky valley. I contemplated sacred Troy for long, endless moments. Splendid, with her towers and her walls, her palaces and sanctuaries, the houses built on sloping terraces all the way down to the outer rampart, the altars, the carved and painted funerary monuments, raised to remember ancient kings and heroes, the pinnacles and pillars. I thought that one day we would win, and that all of these things would be ours for the taking, but the thought gave me no joy, because I was feeling that I never wanted to be wrenched away from this enchanting vision.

  I lowered myself to the ground without making a sound and as I was about to slip into the shadows under the portico, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I wheeled around with my sword out and ready to kill. The bronze stopped a hair’s breadth from a throat of divine perfection, from a face that only the goddesses of Olympus could boast of: Helen! My sword trembled in my hand like my heart had trembled in my chest the day she chose a husband for herself in distant Sparta.

  ‘Odysseus,’ she said, ‘I knew it had to be you. A warrior who went from limping one moment to scampering like a young ram the next, bounding from one spot on the walls to another . . .’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked her. A cry from her and I was dead. But my hand had already hesitated; I’d missed my chance to kill her. That would have been another way to end the war. Why hadn’t I thought of it?

  She seemed to read my mind. ‘Why did your hand falter? Why didn’t you take the life of the bitch who gave herself to a man she’d never seen before, betraying the husband she herself had chosen? The war would have ended and you’d be on your way back to Penelope.’

  I was shaking, strangled with the emotion that flooded my heart and made me unable to utter a word.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said, and walked away, turning her back to me. I followed; what else could I do? Helen, gorgeous as a crimson flower. Could an entire city be sacrificed for such beauty? The deaths of thousands of young men in the fields of blood had not seemed to disconcert her in the least. Her sinuous, sublime body swayed under a thin gown, her hair was like sea foam in the moonlight, flickering with gold every time the sky was set afire by a sudden burst of lightning.

  She opened a little door set under an arch, entering a long, narrow corridor lit by a few oil lamps. Another door at its end opened onto a richly decorated room, surely part of the house she lived in.

  ‘Come,’ she said, and opened yet another door. We found ourselves in a room whose walls were covered with alabaster. Against the wall was a tub filled with scented water and jars brimming over with rare essences.

  ‘I had it prepared for me,’ she said. ‘Undress, have a bath. Once the Trojan princes bathed in the sea, but now their sea is occupied by Achaian ships, and they have to bathe indoors.’

  I took off my clothes, lay down my sword and stood before her naked and defenceless. Helen took a silver bowl, drew water from an urn and poured it over me, washing away the clotted blood from my hair, my shoulders, my face. She asked me: ‘I’ve never been able to see my brothers, Castor and Pollux, when I watch you from the towers. Where are they?’

  ‘No one knows. They left for an expedition in the north, and never came back. I’ve heard that each of them died to save the other. They are venerated in your city as immortal heroes.’

  She sighed and hid her face as she had me enter the tub. She sat down next to me and washed my back and my chest with a sponge. Was I perhaps in the home of a god on Olympus? How could what was happening be possible? Helen’s eyes gleamed with a tremulous light as contrasting emotions vied for possession of their expression, and yet, for an instant, in those gestures, in the way she was looking at me, I could see Penelope.

  ‘Why are you doing this for me?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I’ve always desired this,’ she replied. ‘Remember the horses’ pen? Remember what I said to you?’

  ‘How could I forget it?’

  Heavy footsteps could be heard on the street outside: a group of armed men, heading this way.

  ‘Paris. Returning from the war council, where all show disdain for him. Leave now, quickly, and don’t forget me. I’ve never betrayed you.’

  She gave me a clean robe and wrapped me in an embrace that I would never forget for the rest of my days. Tears were falling from her eyes.

  ‘Why?’ I asked her again.

  ‘Because this is what I dreamed the night before I made my choice: you and I, as husband and wife, in a beautiful place, in the intimacy of our own home. I thought it was a sign, a message about my future. It was, in fact, but not as I had imagined it then. This is how the gods have tricked me! This is the vision of that dream, and I brought it about without wanting to, I’m just realizing that now. Cursed be that god who sent me the dream, made fun of a girl in love. That was not to be my destiny. No. My destiny was this dreadful, cruel, bloody war, whose true purpose still eludes me but which the gods are taking such pleasure in . . . Go now, king of Ithaca, lest you lose your courage.’

  She kissed me. A long, insane, desperate kiss.

  NOW I LOOKED like a Trojan again, like an aristocrat with those robes, wandering around the city at that time of night. I asked my goddess from the depths of my heart to guide my steps in the darkness. I warily made my way down the roads of Troy, giving a wide berth to patrolling warriors and sentry posts while saving all the details of the city’s defences in my heart and mind. The one thing I couldn’t stop thinking of was the image of the goddess Athena in her sanctuary: mysterious, enigmatic, yet tremendously powerful, with that mother-of-pearl gaze and shining crystals on her body. Where had such an ancient simulacrum come from? What power did it have?

  I finally reached the walkway that led to the Skaian Gate, the only one that opened out onto the countryside. I lowered myself down the outside, clutching at any handhold on the rough stone, skinning my hands on the cracks and sharp edges of the blocks. Then I let myself tumble to the ground. I rolled, wounding my elbows, my shoulders and my back and ending up against a boulder that could have killed me. My blue-eyed goddess was certainly watching over me from her sanctuary. A dog barked a long way off and another answered with a long howl, as scattered drops of rain fell. When I reached the wild fig
tree I was panting. My clothes were still there and I changed into them: dressed in those Trojan robes, any of my own men might have killed me.

  Soon afterwards I entered Agamemnon’s tent and a war council was immediately convened. I told them that the city had not given in to despair and that a rampart had been raised on the north side to protect the camps of the allied warriors who could not be lodged inside the city: there were Thracians, Lycians, Phrygians there, as well as other Asian nationalities. I told them that much work had been done to further isolate the Skaian Gate from the surrounding territory, making access even more difficult. And I explained how a frontal attack on the fortifications, realistically, would be impossible. All we could do was continue fighting on the open field, seeking a decisive victory: without this, there would be no way to bend the will of the Trojans.

  ‘I saw no public manifestations of sorrow; only the grief of mothers and fathers accompanying their sons to the pyres. Surely there must be something that gives them the strength to go on despite their mourning, their maimed and wounded.’

  ‘And what would that be, wise Odysseus?’ asked Agamemnon.

  I fell silent, quite uncertain, until the image of Athena in the sanctuary on the citadel came clearly to mind. Then I answered: ‘The love they have for their city and their land. Because of this love, they are willing to face any danger and even to lose their lives, if necessary. All of us out here are alone, while they are surrounded by their wives and children, their parents, brothers and sisters, the people they love. This is their strength. Let’s hope that the night will bring counsel and may the gods grant us peaceful sleep.’