by John Dolan
He stops to let the beauty of the plan sink in. There’s a deep silence from the barons. Are they hearing him correctly? He’s going to tell the men they’re doomed? Agamemnon sees the puzzled frowns and thinks, for the thousandth time, that his genius is wasted on these lunkheads. He’ll have to explain his cunning plan to them. He begins, “See? The weaklings and traitors and cowards, they’ll all run for boats and set sail, and we’ll be left to stroll into Troy on our own! Ha! And Akilles won’t get so much as an old Trojan widow to scrub his floors! It’s perfect!”
No one seems to want to be the first to jump up and shout for joy at the brilliance of the plan, but Nestor, childishly pleased at being the star of Agamemnon’s dream, stands up and addresses the barons: “My lords, you have heard our leader’s plan. Now, if anyone else had told us such a thing, we would have said he was simply a madman … but, ah, Agamemnon is first among us, the very liver of our army, so, ah, we must respect what he gives us.”
A dark voice from the assembly says, “Nonsense! Agamemnon is like a bad liver; all he gives is bile!” The barons laugh at this, but Agamemnon stands up to see who dared to say that.
Ah, it’s Odysseus. He should have known. Insolent as ever.
Odysseus stares back, unafraid. If Agamemnon is the liver of the army, and Akilles the spear arm, then Odysseus is the brain. He has bright red hair, and the face of a fox with blood on its muzzle. He’s also a head shorter than Agamemnon, two heads shorter than Akilles. It makes him permanently offended. It’s bad enough being the smartest man in the room, but to be the shortest as well makes Odysseus more than ready to match wits, fists, or spears with anyone, god or mortal. And short as he is, Odysseus’ shoulders are as wide as a giant’s, and his hands are as fast as a snake’s strike.
So Agamemnon lets the insult go, and gestures the meeting to an end.
Now the heralds go among the nobodies, the spear carriers. These men have no names, no lineage. They’re just “the men from this place,” or “the men from that town.” They live and die in groups, led by a lord, a man who has a name and knows his ancestors five generations back.
At first they’re puzzled that Agamemnon has invited them to an assembly. They don’t usually get asked what they think, especially by Agamemnon. He’s not a friend of the common soldier. They’ve been starved, frozen, rained on, shot with arrows, hit with rocks, slashed with swords, skewered by spears, and pocked with disease for nine long years and Agamemnon never seemed to care. Now he wants to consult them? It’s strange. What could he say that would mean anything to them, except, “Men, we’re going home!” And it goes without saying that he’d never say that.
Agamemnon stands up and says, “Men, we’re going home!”
All hell breaks loose. The soldiers are shouting with joy; some weeping, the rest are running at top speed for their flea-infested little huts to grab what they can and be the first on board when the ships are ready to go. In two minutes, no one is standing near Agamemnon except old Nestor, who looks like a puzzled, well-meaning old sheep, and Odysseus, who looks even more disgusted with Agamemnon than usual.
Agamemnon turns to them and says, “Wait, it wasn’t supposed to go like that.”
Nestor, stroking his white beard, says, “Mmmm, yes … indeed, Atreus-son, I thought not.”
Agamemnon: “They didn’t let me finish!”
Odysseus stares at the two of them, mutters, “Stupid goats! Stupid bearded goats!” and stomps off, too disgusted to talk anymore.
Odysseus has had enough of these idiots. He knows most men are not as bright as he is, and he tries to be patient. Sometimes he even enjoys dealing with these noble, two-legged beasts. But there are times when he’d like to see them all eaten by a pack of dogs.
There’s nothing he can do to stop the catastrophe. The men will swarm onto the ships, all rotted after nine years beached, row out to the sea, sink and drown. The Trojans will loot the camps, slaughter any laggards, and laugh at the Greeks, as they flip corpses looking for metal.
Then something comes over Odysseus, something huge. He is in a god-shadow; Athena is beside him. He has met gods before, and he knows the vertigo that comes when one of the greater gods stands beside you, as if a planet were leaning over your shoulder.
She speaks, starting in mid-conversation because she can read minds: “Yes, they’re stupid, they deserve to drown; but still, Odysseus, you have to stop them.”
He alone among mortals has the strength of mind to refuse the gravitational pull of that huge thing beside him. Resisting, he says, “Why? Why should I help them?” She says simply. “My Greeks must win.”
He’s a stubborn man. He grits his teeth, forces a question: “Why? Why must they win?”
She likes his strong, stubborn will, warms to him. If only he had a longer life span than a mosquito … But her job is to stop this, so she repeats, leaning a fraction more of her strength on him: “This time, my stubborn little Red-Beard, the Greeks must win.”
She ruffles his beard with a hand three times the size of his, whispering: “Not for their sake, nor their children, nor grandchildren …”
“I don’t understand you.”
Her shawl brushes his face, the cold dark of stars and the grim slice of the geological strata blanking the sunlight: “See? You live only a moment, you see only a little.”
He’s frozen, feeling the cold of deep time. She goes on, “But we’re alike in one way, Red-Beard. We both have to deal with fools. You with stupid men, and I with stupid gods. Now go, stop the fools from ruining my plans.”
She’s gone, the lurch of earthly gravity returning.
Odysseus stands stunned for a moment. Then he runs back to fix things. Agamemnon is still explaining to Nestor how his cunning plan was supposed to work.
Odysseus has no time to be gentle. He rips Agamemnon’s scepter out of his hand and runs down to the ships. The scepter has a nice heft. Before it became a badge of office it was a mace, and a good one. Odysseus likes the feel of it. It feels as eager for this as he is.
But he needs something with a little more heft to persuade the common soldiers. Some of those lunkheads are giants. Spotting a nice driftwood tree-branch, he grabs it without breaking stride.
When he sees a chieftain wavering or making for the ships, he waves the scepter in his face and says, “Get your men in ranks, by the king’s order!” They are trained to obey the man who holds that sacred mace.
When he runs into common soldiers lugging their loot to a ship, he’s more direct. He hits the biggest guy on the back of the head with the tree branch, lays him out and roars at the rest, “Get back to your chieftain, peasants, or you’re dead!” Nobles and commoners obey without much quarreling. An angry Odysseus is not a pleasant sight, and something of the goddess trails after him, a cold, grim authority.
Soon the troops are straggling back to the assembly point, where Agamemnon and Nestor are still standing around like ducks that have been hit on the head.
Odysseus herds the last stragglers in. He sees that Thersites the radical, the jailhouse lawyer, is orating at Agamemnon, who’s too stunned to react. Thersites is the ugliest man in the army, some kind of spinal case. A commoner too, and he’s picked up a little ideology somewhere. He talks in a high, whiny voice, and he’s on his usual theme: The Unfairness of It All. “You there, Agamemnon, ‘the king’ as you high-and-mighty like to call yourselves, how come you get all the pretty slave girls, and we get the dregs? Why should your lot guzzle tender meat every day, whereas the ordinary soldier gets bread and a little oil? And how come …”
Odysseus wastes no time arguing about justice. He employs an older and more puissant rhetoric, hitting Thersites in the face with the tree branch. Thersites’ teeth spray out of his mouth and he flies through the air, landing on his back, out cold. Odysseus turns to the crowd, growling: “Any more democrats? Good. Now …” he turns to Agamemnon, shoves the scepter back in his hand, and whispers roughly, “You, O great king, great idiot—stop tryi
ng to be clever, because you never will be. Your job is to lead the army; just do your job, for once in your life!”
Agamemnon is still too confused to react. Odysseus turns back to the crowd, leads them in a martial cheer, then leans into Agamemnon’s ear again and hisses, “Call for a sacrifice! Tell them to get ready to march on Troy!”
Agamemnon obeys, shouting: “Let every man polish his armor, whet his sword-edge, and eat a good breakfast! Feed the horses on your best grain, for today we shall take Troy!”
Men are fickle, as plastic as wax. An hour ago, they all wanted to sail home. Now, after a few whacks from Odysseus, they want to burn Troy to the ground. After all, once they’ve done that, they can go home—a lot richer.
Agamemnon finishes: “While you prepare for battle, my priests and I will make sacrifice, that the gods may favor us in battle!”
The troops are screaming and whooping, ready to storm Olympos itself. They don’t know what’s going on and don’t care. All they know is that one way or another, this miserable nine-year stalemate looks set to break. Any ending is better than another year of eating windblown sand and scooping rainwater out of a rat-hole with your shield.
Finally, some fighting! The kings and nobles are sitting in a circle, waiting for the sacrifice. A slave leads the young bull to the center of the circle. It’s a beauty. Five years old. Not a mark, not a bruise or freckle on it. Blinking calmly, not a clue what’s about to happen to it. Still got balls, hasn’t been gelded.
Agamemnon lets them all appreciate it for a while, then waves to the chopper, a big man with a bronze axe. The bull blinks at him: More grain? It’s been pampered all its life, till now. One chop to the back of the neck, and it wobbles; another, better, right through the spine, and it falls.
Slaves sop up the blood, mix it with barley for instant sausage. More slaves swarm the carcass, and in a minute it’s arranged, bones and meat, in two piles.
The priests put two femurs oozing with marrow on a driftwood pyre. Then they take two nice fat steaks and put them on top of the femurs. This is what gods like to sniff. They light the driftwood, and the sacred smell of steak rises to the Overworld.
Everyone waits for a sign of acceptance from Zeus. They know he hasn’t been pleased with them lately. But this is prime beef they’re offering, good rich marrow. Most people don’t taste meat once a year. The oily smoke curls up to the blank blue sky.
Nothing. Zeus is not shy; he’d show it if he was pleased. Nothing. Not a bird, or a breath of wind. This is a definite No from the Father.
The priests whisper to each other nervously. Their leader shuffles over to Agamemnon, shrugs. He doesn’t need any more scientists to tell him what it means.
It means they’re going to charge out to fight the Trojans, and they’re going to lose. To die.
Can’t be stopped now, no matter how grim the auguries are. Agamemnon has whipsawed the men too much already. He has to go through with the attack.
He calls to his messengers, “Get the men together at the ships. We advance immediately.”
The trick now is to get the men marching before rumors of the failed sacrifice start circulating. They don’t have a clue, the commoners. They’re all eager for the fight, bashing spearheads and swords together, roaring. Every second more stragglers come in at a trot, contingents from the boondocks. Those country boys are always a little slow but good once the fighting starts.
But all the chieftains, who saw Zeus refuse their sacrifice, know something the soldiers don’t: It’s going to be a bad day for Greeks, a good day for crows.
The chariots are in place now, lined up on the beach, the little horses stamping nervously. You can throw a spear from a chariot; that’s the idea. Or shoot a bow. You have a driver, a slave usually, to keep the two-wheeler from crashing into a wadi, while you focus on finding a target. Occasionally it works; mostly they overturn or an axle breaks. If the ground is at all uneven, you can’t use them at all. But they’re expensive, a mark of status; they don’t have to work very well.
Agamemnon’s contingent is the biggest, richest, best armed. A hundred ships it took to ferry them across the Aegean. The other chieftains brought thirty ships, or twenty, or ten; some are standing with nothing but a few cousins around them. All of them twitching and yelling, eager to get the battle started.
Zeus has no time for these Greeks, not today. He wants to talk to the Trojans. He sends Morning to warn Troy. She finds old Priam, King of Troy, and comes up to him in the form of one of his sons. But as soon as the weak old man breaks into a toothless grin, she lances him with her glare, showing her god side.
“Old man, you’re wasting time. The Greeks are coming, more than any mortal army has ever faced.”
He moans; it’s too much for him at his age.
She turns down the glare and speaks more softly, “You have your allies here, tribes so strange none of you Trojans can talk to them. Send your sons to their chief, and have each tribe’s chief arrange his people. Only if you bring all the tribes together, all the freaks and monsters of Asia, can you face this united Greek host.”
Priam nods, sends a slave for his sons, who scatter among the wild men who have swarmed in to hold off the invaders. Hill tribes, mountain tribes, desert raiders; tribes who eat dogs, others who eat scorpions. Some eat people, or so the rumors say. There are tribes who worship the lion, the snake, the stinging fly; tribes who jabber in tongues like birds twittering or howl like wolves howling or geckoes chuffing. There are tribes who keep their language secret, don’t speak at all, just watch the Trojans and arrange their fighters with hand gestures. Tribes who veil their faces and others who wear hyena skins, lizard pelts, flax robes. Some fight with bows, curved or straight; some with spears too long to lift alone; others with stabbing spears so short they’re more like knives with long handles. Some slash with swords, in every shape from sickle to scimitar.
The Trojans need every one of these inland mutants. Alone, they’re outnumbered by the Greeks ten to one. With all their allies, they have about a third as many men, barely enough to defend with. And only as long as their alliances hold. Some of the Trojans’ outlandish allies might decide to leave because the moon rose the wrong way, or a sparrow spoke rudely to their chief. It’s a fragile alliance, and when it fails, the men of Troy are dead, the women of Troy are sold as slaves. No quarter asked or given.
The Trojans have no one who can match Akilles. Their best man is Hektor, Priam’s favorite son. The old man has many sons, but most of them are disappointments. Not Hektor. He is, if anything, too good a man. A good father. A good husband. A good son. A good warrior, too … But, only “good.” All that matters now is war, and in that, Hektor’s no match for Akilles. If they ever go one-on-one, everyone knows how it will end.
For now, the Trojans and their allies are united. They deploy on a hill outside town as the Greeks march toward them.
There’s a ritual to this, a proper way to start the day’s fight. The armies don’t run at each other immediately; that would be uncivilized. First, there must be single combat, a quaint old custom from the days before men learned to make barley. Back in those days, warriors were scarce resources. You spent them one at a time. When one band met another, the best man from one band stepped out and so did his opposite number, and everyone else stood and watched to see who killed who.
It was a good way to keep from wasting a whole generation in one battle. A warrior costs so much to raise.
But these days towns are growing, warriors are cheap, and these single combats are really just an opening act. Whoever wins, Trojans and Greeks will end up attacking each other, and men will die in hundreds. Still, the ritual must be followed. It’s a matter of pride: Our best can kill your best.
The Greek horde marches up to the hill where the Trojans wait. Silence. Amateurs yell; real warriors advance in total silence. Freaks ’em out much better.
The Greeks come within bowshot of the hill. Now it is time for Troy to offer a champion. So out
steps … Paris himself, the selfish stud who started this whole mess by stealing Helen. He’s a good enough fighter, as they go. He’s no Akilles, but who is? Paris has killed his man more than once. Good with a bow, adequate with spear and shield. No coward; you can’t say he’s afraid of battle. He’s a selfish man, and this whole mess is his fault, but he’s no coward. He’s a king’s son, after all; they love to kill, those princes.
The Trojans are happy to see him step up like this. With luck, Paris will die today and the Greeks will be appeased. Once Helen has been widowed, they can just ship her home, hand her over. She might cry, but she’s just as much to blame as Paris and if Troy can get rid of both in one day, maybe the city won’t be wiped out.
Or maybe Paris will win today, kill the Greek champion, whoever that turns out to be.
Paris stands out there alone, waiting for a Greek to step out.
The Greek shields open, and out steps … Menelaos.
Menelaos, Helen’s rightful husband. The man Paris wronged. Agamemnon’s brother. King of Sparta.
Now that Paris sees who’s facing him, he sags. He can’t fight Menelaos! Every god will lend strength to the wronged husband’s spear, and to blind Paris, weaken his thrusts, dissolve his shield.
He didn’t know this was going to be moral. He breaks and runs for shelter towards the Trojan shields.
Suddenly Menelaos is standing out there by himself.
A huge laugh goes up from the Greek army. No one has ever run away from a single combat before it even started. After breaking your spear or being wounded, maybe—though even then, most nobles would much rather die than be shamed in front of everybody. But running away before the fight even starts? That’s never happened before.
Agamemnon laughs with the rest, wondering if maybe the auguries were just wrong. Damn scientists, acting like they know everything—all bluff! It’s going to be a great day for the Greeks!