The War Nerd Iliad

by John Dolan

  Nestor is riding down the battle-line, shouting to the Greeks, “Don’t waste time stripping the dead! Kill them all while they’re running!”

  The Trojans are routed. This might be the end.

  Then Helnas appears beside Hektor and Aeneas. Of all Priam’s sons, Helnas is the strangest. He and his twin sister Kassandra can see things before they happen. People are afraid of those two.

  Helnas tells Hektor, “The city will fall today unless you rally the men. Diomedes has them all panicked, he’s worse than Akilles ever was. You two must stop the rout. Grab every man you see and form them up right here. And when we’ve got some kind of line restored, Hektor, you go into Troy and get our mother the queen to make a sacrifice, a big one: twelve heifers, stall-bred, without a spot on their hides. And her best dress too. All to Athena, to beg her to let us live a little longer.”

  Hektor and Aeneas have grown up with little Helnas; they take it for granted that his advice is good. They follow his orders, running up and down the Trojan line, yanking terrified men into place. The Trojans, cuffed and shoved into place, begin to feel their courage coming back. Hektor shouts down the line, “Hold steady now, don’t take one step back! I’m going to order a great sacrifice; the gods will help us soon! Just hold on until I come back!”

  He heads for the city, with the rim of his shield banging against his knees and neck.

  To buy some time for Hektor to get the gods on Troy’s side, Glaukos steps out between the two armies and challenges Diomedes to single combat. It’s suicide to go up against Diomedes, everyone knows that. Glaukos is condemning himself to certain death.

  Diomedes can’t believe it. He doesn’t even recognize this fellow, and that worries him. What if this is a god, pretending to be a man? He yells to Glaukos, “Whose son are you, sir? I don’t know you, and you must be either a god or a madman to fight me. Do you know how many fathers will be burying sons who came against me today? If you’re from the overworld, I won’t fight you, but if you eat bread like the rest of us, you die.”

  Glaukos answers, “Diomedes, why ask me my family tree? I am mortal, like you, and we’ll both die someday. But perhaps you’ve heard of my grandfather. His name was Bellerofon, and he was from your part of the world before his exile to Lycia, where I grew up.”

  Diomedes whoops happily, lifts up his spear and plants it hard, point-first, in the ground. “Bellerofon’s grandson? I won’t fight you, my friend! My grandfather Oeneus was Bellerofon’s friend. He used to tell me stories about your granddad! He said one time they drank and feasted together for twenty days straight! And on the twenty-first day, they were still strong enough to say goodbye to each other standing up! My grandpa gave your granddad a fine belt; your grandpa gave my grandpa a fine golden cup. A beautiful thing! I still have it at home. Listen, Glaukos, let’s be friends and to Hell with the war! If you come to Greece, I’ll be your host, and if I go to Lycia, I’ll be your guest. There are plenty of Trojans I can kill without hurting you, and if you want targets, just look at all these Greeks waiting for your spear! In fact, let’s trade armor! I’ll wear yours, you wear mine!”

  Glaukos is more than happy to make the trade, because he expected to die today. He’s getting a new life as well as new armor. And Diomedes, who isn’t as sentimental as he seems, is also happy with the deal, because Glaukos’ armor is pure gold, worth a hundred cattle—those Lycians are filthy rich!—while Diomedes’ is ordinary bronze, worth maybe nine cattle at most. You can’t beat a Greek in a trade!

  Hektor enters the town, goes to his father’s palace. A vast maze, that palace. Fifty rooms for Priam’s sons, and another fifty for his daughters. The old man might have had a thousand great-grandchildren, but everyone knows that Troy will fall soon, and then he’ll have none. Hektor’s heart breaks, looking at the rooms, each one carved lovingly out of hard stone. He runs his fingertips along the cool, familiar stone, thinking, “All this is gone, all of it will burn, peasants will steal the stones for their sheep-fences, and every one of my brave, cheerful brothers will die, all my beautiful sisters will be slaves …” Hekuba, his old mother, comes out, worried as usual: “Son, why have you left the battle? Do you want some wine?”

  He shakes his head. It’s terrible to see his mother now, when he’s been thinking of what will happen to the family. “No, mother, don’t offer me wine while my hands are covered in other men’s blood and filth. It would only anger the gods, and they hate us Trojans already. Mother, please get all the women together and send slaves to the butchers to order twelve pure heifers. We have to make a sacrifice to Athena.”

  She’s puzzled: “But Athena loves the Greeks!”

  He nods. He knows it better than anyone. He says, “She’s too powerful for us; our gods are no help. Apollo won’t lift his little finger for us. At least Athena cares about her people. And she’s a woman, they say; maybe she’ll take pity on you women and children. So go, get the butchers to bring those cattle, and place your finest robe on Athena’s altar. We have to offer her all we have, just to let us live a little longer.”

  She stares at him, befuddled. Can it be this bad?

  He shrugs, “It’s all we can do. We don’t have much time left. Forgive me, mother, but I have to go see Paris now.”

  Hekuba grimaces at that name. Hektor nods, sharing her bitterness. “Yes, he’s the one who’s doomed us all. I wish he’d died as a baby! I hope he dies out there today! If I could just see his conceited face sinking into the underworld, I could go to my grave happy!”

  And he runs to find Paris.

  Hekuba trudges to the wardrobe, takes out her finest dress, her family’s pride, carries it to Athena’s shrine and lays it on the altar, bribing the goddess to show mercy to Priam’s family.

  But Athena looks down and sneers. None of the Trojans will be spared, from the infants to the old.

  Hektor trots back, taking his leave of his father’s house, touching the stones of the wall, treasuring every block. Ten generations worked to finish that stone. All gone, all gone.

  Hektor can hardly bear the sight of Paris. It doesn’t help that Paris is lolling on the couch with Helen. Paris grins when Hektor steps into the room, covered in sweat and blood, but Helen at least has the decency to blush. She’s always liked Hektor—likes him better than Paris, really. She sees how tired he is, smeared with every kind of filth from the battle, and says, “Hektor, dear brother, take a cup of wine, rest a while before you go back to battle.”

  Hektor shakes his head: “No wine, Helen. You, little brother, how can you sit there while better men are dying for you?”

  Paris drawls, “I was just going to put on my armor. Just saying goodbye to my wife—wasn’t I, my dear?”

  Helen won’t answer, or even look at him.

  Paris chuckles, “Yes, just saying my goodbyes, but I’ll go now.”

  He jumps up to get his armor. Helen is alone with Hektor. She begins, “Brother Hektor, I wish I’d been abandoned at birth rather than live to be the death of Troy. Paris is worthless, and I’m no better. But have pity on us; take a cup of wine, rest here a moment, don’t despise me.”

  Hektor shakes his head. He likes Helen, but it hurts him to be with the two of them. So many people, everyone he ever loved, will die for these two. He tells her, “I won’t, my sister. I can’t. I have to see my own wife and my little son. This might be the last time.”

  There’s a long, awkward silence. Paris is rummaging in the storeroom, taking his time. Finally, Hektor stands up to leave, telling Helen, “When your husband is finished primping and preening, tell him to follow me to the battlefield.”

  Hektor can hardly bear his last errand in the city: seeing his wife Andromakhe, finest of women, and their perfect son, who will never live to be a man.

  He stands outside the women’s quarters and calls inside. The housekeeper peeks out, veiling her face, and tells him, “Lord, your wife isn’t here. She’s up on the city wall; the nurse is with her, carrying your son. We heard the Trojan
s are routed, running back toward the town, so she’s gone to try to catch sight of you.”

  He finds Andromakhe standing on the wall, looking out toward the far dust cloud where men are killing each other. She’s been crying. When she sees Hektor—still alive, still alive!—she runs up and takes his hand in sight of everyone. It’s bold behavior for a good wife, but these are desperate times.

  She begs him, “Thank all the gods you’re alive! Please, husband, fight from the wall today! Don’t go back onto the plain! You’re all I have; the Greeks slaughtered my whole family. Now you’re father, mother, brother, and husband to me. Fight from the wall! Put your men there by the fig tree where the wall’s weakest. Fight here, where we can be with you to the end!”

  Hektor mutters, his eyes tearing up, “Wife, don’t you think I want to stay with you? Soon enough you’ll be sold into slavery, to spend the rest of a hard life carrying water and firewood for a mistress who beats you, or emptying the slop jars of a Greek master who’ll rape you when he’s drunk. But when I’m dead, I don’t want anyone saying your husband was a coward. My job now is to die well, so at least they’ll say, ‘Her husband was the bravest of the Trojans.’ And you’ll weep for me, not be shamed by the mention of my name.”

  Hektor sighs, “Now let me see my son.”

  He tries to take his son from the nurse, but the little boy, frightened by the big horsehair crest of Hektor’s helmet, starts screaming. Hektor and Andromakhe laugh together for a moment. Then Hektor, taking off his helmet, cuddles the little boy, holds him up to the sky, and calls, “Zeus, let him rule Troy so wisely that they’ll say, ‘The son was greater than the father!’ That’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you, Godfather.”

  But that’s another prayer that will never be answered.

  Andromakhe is weeping even while she laughs over the little boy’s fears. Hektor can’t bear it any longer. “Wife, I have to go. I promise, I’ll live as long as I can. And when it’s time to die, I’ll die as bravely as I can. You’re the one who’ll have the hardest time, living on as a slave, but that’s what the gods have decided; I can’t do anything about it.”

  He picks up his helmet and heads for the city gate, while Andromakhe stumbles back to the women’s quarters, looking back again and again for one last sight of him.

  Paris has finally dressed for battle to his own satisfaction, and he catches up to his big brother outside the gates, running up behind Hektor and slapping him on the back: “I guess I kept you waiting, big brother! Well, a man can’t go into battle looking like a peasant, can he?” Paris is laughing as if they were going to a feast.

  Hektor stares him down. “Little brother, what can I say that would get through that childish head of yours? You fight well enough when you can be bothered, but you just don’t see—or you don’t care, I’m not sure which.”

  He stares at Paris’ handsome, empty face and says: “Well, that’s how you are. I can’t change you, and it’s too late anyway. All we can do now is kill some of these Greeks and hope the gods change their minds.”

  7

  DUEL

  PARIS AND HEKTOR run to battle together, and without breaking stride, slam into the charging Greeks. In an instant, the two brothers have each killed a man, both big warriors. The Trojans cheer, take heart, and turn to attack.

  Athena won’t let the Trojans rally. She comes down to help the Greeks yet again. But this time, her brother Apollo, watching from the highest rooftop in Troy, has had enough. He flies to meet her under an oak tree. The two of them talk there, invisible.

  Apollo says, “Little half-sister, are you here to cheat again, to tilt every spear and arrow away from your Greeks? I know you and your mother won’t be happy until my city is burnt, but why not let the humans fight with their own strength for once?”

  Athena shrugs: “What do you suggest?”

  Apollo: “Let the two armies sit and watch while Hektor fights any Greek who’ll risk single combat.”

  Athena agrees, and they convey their decision through the mind of the strange Trojan prince, Helnas. He stumbles up to Hektor in a trance and says in a flat alien voice, “Hektor, Prince of Troy, the gods say you should challenge the Greeks to single combat. They also say that you can be sure today is not your death-day.”

  Hektor is overjoyed. All he’s ever wanted was to take the whole weight of Troy on his shoulders. He would gladly face any Greek, even Akilles, to give the city a few more days.

  Apollo and Athena, looking forward to the entertainment, turn themselves into vultures. The two carrion birds perch side by side on a high branch, betting with each other on the fight.

  Hektor walks out between the two armies, shouts, “Greeks, listen to me! Today, let me fight for all the Trojans. I see all your princes facing me; I’ll fight any man of them, right now.”

  The Greeks are silent. No one wants to fight Hektor. He has the relaxed look of a man who’s been told by the gods that this isn’t his death-day.

  Hektor goes on, “Greeks, if your man kills me, then he can have my armor, but he should give my corpse back to the Trojans so my mother can wash it and wrap it in linen. And if I kill your champion, I promise I’ll give his body back so you can bury him under a mound by the shore, and a thousand years from now, sailors going by will say, ‘That’s where a great hero was killed in single combat by Hektor,’ and my name won’t be forgotten!”

  None of the Greeks like the sound of this. Nobody wants to end up as a monument to Hektor’s glory, or have his armor hung as a trophy in a Trojan temple. Even Diomedes, who’s been having such a glorious day, keeps his head down.

  It’s a long silence, long enough to shame the Greeks. At last Menelaos is so angry he jumps up and curses them all, “You pretend warriors! You’re just girls in armor! The whole world will laugh at us Greeks if nobody meets Hektor! All right then, I’ll fight him myself!” and he stands up, muttering, “It’s all in the gods’ hands anyway.”

  Sometimes it seems like Menelaos wants to die. If he goes out there, Hektor will kill him.

  Agamemnon grabs his brother, pulls him back down, whispering, “Menelaos, are you crazy? Even Akilles is wary of Hektor! Sit down and be still! Somebody else will volunteer, and I’m telling you, whoever it is, he won’t come back alive!”

  Menelaos always does what his big brother says. He sits back down. There’s another long, embarrassed silence. At last Nestor, stands up, leaning on his stick, and says disgustedly, “The Greeks aren’t what they used to be! When I was a young man …” Nestor launches into one of his long, boastful stories of a kill he made in his youth, winding up with “… and he was so huge, this warrior I killed, that his corpse took up an acre of land! More than an acre! Ah, but that was me, and now not one of you has the guts to face this Trojan!”

  The speech has its intended effect. A dozen Greeks stand up, volunteering to fight Hektor. Anything’s better than being scolded by that old man any longer.

  Nestor grins through his few teeth, amazed at how easy it is to make young men do silly things. “At last, some brave men! Now, only one can fight Hektor, so all of you take a rock, scratch your mark on it, put it in my helmet here—yes, that’s good, not much use for anything else at my age, my helmet … ah, good!”

  The whole army is watching, silently hoping Agamemnon’s name will fall out so Hektor can kill him.

  Old Nestor shakes the helmet, and a rock falls out. He picks it up, reads the mark: “Ajax! Ajax will be our champion!”

  Ajax stands up shyly, huge and dim as ever. According to protocol, he has to make a speech before going out to fight. He does his clumsy best: “My friends, don’t worry, I’ll kill Hektor, I’m not worried. I’m from Salamis, you know; we can take care of ourselves …”

  A weak cheer from the Salamis contingent, then a quiet time as Ajax checks his weapons and armor. Satisfied, he jams the helmet on his bull-sized head and runs out to face Hektor.

  Ajax feels that a little trash-talk is required: “So, Hektor, did y
ou think we’d back down? Do you think Akilles is the only warrior we’ve got? There are dozens of us who wanted to face you; I just got lucky! So get ready to die, Trojan!”

  Hektor is too sad today to bother with talk. He says quietly, “Noble Ajax, we know each other. You don’t need to talk to me like that. You know I can fight. I learned a long time ago how to use the shield, work the angles, and you know that’s the most important part of fighting. But let’s not argue about technique. I must kill you if I can, but I’ll do it face to face, with honor.”

  Hektor throws. The spear hits Ajax’s shield and rams through the thin coating of bronze, rips past six layers of folded rawhide. And stops, because Ajax’s shield has an extra layer of hide, a seventh layer. Only a giant like him could carry such a heavy shield in a long, hot day of battle. So Ajax hasn’t even been touched. And it’s his turn to throw. He flips up that heavy spear, ten cubits long, like it was a broom-handle, flings it too fast to follow. It goes right through Hektor’s shield without slowing down, slits his linen shirt, and would have opened his belly if he’d stood still. But Hektor leans away from the spear-point, like a bull dancer dodging the horn, and the spearhead goes through his shirt without touching the skin.

  Now both men have a spear sticking through their shields. They stare at each other for a second, then rip the spears out of their shields, take them up and charge each other. Hektor, using Ajax’s spear, slams it hard into the very center of Ajax’s shield, but nothing is going to defeat that shield, with its extra layer of rawhide. The spearhead goes in at an angle, bends.

  Ajax stabs at the same moment, and his thrust goes right through Hektor’s weaker shield. Hektor gets slashed on the neck, and the gash is bleeding fast down his shirt. But he won’t quit. Hektor backs off, scrabbles around for a weapon, and grabs a big rock. He throws it, catches Ajax’s shield dead center, right in the bronze boss. You can hear the clang for miles.