A Song of War: a novel of Troy

by Kate Quinn

  A spike of anger flared up at her sheer gall. Love her or no, she was only a woman, and most men would give any woman who dared offer war council the back of his hand, and hard. But a high king could not afford to discard good sense, no matter how unlikely the lips that uttered it—and Chryseis, woman or no, spoke sense.

  “I know nothing of strategy,” Chryseis went on, eyeing him carefully, as though unsure whether to dare more words, playing the canny general in this little battle. “But it seems to me that to hand the Trojans any initiative is in error. If we attack, they must respond. Better than us responding to them?”

  Agamemnon rose and held her to him. He kissed her, unsure if he was still annoyed with her for speaking out or proud of her for the same reason. Probably a bit of both. “I was lost till you came into my life,” he said. “Chryseis, you give me strength that I thought I had lost forever. And perhaps you are right in this matter.” She was, of course, but he didn’t want her to know it. Not yet anyway. She’d work hard in bed for his approval on the matter, he reckoned, and that in and of itself was a good enough reason to hold out.

  He kissed her again and then drank his wine. She watched him over the rim of her own cup, matching him sip for sip. “Perhaps my unwillingness to do battle is, in part, to spite Achilles. I know it’s what he wants, and I enjoy denying him what he wants. But we’re winning, Chryseis. Even if it is taking a Titan’s age,” he admitted.

  Chryseis tipped back her cup. “I just want it to be over. So you can take me home.” She slipped out of her robe, letting it slide to the floor with a whisper of cloth on skin. “Let us pretend it is that day,” she said, her eyes burning with that fire he knew so well. She wanted to convince him.

  And Agamemnon wanted her to think he would let her.

  They made love and drank for hours, Agamemnon losing himself in her and the wine, the cares of the war muffled by the intoxication of her flesh and the strong Trojan vintage. Soaked in sweat and reeling in a Dionysian haze, they lay together on her bed, gasping in exhaustion.

  “My king!”

  Agamemnon groaned at his guard’s voice from without. “I do not wish to be disturbed!”

  “Forgive me...” He could hear the tremor in the man’s voice through the door. “But a herald approaches from the city. From Troy.”

  “What!” Agamemnon got up too quickly and stumbled.

  “The kings and princes gather, my king. I thought it wise to alert you.”

  “Very well!” Agamemnon shouted. “Very well.” He looked at Chryseis. “Shit.”

  “You’ll have to go,” she said, pulling the covers over herself. “You cannot allow yourself to be absent.”

  Agamemnon cursed again. He was too drunk to deal with this kind of thing now. But Chryseis was right. He had to be there. And he had to look like the high king. “Bring your women to dress me,” he told Chryseis.

  “There is no time,” she said. “I will dress you myself.”

  She worked fast, selecting a fine robe of purple and loading him down with jewelry while he drank as much water as he could take on, hoping it would cut through the fug of the wine. It only made him anxious to relieve himself, which was difficult enough in the heavy robe. He pissed apologetically in Chryseis’ own chamber pot and then allowed her to finalize his accoutrement.

  “How do I look?” he asked her as she set a diadem on his head. It tipped over his eyes, and he righted it.

  “Kingly,” she replied with a grin. “Best have the men take you on a litter,” she added.

  Agamemnon grunted. Once more, she was right.

  Though it was approaching evening, the sun was still hot and too bright. Agamemnon sweated under the robe as his men bore him toward the meeting place. He hated going out with a gut full of wine during the day. Each step the men took made the world shudder about him, and it was all he could not to be sick. Fortunately, he had enough presence of mind to bring a small krater with him, and he drank from it. Bitter experience had taught him it was better to stay drunk than to try to think with a hangover.

  He hoped this would all be about a hostage exchange, something he could deal with quickly and get back inside.

  The lesser kings and princes had gathered—hoping, probably, that there would be some gossip to be had or profit to be garnered. Even Achilles was there, and his presence gave Agamemnon pause for thought. Was there something afoot he was not aware of? And by his side stood Calchas.

  The Trojan herald bowed as the litter approached. He was a tall man with a sonorous voice and easy manner. He was charming, and, truth be told, Agamemnon quite liked him in that he could be trusted not to put his own slant on a message given. With him was an older man who seemed familiar to Agamemnon. He was tall and imposing and one-eyed. The sort you’d not forget meeting—but yet he was sure he had never laid eyes on him before.

  Probably the drink.

  “What business?” Agamemnon asked the herald, trying not to slur and realizing from the sharp glances of Achilles, Odysseus, and the others that he had failed.

  “Great Agamemnon,” the herald began. “Ruler of Mycenae, high king who is beloved of the gods, dread leader in battle...” He went on in this mien for some time. Usually, Agamemnon enjoyed it, but today he just wanted to cut to the chase. Protocol, however, had its demands. “I bring with me a priest,” the herald got to it at last.

  “A priest?” Agamemnon arched an eyebrow: the older man didn’t look like one at all. “I don’t need a priest.” He shot a glance at Calchas. “I have one of my own. Well—unless this one is better, in which case we might be able to make a deal.”

  “Dread King.” The old man stepped forward and fell to his knees, arms outstretched. It was clear from the way his remaining eye glittered that the only time this one knelt was before his god. “I am Chryses,” he said. “I come to ask for the release of my daughter.” Agamemnon gaped at him, realizing in that sickening instant why the priest seemed so familiar to him. One-eyed or no, the shape of his face, his accent. Chryseis’ father. “You have taken my child as captive,” Chryses boomed. “And I am bereft without her.”

  Agamemnon regarded him. He didn’t look bereft. He looked like a man who wanted something back simply because it had been taken from him.

  “I beg of you, please return her to me.”

  “Beg” and “please” didn’t seem to sit well with this one, Agamemnon noted. It was rather entertaining watching him act the supplicant.

  “Hector himself has guaranteed a great ransom for the return of my daughter,” Chryses went on, the small-time horse trader now. “It is a small thing, Dread King. You have many women, many slaves. But all I had—and all I want—is my child back.” The way it was delivered, he might as well be bargaining for a horse. Fuck him. He could offer all the gold in Troy if he wanted.

  Agamemnon glanced at his own priest, who gave a barely perceptible nod. “No,” he said and turned away from Calchas.

  Chryses’ fists gripped the sand as he knelt. “You cannot know what it is like to have a child taken from you,” he thundered, and the words struck Agamemnon like a spear thrust to the chest—the man’s presumption angered him, the fury ignited by the wine coursing through him. He was about to send the priest away, but the bastard pressed on, his voice low now. Menacing. “I am a priest of Apollo, Agamemnon.” He dared—dared—to address him by name. “The Far-Darter hears my words when I pray. And I can pray for victory. Or I can pray for defeat.” Agamemnon tried to respond, but his own rage strangled him.

  “He speaks the truth!” Calchas shrilled. “Chryses is beloved of Apollo. Hear him, my king, hear him!”

  “Hear him, Agamemnon!” This from Achilles. “Calchas knows the ways of the gods. He’s never been wrong.”

  “Yes, he has! One prophecy after another he spouts—last time it was all about how the gates would fall if we cut down that princeling of Priam’s, the young one, Troilus. Achilles ambushed him last year, and we’re still waiting!”

  “I would n
ot advise you falsely, my king!” Calchas shouted, his courage bolstered by the bastard Phthian. “The gods—”

  Agamemnon heard himself scream in fury, silencing Calchas and the muttering around him. Gripping the side of the litter, he rose to his full height. “The gods!” he shouted. “The gods! Fuck the gods! Fuck them! I don’t fear the gods. Fear them? I spit in their faces. All of them. For the gods and their mouthpieces here on earth have taken everything from me. Everything. I piss on them. Strike me down, Zeus!” He flung his arms out wide. “I dare you! Where is your lightning? Where is your fury? I see nothing. Only blue skies above me and a half-blind man before me with empty words and empty threats. Chryseis is mine. I will not give her up. Never will I give her up. And not you”—pointing at Achilles—“him”—pointing at Calchas—“nor the gods themselves will compel me!”

  “My king, this is a blasphemy!” Calchas waddled out from the protection of Achilles’ side.

  “You’re a fool, Agamemnon!” Achilles spat. “Take back your words lest you bring disaster on us all!”

  “I’m a fool?” Agamemnon roared. “Where is your courage? Get a priest to make a threat of victory or defeat, and I—the high king—must accept it? No! It will not be so!”

  “His words are heavy with truth...” Calchas started, but Agamemnon rounded on him.

  “Speak again and you die!” Shaking with rage, Agamemnon balled his fists. “There will be no ransom!” he shouted, looking around at the pale, shocked faces of the men gathered. “No ransom. We are finished here!” His litter bearers hesitated for a moment before stooping to lift the palanquin.

  “Can I see her?”

  Chryses’ words—so quiet in the storm—shocked Agamemnon, dousing his rage. He could not take back what he had said. But he could be magnanimous. “I don’t give a damn what you do, priest. Ask her to go with you if you want. See the response you get.” He gestured to the bearers, and they bore him away.

  Agamemnon reached for the krater and drank what was left. He found himself wanting more.

  The Furies tore at Agamemnon, their claws ripping into his mind as he lay on the bed, wrapped in sickness from his bout with the wine. He knew them intimately. Furies were not the things of myth, they were not tangible beasts that could be slain; they were the guilt that infested a man’s mind like maggots in a rotting corpse, writhing through his consciousness, eating away all that was good and leaving only vileness in their wake.

  Was there any good at all left in Agamemnon, king of Mycenae? Was he a man who had used his brother’s misfortune to mount a war for profit and blamed his shared capriciousness on other... lesser... men? Was he a man who had murdered his own child so that impassive gods might grant a fair wind for the endeavor?

  He should have stayed his hand, kingdom and power be damned. He had killed Iphigenia because it held the alliance together. A black deed for a black soul. He had many times considered killing himself. Falling onto his own sword, washing away the guilt in his own blood. But the hard truth was he lacked the courage.

  And what was he now? An aging monarch who was hated by all, and a man who openly taunted the gods in front of the men. Those who had not witnessed it would have heard the tale by now. Of how Agamemnon risked Apollo’s wrath for a girl. A slave. A fuck piece. That’s what they would say of Chryseis. That she was a fuck piece, one of hundreds he could choose from. Any misfortune they now suffered would be laid at his door.

  How Achilles must be laughing at him. They were all laughing at him.

  The door to his quarters opened, sunlight flooding in, and with it Chryseis. She was dressed in a simple shift—bereft of ornament and jewels—it only served to accentuate her exquisite beauty. And for a moment, the Furies were silent. She came to him, wordless for a time, and sat next to him on the bed, her cool fingers stroking his sweat-slick forehead, brushing away errant strands of graying hair.

  “Oh, my love,” she said.

  Agamemnon sat up and held her close, squeezing her tight as though to gain strength from her. He wanted to weep but held back the tears—he could not stand her contempt, too. “What have I done?” he whispered.

  “Nothing that cannot be undone.”

  He broke the embrace, suddenly fearful. “You saw your father.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” she replied and looked away, gazing at the stand on which he hung his armor. It was new—Agamemnon had had it made to go with the new chariot. It seemed, like the chariot itself, gaudy and overdone now. “He demanded that I leave with him. But I refused.”

  “Why?” Agamemnon was utterly relieved. But he had to know. “He is your father.”

  “He wants to love me…” She stopped, gathering herself. “He wants to love me in a way that no father should want to love his daughter. I saw it in his eyes all the time. I saw it again today. He asked me… he asked me if you raped me. I think it would have pleased him if you had. The thought of it.

  “He could not keep his hands off the girls that were sent to serve in the shrine. Even Priam’s daughter Princess Cassandra was fair game,” she went on. “And though he wanted me, he knew that if he did, Apollo would be angered. So he didn’t touch me. In that way. Instead, he took his frustration out with fists. He beat me, Agamemnon. Beat me till I was black and blue.”

  “Then I will kill him,” Agamemnon said. “When we take the city, I will find him and take his other eye,” he embellished, “so he will go to Hades blind and broken.”

  Chryseis shuddered as though shutting a door inside her that she wished she had not opened. “I never want to see him again,” she said after a moment. “The truth is, my world is here, with you. You are my world, Agamemnon. Our world.”

  “Our world?”

  “I didn’t know when to tell you,” she said. “But it seems that now is the time. I have missed three cycles, my love. Your child grows within me.”

  “A child?” Agamemnon was awestruck.

  Chryseis laughed. “It happens, my king. Especially when a man ruts as often as you do.”

  He forced himself to smile in response; the news should have delighted him, but the Furies returned. “I don’t know what kind of kingdom I will leave him, Chryseis.”

  “That’s the wine talking,” she snapped, stern now. “My father told me what you said. That you invited the curse of the gods on this army. That he would invoke Apollo’s wrath on us all. Even me when I refused to go with him. He seems to have forgotten that I can pray to Apollo, too, and the god may hear me over him. I will pray. But you need to act on our plan.

  “We know that Achilles wants to be high king,” she went on. “You—in your rage for me—have handed him a sword with which to stab you. Blunt it. The stakes are raised, Agamemnon. I am to be your wife and the mother of your heir, am I not?”

  She was still insecure in her position, he realized, testing him to make sure that his promise given in the afterglow of lovemaking would be honored. “You said I am your world. As you are mine. Especially now,” he said. “And I promise you this: when you are too heavy with child to come to my bed, I will take no other woman to it. I swear it. You are for me, Chryseis. I love you and you alone, and I will sire no bastards to challenge our son.”

  Agamemnon felt a small stab of guilt at his words. Orestes was his first born. But Orestes was not his son. He was Clytemnestra’s son and had suckled her poisonous hatred of him since he was a babe. Clytemnestra had taken a lover; this Agamemnon had had confirmed. Orestes would look to that man as his father. Orestes would be dreaming of kingship. The truth of it was that Agamemnon didn’t know Orestes at all. His child with Chryseis would be his real son. He wouldn’t kill Orestes, but he would banish him. He would, however, have to kill Clytemnestra and her lover. Perhaps have them drowned in that bath that she liked to make love in. A bit of panache to underscore her adultery.

  Chryseis smiled. “You are a good man.” The irony of her words was not lost to him. “But still, you must act. I can only imagine the hay th
at Achilles is making now. That you have cursed us all, that the gods are angered… and that bastard Calchas will be urging him on. So. Give Achilles what he wants. Give him his battle.”

  “After what I said in my rage, if we lose or even come close to it, it will be the end for me. And you. And our son.”

  “If you don’t act, the result will be the same. But win and you silence him. Win and you prove that Agamemnon fears not the wrath of men or gods or priests. Win and your power is secured, and none can raise their voice against you. Not even Calchas—whose prophesies, after such a victory, would surely favor you. He’s a piece of shit,” she added, which made Agamemnon laugh.

  “You seem awfully keen for me to push for a fight,” he observed.

  “I have an ulterior motive,” Chryseis said. “I want an end to this war. We are winning, yes—but let us be honest: the words you spoke in your rage have changed things.

  “It is a gamble, Agamemnon,” she stated. “You know this. But nothing of worth was ever won without risk. You are a man. You are a king. You will be the stuff of legends. I know you scoff at tales, but think on this. Win this war and men will remember the glory of Agamemnon, the king who brought Troy to her knees. And Achilles, if history remembers him at all, will be recalled as the man whose own petty desires threatened that glory.”

  “I’ll summon the council at once,” Agamemnon affirmed.

  “No.” She frowned, and her brow crinkled in that delightful way. “Not yet. If you act too early, it will look like you’re panicking. No,” she said again. “Be kingly. Withdraw. Let them gossip—let them assume. They will be saying you’ve lost your nerve. Then you, my king, will strike. In the way that they least expect. By launching a major assault.”

  She was right. She always was. And Agamemnon realized in that moment that she had—as she always could—driven the Furies away.