A Song of War: a novel of Troy

by Kate Quinn

  “Husband—” Creusa began with a concerned look, but I waved her away.

  “I wear an ash plume to honor a burning city while I try to save what I can.” I noted that Anchises was reaching for a corselet of bronze and I shook my head. “Stay here, Father. Look after the family. I... I have been told I will not be able to save those I seek to protect, so their safety must fall to you. Stay here as long as you can, and if the Achaeans come and I do not return, then take the others through the Rhoiteion Gate and north to safety.”

  My father paused for a moment and finally nodded, putting back the cuirass. He was too old to fight such a battle, and he knew it, though that ever-pervading pride had almost driven him to do it anyway. Pride and duty. Duty and pride. The cause of all wars.

  I rushed out into the street, noting with dismay how the lower city had already mostly fallen. More and more houses were burning, and the din of battle had moved up the slopes away from the Scaean Gate toward the citadel walls and the noble houses. Soon the Achaeans would be at my own doorstep, and I prayed that my father would be able to save those I loved. I knew Cassandra and her gift well, and I could not find it in myself to doubt her words. I could not try to save them.

  As we descended the stairs to the street, my eight warriors at my heel, five other figures emerged from the alleyway ahead, already marked by battle. We almost charged them, but at the last moment, in the gleaming light of the inferno that was our city, I marked four warriors I knew well who had fought for our cause these past years and, alongside them, Coroebus of Phrygia, come to Troy to woo Cassandra, who had repaid him with less attention than a flittering butterfly. Coroebus, who was like kin, gestured at me. “We came to find Aeneas, son of Anchises, but it seems a raven has taken his armor.”

  I frowned for a moment but realized he was pointing at my ash plumes. I nodded. “We go to the upper city to save what we can. Where are you bound?”

  “To your side, Aeneas,” said elderly Iphitus, a man who should be coddling grandchildren and not suited for war.

  “Come, then,” I roared and led my small band of thirteen warriors into the fray. We had not far to travel to find war. Two streets away, a dozen Achaean warriors were busy beating back a pair of young men with nothing to defend themselves with but two shoddy spears and a single small ox-hide shield. Behind the two youths, an old graybeard lay on the ground, bleeding and groaning as the women of his household tried desperately to help him up and out of danger. We fell upon the Achaeans from behind—there is no nobility in this kind of war. It was not the time of glorious duels, as it had been when Hector and Achilles still lived. We felled them like sacrificial beasts, for they were unaware of our approach until it was too late. I took down one of the largest men, swinging my double-edged blade and digging it deep into his neck, above the corselet of scales and below his boar’s tusk helmet. When I wrenched it back out and he fell away, his head lolling at a dreadful angle and blood pumping from the wide rent, I caught another warrior with the edge, opening the large vein of his neck. I ignored him further as I set upon a bear of a man, the neck-wounded warrior staggering around and clutching his neck, trying to contain the violent spray of his crimson life.

  We felled all twelve in short order, though one of my Dardanians took a terrible blow to the inner thigh, and his life was flooding out with every heartbeat. I said a prayer for him but moved on with just a fraternal squeeze of the shoulder. We could afford to waste no time. The women and the old man ran from us as though we were the enemy, disappearing inside their house.

  Another corner brought us closer to the gate of the inner walls, but as we rounded it, a small party of Achaeans stumbled upon us. We fought like lions then. I was not a young man, even a decade ago when my damned cousin Paris first set eyes on that wretched woman and decided to bring her to Troy, and my sword arm was never the match for Hector’s, nor my bow-skill like that of Paris. But I was still god-born, and there was an accuracy and a tenacity to my moves that gifted me a dance-like efficiency that had thwarted many an opponent. I punched my short blade into a man’s chest, tearing into the hide shirt he wore as though it were ewe’s cheese. I felt it grate between ribs and spear the heart, and the man spluttered bloody spittle at me as I wrenched the blade back out, twisting despite the ribs to free it from the sucking wound.

  A second man swung a spear round and thrust at me. Though I ducked to the side, the tip struck my helmet and danced along the bronze bowl with a noise that, from the inside, sounded like the shrieking of harpies. I made him regret the damage to my war gear when I took his spear arm with a simple slice, then dropped and jammed the blade into his nethers, where protection was low and mortality high. He screamed and fell, torrents of red pouring from his groin.

  By the time I rose again, the enemy was dispatched, though two more Dardanians lay gasping out their life on the ground. Once more we muttered prayers, looked upon them kindly, and ran on.

  Along the street where a councilor’s once-grand house was now a skeleton of blackened columns rising to support timber ribs, the whole wreathed in all-consuming fire, we came across another party of Achaeans, led by a man in a curiously tall helmet with a yellow plume that rather stood out in a crowd. I opened my mouth to bellow my men forward, but as I did, the yellow-plumed warrior turned and waved at me.

  “We’re nearly through the gates!” he yelled with glee. “You were almost late to the party!”

  I had no idea for whom this Achaean hero had mistaken me, but I simply grinned, waved in a comradely fashion, and hurried up the street to join him and his dozen or so warriors where they were busy administering the mercy kill to a small band of Trojan defenders. The sight inflamed me, and my knuckles whitened on my sword hilt. Then, in a heartbeat, we were among them, the Achaeans having raised not a weapon to defend themselves, duped as they were by their own leader’s mistake. By the time I ripped my blade out and jammed it into Yellow-Plume’s armpit beneath his raised, comradely hand, two of the other enemy had already fallen to spear thrusts. My men moved among the Achaeans like starving wolves among sheep, tearing and rending, and in less time than it takes to sing a paean chorus, the Achaeans were dead at our feet. As the others took a moment to catch their breath, I moved to the next corner and looked around it. The street from here to the high gate was filled with gangs of slavering Achaeans, roaring their victory cries. It would be a hard fight pushing on to the inner gate, and I said as much to the others as I returned.

  “But they are expecting this yellow-plumed man, yes?” murmured Coroebus with a sly smile. I looked from him to the body on the ground, the blood still slicking from beneath his arm, and I caught that smile and returned it. Not wishing to be caught by random wanderers, we dragged the bodies from the street into a house and stripped them of only their most recognizable gear. To a civilian, there might seem to be no real difference in the way Achaeans and Trojans armor themselves, but a warrior notices things. There are telltale giveaways, even down to the clothes beneath the panoply. We threw on their bloodstained chitons, which covered our own tunics, and the blood could just as well be that of men we killed. It was, in truth. Coroebus looked the part in the high yellow plume, and we others were all lesser miscellaneous Achaean warriors now. I kept my ash plumes, though. I decided no one would look closely enough at me to worry when I was next to glorious Coroebus.

  We emerged from the house and turned the corner. Now the Achaeans were at the citadel’s gate, wielding a ram and hammering at the timbers. The defenders were jabbing down with spears, loosing poisoned arrows and throwing rocks, but the tide of invading life at the gate was too strong. Soon they would be inside. I knew at that moment that we were too late to save the upper city. The citadel would fall, and the Achaeans would ravage our sacred places. But then none of us had come this far in the belief that we could win. This was about duty, pure and simple. We were warriors of Troy, and if Troy was to fall, then its warriors would do their duty and shed their blood along with it.

 
We exchanged looks, all of us, and I could see the acceptance in their eyes. We were all dead men, but we would exact a heavy price in Achaean blood and flesh for every stone of Troy they secured. At the near end of the street, a few bands of stragglers hurried to join the fight, late arriving from the ships, and we moved among them with ease—we were all Achaean brothers now, after all. The opportunity fell to us three times to dispatch small groups of stragglers without drawing the attention of the main force at the gate. It was satisfying, even in the moment of our doom, to bite deep into filthy Achaean flesh with good Trojan bronze. We must have killed two dozen more before we reached the mass of attackers. As we moved among them, pushing and jostling like all the rest, we each took any opportunity to subtly jab into bodies, wounding where we could in the press so that no one could tell it was us.

  Our lust for Achaean blood was far from sated when the first defense of the citadel gave with a deafening crack. The gates gave under the repeated blows of the ram, and the great log was dropped immediately, the warriors at the head of the force using axes and brute strength to wrench the ruined wooden gates aside from the hole smashed in the center. Scores of Achaeans perished at those gates, giving up their lives to widen the breach for their fellows. I almost admired them, but I would rather have their necks beneath my sandal and my blade in their throats, so I ground my teeth and pushed on, trying to force my way through the crowd. The others were still mostly with me, though I could now see only two of my Dardanians. It was hard to keep track of them all, disguised as they were.

  We burst through the gate like water from a broken dam. The defenders were already away, pushed back by the Achaean tide, and the enemy filled the upper city with every heartbeat, flowing through the walls and charging for all the glorious, bright palaces and temples of our most holy places. Troy was doomed. I could only pray in my desperation that my father had managed to get the others away. Or perhaps the Achaeans had not gone to my house with the lure of the upper city filling their eyes?

  Then all thought of heroic deaths, of flight, even of righteous killing, abandoned me, for through the crowd of roaring Achaeans and the pockets of desperate Trojans, I saw her.

  Cassandra, her narrow form dark amid these golden foreigners, stood out.

  I did not know how she had reached the inner citadel ahead of me—perhaps she knew some hidden temple way known only to the priestesses to whose ranks she had once belonged, or perhaps she had been caught by some Achaean spearman and dragged along as a prize. Now she lay sprawled on the age-worn stones of the temple of high Arynna, whom the Achaeans in their base tongue call Athena, hair like a pool of dark flames on the ground. Cassandra’s bloodied lip and her torn kilt that was still askew stood as evidence of the base crime so freshly committed. The ox-like Achaean Prince Ajax readjusted his stained battle-kilt as he spit upon her, and I knew then what my poor cousin had seen in her visions, what nightmare she had always known hunted her.

  The hulking warrior bound Cassandra’s wrists and held tight to the other end of the leash, yanking hard so that she yelped and lurched to her feet as the leather bit into her wrists. A sizable force of Achaeans surrounded her in the next instant.

  I was angered beyond reason, but my ire was as nothing to that of Coroebus, who was once more beside me, his high yellow plumes easily marking him among the press. Coroebus, the prince of Phrygia, who had owed no oath of fealty to Troy at all, who had come from his distant home with his warriors solely in the hope of winning the hand of Princess Cassandra. Coroebus snapped. It was almost as though I heard his soul fracture at the sight of his intended, raped and now being dragged away as chattel by the enemy. With a roar of incandescent rage, my friend launched himself at Ajax’s men, and I was instantly caught up in the fire of it. My cousin had said she would see me once more this night, but I would not be able to save her. Maybe Coroebus could, if I helped him? We fell among the Achaeans like farmers reaping a field of barley. They were utterly unprepared, shocked at this apparent assault from their own men, and we hewed them in their astonishment. I took arms and legs and heads with my sharp-edged blade, tearing heedless through armor, chiton, and flesh. I was sure that we would be able to reach Cassandra. My other companions were with us now as we ravaged Ajax’s force. We would win. We would save her, and we could cheat my cousin’s prediction, for it would be Coroebus that did it, and not I.

  The tide turned on us in a single heartbeat. A band of Trojan warriors appeared as if from nowhere, and I gave it no thought until they began to cut into us. I saw one of my companions disappear beneath a flurry of sword strikes from men who had shared a dinner table with him. We were Achaeans to them. Coroebus was still madly hacking and smashing at the Achaeans, as were four of us, but the others were now protecting our backs from our own people, yelling out at them our true identities. Confusion reigned complete as the Trojans thought we were Achaean, but the Achaeans were now hearing us claim to be Trojans. And everyone was attacking us.

  I would have upbraided Coroebus for what had, in the end, turned out to be a disastrous idea, but as I rounded on him, his head suddenly exploded like an overripe pomegranate trapped in a bowl. That bronze helm with the yellow plumes had been cleaved so heavily that the axe had cut through it and into the brain, and through the gore and the mess as he slumped, I saw his killer. Before him stood that monster in human form Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The animal barely registered the death as he turned to his mighty companion.

  “Stop messing about with whores, Ajax. Their feeble old king cowers in his palace, waiting to be slain!”

  And with that, the bastard was off. I tried not to tread on Coroebus’ shuddering corpse, but we were now fighting a last desperate struggle. All but one of my Dardanians were gone, as were most of the companions I had brought from the house. Only two remained with me now.

  Somehow the Trojan defenders had finally grasped our identity and had pulled back, but we were just three now to the Achaean’s scores. I watched, helpless, as Cassandra was dragged away from the temple, a sea of warriors between us. She gave me a sad last smile and a final nod, and then she was gone, huge Ajax and his men driving her on. Despite the clear futility of it, I made to go after her, but half a dozen Trojan hands grabbed at me and pulled me back. I looked at the temple and the shade of my poor cousin’s violation hovering there, but warriors grasped me and turned me.

  There would be time to mourn her later, her and so many others.

  “The palace. The Achaeans are besieging the palace. The king and the queen, Aeneas!”

  I quickly focused on the man before me. I recognized him, though I couldn’t put a name to the face. My gaze rose beyond him to the palace, and my heart shuddered. The sea of Achaeans now surrounded the last stronghold of Troy’s ruling family. And within that complex stood the temple of the ancestors and their sacred likenesses. All that was left that could be said to be Troy was trapped in that building. Even now more Achaeans were pouring into the upper city, and the men who had pulled me back were suddenly fighting, pushing against an unstoppable tide.

  “What do we do, Aeneas?” Iphitus asked.

  “We save the king and queen, or we die trying,” I answered severely. There is a strange sort of calm acceptance that settles on a man who knows he is about to die, can do nothing to prevent it, and has little wish to live on anyway.

  “How do we get past that lot?” breathed Iphitus.

  “I know a way. Come on.”

  I led them away from the open space and the noise of battle into a narrow side alley that ran alongside the temple. Two buildings back, close to the eastern walls of the citadel, there was a heavy door built into a wall of large, rough blocks. It was a vague thing, not hidden, as such, but still barely distinguishable from the surrounding wall unless one was looking for it. I found it and jammed my finger into the narrow hole in the door, yanking it wide open. Inside was a storehouse for the main palace and the various chambers where slaves and servants went about their business, its constru
ction of heavy stone and not the painted, smooth plaster of the palace proper. A subterranean corridor led off down a flight of steps toward the palace, undiscovered as yet by the enemy.

  “What is this place?” Iphitus asked.

  “A simple back entrance. They are often overlooked. Hector’s wife, Andromache, often used this passage to visit his family without having to pass through all the guards and officials. You know what she’s like, hates a fuss.” I had always quite liked Andromache. She was unassuming and natural, unlike many of Troy’s women. The perfect consort for noble Hector. But like so many great men, Hector was now gone, and Andromache would never be queen. And unless we could do something, in the stroke of a night she would go from royal princess to Achaean war prize.

  We ran along the corridor and back up the steps into the palace’s ground floor. As it entered the main building, we were faced with a choice. Ahead lay the official chambers and the sacred shrine of the ancestors. Up another flight of stairs lay the royal apartments. It was a choice easily made, for the sounds of furious battle reached us from the stairs, and so we ran, taking them two at a time. The noise seemed to be coming from the roof, and we ignored the king’s chambers and emerged into the night air once more, though there was little in the way of darkness or coolness now. The burning city had given the entire world a bright golden glow, and the heat emanating from the lower city was as searing as the warmest of summer days. A good warrior knows to check his terrain before he commits, and the moment the three of us arrived on the roof, we moved about, taking in the situation. It was dire. Down below, the palace was surrounded by Achaeans. The main entrance was of a large, ornate, bronze-plated door, but some earlier ruler with a nervous disposition had installed a heavy timber gate that could be closed upon its outer surface to provide extra defense. Even now I could see the Achaeans hammering upon it and trying to split it with axes while others raised ladders, attempting to gain access to upper windows or to the roof. The valiant defenders—a mix of Trojan warriors who had been pushed back from outer defenses, palace guards and servants, and even some of the palace’s women—were busy fighting the ladder-men off any way they could. The warriors and guards jabbed down with spears or cut away the tops of ladders with axes and swords while the beleaguered women and those without weapons tore up tiles from the roof and cast them down on the attackers, smashing skulls and breaking bones. The slaughter was as great as I had ever seen on a battlefield, and I had fought for our Hittite overlords in their glory days, when armies of thousands crashed into one another on the plains near Hattusa.