The Gates Of Troy

by Iliffe, Glyn

  For a while, Calchas turned his shining eyes on each of them, whether great or lowly. Then the brightness faded and a moment later he collapsed to the ground. The spell broken, Odysseus and Philoctetes, the archer, rushed to help the priest of Apollo as he lay panting in the grass, while all about them scores of voices rushed to discuss the prophecy that had been uttered.

  ‘Come on,’ said Eperitus, slapping Peisandros on the arm.

  Together they ran to where Calchas was sitting, rubbing his head and drinking from a cup that Philoctetes had given him. But as they knelt down beside him, a new voice was added to the cacophony about them.

  ‘My lord! My lord Agamemnon!’

  ‘What is it, Talthybius?’ Agamemnon snapped, shaking off the stupor brought on by Calchas’s words.

  The Mycenaean herald burst through the crowd of royalty, his breathing heavy and his face red from running in the hot weather.

  ‘My lord, it’s been seen again. Here in the woods. The white hart.’

  Many of the voices stopped immediately, and the remainder soon followed.

  ‘The white hart?’ Menelaus repeated.

  ‘Yes, my lord. One of the herdsmen saw it just now. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Is this the creature that was seen while I was away in Phthia?’ Ajax asked, turning to the other kings. ‘Then, by Ares’s sword, what are we waiting for? Let’s hunt it down before it disappears again. Teucer! Teucer, where are you, damn it! Bring me my spear, and don’t forget your bow and arrows.’

  Suddenly there was uproar as the kings and princes rushed this way and that, hollering the names of their squires or calling aloud for their various weapons.

  ‘Peisandros!’ said a tall, sinewy man with a long, pointed nose. His voice was high and pinched, which suited his arrogant face. ‘Fetch my hunting hounds at once. They’re tethered on the southern side of the wood.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the Myrmidon replied, and after a farewell nod to Eperitus ran off through the trees.

  The arrogant-looking man remained for a moment, staring down his nose at the three men kneeling beside Calchas, then with a curt nod to Odysseus turned on his heel and walked away.

  ‘What’s up, Patroclus?’ Philoctetes called after the commander of the Myrmidon army. ‘Think you’re too important to acknowledge your fellow commoners? Or does sharing Achilles’s bed again make you somehow high-born?’

  Patroclus wheeled about in an instant and drew his sword, but Odysseus was already on his feet and walking towards him. Seizing the Myrmidon gently but firmly by the wrists, Odysseus leaned forward and spoke quietly in his ear. After a moment, Patroclus shot Philoctetes an ugly glance, then turned and marched over to where Achilles was throwing a quiver of arrows over his shoulder.

  ‘That was foolish,’ Eperitus said, turning to the young archer with an angry look in his eye. ‘Whether the rumour’s true or not, if Achilles had heard you you’d be a dead man now.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of Patroclus or Achilles,’ Philoctetes hissed back. ‘These arrows of mine would kill them both before they could so much as raise a spear against me.’

  ‘Your weapons won’t make you great, even though Heracles himself gave them to you – they’re just a continuation of his greatness. If you want my advice, Philoctetes, prove your own worth before you think you can challenge a warrior like Achilles.’

  ‘Looks like it’s each man for himself,’ said Odysseus, returning with a smile on his face as if nothing had happened.

  Philoctetes paused to lift Calchas’s hood back over his head, before helping the priest back to his feet. ‘Then don’t be too slow if you want a chance at the beast,’ he warned, mirroring the Ithacan’s cheerfulness. ‘I’ve seen it myself and it’s magnificent – pure white with antlers of gold – but as soon as I fire one of my arrows at it it’s running days’ll be over.’

  He patted the quiver at his side, and with a last glance at Eperitus bounded off into the rapidly dispersing crowd.

  ‘Take my spear, Odysseus,’ Eperitus said. ‘Yours are still down by the boats, and we’d better hurry if we’re going to hunt this animal.’

  Odysseus shook his head. ‘Let the others run about as much as they like – only Talthybius knows where the animal was spotted, and he’s over with the Atreides brothers. If we want a throw at this fabled hart, all we need to do is follow Agamemnon.’

  Eperitus looked over his shoulder and saw the King of Men slip the lion’s pelt from his back as he picked up a horn bow and a leather quiver full of arrows. Menelaus stood beside him with two spears in his hand, looking about surreptitiously to note the different directions in which the leaders were disappearing. He only saw Odysseus and Eperitus running towards him at the last moment.

  ‘You do realize,’ Odysseus called, ‘that this white hart may belong to one of the gods. It could cost us dear if we kill it; all your carefully staged sacrifices could be wasted, Agamemnon.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Agamemnon sniffed, throwing the quiver over his back and tightening the golden buckle. He circled his shoulders to test the fit. ‘If it belongs to a god, then they shouldn’t let their pets loose around so many skilled hunters. Besides, once you see the animal, Odysseus, you’ll know why everyone’s leaving in such a hurry.’

  ‘Then we’ll accompany you, if you have no objections,’ Odysseus said, taking the spear Eperitus held towards him and moving into the undergrowth before the Atreides brothers could have a chance to refuse him. ‘Lead the way, Talthybius.’

  They set off at a rapid pace through the humid wood, leaping over fallen branches and crashing through knee-high forests of fern, all the time looking left and right through the columns of dusty light that penetrated the canopy of leaves above. Eperitus, whose supernatural senses far outstripped those of his fellow hunters, sniffed the languorous air, sifting out the different smells of damp earth, distant blossom and the sharp odour of human sweat until he could detect – though still faintly – the powerful musk of male deer.

  ‘It was seen not far from here, in a glade to the east,’ Talthybius informed them.

  ‘No. It’s moving north,’ Eperitus announced, after a moment’s consideration. ‘That way.’

  Agamemnon looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure? This might be the only chance we get – we can’t afford to follow whims.’

  ‘He’s sure,’ Odysseus assured him. ‘I’d trust Eperitus’s senses above my own hunting dog’s.’

  Without any further hesitation, the five men set off in a northeasterly direction. The ground began to slope away before them and the trees grew denser, stifling the gauzy yellow light that had managed to penetrate the thinner woodland they were leaving behind.

  ‘Look!’ Eperitus said after they had been running for a while.

  He pointed to a branch hanging from a tree. The shards of the broken stem were still fresh and white, indicating it was recently broken. There was no sound or sign of the other hunters, and with a flush of excitement they realized it could only have been snapped by a tall animal passing that way a short while before.

  They increased their pace, moving deeper into the wood until they reached a narrow stream. They splashed across and followed its winding course for a while before Eperitus veered suddenly to the left. They followed in his wake, crashing on into the dense heart of the wood until Talthybius could hold the pace no longer and began to slow, gasping for breath.

  ‘Shhh!’ Eperitus hissed, suddenly slowing to a crouching walk and pressing his finger to his lips. ‘It’s close.’

  Menelaus and Odysseus instinctively raised their spears, holding the shafts lightly in their cupped palms. Agamemnon slipped an arrow from the quiver and fitted it to his bow, drawing it to half-readiness as his eyes scanned the gloom. Eperitus sniffed the thick air, his eyes narrowing as he judged the different smells captured in his nostrils.

  ‘It’s here,’ he whispered.

  The hunters halted and slowly lowered themselves into the cover of the crowded ferns, so that thei
r eyes were just above the curling fronds. For a breathless moment they heard nothing, not even a bird in the closely packed branches above, then a twig snapped and they turned to see a magnificent, pure-white deer trot into a small clearing ahead of them. It stood beside the upturned roots of a fallen tree, bathed in a single shaft of golden light that penetrated a gap in the canopy above. It looked about itself, completely unaware of the men only a stone’s throw away, then bowed its antlered head to chew at the rich undergrowth.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Agamemnon whispered, drawing the bowstring back to his cheek and preparing to stand.

  But before he could move, his brother stood and launched the long spear from his hand. It spun through the air, its imperfect shaft twirling behind the bronze tip as it flew towards its target. A moment later it skimmed the shoulders of the hart and buried its point in the mud-caked roots of the tree.

  The hart raised its head, saw Menelaus and bolted in the opposite direction. Odysseus stood and cast his own spear, aiming at the flashing white of the animal’s hindquarters as they disappeared through the undergrowth. It fell short.

  Agamemnon also stood, but unlike the two spearmen knew he had a few moments more to take aim and release his shot. Closing his left eye, he squinted down the shaft of the arrow and focused on the triple-barbed point, aiming it slightly ahead of the fleeing deer. Snatching a half-breath and holding it so that the movement of his lungs would not disturb his aim, he released the shaft.

  The bow hummed and Agamemnon leaned his head to the left, hoping to see the white form stumble and fall, but the animal had already disappeared among the trees.

  ‘Missed it,’ Menelaus announced, almost gleefully.

  ‘Thanks to you, you buffoon. I told you to leave it for me.’

  ‘What? And let you take all the glory, as usual, King of Men?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Eperitus ordered, momentarily forgetting he was talking to the two most powerful men in Greece. ‘I can’t hear its footfalls any more. It’s stopped running.’

  ‘No man could hear that well,’ said Talthybius.

  ‘Come on,’ Odysseus said. ‘Let’s see if you’ve hit your mark, Agamemnon.’

  They dashed into the undergrowth; twigs snapped loudly beneath their sandals and brittle stems whipped against their shins. They ran past the spears of Menelaus and Odysseus and forged on to the place where they had last seen the hart’s white flanks. The trees were thinner here, allowing more sunlight to illuminate the woodland floor, but they could see nothing.

  ‘You were wrong, Eperitus,’ Agamemnon said, with clear disappointment in his voice. He stopped and looked about himself. ‘It’s gone. The glory will go to no man now.’

  But Eperitus merely shook his head.

  ‘No, my lord, I’d still be able to hear its feet beating the ground now. And I can smell fresh blood.’

  Odysseus, who had continued following the course of the deer, suddenly called for them to join him. He stood near to the edge of the wood, where the trees filtered out into open fields and the light was almost unbearable to look at. As they ran to join him they saw the carcass of the white hart at his feet, shining like silver through the screen of ferns. Agamemnon’s arrow still protruded from its neck.

  Eperitus knelt and ran his hands over the soft, warm fur, feeling the ridges of the ribcage beneath his fingertips. This close, the animal was as magnificent in death as it had been when he had seen it in the small clearing, bathed in golden sunlight. He looked up and saw Agamemnon standing above him. The face of the sun glittered in the intertwined branches behind his head, and with the richly decorated breastplate he wore he looked like a god.

  ‘A magnificent shot, my lord,’ Eperitus said, reaching to stroke the still-warm flank of the hart.

  Agamemnon laughed, a triumphant look gleaming in his sunken eyes as he smiled down at his prey. ‘Artemis herself could not have done better!’

  And as the words left his lips the sunlight about them seemed to flare out brightly for a moment, then shrink back again. Though they could not yet see it, grey clouds were massing rapidly on the eastern horizon. Before long they were rolling across the skies like a conquering army, swirling and twisting in their tortured agony as they crossed the blue expanse. By the time the men emerged from the wood with the dead hart over Agamemnon’s shoulders, the first grey outriders of the approaching storm had blotted out the sun altogether. The hunters looked up in fear and the hills echoed with a boom of thunder.

  book

  THREE

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE STORM

  The rain lashed furiously against the forest of tents, drenching the flaxen sheets until they hung heavily upon the wooden poles beneath. Inside, men shivered against the unseasonable cold and pulled their woollen cloaks tighter about their shoulders, longing for the day when the unending storm would lift and allow them to sail for Troy. But if any man opened the flap of his tent, all he could see was grey clouds from horizon to horizon, pressing down on the camp like the belly of a great monster as the rain fell and the wind howled.

  It had been this way for three weeks. Night flowed into day and day back into night, so that the only change was from Stygian blackness into melancholy gloom and back again. The only real light any man saw was the glitter of lightning inside the ever-shifting mantle of cloud, or the occasional bolt stalking across distant horizons. And all the time their ears were assailed by the monotonous groaning of the wind as it passed between the avenues of tents, tearing at pennants and tugging at guy ropes, a constant worry to the men inside. Many a shelter was blown away in the storm, and most others were made unbearable by the wind that whistled through the gaps in the walls. Once inside, it would drive out any warmth until the flesh of every soldier was chilled to the bone and each man was ready to give up the expedition and return home. But with their ships wind-bound in the straits below, they had no choice but to sit tight and pass the time grumbling against the gods and, above all, their leaders.

  There were few who did not blame the slaying of the white hart for their present troubles. Agamemnon had shot a creature precious to one of the immortals, and now this unidentified god was making all their lives a misery because of their leader’s sacrilege. The King of Men, keen to set sail, was the most frustrated of them all. He had offered repeated sacrifices to all the gods, but to no avail. On every occasion, as he had stared up into the rain with fresh blood streaming down the dagger in his right hand, his desperate prayers were met with deep rumbles of displeasure from the skies above. And as the fleet remained holed up between the mainland and Euboea, the pressure on its leader grew.

  He sat on a heavy wooden chair with a high back. It was covered in a thin layer of tin and had been draped over with furs, which were soft beneath the naked skin of his thighs and calves. His new breastplate felt stiff and awkward, pressing into the flesh beneath his armpits and at the tops of his legs, but he refused to remove it because of his constant fear of assassination. The double cloak over his shoulders was warm and light.

  Agamemnon drummed the fingers of his right hand repeatedly on the table before him, trying to drown out the constant pattering of the rain on the high roof of his tent. The thumb and forefinger of his other hand were busily massaging his aching temples as he studied the map Odysseus had placed on the table. It depicted a rough representation of Ilium and its surrounding islands.

  ‘If this distance is correct,’ said King Nestor, leaning across and tapping the point between the walls of Troy and the line of beach between the Scamander and Simo¨eis, ‘then it’s too risky to make the landing so close to the city.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Menelaus said. ‘If we land the ships here we can cross the plain in no time. The Trojans will be taken completely by surprise, and before they know it our army will be streaming through the city.’

  The two men were among a handful that had joined Agamemnon in his tent after the nightly feast, a time when the leaders of the expedition would sacrifice to the gods and share
food together. Tonight, though, the atmosphere was more affected than usual by the sombre weather. Achilles had departed with the Ajaxes and Teucer, all of them intent on brightening their mood with wine. Many others had returned to the familiarity of their own camps, hoping to wake the next morning and find clear skies. Only Idomeneus, Diomedes and Odysseus had joined Nestor and the Atreides brothers to discuss a strategy for the attack on Troy, and were now poring over the rough map that the Ithacan king had made from memory.

  ‘Your eagerness to rescue your wife is blinding you to the realities of war, Menelaus,’ Nestor countered. ‘If the Trojans are prepared for us, they can meet us on the beaches and massacre us as we leap down from our ships. If they are not prepared but are able to meet us in force on the plain, they could check our advance and throw us back into the sea before we have time to organize a proper defence. And if we don’t take the city in the first attack and have to lay siege to it, any determined attack they make could reach our camp with ease.’

  ‘Do you doubt our army’s ability to beat the Trojans?’ Agamemnon asked, cocking an eyebrow towards his trusted adviser.

  ‘No, but just as many battles are decided by the gods as they are by feats of arms. If the prophecy of the snake and the sparrows was interpreted correctly, then we can be sure the gods won’t give us Troy in the first attack. And I’ve seen too many battles on open ground to want to risk our ships on that beach. If it’s my advice you want, Agamemnon – and that was the reason you asked me to join this expedition – then you won’t gamble everything we have in such a place.’