The Gates Of Troy

by Iliffe, Glyn

  Beyond the arena was a collection of well-built houses that filled the remainder of the lower level. They reminded Eperitus of the buildings that skirted the walls of Pergamos in Troy, which housed the numerous officials who served Priam’s household. Their Mycenaean counterparts were less elaborate in their architecture, but that was not a reflection of Troy’s superior wealth – it merely highlighted the different mindsets of the two opposing cultures. Though he had been impressed by the grandeur of Troy, Eperitus felt much more at home with the functional, honest architecture of Mycenae.

  After his rustic guests had spent long enough gazing down at the royal cemetery, Talthybius led them up the ramp to the next level of the city. Here they could see the palace buildings looming ahead of them, their layered walls faced with silver by the moonlight. These were built on the third and highest level of the city and before long Talthybius had led them around to the left and up some steps to a double portico. In the narrow courtyard beyond they found more guards, chatting quietly among themselves as they drank wine and played dice on the flagstones. They rose at the sound of the ponies’ hooves and the clank of bronze armour, and immediately levelled their spear-points at the approach of the newcomers.

  ‘Talthybius,’ said one of the guards, the surprise evident in his voice. ‘The watchtowers sent word we would have visitors before long, but we weren’t expecting you. Shouldn’t you be in Troy by now?’

  ‘I wish we were, Perithous,’ Talthybius replied. ‘But we’re storm-bound at Aulis.’

  ‘In the height of summer?’ Perithous exclaimed. ‘It can only be the will of the gods. But if Helen truly is the daughter of Zeus, he won’t allow the fleet to be held up for too long. The good news for you is that the queen made preparations for your arrival as soon as she heard a group of warriors were approaching – a hot bath for every man, followed by a feast in the great hall. Who shall I tell her to expect?’

  ‘King Odysseus of Ithaca, son of Laertes,’ Odysseus answered, ‘with five of his men.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Perithous, though he appeared unimpressed by the name or rank of the stocky warrior before him, gave a low bow before departing through a tall and richly decorated doorway. Shortly afterwards a dozen slaves appeared and took the ponies away to be fed and rested. As he stripped the last of his belongings from Melite’s back, Eperitus looked out across the Argive plain stretching away towards the Gulf of Argos. The moonlight revealed a network of paved roads spreading out across the hilly plateau for as far as his sharp eyes could see. Farmsteads and villages were strung along the roads like beads on a webbed necklace; the hardworking populace would be up long before dawn, so not a single light could be seen burning anywhere on the landscape of silver and blue.

  As soon as the tired travellers had gathered their effects, Talthybius led them into the palace. They entered a short, echoing corridor that opened onto a square courtyard, brightly lit by the moon now soaring in the sable skies above. Opposite was the pillared threshold of the great hall, overshadowed by the conical hump of one of the peaks flanking the city. In contrast to Priam’s great home, the seat of Agamemnon’s power appeared modest and almost homely to Eperitus. It had the disadvantage of being built on a steep hill and hence the architect had been forced to constrain his designs, but even the decorative reliefs on the walls – of rosettes or spirals set between fanned palm leaves – were simple and constrained in comparison with Troy. Four warriors in expensive armour stood guard at the entrance to the throne room, eyeing the newcomers with curiosity and suspicion.

  An elderly slave emerged from a doorway to their right. He stretched out his arm, indicating that they should enter. From the open door a wisp of steam curled out and the smell of hot water and perfumed oil greeted their nostrils.

  ‘After you,’ said Talthybius, bowing to Odysseus.

  ‘Mycenaean manners are justifiably famous,’ the king replied with a smile, before leading the way to the waiting baths. He was already stripping the heavy armour from his shoulders as he disappeared through the door.

  After being bathed and rubbed down with oil by slaves, the men put on the fresh clothes that had been laid out for them and stepped out into the courtyard. The four guards stood aside at Talthybius’s command, allowing the warriors to pass between the twin pillars of the threshold and into the antechamber beyond. Here they found a single soldier, who took a torch from the wall behind him and – after satisfying himself that they were unarmed – opened the twin doors and allowed the men through.

  They entered a square, dimly lit room with high ceilings and a wide, circular hearth at its centre. The air was stiflingly warm and tasted of roast meat, while the red light of the fire pulsated against the four wooden pillars and the heavily muralled walls. Eperitus looked about himself and felt disappointed. This room was the beating heart of the most powerful state in Greece, and yet it was a pale shadow of the great halls of Troy and Sparta, and lacked even the fresh vitality of Odysseus’s throne room on Ithaca. The once-colourful murals on the walls of the modest chamber were fading, and in places had begun to peel away. A scene depicting Perseus lopping off the snake-covered head of Medusa was so faint and stained by smoke that it was difficult to see in the red light from the fire. Perhaps there was little the greatest king in Greece could do to increase the dimensions of the hall, but to restore the murals would have been an easy thing for a wealthy ruler.

  Unless that ruler was waiting to replace the murals altogether, Eperitus thought – maybe with depictions of his own glorious conquest of Troy? Eperitus smiled to himself and turned his eyes to the tables of food laid out around the hearth. The smell of the freshly roasted meat filled his nostrils, making his stomach rumble and his mouth salivate. To his left he could see a slave in the shadows, washing the blood of a recently sacrificed animal from a wooden altar. The altar stood before an alcove containing a glazed terracotta image of a goddess – Hera, the wife of Zeus, judging by the pomegranate in the palm of her hand. But the pomegranate was also associated with Persephone, the dark goddess of the underworld.

  ‘Be seated, my lords,’ said a voice.

  The newcomers turned as one towards a large granite throne positioned against the right-hand wall of the great hall. A woman stood beside it, scrutinizing them carefully as she leaned with her elbow on the back of the chair. She had dark red hair that was tied back behind her neck, with a fringe of ringlets and a tumbling curl before each of her protruding ears. She had her fair share of the beauty that her sister, Helen, possessed in such abundance, but Helen’s face was fair and pleasant, whereas hers was dark and hardened with bitter experience. As if to emphasize this, she wore a black chiton over her tall, bony figure, against which the pale skin of her face and arms stood out starkly.

  ‘Please,’ Clytaemnestra said, stepping into the glow of the fire and indicating the seven chairs that circled the hearth, ‘sit and eat. I may only be ruling in my husband’s stead, but I won’t have it said that I don’t treat my guests according to the customs of xenia.’

  Odysseus and Talthybius sat, followed by the others. Eperitus was last, eyeing Clytaemnestra as he walked around the hearth to the only remaining chair. She did not return his gaze, but sat on a high-backed wooden chair opposite Odysseus.

  ‘Xenia exists to protect travellers and allow alliances between men of power,’ Odysseus said, taking a knife from the table beside him and carving a slice of mutton. He folded it into a piece of bread but did not eat. ‘What use is it to a woman?’

  ‘I’m not a woman, Odysseus. I am a queen. And while Agamemnon fights his wars abroad and his son Orestes is still only a boy, Mycenae is under my rule. Now, you and your comrades will have travelled far and must be hungry; I have provided food and wine; please, satisfy yourselves and then we can talk.’

  She leaned across the arm of her chair and poured herself a cup of wine. The others, who were famished, immediately began to help themselves to the modest meal. Eperitus’s appetite, however, had dim
inished and he satisfied himself with a barley cake and a swallow of the cool wine. Had Clytaemnestra forgotten him, he wondered? They had been lovers, and though some treated physical intimacy lightly, he could not believe she had allowed the evening they had spent together to die in her mind. And yet she ate and drank and smiled at the other men as if he were not there.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Clytaemnestra,’ Odysseus said, after washing down a mouthful of food.

  ‘Ten years,’ Clytaemnestra replied. ‘In which time I hear you’ve become the king of Ithaca, and fathered a son.’

  ‘Telemachus,’ Odysseus nodded proudly. ‘A fine lad, but born at the wrong time. I only hope the war will be short so I can go home and watch him grow up.’

  ‘It’s a cruel fate that separates a parent and a child. They uphold our memory and make sure we are not forgotten – our only real hope of immortality.’

  ‘A warrior’s memory is upheld by his spear,’ Eperitus contested, tired of being ignored. ‘A child may pass his name on from generation to generation, until he becomes nothing more than another name in a list of names learned by rote. But if his achievements in battle are great enough, his name will be remembered forever, just like Heracles, or Perseus on that wall up there.’

  Clytaemnestra looked into her krater of wine. ‘Who am I to deny that a warrior can make his name on the battlefield or in the pile of bodies he leaves behind him? But corpses are cold and lifeless, and the stories they tell are full of blood and horror. A child, Eperitus, is warm and loving, and will carry on a man’s legacy through the blood that is in their veins, not the blood that is spilled in the dirt of a distant country.’

  Their eyes met at last, and instead of the confidence she had demonstrated before Odysseus, or the strength and power that befitted a queen of Mycenae, he saw only her weakness and longing. He was suddenly aware of her frail beauty and wanted to hold her slender body again, as he had done by the fire in the Taygetus Mountains so long ago. Then her staring eyes faltered and blinked, and she turned back to face Odysseus.

  ‘I’m unfamiliar with practising the custom of xenia, King Odysseus, but once a guest’s needs are met is it not time for the host to ask the purpose of his visit? I already know the fleet is wind-bound at Aulis, but perhaps you will tell me why you have left your duties to visit a lonely queen, four days’ ride away by pony. Have you come all this way, only to feast your eyes on golden Mycenae?’

  ‘No, though I’m glad to have seen this famous city,’ the king responded. ‘But I have not left my duties to come here, as you suggest; rather, I am carrying out the command your husband and his brother gave me, to come to speak with you in person about a matter of great importance and honour.’

  Clytaemnestra shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  ‘And what does the great Agamemnon want you to say that he cannot say himself?’

  ‘The king is busy marshalling the fleet and preparing for the attack.’

  ‘Nonsense, Odysseus. The king knows the storm will not abate until the gods permit it. He could have come himself.’

  ‘It isn’t for me to know the mind of Agamemnon,’ Odysseus countered, unfazed by the queen’s shrewd questioning. ‘But here I am, and the news I bring should warm a mother’s heart. Especially one who talks with such pride of the immortality her children will bring her.’

  ‘That all depends on what a warrior believes will warm a mother’s heart, does it not? Perhaps my husband intends to give command of half the fleet to eight-year-old Orestes, and has asked you to take him back with you to Aulis?’

  Odysseus smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Shame,’ Clytaemnestra sighed. ‘The boy despises living among women, and me most especially. He needs a father’s discipline. So what is it, Odysseus? I know Agamemnon has always valued your powers of persuasion and trickery, so whatever he’s sent you for must be something I won’t be willing to give easily.’

  ‘We’ve come for Iphigenia,’ Talthybius interposed, staring disdainfully at Clytaemnestra, who he knew did everything in her power to make his master’s life insufferable. ‘She’s to be married to Achilles at Aulis, before the fleet sails for Troy.’

  The queen’s eyes narrowed quizzically and she turned to Eperitus.

  ‘Is this true, Eperitus? At least I know I can trust you.’

  Eperitus nodded.

  ‘But she’s nine,’ Clytaemnestra protested through gritted teeth, turning her dark eyes back to Odysseus. ‘And Achilles is already married with a child of his own.’

  The king shrugged sympathetically.

  ‘Achilles and Deidameia were never married in the official sense, before a priest and with all the appropriate sacrifices. And as for Iphigenia’s age, what can I say? It’ll be a political marriage, of course, so that Agamemnon can be assured of Achilles’s support for the campaign against Troy. Nothing else matters as far as your husband is concerned. But don’t be too hasty to condemn it,’ Odysseus added, holding up his large hands and smiling amicably at the queen. ‘I know it doesn’t sound like the sort of arrangement a loving mother would want for her daughter, but if you see it the way I do then it will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience.’

  ‘That depends on what you regard as a minor inconvenience?’ Clytaemnestra said, eyeing Odysseus with suspicion.

  ‘Most importantly, Achilles may be prepared to marry Iphigenia to show political goodwill to Agamemnon, but he won’t have any interest in consummating his marriage to a nine-year-old. The word in the camp is that he and Patroclus share a bed, but I’m certain his sexual tastes don’t extend to little girls. Then, after the wedding ceremony is over the fleet will sail to Troy and Iphigenia will return home to Mycenae, married but with her child’s innocence intact. And while she’s safe with you, Achilles will meet his doom before the walls of Troy – his own mother has predicted that much – so Iphigenia will become a widow and everyone will be happy.’

  ‘Except Achilles, of course,’ Clytaemnestra replied, wryly. ‘The truth is, Odysseus, I don’t trust Agamemnon where my daughter is concerned – he has never paid her any mind before and it seems strange that he should do so now. Your argument has its merits, though, and if there is nothing beneath what you say then I will give urgent attention to my husband’s request. But it’s late and we’re all tired; I need to think this over and consult the gods. Until then, you and your men are welcome to enjoy Mycenae and all its pleasures.’

  As she spoke her eyes touched on Eperitus. Odysseus noticed the glance.

  ‘How soon will you let us know your decision, Clytaemnestra?’ he asked firmly. ‘You know Agamemnon doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  ‘Before the week is out,’ she promised, rising from her chair. ‘And you’re to say nothing to Iphigenia, or anybody else, about this marriage until I say so. Goodnight, my lords.’

  The queen turned and crossed the room to a side entrance, her black chiton blending with the shadows as she moved.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  HELEN OF TROY

  A dozen guards stood by the Scaean Gate and a dozen more on the battlements above, their armour gleaming like silver in the moonlight. Helen gripped the chariot’s handrail and put an arm around Pleisthenes’s shoulders as Paris spurred the black horses on towards the city, eager to see his home again after so long. Beside them Apheidas and Aeneas urged their mounts to keep up with the prince.

  ‘They’ve doubled the guard,’ Apheidas shouted as the wind tore at his hair and threw his cloak out behind him.

  Paris laughed and lashed his whip harder across the backs of the horses. ‘It’s a guard of honour for my return. They must have got news that we were on our way.’

  ‘Then why are they forming a defensive line?’ Aeneas yelled from the opposite side of the chariot. ‘Slow down, Paris. There are archers on the walls and if they don’t recognize us they’ll fire.’

  Helen looked in alarm at the line of men by the gates, their tall, rectangular shields planted firmly in the soi
l and their long spears levelled at the chests of the approaching horses. A dozen more soldiers were rushing out from the gates and making a second line behind them.

  ‘Paris,’ she hissed, placing her hand on his arm. ‘Slow down, my love. You’ll be home soon enough.’

  Paris looked at the concern in her eyes and nodded. ‘Whoaaa!’ he yelled, pulling back the ox-hide reins. ‘Whoaaa, there. Slow down, girls. Slow down.’

  The gold-covered chariot slowed to a trundle and the two riders on either side reined in their mounts to fall in beside it. Helen and Pleisthenes relaxed their grip on the handrail and looked at the wall of soldiers, whose spears were still levelled at them. The Spartan queen – or former queen, as she now regarded herself – looked in awe at the high ramparts with the spike-filled ditch below and the imposing guard towers that overlooked the plain all around. Paris had not exaggerated when he had said they would be safe inside his father’s city. Even if Menelaus should be supported by his brother and come after her with the combined armies of Sparta and Mycenae, they would never prise her out of Troy. For the first time in weeks, she began to feel safe in her new life. Soon, she and Paris would be married and would live in the house he had promised to build for them.

  ‘Is this our new home?’ asked Pleisthenes, his tired eyes wide as he looked at the splendid battlements and the rows of exotically armed warriors. The limestone walls shone white and smoke trails rose from the city into the star-littered sky. ‘Are we really going to live here?’

  ‘Yes, son,’ Paris answered, scruffing his hair with his large hand. ‘This is Troy, city of the gods, and from now on we must all speak the language of the Trojans. You and your mother have been good pupils, but now’s the time to test your learning. You’ll find very few people who speak Greek here.’