Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him a sweet smile and a kiss.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Pyrrha. You can take your dress off now, sweetheart. It’s time to hit the sea-road. To Troy.’

  Anybody who didn’t know Achilles would reject this one out of hand as a ridiculous story, even for a legend. How could a big sweaty squaddie wear a dress and expect to get away with it?

  In fact, Achilles was an amazingly beautiful young man with a fantastic figure, slim and graceful. You couldn’t work out where his strength came from, though it was easy to see how he was so fleet of foot: he was built like a gazelle. And with his long muddy-blond hair and green eyes he could easily pass for a woman – one you might even go to bed with if you didn’t look too close. Or stroke the blond stubble.

  In the real world, Achilles would probably have killed me for pulling a stunt like that. In the real world, we were both unwilling conscripts in Agamemnon’s war. We waved to one another from our respective decks. There was only fifty feet of ocean between us as we hissed along east, a bright jabble on the sea. We were an army on the move, carrying light and heavy infantry, charioteers, archers, spearmen, slingers, sappers, standard-bearers, scouts, spies. We were a moving city too, a town dancing on the waves, an entire community of cooks, carpenters, cattlemen, priests and medics, shipwrights, wheelwrights, bakers, blacksmiths and slaves. The latriners were all slaves. So were the whores. Agamemnon had relented in his euphoria and a good supply of ship-shags had been carried ham-strung on board, spitting and snarling, sea-hags, cats on poles, official army-issue arse to relieve the crossing in the event of unforeseen delay – east from Aulis can be a mere seventy-two hours with a stiff wind at your stern, but three days can easily stretch to nine, or nineteen. They can stretch to weeks.

  I dropped my arm. Achilles gave me a mock salute. I could read the green eyes easily. He was thinking the same as me. We were off to fight a war nobody wanted, not unless they were bored stiff with living, as he put it. It would extend no borders, yield no territories, further no causes – other than revenge and greed. Remove these and you were looking at a stupid and utterly pointless campaign.

  ‘One led by a crude bully and a ridiculous cuckold – the world’s biggest.’

  Could Agamemnon’s greed be excused? You could say that Menelaus couldn’t help having a slut for a wife, but what about his brother? Certainly a leader is always under pressure. In Agamemnon’s case, he had to sustain Mycenae and maintain his own standing as king of men to keep the Greek leaders and all his followers on side and smiling. It’s a hard thing to make every bugger smile all at the same time. And the things that do it are hard to come by too: food, wool, wine, cattle, slaves, land, women, booty, bronze. They have to be worked for, fought for. The Trojans were famous for their horses, their wheatfields and fishing grounds, their yarn, their golden temples, their golden girls. Juicy pussy is not low on the list of reasons to go to war. You could argue that Agamemnon needed war; he didn’t have to find a moral cause for it. But with a cause and an excuse, war becomes almost inevitable. The Trojan War was almost inevitable.

  EIGHT

  So we sped across the Aegean, Agamemnon bent on wealth, Menelaus on repossession.

  You couldn’t blame the poor bastard. He’d spent a fortune to net Helen, and Agamemnon had chipped in way above what could have been reasonably expected of a big sibling. Not because of brotherly love: he was determined to see Sparta in the family. It was also a matter of prestige. Helen may have been damaged goods, but she’d been buggered not by a nobody but by the man who’d buggered the Minotaur. The damage was a sacred wound, almost enhancing her. Add the looks and the land, and the raped babe and child bride was no ordinary catch. Unsullied or not, she was still a stunner and a prize.

  They queued up to compete for her hand, a long line of hopefuls, invited by Tyndareus from all over Argos to strut their stuff. Fathers boasted they were sending their sons to Sparta – it was an honour just to be in the running, even with no hope of winning. Just being asked was something. Slim-ankled Helen was the ultimate trophy, and in quest of her, and with their heads held high, hordes of eager-beaver heroes descended, every one with an erection.

  They didn’t come unattended. The bigger the retinue, the better the impression, the greater the odds of winning. Servants, cattle, slaves. Huge herds were driven in by the thousand, sweeteners with horns and hooves, tits and testicles. There was a saying at the time that it was snowing in Sparta, snowing in summer. The countryside turned white with the flocks of sheep that crossed the hills and plains. Not to mention the silver and bronze and lapis lazuli. And the gold. Sparta glittered blue and gold and the air stank of big randy sweaty males.

  It was quite a line-up. Diomedes was there, both Ajaxes, Teucer, who was Big Ajax’s half-brother and always ran to him for protection in the field. Menestheus had come from Athens, Philoctetes from Pelion, and Agamemnon from Mycenae, though everybody knew he was there only to support Menelaus. To look at the little brother you wouldn’t have said he stood a chance. He was a redhead who kept pigs, often slept with them, and occasionally fucked them. You could always tell a fuckpig by his smell, so the other contestants sniggered, holding their noses and fanning the air in his wake as if he’d farted. Such spite. But this affair wasn’t about red hair or body odour or sexual preferences. It was about precious metal. And real estate.

  All sorts of shit surfaced about that competition. Years later, the word went round that Achilles had turned up and had been rejected. He didn’t. And he couldn’t. Because at the time he wasn’t even old enough to be getting hard-ons let alone contemplating marriage. His balls probably hadn’t even dropped. Storytellers screw around with time. But I know who was there and who wasn’t, because I was there myself. I was a contender.

  Not a particularly hopeful wooer, I have to say, but a curious one nonetheless – intensely curious to see who’d come and what they were offering. I myself offered nothing to speak of, because I already knew who’d win and why. I also knew that if you were a loser you wouldn’t leave Sparta with what you’d brought, and I wasn’t about to waste a single decent drinking-cup on the girl whose chosen husband would scoop the lot and leave the rest of us with our arses swinging in the air.

  I was also curious to see the Spartan stunner for myself. And my curiosity was more than satisfied, well above and beyond the slim ankles. Tyndareus was determined to leave nothing to the imagination. He paraded his daughter stark-naked in front of the assembled suitors, exhibiting her like a prize cow. What you see is what you get – tits and thighs, backside and belly. And the ankles. The only rule was no touching, no feeling. He was strict on that point. Otherwise you could assess exactly what you were buying, and comment openly on the purchase.

  I’ll pass over the comment – there was plenty of it and the tone takes little imagining. But I’ll admit that when I first clapped eyes on the nude Helen I had to agree she was something special. Eyes, breasts, neck, belly, bum – just those ankles made your groin tingle as you imagined them linked about your loins. Yes, she was worth wrestling for, boxing for, running for, driving the horses for, hurling the javelin for. We had to do all that. This was a high-profile wooing. We were even expected to sing and debate.

  ‘I’ve shown you her attributes,’ said Tyndareus. ‘Now you have to show her yours.’

  Fair enough. I scored high in rhetoric, but the beauty didn’t seem to take much interest in my debating skills. And in the end, her father told us, the choice would be hers and hers alone. ‘You may be faster, higher, richer, stronger, but the winner will be the one Helen likes best.’

  I didn’t believe him.

  Some of the others seemed uncertain in the presence of that nudity. Menelaus appeared oddly embarrassed, Agamemnon angry. I looked at the Ajaxes. Little Ajax had rape in his eyes. He was a lecherous bastard.

  ‘And one last word,’ said Tyndareus. ‘There have been some wild words whirled about among you, some coarse and drunken talk, such a
s whoever wins her hand won’t live to feel it cupping his balls, he’ll lose them first, the losers will see to that. Oh yes, I’ve heard you all, threatening to slit each other’s throats. And that’s why I’m invoking an oath.’

  An oath. Fuck. Now there was a passion-killer. Never a popular scenario, an oath, to swear to keep your word about something that probably didn’t much appeal to you in the first place. And the Tyndareus oath consisted of several clauses. No falling out, no reclamation of gifts, winner takes all (just as I’d suspected), and, to avoid future bloodshed, all contestants were to respect Helen’s decision and support the man of her choice in any situation of dissent or dissension whatsoever. Specifically, were Helen ever to be abducted or suffer an attempted abduction, or were harm of any sort to be offered to her or her husband, separately or together, each competitor was to come to their aid and with full force of arms. On our honour and in the presence of the gods. A binding promise and a sacred oath. Agreed?

  Agreed. Tyndareus’s sword flashed, a stallion fell gasping to the ground, and the sacrifice sealed the pact in hot steaming blood. We were all Helen’s men now.

  I didn’t leave Sparta empty-handed. Tyndareus’s brother, prince Ikarios, had come to view the suitors. He’d brought along his daughter Penelope, possibly hoping that one of the big losers would want her as a consolation prize. Not one of them did.

  But I thought she had a good head on her shoulders, that Penelope, and what was beneath the shoulders wasn’t all that bad either. Not that her father thought much of his small fry, prospective son-in-law, or of rocky Ithaca as a rough pillow for his daughter’s fair head. But she took a fancy to me, and I liked the fact that, unlike Helen, she enjoyed hearing me talk. I was always a great talker. And she turned out to be the cunningest of weavers. I spun her stories out of my head and she spun them at the loom.

  We were a good match. We left Sparta together, man and wife.

  Menelaus left with Helen. Beauty had chosen the beast. The pig man. The losers ate sour grapes. There were plenty of pig jokes.

  ‘Let’s hope he finds the right cunt on his wedding night.’

  ‘Or at least fucks the lady first.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll get it up?’

  ‘Without bristles on her fanny? She’ll be lucky!’

  It didn’t matter what was said, the jibes and curses. In the end the House of Atreus had prevailed. Agamemnon had seen to it. He’d opened his coffers and piled it on.

  ‘Grease her crack well enough, and you’ll slide in easy.’

  Such brotherly advice. And subtle. You can see how he’d have gone far as a diplomat. A statesmen of incomparable eloquence. In the end, the good old-fashioned gold spoke the lingo it always does. She went for him. Or rather, her father did. And all the rest of us went home.

  Agamemnon didn’t go empty-handed either. To strengthen the alliance – Tiryns, Sparta, Mycenae – Tyndareus gave him his other daughter, Clytemnestra. Little did each glad bridegroom know that one brother had been given a murderess, the other a whore. The whore was to leave her husband. The murderess would kill hers.

  Penelope and I stayed on briefly. I wanted to watch the nuptials.

  They turned out to be fascinating. At first Menelaus found himself to be something of a footnote to the entire affair. Twelve fresh young virgins wound young hyacinths into their hair and took charge of Helen, removing her from her bridegroom, and spent the night dancing naked and massaging her and one another, their firm young flesh glistening with olive oil.

  Meanwhile, the bridegroom got stuck in – not to his bride but to a big dinner. We all did. Lentil soup spiced with cumin and coriander, grilled beef, roast boar, duck and deer, fish and fruit stews, and wine charged with enough resin and rue to knock your head off.

  I watched him be carried to bed heavily doped. The thirteen girls approached the chamber door, heard the snores and giggled. One of them had no virginity to lose. One by one, they took her in their arms, each girl miming what was in store for her when her husband finally did get stuck in. The little innocent knew more than all twelve put together.

  They left her with twelve kisses on her lips, and she slipped in quietly beside her dozy snoring husband, a bag of farts. She slipped out again. He’d get his oats the next night. And, in due course, Paris would get his, the cuckold would be on his way to Troy to bring her back again, and we’d all be trailing in his wake, according to our oath.

  ‘Like the fucking chumps we are!’

  Big Ajax.

  He was right. Helen had us all by the balls.

  NINE

  We suffered only one casualty en route to Troy. When we sacked Tenedos, the bowman Philoctetes got bitten by a snake as he was standing in a river, just about to pull off a peach of a shot. The bite didn’t kill him, but it fucked up the draw and him too. The poison left the poor bastard so maimed he couldn’t bring himself to go back home and show himself to his wife.

  ‘To beg my bread at the town’s end, sat on my arse all day, with a bowl between my heels. Fuck that.’

  The leg smelled to heaven and looked certain to come off, whether by gangrene or surgery. Either would probably kill him. He insisted on continuing with us, but Agamemnon ordered me to maroon him on the nearest island. We left him on Lemnos with one of the whores who’d taken a fancy to him.

  ‘He can still shoot his arrow,’ she laughed, ‘and if he can’t, I’ll fire it for him. Don’t worry, I’ll get him going again.’

  We sailed on without our best archer.

  As the fleet neared Troy, Nestor proposed sending a second embassy, prior to hostilities. I advocated more raiding instead, attacking the surrounding cities and settlements, stocking up on grain, beasts and women. Nestor was insistent.

  ‘We should give diplomacy a chance,’ he said.

  ‘Raiding is diplomacy,’ I told him. ‘Don’t hit the bastards straight away, hit their allies first, let them see what you’re capable of doing to them, show them what you’re made of, make them think about it, know what I mean? And give them the chance to avoid a fucking drubbing. All they have to do is surrender.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll surrender?’ asked Agamemnon. His little piggy eyes narrowed to slits, lost in his stupid frown.

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘Hector won’t let them. He’ll never kneel to us, never. But don’t let them think we’re in any fucking hurry here. Let them sweat. And if they get nervous enough they may even ask for an embassy. Give up the whore.’

  Snorts from Agamemnon. ‘Has your memory failed you, ambassador? Have you forgotten the first embassy? I was there, remember? That cunt Hector told us to go and fuck ourselves.’

  ‘So he did.’

  ‘So how do you reckon our chances next time?’

  ‘About zero. But let’s go through the due process of the thing, after the raids. Just imagine if the Trojan War should turn out to be the most bloodless campaign in history – and you still get Helen back. What a coup, eh? Can you really afford to pass up that opportunity? Would you want to pass it up?’

  Of course he would want to pass it up. Peace was the last thing on that bastard’s mind, the latrine bottom of the Agamemnon agenda. But he had to submit to the logic of the thing. And he was always up for a raid.

  First we sacked Skyros, where Achilles had hidden himself among women – or, to be accurate, had hidden six inches of himself in one of them. Wick-dipping was the extent of his concealment on Skyros. No great disguise.

  It was no girl who attacked Skyros either. Or Lemnos. Or Tenedos. We butchered their males, raped their women, slaughtered their cattle, stole their grain, drank their sweet red wine. The best girls weren’t raped; they were taken as bed-slaves for the high command, spoils of war to be kept unspoiled until the proper selection was made.

  Achilles always liked to do things fairly, and the men liked him for it. They called him Blondie, reflecting that fairness perhaps, as well as his dirty blond locks. They called Patroclus ‘Blondie’s bit’. The two w
ere seldom apart.

  It was Achilles and Patroclus who led the next raid. After Skyros, they sacked Thebe-under-Plakos, where Achilles captured the queen and killed the king, Eëtion, father of Andromache. He gave the royal corpse a respectful funeral and even burned the king’s armour instead of stripping and keeping it. That was simply his way. Rank mattered to Achilles. He ransomed the rich and slaughtered the scum. Most kids were brained, others enslaved. He inspected the females personally, Patroclus always at his elbow, earmarking the blue-blooded beauties for the beds of the glory boys like himself, the heroes. There was a certain decency about Achilles that made him almost vulnerable.

  Though vulnerability would not be what struck you about Achilles if you saw him coming at you in the field. After the killing and the prizes, he did his best to ensure that the high-class women ended up as – let’s be honest about it – high-class whores, mistresses or even wives. Those without looks or status served as army issue, forced to shag the lowest of the low and deliver blowjobs to fuck knows what rotten monstrosities stood up for attention and tender loving care.

  That particular raid yielded a whole lot of treasure. He shared it all out but kept the king’s lyre for himself. He played it in the evenings, Patroclus his only audience, Achilles’ fingers stroking the trembling strings, Patroclus’s hand in Achilles’ throbbing crotch.

  He emerged from his tent one morning and ransomed the queen to Hector and Andromache.

  But it was too late for her.

  There she lies in the web, the queen, an arrow of Artemis coming in through one of the smoke-vents in the roof, making its way to her heart. Penelope has put a happy smile on the sad old face. A nice touch. The bereaved old queen has nothing left to live for. All that mattered to her is ash. Sometimes a heart attack can come as a good friend.