by David
“Except,” he went on, his words soft but emphatic, “they hold the cliffs above. They would be raining arrows and spears down on our fighters. It would be suicidal,” he repeated.
The king strode up and down the great room, his robes swirling around bare feet.
“Then we must attack from the sea,” he said after a while. “The Xanthos will use its fire hurlers to destroy Agamemnon’s ships.”
“That would indeed be a gift from Poseidon,” Hektor responded patiently. “If we could coordinate an attack from the sea at night, we could send climbers to take the cliffs, then King’s Joy. But this is daydreaming, Father. Our ships are blockaded by Menados’ fleets. They are useless to us in the Bay of Troy. And we do not know where the Xanthos is.”
“Wrecked by Poseidon on some foreign shore, perhaps,” Antiphones added. He was sitting on a couch with one leg raised on cushions. He had suffered a wound to his thigh. His face was pale, and he was clearly in pain, his normally jovial manner subdued.
Priam stopped walking and stood as if deep in thought, his mouth working. Then he said craftily, a gleam in his eye, “We will attack from the sea! The Xanthos will use its fire hurlers. We’ll see how Agamemnon likes that!”
Losing patience at last, Hektor raised his voice. “We do not know where the Xanthos is, Father! And my wife is on board. Would you send the ship into battle with Andromache at risk?”
Priam was startled by his son’s unaccustomed tone, and his voice became querulous. “Where is Andromache? Where is she? Is she here?” He gazed around anxiously as the other men looked away, embarrassed.
Kalliades dragged his mind back to the present. Hektor was saying, “We can keep the enemy bottled up in the bay indefinitely. They cannot fight their way out of the pass any more than we can fight our way in. Agamemnon may call himself the Battle King, but the other kings accept his command only as long as there are battles to fight. As time passes, they will quickly tire of one another’s company, and quarrels will start. They will all be heading home soon if there is no sign of the treasure of Priam they’ve been promised.
“Achilles loathes Agamemnon, I’m told, and is here only to avenge his dead father. Old Nestor is here because he fears Agamemnon’s power. Only Sharptooth and his Kretans can be relied upon.”
“And Odysseus?” Kalliades asked. “What of the Ugly King? He is a man of honor.”
“He is indeed,” Hektor responded heavily. “He has thrown in his lot with the Mykene and will not be moved.”
Banokles had been watching the enemy forces. “Look!” he said suddenly, “what are they doing?”
Fifty or so soldiers had moved some distance out of the pass and were digging feverishly.
“Shall I tell our archers to shoot them?” Lucan suggested.
Hektor shook his head. “They are too far away for accuracy, and it would merely be a waste of arrows. We cannot afford to lose more weapons.” His face became grave, and Kalliades guessed he was thinking about the perilous state of Troy’s armory. Khalkeus of Miletos had been recalled from bridge building at Dardanos to take charge of the smiths laboring night and day to renew bronze swords and spears. Hektor had ordered that every man fighting for Troy should have a bronze breastplate and helm, even though it meant the elite troops had to go without bronze greaves and their shoulder and arm guards.
The shortage of tin meant that most of the forges were dark, and the bronzesmiths were being pressed into duty as stretcher bearers and gate guards. Kalliades knew of a young bronze worker, a master of his craft, who was slaughtering injured horses and butchering the dead ones for meat. The whole city awaited the return of the Xanthos and its hoped-for cargo of tin.
“They’re digging a second earthwork,” Kalliades said, shading his eyes.
“Let them,” Hektor replied, turning away. “They are wasting their time and energy building more defenses. I’m not going to attack them. And it will only hamper any attack they make.”
“But the king,” Lucan said angrily. “He ordered you to attack, lord.”
Hektor looked the old man in the eye until the general dropped his gaze. Then Hektor walked away.
Kalliades mounted his horse and rode slowly around the battlefield. The Ilos regiment was in the front line, drawn up in defensive squares, although the soldiers were relaxing, lying asleep or eating, staring into the flames of their campfires.
Behind them were the Scamandrians. He rode along their lines, looking for the telltale tower shield, but he could not find Boros. He wondered why it bothered him. In each pitched battle of his soldier’s life he had been saved hundreds of times by a comrade’s well-placed sword or shield, just as he had rescued others. Kalliades gave a mental shrug. Perhaps it was simply that he himself once had carried a tower shield, long lost during the palace siege. Now he favored a round leather and wood buckler strapped to his arm, which gave him more flexibility in battle. The front lines of the Mykene phalanx were armed with waisted tower shields of horn and hide, which worked well for them as they attacked like a giant tortoise but gave them less maneuverability when fighting in a melee.
Having toured the entire army, noting Hektor’s deployment of the regiments, the Eagles, and the Trojan Horse, Kalliades returned to the front line of the Scamandrians to find Banokles. His comrade had stripped off his old battered breastplate and was lying on his back in his undershirt, gazing at the darkening sky.
Kalliades stepped down and handed his mount to a horse boy, then sat beside the powerful warrior. Another youngster brought two cups of watered wine and a plate of meat and corn bread. Kalliades thanked him.
He nudged Banokles and handed him the wine. Banokles sat up and took it. He sipped the wine, and after a while he asked, “Do you think they’ll attack again?”
Kalliades glanced around, but there was no one within earshot. “Agamemnon’s ambition and Achilles’ need for vengeance will feed their determination,” he responded, “at least for a while. Yes, I think they will attack again. But they must come through the pass, so they cannot use the phalanx. It will be a death-or-glory charge.”
“I always liked that one,” Banokles said. “It worked for us. It might work for them. Not a soft-bellied puker up there.” He gestured with his head in the direction of the pass.
Kalliades knew he was right. They had served with the Mykene army themselves for many years, and they both knew that the reputation of those grim warriors was well deserved.
The silence lingered for a while. It was a still night, and Kalliades listened to its sounds: the laughter of the men, the crackling of the nearby campfire, the sounds of horses shifting their hooves and snuffling gently. Then he asked, “What did the king say about generals? He’d rather have a lucky fool than an unlucky genius?”
Banokles frowned and scratched his thick blond beard. “I think that’s what he said. Great Zeus,” he said indignantly, “only a king could get away with calling me a fool.”
“You’re not a fool, Banokles. But you have always been lucky in battle.”
Banokles’ face darkened, and he said nothing. Kalliades guessed he was thinking about luck and about Red, so he stayed silent.
Finally Banokles asked him, “How many battles do you think we’ve been in, Kalliades?”
Kalliades shrugged. “I don’t know. Hundreds.”
“But here we are, waiting for another one. Fit and strong and ready. We’ve neither of us been badly wounded. Just my ear, I suppose.” He rubbed the nub of his ear thoughtfully, then the scar on his right bicep where the sword of Argurios had plunged through it. “Now, we are great warriors, you and I. But we have been lucky, haven’t we?”
He glanced at Kalliades, who nodded his agreement, guessing what he was leading up to.
“So why”—Banokles frowned—“why in the name of Hades does someone like Red, who never did anyone any harm, die like that when we’re still here? What poxy god decided she had to die such a stupid poxy death?”
He looked at Kalliades, who s
aw grief and anger in his friend’s ice-blue eyes.
“Whores get killed sometimes,” Banokles went on. “It’s a perilous business; everybody knows that. But Red had given up her whoring when she got married. She just loved those honey cakes, and he was the only baker in the city who was still making them. That was the reason she asked him to our house.”
There was another long silence. “And he was only a skinny little runt.”
“He was a baker,” Kalliades said gently. “He had strong arms and shoulders. Red would not have stood a chance.”
Banokles was quiet again, watching as the sky darkened to pitch black. Then he said, “That priestess Piria, Kalliope, whatever she called herself. That was a good death, saving her friend. And that queen on the black stallion. They both had a chance of a warrior’s death even though they’re women. But Red…” His voice trailed off.
“They say heroes who die in battle go to the Elysian Fields and dine in the Hall of Heroes. I’ve always looked forward to that. But what happens to the women who are heroes? Like Piria and that queen? And what happens to Red? Where does she go now?”
Kalliades knew that his comrade was consumed by the grief of loss and by frustration. Banokles had been used to the simple code of the warrior: If someone kills your friend or brother in arms, you take revenge. Yet how could he avenge himself on a dead baker?
Kalliades sighed. “I don’t know the answer to that, my friend. Maybe one day you’ll find out. I hope so.”
He added sadly, “We’ve seen a lot of death, you and I—more than most. You know as well as I do death doesn’t always come to those who deserve it.”
Kalliades’ mind went back to the farm outside Troy and Piria standing on the hillside, her blond hair shining in the light from the blazing barn, her face stern, calmly shooting arrows into the assassins who had come to kill Andromache. He had promised Odysseus that he would take Piria to meet Hektor’s wife, that he would see her safely to the end of her journey. How foolish of him, how arrogant, to think that he could guarantee her safety, as if love were all that was needed. The hurt in him had lessened over the seasons, but the doubt had grown. Had he really loved Piria? Or had Red been right?
He thought of the big whore’s words to him long ago. “We are so alike, Kalliades. Closed off from life, no friends, no loved ones. That is why we need Banokles. He is life, rich and raw in all its glory. No subtlety, no guile. He is the fire we gather around, and his light pushes back the shadows we fear.”
He looked at Banokles, who had lain back again and closed his eyes, his profile barely visible in the firelight. A sudden trickle of fear ran through Kalliades. His old comrade in arms had changed so much in the last few years. His wife’s death had wrought more changes. Would he continue to be the lucky fool Priam had called him?
“Help me. Please help me.” The cry came from a dying man, and the young healer Xander, pulling a cart full of severed limbs past the rows of wounded soldiers at the barracks hospital, hesitated before stopping. He pulled a bloodstained cloth over the cart to hide its grisly load, then went over to the man.
He was a rider. Xander, who had seen more injuries in his young life than most soldiers, could tell at a glance. One leg had been severed raggedly below the knee, perhaps by a blow from an ax. The other had been injured so badly, perhaps by an awkward fall from his mount, that it had been amputated high on the thigh. Both stumps were rotting, and Xander knew the man would die soon and in agony. He laid his hand gently on the man’s shoulder. “Are you Trojan Horse?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, Phegeus son of Dares. Am I dying, sir?” Xander saw that Phegeus had been blinded by a blow to the head. He believed he was being visited by a commanding officer, not a freckle-faced healer of fewer than seventeen summers.
“Yes, soldier,” the youngster said gently. “But the king knows you fought bravely for your city. Your name is on his lips.”
Xander long since had learned to lie glibly to dying men.
“Is he coming, sir? The king?” Phegeus reached out anxiously, grasping at the air, and Xander took his flailing hand and held it between his own.
“King Priam will be here soon,” he said quietly. “He is proud of you.”
“Sir,” the man said confidentially, pulling Xander toward him. “The pain… Sometimes I cannot… Sometimes… the pain is too bad. Let me know when the king comes. I would not have him hear me cry like a woman.”
Xander reassured Phegeus that he would tell him when the king arrived, then left to deposit the contents of his cart outside the barracks. He stopped for a moment, gratefully sucking in the fresh night air off the sea before going back into the hot fetid building.
The king would not come, Xander knew, but he had given Phegeus a small hope to cling to in his dying moments.
He found Machaon, the head of the house, washing blood off his hands in a barrel of water in the corner of the barracks. Machaon was still a relatively young man but now looked like an ancient. His face was gray, the cheekbones jutting from pallid skin. His eyes were hollow and deeply shadowed.
“We need hemlock,” Xander told him urgently. “We have brave men here whose courage falters when they face the torment of their wounds.”
Machaon turned to him, and Xander could see the pain in his eyes. “There is no hemlock to be found in the city,” the healer responded. “My prayers to the serpent god have gone unanswered.”
Xander realized in a moment of dread that Machaon was not just exhausted, he was gravely ill.
“What’s wrong, Machaon?” he cried. “You are suffering, too.”
Machaon stepped closer to the youngster, then lowered his voice. “I have had a vileness growing in my belly since the winter. I have tried herbs and cleansing honey, but it continues to grow.” His face suddenly spasmed, and he bent over as if gripped by a clawing pain. When he stood up again, his skin was ashen and beaded with sweat, his eyes unfocused.
“I have told no one, Xander,” he said shakily. “I ask you to keep my secret. But I am too ill to travel down to the battlefield. You must go in my place.”
Despite his concern for his mentor, Xander’s heart leaped. It was a chance to leave this place of death and go out in the fresh air, to deal with the lesser wounds of men who were not dying, not in agony. Hektor had decreed that all wounded men who could walk should stay out on the plain in case of a further attack by Agamemnon’s armies. Those with serious wounds that were likely to heal were carried to the House of Serpents in the upper city to recover their strength for future battles. Those likely to die were in this hospital, the former barracks of the Ileans. The barracks were in the lower town, inside the fortification ditch and just a short distance from the funeral pyres that had been burning day and night.
“I will go, Machaon,” he responded, “but you must rest.” He looked into the tortured eyes and saw no chance of rest there. “Where do I go?”
“There are injured men everywhere. They will not be hard to find. Do your best.” As Xander turned to go, Machaon’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm. The boy could feel only cold from the older man’s bony fingers. “You always do your best, Xander,” he said.
Xander packed a leather bag full of healing potions, bandages, his favorite herbs, needles of different sizes, and thread. Then he snatched up a jug of wine and three water skins and set off toward the battlefield.
The evening was cool, and as he walked, Xander tried to imagine that he was back home on Kypros, strolling the green hills among his grandfather’s herds. The distant cries of injured men became the gentle bleating of the wandering goats. He half closed his eyes as he walked and could smell the distant sea and hear the cry of the gulls. He stumbled on the rough path and nearly fell, and he grinned at his foolishness. Yes, he thought, walk about with your eyes closed and break a leg, Xander.
Machaon had been right. The injured were not hard to find. Xander walked among them, placing clean bandages on wounds and sewing cuts on faces with fine needles. He used larg
er bandages for legs and arms, along with thicker needles and sturdier thread. He boiled his herbs in water over soldiers’ campfires to make healing brews and splinted broken fingers. He urged some of the more seriously injured men to go up to the houses of healing, but all refused. He could not blame them.
The long night wore on, and as the sky started to lighten in the east, Xander carried on working. He had met many of the soldiers before; they had come to him with their wounds and their unexplained pains and minor illnesses, some of them many times over the years. They greeted him as a comrade and joked with him in the way of soldiers everywhere. They called him Shortshanks and Freckles, and he flushed with pleasure at the affection in which he was held.
The sky lightened, the air warmed, and a heavy mist came rolling down the Scamander valley, making it hard for him to see. He was so tired, he could hardly stumble from one small campfire to the next, and his trembling hands no longer could sew wounds. Still he walked on.
“Time to go, Xander,” said a familiar voice in his ear.
“Machaon?” he asked, looking around him, but the fog obscured everything. “Machaon? Is that you?”
“Quickly, boy,” the voice said with urgency. “Stop what you are doing now and hurry back to the city. Quickly now.”
Xander packed his leather bag hurriedly and threw it over one shoulder, then picked up the empty water skins and started to make for the river. He barely could see his hand in front of his face, and he was forced to walk slowly, careful not to stumble over waking men or into the flanks of dozing horses.
Then out of the mist came a loud cry, echoing eerily through the darkness and picked up by rank after rank of warriors’ voices, “Awake! Awake! They are coming!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN