The Armour of Achilles

by Glyn Iliffe

  Without another word he turned and held his hand out to Xanthus. The horse answered his call immediately and soon Achilles, Patroclus and Antilochus were riding to join Peisandros at the head of the Myrmidon line. As Diomedes and Little Ajax returned to their own armies, Odysseus arched his eyebrows and turned to his captain.

  ‘I don’t like this, Eperitus. The Trojans have outwitted us too many times over the years, and if Aeneas is here then that spells trouble. He’s one of the best commanders they have – Hector wouldn’t send him down here without a very good reason.’

  ‘We can hardly turn around and get back in the ships now,’ Eperitus answered. ‘We’ll just have to climb the walls and see what’s inside.’

  Odysseus smiled back at him. ‘You’re right, of course, and we might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re at it. Give the order.’

  Eperitus turned on his heel and looked at the expectant faces of the Ithacan soldiers.

  ‘Shields ready. Pick up the ladders.’

  Similar orders were barked out up and down the Greek lines, followed by a flurry of movement as shields were taken up, ladders lifted and spears readied. Achilles received his spear and shield from two of his men and moved to the head of the Myrmidon army. Raising the spear above his head, he pointed it towards the line of hills. There was a great cheer from the whole Greek assembly and the Myrmidons began to move.

  Eperitus instinctively kissed his fingertips and placed them against the image of a white deer on the inside of his shield. He had painted it there to remind him of his daughter, Iphigenia, and though it was grimed and faded where he had repeatedly touched it for luck he felt reassured by its presence. Odysseus discreetly touched the image of Athena painted on the inside of his own shield, then, after a glance at Eperitus, turned to the ranks of Ithacans and waved them forward.

  The long lines of warriors advanced with a steady tramp, the Myrmidons, Ithacans and Argives in the lead with the Locrians forming a wide arc behind them. At first the bronze of their helmets and shield bosses shone fiercely in the sunlight, but as they marched slowly up the hillside the dust raised by their thousands of feet shrouded them in a brown cloud that dulled the glimmer of their weaponry. Soon they were topping the crest of the ridge and looking out over a fertile, lightly wooded plain, dominated by a low hill at its centre. On top of the hill was a walled city, its sand-coloured battlements no higher than the scattering of windswept olive trees that surrounded it. A few two-storeyed buildings stood up above the level of the weathered parapets, but the only tower was at the southern end of the fortifications, guarding an arched gateway from which a narrow track wound down to the level of the plain. Here it met the main route from the city of Troy to its southern provinces, but as the ten thousand Greeks filed out across the western edge of the plateau, not a single traveller could be seen up or down the length of the road.

  A handful of sentinels stared silently out from behind the walls of Lyrnessus and a low horn call vibrated out across the plain to greet the newcomers, but no reinforcements hastened to join their colleagues on the battlements. Instead, the sombre noise was followed by a silence, which was quickly devoured by the clanking of the Greek army as it spread across the plain like pitch spilled from a bucket, file after file marching relentlessly towards their objective. Soon the soldiers of Argos and Ithaca were in place at the western foot of the hill, a bowshot from the walls, while the Myrmidons straddled the road to the south, facing the gate. The Locrian archers formed a wide crescent behind them, where they began standing their arrows point-down in the grass, ready to be fitted to their bowstrings and fired at any enemy that dared show themselves above the parapets. As the dust cloud the Greek host had raised was carried forward on a gentle breeze to veil the walls of Lyrnessus, Odysseus looked left to where Diomedes stood at the head of his Argives. Diomedes raised his arm and nodded. In response, Odysseus looked right to Achilles and raised his own arm.

  ‘Ladders at the ready,’ Eperitus called out behind him, all the time keeping his eyes on the distant, golden-haired figure of Achilles.

  Achilles dismounted and gave the reins to one of his men, who in return handed him a bright helmet with a black plume and a visor shaped in the likeness of a grimacing face. Achilles was the only warrior who wore such a helmet, designed not for additional protection but to distinguish him on the battlefield, his reputation being such that the mere sight of the helmet filled his opponents with terror. As the soldier led the prince’s horse away, Achilles put the helmet on his head and lowered the hinged visor into place, while Patroclus stood before him and tied the leather thongs beneath his chin. With all eyes watching him, Achilles took up his shield and raised his huge spear above his head. A moment later, the point fell and the Greeks gave a great shout, their voices rebounding from the city walls.

  Chapter Two

  STORMING THE WALLS

  Odysseus did not cheer. Gritting his teeth behind sealed lips, he waved the Ithacan ladder parties forward. The scrambling of leather sandals on hard earth was followed by the sharp smell of sweat and the sound of cursing as the men ran past him, dashing quickly up the long, stony slope towards Lyrnessus. At their head were the groups led by Antiphus and Polites, the former with his bow slung across his back and the latter striding forward as if he would smash down the walls with his bare fists.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Odysseus said in a low voice as he watched the advance on the walls. ‘There’s not one man on the battlements. Even the soldiers we saw earlier have gone.’

  ‘They’ve probably thrown away their armour and are cowering in a temple somewhere, hoping their gods will protect them,’ Eperitus replied.

  Odysseus shook his head. ‘If we’ve learned anything from this war, it’s that Trojans aren’t cowards. Some of them should be up there at least, trying to save their families from slavery or death. I think they’re not on the walls for a reason – either they’re expecting help from outside, or they’ve a better defence than we’re guessing. Eperitus, go and warn Ajax to keep a close eye on those hills to the north; I’m going to take the army closer in to the walls before—’

  At that moment, as the ladder parties were nearing the ditch, a man climbed up on to the battlements and looked down in haughty defiance at the crawling mass of Greeks before the city. That his dark eyes and large, hooked nose belonged to Trojan nobility – if not royalty – was beyond doubt, and every Greek who looked up at his bearded face sensed that his appearance meant an end to their hopes of an easy victory. The man was tall and strong with enormous shoulders and huge fists that hung at his sides, big enough to kill a man with a single punch. As if to prove the point, though he wore a splendid breastplate of bronze scales and a massive helmet with a green plume, he carried no weapon. Instead, he raised a palm towards the advancing foes and called out in a loud voice:

  ‘Enemies of Troy, go back to your ships. Nothing but death awaits you here. Go back to your ships and sail home to Greece, before the vengeance of Apollo falls upon you. King Sarpedon of the Lycians has spoken.’

  ‘Told you,’ Odysseus said, arching his eyebrows knowingly at Eperitus. ‘The whole city must be filled with Lycians, just waiting for us to come and throw ourselves on to their spears. Aeneas is in there too, don’t forget, and I’ll stake my kingdom there’s a host of Dardanians with him.’

  ‘Then Hector must have guessed we’d try to take Lyrnessus,’ Eperitus said, watching the men with the ladders, who had halted their advance and were looking up at the walls as if death would sweep down on them from the battlements at any moment. ‘Either that or the information that the garrison had been stripped was false and we’ve been lured into a trap.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve outwitted us,’ Odysseus replied. ‘And yet our spies told us Aeneas was inside Troy only the day before yesterday. If that’s true then he was sent here on purpose – and that means Hector must have known we were coming.’

  As he spoke, Sarpedon stepped back down so that o
nly the upper half of his body remained visible behind the stone parapet. A moment of quiet followed in which the ranks of Argives, Ithacans and Myrmidons shifted restlessly, while some of the Locrians fitted arrows and half drew their bowstrings in readiness. Then a slow, mocking laugh broke the silence. Eperitus looked around to see who among the Greeks could draw amusement from the shock of Sarpedon’s presence, and saw Achilles leaning on his shield and chuckling as he looked up at the Lycian king.

  ‘Sarpedon, you old fool,’ he called, shaking his head and smiling. ‘Do you really think we Greeks are going to return to our homes before Troy has fallen? And do you think that by standing on the crumbling walls of this old dung heap you’re going to stop me from knocking its worm-eaten gates off their hinges and killing every living thing that opposes me? Then let me make you an offer: any Lycian inside the walls of Lyrnessus, including yourself, who wants to return to his home now can do so, taking his armaments, his honour and his life with him. All I ask is your word that none will ever come back to the aid of Troy. But any who choose to remain will be slaughtered, without mercy, and his body left as carrion for the birds. Achilles, chief of the Myrmidons, has spoken.’

  There was a roar of approval from the Greek ranks, but Sarpedon raised his hand again and they fell silent.

  ‘I am familiar with your reputation, Prince Achilles – as a butcher who knows no restraint, a murdering dog whose excesses are shameful even to the Greeks. You strut around the battlefield as if Hades himself cannot claim you, yet all the time the shadow of death is at your heels. Do you think we haven’t heard of your own mother’s prophecy, that you’ll die here in Ilium? Perhaps today your fate will catch up with you.’

  Without warning, a spear flew towards the battlements and split the air where, a heartbeat before, Sarpedon’s head had been. Slowly, the Lycian’s shocked face rose back above the parapet to see Patroclus standing in front of Achilles, his arrogant features twisted with fury.

  ‘Your own fate will strike you down long before a drop of Achilles’s blood touches Trojan soil,’ he shouted. ‘If you ever see your homeland again, Sarpedon, it’ll be as a corpse, to be wept over by your wife as she curses the gods for their cruelty.’

  Achilles placed a calming hand on Patroclus’s shoulder and pulled him back. Stepping forward, he raised his spear above his head then thrust the point towards the walls. Simultaneously, the lines of Greek warriors lifted their shields before them and began to move, closing ranks as they marched up the slope once more. At their head, the assault parties took up their ladders and resumed their advance, while to the rear the Locrians pulled back their bowstrings to their cheeks and waited for the enemy to show themselves.

  They did not have to wait long. Sarpedon raised his hand again, but this time it was not to parley. A moment later the city’s defences were crowded with armed men – not the weak and badly outnumbered militia the Greeks had originally expected, but a force many hundreds strong, their spearheads blazing like points of fire all along the battlements.

  As the Greeks stared up in awe at the defenders, Sarpedon’s hand fell. An instant later the air above the city walls was filled with a dark, hissing cloud of arrows that arced high above the heads of the assault parties to fall into the massed ranks of the main army behind. Thousands of men who had lowered their guard at the appearance of Sarpedon were suddenly scrambling to raise their shields above their heads again. Many did not succeed.

  Odysseus nodded at Eperitus, who turned sharply to the crouching ranks behind him and barked out the order to advance at the double. More arrows dropped among them and more men fell, but the lull was over and their blood was up, so they came on with a grim determination that showed in every sweat- and dust-caked face. Eperitus felt a touch of pride at the sight of them, but his stern grimace did not falter as he turned and broke into an awkward run.

  Odysseus was beside him, with his oval shield raised above his head and his spears clutched in his right hand. The two men had been in more fights together than either could remember and they drew confidence from each other’s presence as they ran into battle together, sweating in their armour while dozens of black-shafted arrows fell all around them.

  At the top of the slope, the first assault parties had reached the ditch and were raising their ladders against the walls. A deadly rain of spears and rocks were cast down on their heads, felling many as they struggled to plant the feet of the ladders in the base of the ditch. Then, as the first ladders hit the wall, they realized something was horribly wrong.

  ‘They’ve deepened the ditch,’ Eperitus exclaimed, raising his voice above the whistle of arrows and the shouts and cries of men. ‘The ladders aren’t long enough to reach the tops of the walls.’

  Odysseus stared at the tell-tale layer of fresh earth that crowned the top of the slope and watched in dismay as the men of the assault parties poured into the ditch, where only their heads remained visible. He and Diomedes had scouted the walls a few nights before, when the trench that circled the city was silted up by mud brought in by the winter rains. They had built the ladders accordingly, but the defenders had since re-dug the ditch and now the tops of the ladders were falling a spear’s length short of the parapet.

  ‘Damn it,’ he cursed, suddenly quickening his pace. ‘But by all the gods we’re not turning back now. We’ll take those bloody walls even if we have to climb them on the bodies of our own dead!’

  Eperitus followed in the king’s wake, staring ahead at the rapidly approaching fortifications. At every point, desperate men were trying to reach the battlements with their outstretched arms, where the defenders speared them with ease or cut off their hands as they seized the parapets. Only one ladder reached the top of the wall, the foot of which was supported firmly in Polites’s lap to give it the extra height. Men scrambled on to his back and sprang up the thick wooden rungs, but were easily cut down as they reached the mass of defenders at the top. Antiphus had abandoned his own ladder and was crouching behind the cover of another man’s shield, shooting enemy after enemy from the walls.

  ‘It’s suicide!’ Eperitus protested, seizing Odysseus by his cloak and trying to stop him. ‘We need to fall back. We can attack again tomorrow, after we’ve made the ladders longer.’

  ‘Fall back yourself,’ Odysseus grunted, pushing Eperitus’s hand away. There was a fierce anger in his eyes, which Eperitus had become more familiar with as the years of the siege had dragged on. ‘I’m sick of the Trojans frustrating every attack we make. If we’re going to return to Ithaca, then we have to keep fighting until every last one of them is dead.’

  ‘Then join Achilles at the gates, where at least we have a chance of breaking into the city. It’s madness to attack walls we can’t even reach!’

  ‘To Hades with Achilles!’ Odysseus cursed. ‘And to Hades with you, too, if you won’t come.’

  Scowling, he turned and ran the last stretch of the slope, where, with his shield held over his head against the rain of rocks and spears, he dropped down into the ditch beside Polites. A moment later his helmeted head was lost from sight as the ranks of the Ithacan army rushed past the lone figure of their captain, sweeping round him in their eagerness to reach the walls. As the final rank ran by, a sneering voice called out: ‘Lost your nerve, Eperitus?’

  If the accusation of cowardice was not bad enough, the fact that it had come from Eurylochus was unbearable. The king’s cousin had never forgiven Eperitus for being made captain of the guard – a position Eurylochus had always coveted for himself, despite the fact that he was a spineless fool who was only ever to be found skulking at the rear of any battle, where the corpses provided rich pickings. Eperitus caught the man’s small black eyes staring at him from over his snout-like nose and multiple chins – maintained along with his ample stomach, despite ten years of camp rations – and felt hot needles of shame driven through his chest. But there were more important things than Eurylochus’s mockery to be concerned about.

  Uncertain of how they w
ere to scale the walls, his instinct for command took over and he ran up behind the press of Ithacan warriors.

  ‘Stay out of the ditch! Front two ranks kneel and raise your shields; rear ranks, throw your damned spears at those bastards on the wall.’

  In response to his orders, the Ithacans began casting spear after spear at the defenders, sending many toppling backwards into their comrades. But more took their places, and among them were the archers who had been massed behind the city walls. With the armies of Ithaca, Argos and Phthia smashing themselves against the battlements, they had been ordered on to the ramparts to shoot directly down into the mass of attackers. But at the same time, Little Ajax had brought his Locrians closer up the slope, where they could pour an equally deadly fire into the crowded Lycians and Dardanians. Many fell screaming into the ditch below, where they were quickly silenced by the hacking swords of the frustrated Greeks.

  Then a ladder rose up from the ditch where the Ithacan assault parties were massed. To Eperitus’s surprise, as he crouched behind his great shield to avoid the murderous rain of arrows, he saw that the top of the ladder reached just above the parapet. Another ladder of the same length followed it, and then another, and it was only as men began to dash up them with their shields held over their heads and their swords at the ready that Eperitus saw the answer to the riddle: someone was lashing ladders together with leather belts around the middle rungs, giving the extra length needed to reach the ramparts.

  ‘Odysseus,’ he said with a grin.