The Armour of Achilles

by Glyn Iliffe

  ‘Make way,’ Eperitus ordered.

  He pushed at the backs of the men in front, who turned – some angrily – but were quick to step aside at the sight of the Ithacan commanders. Beyond them were a line of Myrmidon warriors, fully armoured and cloaked in black, facing the crowds with their spears across their bodies.

  ‘Let them through,’ said a deep voice as two of the guards moved towards Eperitus and Odysseus with their weapons raised.

  Not waiting for his command to be obeyed, a large, broad-chested man with a wild black beard thrust the two soldiers aside and stepped forward to embrace the Ithacans.

  ‘The plunder has arrived safely, my friends,’ he announced after releasing them from his bear-like hug, ‘and that means wine and whores aplenty by sundown, if you care to join us.’

  ‘I’ll take the wine,’ Odysseus replied, ‘but you can keep the whores, Peisandros.’

  ‘Still holding out for Penelope, I see,’ Peisandros said with a shake of his head. ‘Ah well, more for the rest of us, eh, Eperitus?’

  ‘I have my own arrangements,’ Eperitus replied. ‘But tell me, how much did we take in the end? It looks like a lot.’

  He pointed towards the wide beach where at least three score heavy wooden caskets had been unloaded so far, with still more being lowered from the sides of the black-hulled galleys.

  ‘Oh, there’s enough to go around,’ Peisandros grinned, ‘and there are prisoners to be ransomed, too, not to mention a haul of slaves that would be worth a lot back home.’

  He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating a large crowd of frightened-looking women and children, standing at the water’s edge and staring wide-eyed at the thousands of men gathering along the top of the beach. Eperitus saw the tall and attractive figure of Briseis among them, her chin held high despite the broken look on her face. Achilles was nearby, talking animatedly to Great Ajax, who had already crossed the sand to greet his cousin. Antilochus watched the two men with undisguised admiration, while Patroclus, as aloof as ever, stood to one side with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

  ‘The question is,’ Peisandros continued, ‘whether our illustrious King of Men will share the spoils equally.’

  ‘Where is Agamemnon?’ Eperitus asked.

  ‘He won’t be here yet,’ Odysseus answered. ‘He doesn’t think it fitting to his rank that he should come to the victors first; they have to go to him and invite him to inspect the spoils. And here comes his messenger now.’

  Palamedes had elbowed his way to the front of the crowd, several of whom cursed him and pushed him angrily out towards the line of Myrmidon guards, laughing as he fell on his stomach in the sand. Two of the Myrmidons approached and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ he snapped in a shrill, whining voice, waving them away as if they were mosquitoes.

  Palamedes was a short, black-haired man with a wispy beard and a pointed face. His eyes were narrow and clever, always darting about watchfully, and his thin nose and lipless mouth gave him a hateful look that won him no friends. Though he always wore armour, as if to remind others that he was a warrior, he had neither the physique nor the bearing of a fighting man. His value was in the power of his shrewd brain.

  ‘Ah, Palamedes,’ Odysseus greeted him, standing in front of the Nauplian prince and planting his fists on his hips. He did not bother to hide the contempt in his face. ‘Come to admire the spoils of our victories?’

  ‘I shouldn’t get too fat-headed about it, Odysseus,’ Palamedes retorted. ‘For a man who failed to bring even a few bags of grain back from Thrace, I doubt very much you were able to plunder more than a handful of wooden bowls from your little play-battles at Lyrnessus and beyond.’

  Odysseus’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  ‘Play-battles, you say? You should be careful: my friends here and I could have taken offence. But as you wouldn’t know what a real battle was anyway, Palamedes, we’ll forget you opened your sneering mouth.’

  ‘Good. Now, why don’t you run off and sulk about your wife and son and let me go about the king’s business. Oh, I hear you’ve had news from Ithaca – how is little Telemachus?’

  Odysseus snatched hold of Palamedes’s cloak and drew back his fist, but before he could drive it into the Nauplian’s face, Eperitus caught hold of his arm and pulled him away. Palamedes fell back on to the sand in terror.

  ‘Odysseus!’ Eperitus hissed. ‘If it’s come to this, at least find a place where there aren’t hundreds of witnesses.’

  ‘You’ll apologize for that!’ Odysseus spat, glaring at Palamedes.

  ‘You’ll have no apology from me!’ Palamedes returned, staring back. ‘And unless you let me take my message to Achilles, then you’ll have the King of Men to answer to.’

  ‘Don’t overestimate your influence with Agamemnon,’ Odysseus returned. ‘Your days as his messenger boy are numbered. Calchas has seen to that.’

  ‘Calchas? What are you talking about?’

  Odysseus slipped free of Eperitus’s grip and dropped to one knee beside Palamedes, who shrank back into the soft sand.

  ‘You haven’t heard his latest vision?’ he whispered, his voice too low for anyone other than Palamedes and Eperitus to hear. ‘Calchas told Agamemnon you aren’t to be trusted, that you’ll bring doom to the Greeks. I don’t know what he means, but you can be sure Agamemnon won’t be taking you into his confidence any more.’

  Palamedes’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘That’s nonsense. Agamemnon trusts me completely.’

  ‘Oh really? Then you’ll know Great Ajax and Menestheus are to launch a surprise attack against the city of Dardanus, three days from now. I thought not. Well, Agamemnon still trusts me,’ Odysseus added, lowering his face to Palamedes’s and taking a fistful of his tunic, ‘so keep that bit of information to yourself, or it’ll mean trouble for the both of us.’

  He stood and took Palamedes by the hand, pulling him to his feet. The Nauplian, his brow furrowed in thought, stared hard at him for a moment, then turned and marched across the beach in the direction of Achilles. Many of the men who had witnessed the argument jeered him as he left, while others cheered Odysseus and shouted his name.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Eperitus asked in a low voice. ‘You’ve not mentioned any attack on Dardanus before.’

  Odysseus raised his eyebrows and smiled brightly.

  That’s because there isn’t one. And now the bait’s been set, we’ll have to see if our little fish takes it.’

  Six men sat cloaked and hooded around a small campfire. There was little conversation between them as they stared at the mean flames, sputtering and hissing beneath the fine drizzle that fell from the ceiling of cloud above. Beyond the deep ditch that defended the Greek camp, two more guards stood with their shields slung across their backs and their spears sloped over their shoulders, staring out into the darkness of the plain for signs of life. There were none, of course – the Trojans hardly ever ventured beyond the safety of their walls at night – and thankfully the drunken priest, Calchas, had kept his peace, subdued by the light rain that had rolled in from the Aegean during the early evening. The clouds that had transported it now blocked out the light of the early moon and left the landscape black and featureless, while in the camp behind them the same rain had dampened the drinking and whoring of the army.

  A dislodged rock and a quiet curse announced the approach of someone from the camp. Some of the men around the fire turned and raised their hoods a little to stare at the newcomer, while the two guards on the other side of the ditch crossed the narrow causeway that they were guarding and held their spears at the ready.

  ‘Who’s that?’ demanded one of the men, knowing full well who the cloaked figure that walked towards them was.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Palamedes, tipping his hood back just enough to reveal his face. ‘Have the patrols gone out for the night?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’ll be following the routes you set for them. You’re checki
ng them a little earlier than usual, though, if I might say so.’

  ‘No, you may not,’ Palamedes replied haughtily, clearly annoyed at the guard’s familiar tone. ‘It’s my prerogative to inspect the patrols whenever I feel like it, or how else will they remain watchful and alert?’

  He turned his eyes on the men around the fire, who looked down into the flames. Then he threw his hood forward again and marched across the causeway. The two guards followed him to the other side and watched his black cloak into the distance. When it could no longer be distinguished among the rocks and trees of the plain, one of them gave a low whistle and beckoned to the others around the fire. At once, two men rose and ran to join them.

  ‘He went that way,’ said the guard, a tall, sinewy soldier with steely eyes and a Spartan accent. ‘You’ll have to be quick not to lose him in this darkness.’

  ‘I see him,’ said Eperitus, narrowing his eyes slightly. ‘He’s in a hurry, but we’ll soon catch up with him.’

  The Spartan guard raised his eyebrows a little, but knew enough about Eperitus’s senses not to question how he could see a man in a black cloak in the dead of night. He turned to Eperitus’s companion.

  ‘What’s this all about, Odysseus?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough, Diocles,’ Odysseus replied, his voice smooth and reassuring. ‘And as a favour to an old friend, I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell Menelaus or Agamemnon we left the camp tonight.’

  ‘A few swallows of that Ithacan wine you brought us will help me forget,’ Diocles said with a wink, and a moment later Odysseus and Eperitus had slipped into the darkness.

  Eperitus led the way, his excellent eyesight picking out the easiest path as they followed the skulking form of Palamedes across the plain. Every now and then Palamedes would stop and throw a glance over his shoulder, waiting a while as his eyes and ears probed the gloom before proceeding again. Each time Eperitus would raise his hand and he and Odysseus would remain still until it was safe to carry on. As they progressed in this silent, halting manner – the rain-sodden wool of their cloaks sticking to their skin and restricting their movements – Eperitus thought about Astynome. He had not seen her since that morning and she would be wondering where he was. Even the other soldiers would not be able to tell her his whereabouts, as none knew, and so eventually she would go to her own, cold bed to fall asleep, wondering about his absence while he was chasing phantoms across the plains of Ilium.

  Eventually, they saw the ridge that marked the end of the undulating land between the Greek camp and Troy. Its flanks rose up as a black mass against the cloud-filled sky, while out of sight beyond it a slope led down to the fords of the Scamander and the familiar battle plain before the walls of Priam’s city. Many thousands of men had died there over the years of the siege and no Greek could approach the ridge without feeling a pang of terror at what lay beyond. But on top of it was a grove of laurel trees dedicated to Thymbrean Apollo, a neutral place where both Greeks and Trojans went to make sacrifices and offer prayers. It was a sanctuary where men of either side could attend to the god in the knowledge his enemies would not harm him. And it was towards the sacred circle of trees that Palamedes was now climbing. Odysseus and Eperitus followed, clambering up the slope as quickly as they could.

  ‘He’s going to leave a message for the Trojans,’ Odysseus hissed in Eperitus’s ear as they watched Palamedes enter the grove just ahead of them. ‘He must have been doing this for years.’

  ‘You know it means nothing unless we can find evidence,’ Eperitus responded.

  ‘Perhaps I should have brought Diomedes as a witness,’ Odysseus mused. ‘Or even Agamemnon himself . . .’

  Eperitus grabbed his elbow and pulled him behind the cover of an outcrop of rock. Odysseus opened his mouth to speak, but Eperitus raised a finger to his lips and, a moment later, the sound of horses’ hooves broke the silence of the night. They came from the gentler slope on the Trojan side of the ridge, the footfalls of the animals loud on the wet rock and accompanied by snorts and the hushed voices of men. Slowly, the two Ithacans peered above the edge of the rock, just as a group of ten mounted men climbed into view a spear’s cast away. At their head was the tall and fearsome figure of Apheidas.

  Eperitus grabbed at the sword hanging beneath his arm, but Odysseus seized his wrist and gave him a warning glare.

  ‘Are you mad? We’ll never defeat ten of them!’

  ‘I only want to defeat one,’ Eperitus replied, trying to pull his arm free of Odysseus’s iron grip.

  ‘Now’s not the time, Eperitus. But a time will come; trust in the gods for that.’

  Apheidas gave orders to his escort, who began to spread out around the sacred grove. Two horsemen passed close to the outcrop of rock where Odysseus and Eperitus were hiding, but the Ithacans drew their hooded cloaks around themselves and were all but invisible in the stygian darkness. Then the Trojans moved further along the ridge, turning their eyes southwards in the direction of the Greek camp, and Eperitus dared to raise his head above the rocks once more. He saw his father dismount and hand the reins to one of his men, then stride to the entrance of the temple and disappear from sight. Odysseus had been right all along: Palamedes, for whatever reason, was passing information to the Trojans, and had probably been doing so for years. How he and Odysseus would convince the council of the fact, especially in view of the known animosity between Palamedes and Odysseus, was another matter. But that was of little concern to him now. He was thinking instead of Calchas’s sobering words, that part of him still loved Apheidas and that only with savage hatred would he be able to defeat him. And in spite of his instinct to fight his father, Eperitus knew the hatred that had created that instinct no longer burned in his veins.

  They returned to the camp long after Palamedes, who had slipped away while Odysseus and Eperitus waited behind the outcrop of rock for the Trojan horsemen to leave. But where Eperitus had expected Odysseus to be glad that his suspicions had been proven beyond doubt, he found the king unnaturally angry. As they walked back through the darkness – the bank of cloud having rolled away and taken the drizzle with it – it seemed to Eperitus that the futility of the past ten years had snapped something inside his friend. Frustration at the length of the siege had given way to a hot rage, knowing that Palamedes’s treachery had delayed the defeat of Troy for so long, and with it his return home. One way or another, Odysseus promised, he would find the evidence to convict the traitor before the Council of Kings.

  Quietly, Eperitus pulled aside the curtained entrance to his hut and peered inside. There was a dull red glow from the slumbering hearth and as he looked at Astynome’s bed he was pleased to see it unoccupied. But as he gazed across at his own bed, expecting to see her there waiting for his return, he noticed that the furs were empty and had not been slept in. He stepped inside and looked around, but there were no signs of the girl other than the black remains of a stew in the pot over the fire.

  He dashed out of the hut to find Arceisius standing before him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  ‘I tried to stay awake until you returned,’ he began. ‘But you were gone so long—’

  ‘Where is she?’ Eperitus demanded. ‘Where’s Astynome?’

  ‘They took her, sir,’ Arceisius replied, reverting instinctively to the formal in the face of his captain’s anger. ‘Agamemnon found out there was a slave who hadn’t been counted among the plunder and properly allotted . . .’

  Eperitus ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘You can’t get her back, sir.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s in Agamemnon’s tent. As soon as he saw her beauty he claimed her for himself.’

  Eperitus slumped back against the wall of the hut and stared up at the smattering of stars above. ‘That bastard!’ he cursed. ‘Why him? And how did Agamemnon find out about Astynome?’

  ‘I wasn’t here when his guards came for her,’ Arceisius said. ‘But Pol
ites was. And he says Eurylochus was with them.’

  Chapter Eleven

  THE PHRYGIAN

  The following morning, Antiphus and Eurybates, whom Odysseus had sent to keep a watch on the eastern gate of Troy, rode into camp and reported that a large force of chariots, cavalry and spearmen had left the city and headed north in the direction of Dardanus. This final proof of Palamedes’s treachery stirred Odysseus to anger once more, though he was careful not to allow anyone other than Eperitus to know of his fury. Eperitus warned him not to be rash, reminding him that Palamedes was a trusted member of the council and if they were to expose him they must have evidence. With a dark face, Odysseus promised his friend he would have all the evidence he needed within two days, before Palamedes could realize there was no planned attack on Dardanus and that he had been tricked into revealing his treachery.

  Eperitus did not see the king for the rest of the day. With the help of Arceisius, Polites and Antiphus he took the new recruits down to the beach and continued their preparation for war. The intense training was a convenient distraction from the dark thoughts that had kept him awake all night. His rage towards Eurylochus was ready to spill over into violence – and would have done, if Odysseus’s envious cousin had dared show his pig-like face in the Ithacan camp. But Eperitus’s loathing of Eurylochus was as nothing compared to his hatred for Agamemnon, the man who had plunged a dagger into his daughter’s heart, and had now taken his lover from him. In the three short weeks they had spent together Astynome’s powerful beauty and proud spirit had found a weakness in Eperitus’s callused, battle-hardened emotions. But now she was the slave of the most powerful man in Greece, a man whose life he had taken a solemn and binding oath to protect, though there was no one in the whole of Ilium he would rather send down to Hades. He had promised to protect Astynome, but she had been moved beyond any help he could give her.