It was a sleep from which they never woke. Within minutes, the gate stood open, waiting for the onrush of the Argive host when it disembarked from the ships and raced across the plain. The late summer moon breasted the dark cloud that had briefly covered it. The palaces, temples and streets of the doomed city gleamed beneath its radiance.
In the experience of mortal men there can be few things more terrible than the sacking of a city. All that splendour of stone and marble so laboriously raised, the carved pediments, the freestanding statuary, the airy halls, the sacred precincts, the delicately frescoed panels, the tessellated floors, the arcades, pools and fountains -- all that vision, skill and invention reduced, in the course of a night, to objects of no more account than the grace and dignity of the women who will be raped, the wisdom and courage of the men who will fall to the sword, or the innocence of a child’s head dashed against a wall.
Yet it is so much easier to take a brutal delight in tearing beauty down than in the painstaking work of building it up -- in destroying what others have made rather than in creating something marvellous of one’s own -- that it’s surprising, I suppose, that cities do not fall more often.
But once the sacking begins, a surge of evil is released that leaves men dazed and disbelieving afterwards.
Beneath an ancient laurel tree in the courtyard of King Priam’s palace stood the altar of Zeus. It was there that Hecuba gathered her daughters for sanctuary when they were woken by the din of the invading army and the shouts and screams in the streets below the palace. Frail as he was, Priam wanted to bring his spear with him, ready to hold the Argives off, but Hecuba held on to him, wailing that it was madness for a feeble old man to join the fight. So they were standing together beneath the tree, trembling at the terrifying noises rising from the city, when Neoptolemus strode into the courtyard wearing his father’s golden armour and followed by a band of Myrmidons.
Still only half-dressed, one of Priam’s younger sons, Capys, hurried to his parents’ defence and was immediately cut down under Hecuba’s horrified gaze. Shouting with impotent rage, Priam bent to pick up his son’s spear but was overwhelmed before he could throw it. He stood panting in the grip of two Myrmidons, and when he glanced up he was amazed to see how young was the warrior in golden armour who looked back at him with distaste, as if he was some kind of monster in a show. King Priam was wearing only his night-robe. His legs were thin and white in the light from the moon. Ashamed to be seen so, he lowered his eyes and saw the blood leaking in a thick pool from the body of his son. Capys lay so awkwardly where he had fallen that it seemed to Priam that some dislocation of reality must have taken place and this was all an aberration of his failing mind. But he could hear the women wailing around him, and his wife stood proudly at his side, dignified as ever, even though the shift she wore was thin and her heart was shaking with mortal terror.
Nothing happened for a moment. The old king began to think that the armoured boy was in awe of the captives he had taken and uncertain what to do with them. He took heart from it and was considering ways of asserting sixty years of regal authority when he saw the youth make a downward signal with the point of his drawn sword. Not a word was uttered but the Myrmidons understood. Hecuba put a hand to her mouth, gasping, as the two men forced her husband to his knees and pushed his white head forward. Then, nimble as a dancer, Neoptolemus took three quick steps towards him, raised the sword that had belonged to Achilles, brought it swiftly down on the exposed neck, and struck off his head.
The screaming women around the decapitated body were quickly bound and taken to join the other captives who were being held in the square beside the wooden horse. But Cassandra and Andromache were not among them.
Cassandra had not slept at all that night. She had lain on her bed in a frenzy of hallucinations as the pressure of prophetic insight built inside her mind. So when the Argives burst through into the city with a tremendous roar that shook the Trojans from their sleep, she heard the noise almost with a kind of relief. The nightmare vision of blood and smoke that had haunted her inner world for so long was at last released from confinement inside her brain. It brought with it the knowledge that she was not mad after all, merely gifted with a terrible power that had almost made her so.
Strangely then, her first thought was not for her safety but to give thanks.
Not even stopping to pull a robe around the shift she wore, Cassandra ran through the corridors of the palace till she came out into an empty courtyard and passed through a rear door used only by the priests into the temple of Athena. Outside in the square where stood the wooden horse, she could hear men shouting above the wailing of women and children, but here inside the temple an air of sacred peace prevailed. Cassandra prostrated herself before the Palladium, the ancient wooden image of Athena which was imbued with the power of the goddess and carried inside its mystery the secret soul of Troy.
For that very reason the Argives had long desired to capture the idol and its seizure stood high among their priorities when the city was stormed. So Cassandra had been praying to the goddess for only a few moments when the door of the temple crashed open, and a band of heavily armed warriors strode into its tranquil space. Chief among them was a Locrian captain called Aias, a small, fleet-footed man who had won a reputation as one of the most skilful wielders of the spear in the Achaian army. Knowing that whoever seized the Palladium could expect a handsome reward, he had led his company straight to the temple expecting to find no one there. But here he was, looking down into the defiant eyes of a rather beautiful, sallow-skinned young woman wearing only a thin shift, who had leapt to her feet before him with a mane of black hair tousled about her face. Aias had no idea who she was, nor did he care.
‘This place is sacred to Athena,’ Cassandra cried. ‘Your uncleansed presence here is a sacrilege. Beware her anger.’
Aias laughed in her face. ‘Athena fights on our side, little lady,’ he said, and reached out to tear open her shift. Coming awake to the peril of her situation, Cassandra scrambled away from him and ran back towards the Palladium.
The Locrians closed in round her.
‘You first, Aias,’ one of them said. ‘You can take the fire out of her.’
Aias walked towards her, gesturing with the upraised fingers of both hands for her to come closer. Cassandra turned her head and spat into his face.
Scowling, Aias wiped her spittle from his beard. Cassandra turned her back on him, wrapped her bare arms tightly about the wooden idol, gripped her eyes shut and began to utter a wild chant of prayers and imprecations. Aias looked back at his men, laughed, then reached out and lifted up her shift.
Half naked now, Cassandra was still hanging on to the Palladium with both arms when Agamemnon burst into the temple with his bodyguard and saw Aias trying to mount her from behind. ‘What in Hades’ name is going on here?’ he bellowed. ‘Do you mean to bring the vengeance of the goddess down on us?’ He strode forward, pulled Aias off the girl and kicked out at him as he was trying to pull his breeches up from round his knees. The kick knocked him flying backwards among the Locrians who turned and scattered out of the temple.
Agamemnon stared at the young woman’s bare white flesh for a moment, and then put a hand to her chin to turn her face towards him. The eyes that looked up at him were filled with hate.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘Cassandra,’ she hissed.
‘King Priam’s daughter!’
‘Priestess to the god.’
Agamemnon smiled at the bayed fury in that hectic young face. Then he turned to Talthybius who stood at his side. ‘This one is mine. See her conducted safely to the square.’
Having given orders for the careful dismantling of the Palladium, he left the temple to rejoin the sacking of the city, but when he stepped back out into the streets of the citadel, he cursed at the smell of burning that blew towards him. Thick smoke was rising from one of the crowded, lower areas of Troy where the textile factories were situated
. Climbing the plinth of a marble statue to get a better view, Agamemnon saw flames already beginning to lick through the roof of a warehouse. He jumped back down from the plinth shouting that if that blaze wasn’t brought under control, half the city would be burning before they had the chance to plunder it. Then he strode about the square, bellowing out orders and cursing men who were too rapt in a frenzy of killing to hear what he said.
Having left a guard over Priam’s decapitated body, Neoptolemus led his Myrmidons through the violent din of the streets in search of the house that had once belonged to Hector. He found Andromache waiting there, comforting her terrified serving-women, with her young son Astyanax standing at her side.
One of the women screamed as the Myrmidons came in and threw herself at her mistress’s feet, where she knelt in a panic-stricken welter of tears. ‘Hush, Clymene,’ Andromache said, leaning to put a hand to the woman’s head. But her eyes were on the smallish warrior who was wearing a golden breastplate that she recognized -- a breastplate that looked a little too big for him. He lifted off his helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a bloody hand, and smiled at her.
Andromache was appalled at how young he was.
Like someone appraising a property he might buy, Neoptolemus looked round at the rich furnishings of the apartment, the costly drapes, and the exquisite paintings of woodland feasting and dancing on the walls.
‘I see that the noble Hector lived in fine style,’ he said. At the light, almost friendly sound of his voice, the hysterical serving- woman fell silent.
When no answer came, Neoptolemus stared at Andromache. ‘Do you recognize this armour, madam?’
Too proud to show her fear, Andromache merely nodded.
‘It belonged to my father,’ he said. ‘So you will understand why I claim you as my rightful prize. You will be kept under guard here till the division of the spoils.’
‘What of my women?’ Andromache asked.
Neoptolemus shrugged. ‘They may remain here with you. My Myrmidons will see that no harm comes to them.’ He smiled at the grateful whimpers of relief elicited by this casual gesture of reprieve.
Amazed by such courteous treatment, Andromache’s voice was shaking a little as she said, ‘I see that the son of Achilles is as noble as his father was.’
Neoptolemus acknowledged the compliment with a nod. He half-turned away as if to leave, and then swung his head to look back at her again.
‘However, there is the small matter of your son.’
At once Andromache put her arm around the scrawny young shoulders of Astyanax, where he stood beside her wearing only his silken nightgown over his breeches. ‘Astyanax is only a boy,’ she said. ‘He is younger even than yourself.’
Immediately she saw the fatal error of that addition.
Neoptolemus said, ‘Let me take a look at him.’
Six years old and shaking in his skin, but defiantly conscious that he was among the men who had killed his father, Astyanax said, ‘You can see me well enough.’
‘So I can.’ Neoptolemus smiled. ‘And I see what I expected.’
‘A little boy,’ gasped Andromache hopelessly. ‘Only a little boy.’
‘But as you see from my own presence, madam, little boys grow into warriors who come looking for vengeance on those who kill their fathers.’ Neoptolemus smiled down at the child. ‘That’s what you would like, isn’t it, Astyanax?’
‘If I had a sword I would show you.’
‘Of course you would. But you don’t have a sword and I won’t have it said that Neoptolemus cut down an unarmed child.’ Smiling, he reached out a hand. ‘Come with me.’ When Andromache reached out a protective arm across her son, Neoptolemus grabbed the boy by the lobe of his ear and pulled him away.
‘Where are you taking him?’ Andromache cried.
‘Only to point out my father’s tomb.’
The Myrmidons advanced to restrain her as she tried to prevent Neoptolemus from leading Astyanax towards a balcony that looked out of the room across the citadel of Ilium. The drapes were blowing in the night breeze, and a hideous din of wailing rose from the women in the square as they watched lovers, husbands, brothers and sons dragged out of the places where they were hiding to be tormented and slaughtered by the jeering Argives.
For an instant Andromache saw the hair of the two boys illuminated by the ruddy glare that was now colouring the night sky. In another, kinder world they might have been brothers as Neoptolemus pointed with his left hand over the walls towards the funeral mound where Sinon’s signal-fire still blazed.
‘Do you see that mound over there?’ he said. ‘That’s where my father lies.’
Then, with his right hand, he tugged down on the child’s ear, bent him over, lifted him up, and hurled him head first from the balcony.
Long before all this -- before Astyanax died, before Andromache, Cassandra and Hecuba were driven like cattle into the square, before King Priam’s ancient head was severed from his body, Menelaus had entered the city with only a single thought in mind. Knowing what that thought must be, Agamemnon had ordered Odysseus to keep close company with his brother once they climbed down from the horse. So while the drunkards sleeping in the square were murdered, and the Scaean Gate was secured, Menelaus and Odysseus made their way through the still silent streets of the citadel looking for the mansion that Paris had built for Helen and which was now the residence of Deiphobus. A small detachment of Spartan warriors followed at their heels.
Antenor had given them instructions and the house was not difficult to find. But, as had been arranged, they waited outside the gate to the courtyard for a time until the message came that Diomedes and his men had managed to secure all entrances to the large warehouse in which Memnon’s Ethiopians were garrisoned. They would be locked in there until Troy was looted of its treasures, and then the building would be burned down round them along with the rest of the city.
While they waited, Odysseus shinned his way up onto a parapet from where he could look out to sea. In the shifting moonlight he could just make out the shades of Agamemnon’s ships heading for the strand. The tiled roofs of the city stretched below him and there was hardly a sound to be heard. They had been lucky. Not even a dog had barked.
The message came. Everything was in place. Menelaus pushed at the gate expecting to find it locked. Smoothly it swung open.
The mansion rivalled Priam’s palace in splendour, standing on three floors, with views from its balconies towards the mountains of Ida in the south, and northwards to the sea. The night air of the courtyard was fragrant with jasmine and lilies and the scent of flowering trees. The door to the house stood ajar.
As soon as they entered, they saw the sleeping bodies of stewards and serving-women limply sprawled about the couches and floors as though an advance guard of marauders had already despatched them. Knowing that the main force would not yet be ashore and that it was too soon to risk an alarm, Odysseus signalled that everyone they found should be killed. So the warriors moved swiftly through the house, checking each chamber, slitting throats as they went.
Moving cautiously along this trail of blood, Menelaus came at last to what was clearly the door of the master bedroom. Quietly he ordered his followers to search the remaining rooms and then hesitated outside that delicately panelled door for a moment with only Odysseus at his side. The two men looked at one another. It seemed to both that the other was breathing noisily. Both trembled a little with an almost sacrilegious sense of transgression.
Menelaus turned the golden handle and pushed open the door.
Moonlight blew in on the night breeze through the gauzy drapes over the window casement. The great bed stood at the far end of the room across a highly polished floor. An oil-lamp had been left burning on a tripod near the bed, and by its glow they could make out the huge, amorous figures of Ares and Aphrodite embracing on the great tapestry that stretched along the wall above the bed. The smell of incense hung heavy on the air.
Deiphobus lay stark naked on his back with his mouth open and the breath wheezing in his throat. Across the wide bed, Helen slept with her knees tightly drawn up beneath the crumpled sheet. Her hair, still as glossy and black as Menelaus remembered it, lay splayed across the pillow, but her face was hidden from him.
Drawing in his breath, he stepped closer to the bed.
Out of an impulse of delicacy, Odysseus remained by the door, but he pulled it quietly shut behind him and stood with a drawn sword in his hand, watching as Menelaus walked round to the side of the bed where Helen slept. He saw him take off the helmet that masked his face and place it quietly on the floor. When he straightened again, Menelaus leaned over the sleeping woman, put a hand to her shoulder and shook it gently two or three times. Helen stirred.
Odysseus heard a sharply drawn gasp of her breath. Then she would have felt the pressure from the point of the short sword that Menelaus held at her neck as he clapped his other hand across her mouth.
Apart from the hoarse judder of Deiphobus’ snores, the room was utterly still.
Like figures frozen in a tableau from some moral allegory, the betrayed husband and the delinquent wife stared into each other’s eyes for the first time in more than ten years, and only when he felt sure that she would make no sound did Menelaus remove his hand. Straightening himself, he moved round to the other side of the bed, pointing at her with an outstretched index-finger to keep her fixed in the place where she lay huddled in the sheet, wide-eyed, watching him.
The War At Troy Page 44