The War At Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  Menelaus picked up a wine-stained napkin from beside the silver mixing-bowl on a bedside table. Uttering a small derisive snort, he pushed it firmly into the wheezing gape of Deiphobus’ open mouth and closed his hand across it. Deiphobus spluttered awake to find his breathing impaired and a big, armoured man holding him down by his face and shoulder. In the same moment Menelaus lifted a knee and pressed it firmly down into his groin. Light flared inside Deiphobus s head.

  When he was quite sure that the man was wide awake and knew exactly what was happening, Menelaus whispered, ‘Do you know who I am?’

  The dark head nodded beneath the weight of his hand. In the glow of the lamp, the eyes were bright with terror.

  ‘You have something of mine,’ Menelaus said. ‘It’s time it was paid for.’

  Then he shifted his weight, lifted his sword and, holding the hilt as though it were a dagger, he thrust the blade deep into the man’s naked stomach. Three times he twisted it there before wrenching the blade out again.

  Astonished by pain, Deiphobus lifted both hands to grip the wrist that still held the napkin in his mouth. His eyes widened at the sudden eruption of blood from his wound. His feet began to kick as if in a vain effort to get away.

  For a long time Menelaus held him down until the eyeballs swivelled upwards and he could no longer hear the breath in his nose. With a sigh of disgust Menelaus freed his gripped wrist. The napkin fell from Deiphobus s mouth. A hot gush of blood came after it.

  Menelaus looked down. Frustrated that the thing was over so quickly, he snarled and bared his teeth. He got up from the bed, stopped, turned back, and then, as though remembering some offence he had been given by its touch, he picked up Deiphobus’ lax left arm by the hand and began to hack at the wrist with the edge of his sword. Arterial blood spurted across the bed. At the third hack the hand came free. Menelaus studied the grotesque fact of it -- a severed hand, still warm, and fringed like some curious marine creature, gripped inside his own. Then he flung the thing across the room.

  Still unsatisfied, he brought his sword-blade sharply down across the man’s face and heard the cheek bone crack. Gasping, as if in pain from the effort, he stared down at what he had done, wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist, and stood swaying in the gloom.

  Spattered with the blood of the corpse lying next to her, Helen was whimpering into her hands like a child. As Menelaus looked across at her, she clutched the sheet up to her mouth.

  All three living people in the room are startled then by a sudden roaring in the night. It is the sound of the Argive host breaking through into the sleeping city. Soon the whole of Troy will be loud with screams and shouting that will echo down through all the halls of time. But inside this chamber there is only dreadful silence as Menelaus looms above the woman who has broken his heart and his spirit, for since the day that Helen left him he has been unable to make love to any other woman.

  Black stains are smudged around her eyes. And those eyes themselves -- eyes the colour of the sea at noon, whose deeps had claimed him time and time again in the days when Helen gazed on him with a tenderness of which he had never believed himself quite worthy - those eyes are vivid with terror now.

  This is the woman he has loved with all his heart. Once he had tried to do everything in his power to make her happy. And his heart winces to think of how she deserted him while his back was turned, to give herself to Paris in this bed. And worse, to think of Deiphobus mauling and fingering her. To smell the sweet stink of sex and wine and incense in this room.

  His knuckles tauten at the hilt of his sword. This is what he has desired for a long time now. To trap her in this shameful bed and make her pay in blood for every insult he has taken, for every friend who has died because of what she has done, for every wretched tear he has shed alone for her.

  From where he stands watching by the door, Odysseus hears Menelaus utter a small moan as he lifts his sword. He sees the reflection of the lamplight shine across the raised blade. He hears the sigh of Helen s breath as she gazes in mute appeal from the region far beyond all words to which fear has banished her. And then something happens -- something so obvious and clear that its simplicity is equalled only by its beauty and its power. As though at last consenting to the sacrifice, Helen draws down the sheet still clutched at her mouth, so that first her neck and throat, and then her shoulders and the soft hollows at her collarbones, and finally her breasts, are bared.

  Menelaus stands over her. Time passes. Outside, in the lower city, fire has begun to spread from house to house, adding to the terror and confusion of the night; and closer, among the stately squares and gardens of the citadel, the streets are loud with screams. Like the swift extinguishing of so many stars, darkness is falling on mind after mind out there. And though it has scarcely begun, it seems there can never be an end to this.

  Yet eventually, as Odysseus looks on, Menelaus lowers the hand that holds his sword. The sword itself slips to the floor and, moments later, with the air of a man who has struggled too long with his fate and cannot now see what more he could do, Menelaus sits down on the bed beside his wife and quietly begins to weep.

  The Phantasm

  These things happened a long time ago and the men and women whose destinies were shaped by the war at Troy have long since relinquished their mortal form and entered the immortal realm of story. Even we who remember them as they once were cannot now have long to live. And with the passage of time our memories fade, and what is memory itself but an act of the imagination?

  Others, therefore, will tell these things differently; and if some say one thing and some another; then is that not also true of yesterday's quarrel or a tavern brawl? For though there are bards who believe that Divine Apollo, with his eye for order and harmony, is the proper deity of our art, I am with those who know that Hermes too is always somewhere nearby, playing his subtle tricks with us, making the shadows dance.

  So these stories will live and grow and change as long as there are bards to tell them, and anyone who claims to own the truth about the war at Troy is the mere fool of his own vanity. Yet my charity has been stretched at times by some of the more fanciful tales that have reached my ears, and strangest among them is the one that would have us believe that Helen never went to Troy at all.

  I heard this story from an Egyptian trader who claimed that it is widely told around the Salt Pans of Canopus at the mouth of the Nile where Paris and Helen landed during their voyage across the eastern sea to Troy. According to this story, two of Paris's servants jumped ship while they harboured there and sought refuge in a temple where runaway slaves are allowed to claim sanctuary. From that place of safety they spread reports that Paris had forcibly abducted Helen. When the accusation was brought before King Proteus at Memphis he ordered that Paris be placed under arrest. After lengthy questioning, Paris was deported from Egypt, his stolen treasure was confiscated, and Helen was detained in Memphis until Menelaus should come to take her home to Sparta.

  My first response was to dismiss this story as preposterous. Of course Helen had been in Troy. Odysseus had seen her there. Moreover Telemachus had visited Sparta after the war and found her reunited with Menelaus. He had heard their stories from their own lips. What kind of factitious nonsense was this?

  But the Egyptian had an explanation for the disparity between my version of events and his. He insisted that the true Helen remained in Memphis for the duration of the war; while the beautiful thing that accompanied Paris to Troy was a mere phantasm -- an idea of Helen that was so powerful in the minds of men that they gladly confused it with reality.

  And the Egyptian insisted on the truth of his account with such conviction that all my protests were to no avail. His facts and mine simply did not agree, and even though both of us could not be right there was nothing to be done about it. Yet the more I think about these things the more I have come to wonder whether there was not, after all, a measure of poetic truth in the Egyptian's story.

  For it seems to me q
uite possible that the wild young girl who grew up to become Queen of Sparta and was then swept off by Paris to Troy was an altogether different creature from the one who lived inside his rapturous imagination. Paris dreamed of Helen long before he met her. It was the dream he loved. And if that dream was so passionate that he could not wake from it until it was too late, then the Helen he took to Troy was indeed a phantasm. And if that were so, then no one could have known it more clearly than Helen herself

  Nor does it end there, for surely it is always a phantasm that draws us into war -- whether it is a dream of power or wealth or glory; or the fear that our fellow men are alien and hostile creatures who mean to do us harm? And surely all the hitter causes of the war at Troy must have come to seem mere phantasms to those who sat weeping in the ashes of the city? And even to those who returned as victors from the war only to find that their ordeals had scarcely yet begun?

  But those are other stories -- stories which, out of loyalty to Odysseus and in the hope that my share in truth will survive the passage of time, I Phemius, hard of Ithaca, shall one day come to tell For in the mortal realm only stories are stronger than death, and the god I serve requires this further work of me.

  Glossary of Characters

  DEITIES

  Aphrodite -- Goddess of many aspects, mostly associated with Love and Beauty

  Apollo -- God with many aspects, including Prophecy, Healing, Pestilence and the Arts

  Ares -- God of War, twin brother of Eris

  Artemis -- Virgin Goddess of the Wild

  Athena -- Goddess with many aspects, including Wisdom, Power and Protection

  Boreas -- God of the North Wind

  Eris -- Goddess of Strife and Discord, twin sister to Ares

  Eros -- God of Love, son of Aphrodite

  Ganymedes -- Cup-bearer to Zeus

  Hephaestus -- God of fire and craftsmanship

  Hera -- Goddess Queen of Olympus, wife of Zeus, presides over marriage

  Hermes -- God with many aspects, including eloquence, imagination, invention. A slippery fellow

  Isis -- Egyptian goddess

  Nereus -- Sea-god

  Osiris -- Egyptian god

  Poseidon -- God with many aspects, ruler of the Sea, Earthquakes and Horses

  Zephyrus -- God of the West Wind

  Zeus -- King of Olympus, ruler of the gods

  MORTALS

  Acamas -- Argive warrior

  Acastus -- King of Iolcus

  Achilles -- son of Peleus and Thetis, leader of the Myrmidons, father of Pyrrhos

  Actor -- King of the Myrmidons, father-in-law of Peleus, father of Eurytion and Polymela

  Adrestos -- Trojan warrior

  Aeacus -- King of Aegina, father of Peleus and Telamon

  Aegisthus -- son of Thyestes, cousin to Agamemnon and Menelaus

  Aeneas -- Prince of the Dardanians

  Aethra -- mother of Theseus, once Queen of Troizen, now bondswoman to Helen

  Agamemnon -- son of Atreus of Mycenae, High King of Argos

  Agelaus -- foster-father of Paris, herdsman

  Aias -- Locrian captain

  Ajax -- son of Telamon, cousin of Achilles

  Alexander -- another name for Paris, son of Priam

  Anchises -- King of the Dardanians

  Andromache -- wife of Hector

  Antenor -- counsellor to Priam

  Anticlea -- mother of Odysseus, wife of Laertes

  Antilochus -- son of Nestor

  Antiphus -- son of Priam

  Antheus -- son of Antenor and Theano

  Automedon -- charioteer to Achilles and Patroclus

  Briseis -- Dardanian maiden captured by Achilles

  Cadmus -- founder of Thebes and husband of Harmony

  Calchas -- Trojan priest of Apollo who defects to theArgives

  Capys -- son of Priam

  Catreus -- grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus

  Cassandra -- daughter of Priam

  Cebren -- healing priest of Apollo at Sminthe

  Cheiron -- King of the Centaurs

  Chryseis -- daughter of Apollo’s priest in Thebe, captive ofAgamemnon

  Cilia -- sister of Priam

  Cinyras -- King of Cyprus

  Clymene -- Andromache’s serving woman

  Clytaemnestra -- daughter of Tyndareus & Leda, wife ofAgamemnon

  Cretheis -- wife of King Acastus

  Cycnus -- Trojan hero

  Danae -- mother of Perseus

  Dardanians -- people of the Idaean mountains (Dardania), a kingdom of Troy

  Deidameia -- daughter of King Lycomedes, mother of Pyrrhos by Achilles

  Deiphobus -- son of Priam

  Deucalion -- King of Crete, father of Idomeneus

  Diomedes -- Lord of Tiryns, Argive hero

  Diotima -- wise woman on Ithaca

  Dromeus -- Cretan legate

  Electra -- daughter of Agamemnon & Clytaemnestra

  Epeius -- Phocian craftsman, designer of the WoodenHorse

  Euhippe -- Centaur healer & midwife

  Europa -- mother of King Minos

  Eurytion -- son of King Actor of the Myrmidons

  Eteoneus -- chief minister of Sparta

  Harmony -- wife of Cadmus

  Harpale -- Dolopian priestess and companion of Thetis

  Hector -- eldest son of Priam

  Helen daughter of Tyndareus/Zeus and Leda. Queen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus

  Heracles -- Greek hero

  Hermione -- daughter of Menelaus and Helen

  Hesione -- daughter of Laomedon, sister of Priam

  Hippolyta -- Amazon queen and beloved companion of Theseus

  Hippolytos -- son of Theseus and Hyppolyta

  Icarius -- brother ofTyndareus, father of Penelope

  Idaeus -- Trojan herald

  Idomeneus -- son of Deucalion, King of Crete

  Iphighenaia -- daughter of Agamemnon & Clytaemnestra

  Iolaus -- charioteer to Heracles

  Isus -- bastard son of Priam

  Jason -- Greek hero

  Laertes -- Lord of Ithaca, father of Odysseus

  Laocoon -- Trojan priest of Apollo, son of Antenor

  Laomedon -- King of Troy, father of Priam

  Leda -- wife of Tyndareus, mother of Clytaemnestra and Helen

  Lycaon -- son of Priam

  Lycomedes -- King of Skyros

  Machaon -- head surgeon in the Argive camp

  Memnon -- Trojan ally, leader of the Ethiopians

  Menestheus -- King of Athens

  Menelaus -- King of Sparta, husband of Helen

  Menoetius -- bastard son of King Actor, father of Patroclus

  Nauplius -- King of Euboea, father of Palamedes

  Neoptolemus -- son of Achilles, also known as Pyrrhos

  Nereids -- fifty daughters of the sea-god Nereus

  Nestor -- King of Pylos

  Oenone -- nymph of Apollo’s shrine at Sminthe, daughter of Cebren

  Odysseus -- Lord of Ithaca

  Orestes -- son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra

  Palamedes -- Prince of Euboea

  Pandarus -- Trojan archer

  Paris -- son of Priam, also known as Alexander

  Patroclus -- son of Menoetius, beloved friend of Achilles

  Peleus -- son of King Aeacus, father of Achilles

  Penelope -- daughter of Icarius, cousin to Helen and Clytaemnestra and wife of Odysseus

  Penthesileia -- Queen of the Amazons

  Pirithous -- King of the Lapiths, friend of Theseus

  Phaedra -- wife of Theseus

  Phemius -- bard of Ithaca

  Phereclus -- Trojan shipbuilder

  Philoctetes -- Aeolian archer

  Phocus -- son of King Aeacus, half-brother to Peleus and Telamon

  Phoenix -- Myrmidon warrior

  Phylo -- handmaid to Helen

  Podarces -- son of Laomedon, also known as Priam

  Polydamna -- wise woman to Helen

&nb
sp; Polydorus -- son of Priam

  Polymela -- daughter of King Actor, first wife of Peleus

  Polyxena -- daughter of Priam

  Priam -- son of Laomedon, King of Troy, also known as Podarces

  Prylis -- Lapith farrier

  Pyrrhos -- son of Achilles and leader of the Myrmidons. Also known as Neoptolemus

  Sarpedon -- Lycian soldier, ally of Troy

  Sinon -- cousin to Odysseus

  Talthybius -- Argive herald

  Tantalus -- King of Elis, first husband of Clytaemnestra

  Telemachus -- son of Odysseus and Penelope

  Telamon -- son of King Aeacus, brother to Peleus and King of Salamis. Father to Ajax

  Telephus -- King of the Mysians and bastard son of Heracles, ally of Troy

  Terpis -- father of Phemius the Ithacan bard

  Teucer -- stepbrother to Ajax

  Theano -- high priestess of Athena in Troy, wife of Antenor

  Thersander -- friend of Diomedes and commander of the Boeotians

  Thersites -- Argive soldier and kinsman of Diomedes

  Theseus -- hero, King of Athens, conqueror of Crete

  Thetis -- daughter of Cheiron, second wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles

  Thyestes -- brother to Atreus of Mycenae, uncle to Agamemnon and Menelaus. Father of Aegisthus

  Thymoetes -- son of Priam

  Tithonus -- King at Susa, half-brother of Priam

  Tyndareus -- King of Sparta, father of Clytaemnestra and Helen, husband of Leda

  Typhaon -- Dragon

  Acknowledgements

  The guidance of Robert Graves’ classic work of reference, The Greek Myths, is evident everywhere throughout this book, and I would have been lost without his patient and imaginative scholarship. Though I have tried to remain faithful to the broad outlines of the stories as Graves records them, I have not hesitated to license my own, often anachronistic, imagination wherever I felt it necessary. Having no Greek, I was also heavily dependent on the majestic verse translations of Homer’s Iliad made by Richmond Lattimore and Robert Fagles, and on the lively prose version composed by E.V. Rieu. Jules Cashford’s fine English versions of the Homeric Hymns were also an invaluable pointer to the power and beauty of the culture behind these myths. I found Michael Wood’s In Search of the Trojan War to be an engagingly readable guide to the archaeology of Troy and Mycenae, and Mary Renault’s marvellous novels The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea were a constantly challenging inspiration.