The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

by Iliffe, Glyn

  ‘They were your father’s, and now they’re yours, regardless of whether you come to Troy or not.’

  But there was no longer any question of whether Neoptolemus would take up his father’s mantle and go to war. He lifted the shield from Eurybates’s shoulder and slipped it onto his own arm. Odysseus fetched the helmet and lowered it slowly onto his head, while Diomedes placed the great ash spear in his hand. Neoptolemus lifted it above his shoulder with familiar ease, revelling in the feel of the heavy armaments that fitted him so well. He turned to his mother, whose tears were glistening on her cheeks as she leaned her weight against Lycomedes’s throne. Phaedra had lowered her pretty face into her hands and was sobbing loudly. Then he looked back at Odysseus and the others with a smile.

  ‘When do we leave?’ he asked.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  THE GREEKS AT BAY

  Agamemnon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His arms and legs felt like stone and his mind was fuddled by a night without sleep, but a new morning was upon him and he was still the leader of what remained of the Greek army. The King of Men, he mocked himself with an ironic smile.

  Then he forced his lids open again and pushed aside the heavy canvas flap of his tent. As he stepped out, the top of the sun was peering over the battlements to the east, framing the figures that stood watch there. Grey smoke crept across the blue skies above them, twisting up from the smouldering bonfires that had burned great holes in the blackness of the night before. Beyond the walls were more trails from the many pyres of their enemies on the plain. The morning air, though freshened by a breeze from the sea, still reeked of burnt wood and roasted flesh.

  ‘My lord,’ said Menestheus, the Athenian king, greeting him with a small bow.

  King Idomeneus was beside him, but the Cretan remained standing stiffly and only acknowledged Agamemnon with a slight narrowing of his eyes. Both men were dressed in breastplate, helmet and greaves, with swords slung in scabbards beneath their left arms. Their armour-bearers stood behind them, holding their shields and spears.

  ‘What is it?’ Agamemnon asked, too tired to bother hiding his annoyance. ‘Are they preparing to attack again?’

  ‘Their camp’s astir, but they’re in no hurry to renew battle,’ Idomeneus answered. ‘Perhaps they won’t need to.’

  Agamemnon shot him a stern glance. ‘Meaning what?’

  Talthybius appeared from the tent before Idomeneus could answer, carrying Agamemnon’s shield, helmet and spears. The Mycenaean king was already wearing his greaves and the cuirass gifted to him by Cinyras of Cyprus, though its bands of gold, blue enamel and tin were still dinted and spattered with gore from the previous day’s battle. He took the helmet from his herald’s hands and crammed it onto his head.

  ‘If you’ve got something to say, then say it,’ he snapped, glaring at the two kings.

  ‘We’re worried for the morale of the army,’ Menestheus said, stepping toward Agamemnon and looking him in the eye. ‘The Mysians are fresh and eager to fight. Their king – this Eurypylus – is like another Hector, riding across the battlefield and bringing death wherever he goes. The Trojans have taken new heart from his presence, while yesterday we were fortunate just to reach the safety of the walls with most of our force still intact. But the men won’t take much more. Even if Eurypylus and Deiphobus don’t breach the walls today and destroy us, there’s talk that some men are planning to slip away at night – push the galleys into the sea and just sail home. They’ve had enough.’

  Agamemnon’s brow furrowed. ‘We’ll see about that. Where’s my brother?’

  ‘Up by the gates, with Nestor, Little Ajax and Philoctetes.’

  Agamemnon tossed his blood-red cloak over his shoulder and strode up the sand towards the countless sun-bleached tents that filled the land between the shore and the sloping ridge above it. Here, the walls and gates they had built just a few weeks before were the only thing that now stood between the Greek army and annihilation. On the other side were Deiphobus’s victorious Trojans, replenished by new allies under Eurypylus. For days both armies had battled each other across the plains at the cost of thousands more men killed and maimed, but once again the fickle gods had sided with Priam and brought his warriors to the very edge of the Greek camp. And this time when the assault was renewed there would be no brooding Achilles to come to Agamemnon’s rescue.

  The King of Men felt his anger rising. The weakness of the kings under his command had brought them to this point, and now their fools of men were threatening to desert back to Greece. It was something he had feared more and more as the years of war had dragged on, but as he walked between the grimed and bloodied soldiers who sat or stood in dispirited groups about the mouths of their tents, he could see it in their faces. Then, as Idomeneus, Menestheus and Talthybius caught up with him – their armour clanking about them – a wounded man leaned across and spat in the dust at the Mycenaean king’s feet.

  Agamemnon grasped the handle of his sword and the soldier drew back. His right hand had been severed above the wrist, but to Agamemnon’s shock and disbelief the men around him reached for their own weapons and leapt to the protection of their comrade.

  ‘Don’t be fools,’ Menestheus warned, standing between them and the King of Men.

  Agamemnon felt Idomeneus’s hand on his, pushing his half-drawn sword back into its scabbard.

  ‘Now do you believe us?’ he whispered, and with his other hand on Agamemnon’s shoulder kept him moving forward. ‘A few more outbreaks of indiscipline like that and we’ll have a full blown mutiny on our hands.’

  ‘I’ll send a detachment of men and put them under guard until the fighting’s over,’ Menestheus said, joining them. ‘If we’re victorious they can be punished as an example to the rest of the army; if we’re not, then I don’t suppose it matters.’

  Agamemnon said nothing. The shock had passed quickly and left him in no doubt that this situation was more dangerous than he had anticipated. Only one thing would save them from destruction now – the arrival of Neoptolemus and the fulfilment of the oracle – but for all he knew Diomedes and Odysseus could still be on Scyros or in the Peloponnese, or have already perished on the long voyage there or back.

  They joined the main path that led up to the walls and found Menelaus waiting for them, with Nestor, Little Ajax and Philoctetes the archer at his shoulders. Huge companies of spearmen sat in ranks by the walls, awaiting the order to stand and fight, while behind them many hundreds of bowmen were busily standing their arrows point-down in the dust, ready to fire blindly over the walls into the packed Trojans when the inevitable attack came

  ‘They’re forming up,’ Menelaus growled as he walked to meet them. ‘Our army can hold them, but there are plenty more men still scattered among the tents whose units were destroyed in the fighting. We need to organise them and the lightly wounded into a strong reserve, just in case the –’

  ‘Has there been any sign of Diomedes and Odysseus’s sail?’ Agamemnon interrupted, casting a glance over the Aegean.

  Menelaus frowned and bit at his bottom lip.

  ‘A ship has been spotted, approaching from the west. For a while we thought it was them returning, but then it changed course northward – towards Troy.’

  ‘It could still be them. Why haven’t the galleys we keep ready on Tenedos been sent to intercept it?’

  ‘When the badly wounded were sent over yesterday I ordered every able-bodied man on the island to return to the camp. That includes the crews of the galleys –’

  ‘You deliberately disobeyed my orders!’

  ‘Damn your orders,’ Menelaus snapped. ‘Don’t you realise we need all the men we can get here, not at sea waiting for a galley that’s probably still on the other side of the world? The sail belongs to a merchantman and nothing more. And if you’d kept your mind on the battle, rather than this fantasy over Achilles’s son, perhaps the Trojans would have been pushed back behind their walls again, not us behind ours!’

&n
bsp; ‘Are you suggesting I’ve led us into this situation?’ Agamemnon hissed, drawing up to his brother.

  Every eye was now turned to watch the argument.

  ‘I’m saying Helenus led us all into a fool’s trap. The oracles he fed us were a lie, designed to have us looking back homeward while all the time Troy was being reinforced by thousands of Mysians. Thanks to him, two of our best fighters are off on a wild rabbit hunt across Greece and we’re pinning all our hopes on a mere boy – whatever his ancestry – rather than believing in our own prowess in battle.’

  ‘Helenus wasn’t lying,’ Agamemnon retorted. ‘But if you want to assemble your reserve of cowards and cripples, then go ahead. I’m going to the walls.’

  Leaving Menelaus fuming with rage behind him, Agamemnon marched over to the gate. Nestor followed him up the wooden steps to the ramparts and together they looked out into the morning sun at their amassed foes. There was a stretch of empty grassland that had been cleansed of the dead during the truce of the previous evening; beyond this, little more than a bowshot from the battlements, stood the ranks of the Trojans and their allies. Thousands upon thousands of infantry waited with their spears and helmets glinting in the sunlight. Before them were dense lines of archers, their bows fitted with arrows and held in readiness, while behind were scores of chariots and row upon row of cavalry.

  It was reminiscent of the scene only weeks before, when Hector’s army had laid siege to the Greek camp. Shortly afterwards, they had succeeded in scaling the walls and throwing down the gates before pouring through the Greek tents to threaten the beached galleys. For the first time, Agamemnon wondered at how fruitless the loss of life had been between then and now: thousands of lives expended just to come full circle. The only difference, perhaps, was that the awe-inspiring figures of Hector and Sarpedon had been replaced by Eurypylus and Deiphobus. Agamemnon looked over at the Mysian king standing boldly in the front rank and saw the confidence in his grim face, a confidence justified by his fighting ability. He had brought down many Greek champions in the terrible battles of the preceding days, and none of the surviving kings were able to overcome him. If the oracles were true and not the fantasy that Menelaus claimed them to be, then Neoptolemus would have to be more than a mere shadow of his father to defeat such a warrior. But unless the gods delivered Achilles’s son on to the shores of Ilium before the day was out, it would be too late anyway. For the war would likely be over, and the Greek army slain or taken into captivity.

  Then a flash of white on the Aegean caught his eye. He looked westward across the waves and saw the smudge of a sail shining against the blue waters as it steered towards land. For a moment his heart leapt with joy. Then he saw the ship was not heading towards the Greek camp, but north to Troy – the same galley Menelaus had already spoken of. Almost certainly a merchant, as his brother had guessed, chancing the blockade of the city to bring much needed luxuries at extortionate prices. And with every Greek now waiting behind their walls, the daring captain was sure to make his destination and reap a rich reward.

  There was a movement on the plain and Agamemnon watched Eurypylus raise his hand and motion towards the camp. With a great shout, the swarm of archers surged forward to within range of the walls. Behind them, the spearmen began to advance and the tramp of their sandalled feet shook the air. Eurypylus’s voice called out a command and hundreds of bows sang out in reply. Agamemnon and Nestor dived down beneath the parapet as arrows whistled overhead, followed by cries of anguish and despair from the men behind the walls.

  The battle had begun.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  THE SHADOW OF ACHILLES

  What does it mean?’ Omeros asked, leaning against the bow rail and staring at the thin columns of smoke twisting up from the shores of Ilium.

  ‘There’s been another battle,’ Diomedes answered.

  ‘Is it Troy?’ Neoptolemus said, shouldering through the crowd of men gathering at the prow of the galley. ‘Are we too late?’

  He seized hold of the bow rail and glared at the dark crust of land, his face filled with concern that the war might be over and his chance of emulating his father gone.

  ‘Perhaps we are,’ Diomedes said, ‘but not because Troy has fallen. That smoke’s coming from the Greek camp.’

  Eperitus put a hand against one of the leather ropes that threaded down from the mast, steadying himself against the roll of the ship. They had sailed through the night, with Odysseus and Sthenelaus navigating their course by the stars as they hurried back to Ilium, and the early morning sun was now rising full in their faces as they forged east across the waves. He shielded his eyes against its glare and tried to make out what the source of the smoke was. Unlike his comrades, to whom the far shore was but a strip of grey cresting the blue of the Aegean, he could see the walls and towers that guarded the Greek camp and the hundreds of black-hulled ships drawn up on the beach behind them. He could see the mounds of burnt wood on the upper reaches of the ridge that hemmed in the camp, from which the dark spires of smoke were rising. And he could see that more columns drifted up from the plain beyond the defences of the Greeks.

  ‘The camp hasn’t been destroyed. There’s been a battle, though; the smoke is from the funeral pyres of the dead. Some are inside the walls, but some are outside, and that can only mean the camp is under siege.’

  Odysseus, who had been at the helm with Sthenelaus, now joined them.

  ‘You’re right, though where Priam found enough soldiers to launch another attack at this late stage in the war I don’t know. But if the Trojans are laying siege to the walls, then we’ll be of more use landing further up the coast, beyond the camp, and seeing what we can do from there.’

  Diomedes gave him a questioning look.

  ‘With sixty Argives? We’d be better landing in the camp and bolstering the defences.’

  ‘You seem to forget I am with you,’ Neoptolemus said. ‘The son of Achilles is worth more than sixty Argives, or even six hundred. If there’s a Trojan army before the walls of the camp, we should attack them from behind and drive them in panic and slaughter back to their own city.’

  Diomedes looked at him for a moment, but despite his greater rank, age and experience decided to concede the point.

  ‘The gods themselves chose you, Neoptolemus,’ he said, giving him a slight bow, ‘and who am I to question their judgement? If you’re ready to stand in your father’s footprints, then it will be a pleasure to fight beside you.’

  Neoptolemus smiled and gripped Diomedes’s hand.

  ‘Then let’s arm for battle.’

  He set off towards the helm, where his splendid armour was kept hidden beneath drapes of sailcloth. Eperitus looked at Odysseus, who shrugged and turned on his heel, shouting orders for a change of course away from the camp and towards Troy.

  As the ship’s crew burst into a brief period of high activity, Eperitus went to the bench where his armour was stowed and pulled on his breastplate. Omeros joined him, helping him with the buckles that held the two halves together. Eperitus glanced across at Neoptolemus, who was struggling to fit the bronze cuirass that Hephaistos had crafted in exact mimicry of Achilles’s muscular torso. An Argive offered his help – doubtless keen to lay his hands on the beautiful armour – but Neoptolemus refused sharply and struggled on. Not for the first time, Eperitus found himself wondering how Neoptolemus would perform in battle, whether he had inherited Achilles’s prowess, pride and thirst for glory, or whether he would wither beneath the great shadow of his father. The only thing Eperitus felt certain of was that Neoptolemus would be a lone warrior, suited more to the heroic duels between champions than the close press of the battle lines, in which each man’s life depended as much on his neighbour as himself.

  By the time the crew were armed and ready to face whatever lay waiting on the plains of Ilium, the shoreline was close enough for them all to see the beached galleys of the Greek fleet to the south-east, the sprawl of tents beyond them and the defensive walls that h
ad been erected on the ridge above. Long trails of smoke still fed upwards from the pyres of the dead, leaning at diagonals with the prevailing westerly wind. But of a besieging army there was no sign, until the moment the galley began its approach towards a small cove a short march north of the Greek camp. Then they heard the familiar hum of massed arrows and saw the sky above the cliffs to the south-east darken as thousands of missiles filled the air. A sense of haste took hold of the galley as the sail was lowered and the oars thrust through their leather loops into the water. The crew rowed the vessel silently into the cove and the anchor stones were cast into the shallow sea. Then they leapt overboard and splashed towards the narrow semicircle of sand.

  Neoptolemus was first to reach the shore and left deep footprints behind him as he sprinted up the beach. He gained the shelf of black rock at the edge of the sand and stopped, waiting, it seemed, for the others to join him. But as Eperitus reached him he realised Neoptolemus’s hesitation had been nothing to do with his comrades. He stood with his feet at the lip of a shallow rock pool, staring down at his reflection on its still surface. Eperitus saw the image in the circle of water and frowned in disbelief. The figure was not Neoptolemus but Achilles, with his distinctive golden hair and beard and the unforgettable face that was both terrifying and wonderful to look upon. As the others gathered around, an awed silence fell over them.

  ‘It’s the ghost of your father,’ Odysseus announced, standing beside Neoptolemus. ‘The gods have placed his image in the pool as a sign to you. You must complete the destiny they denied him, Neoptolemus, and bring about the end of Troy.’

  ‘I have no memory of what he looked like,’ Neoptolemus said. ‘He was just a shadow, flitting about in the furthest corners of my past. And yet I’ve never been able to escape that shadow. My mother, my aunts and my grandfather were always encouraging me to be like him. And now even the immortals want me to replace the man whom they destroyed.’ He set the toe of his sandal against a smooth black pebble and flicked it into the pool, shattering the image in the water. ‘Well, we shall see whether I’m worthy of his legacy or not, and whether I can also make a name for myself. And the place to begin is atop that ridge.’