Troy: A Brand of Fire

by Ben Blake

  *

  Menestheus jumped down from his ship, once the prow had been driven high on the beach by the oarsmen. Nestor, not young anymore, had to climb carefully down a rope ladder thrown over the side. He splashed out of the water to join the younger king, who was shading his eyes to look southwards.

  “I think we have a welcoming committee,” Menestheus said.

  Nestor nodded. “Chariots. I saw them from the deck.”

  “A lot of chariots, then,” Menestheus added.

  He had his bard with him, the storyteller from Magnesia who’d gained such a high reputation over the past years. Thersites climbed down a rope ladder too, making heavier work of it than Nestor had. He was puffing like a bellows by the time his feet reached the water. When he limped up to join the kings Nestor was struck by how misshapen he looked: his shoulders seemed too far forward, or his chest too concave, as though something huge had struck him there and driven his ribcage back into his spine. Stringy hair hung in his eyes. He didn’t look healthy enough to survive a winter, but he hobbled onto the sand and stared south with an alert enough expression.

  The third galley ran its nose onto the strand a little way from them, and Menelaus leapt down almost before it stopped moving. He strode over to join them, also shading his eyes. “Bind my tongue, can you believe that city?”

  “I don’t have to,” Nestor said. “Troy exists, whether I believe in it or not.”

  The red-haired man frowned at him. “Stop being clever, Nestor. You know what I meant.”

  “It’s… remarkable,” Thersites said.

  Nestor eyed him for a moment. The hollow-chested man was a marvellous bard, with the sort of deep rolling voice that could make a stone hall seem someplace else: the tilting deck of a storm-wracked ship, or the mountain heights with a lion stalking somewhere among the boulders. Half-drunk, belching men on benches became a company to rival the heroes of mighty Argo, and felt themselves so too, for as long as Thersites spoke. But besides all that, Nestor had the sneaking suspicion that the storyteller was clever. He liked wit and guile, admired them in a man, but Nestor only liked them in a man he trusted, and he was by no means sure of Thersites.

  “Perhaps it is remarkable,” he said, “but it’s still only one city. It would fit three times into Mycenae, or your own Athens, Menestheus.”

  Menelaus was craning his head back to stare at the walls. Troy was still half a mile distant, but even so it seemed to loom over them, casting a shadow as far as the sea and then beyond. “I wouldn’t like to try to capture it, I’ll tell you that. Any king would lose a lot of men if he tried.”

  That was a true Greek talking, Nestor reflected. The first thought in his head was how to fight the city, not how it had been built, or what could be learned from its people. No, Menelaus was a Greek of the old school, and what he considered important was how to destroy it if the need arose. Or simply the desire. He would have been right at home alongside the fathead Theseus, or Perseus who’d had nothing but bone between his ears.

  The chariots were approaching. Several Greeks jumped down from the ships with spears in their hands, ready to form a wall around their kings, but at a word from Menestheus his soldiers fell back a few paces. The others copied them, though they remained wary. More found idle work to do near the bows of the ships, far enough away not to threaten but close enough to react quickly. Nestor was sure there would be bows hidden just out of sight, beneath the rails. They wouldn’t be necessary, but he couldn’t blame the men for their caution.

  There were thirty chariots. Thirty; even Agamemnon himself couldn’t put so many into the field. Each had three horses, where a Greek chariot would have only two, and just by watching them approach Nestor could see they were faster. His own kingdom of Messenia actually had some good grasslands, a rare thing in Greece, and he owned a fair herd of horses himself. But he didn’t have enough, in quantity or quality, to match this.

  He’d been a charioteer of note in his day, the finest in Greece some said. In honesty Nestor thought that might have been true, when he was young and strong. And he would have given half his soul to drive a chariot such as these, just once, just to feel the acceleration and see the sinews pulling in the horses ahead of the car. In the three horses. Zeus in his Black Cloud, he’d rick half his soul to feel that now, even aged and past his prime.

  The lead chariot slowed, then drew to a halt just in front of the kings. A tall man in a kilt and patterned shirt swung down, wearing boots laced to just below the knee. Blue eyes looked out from beneath sandy hair, and Nestor guessed who this was even before he spoke.

  “My lords!” the charioteer said. He bowed to each of them, a little awkward making the Greek-style obeisance but not overly so. “I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here in Troy. My father will be delighted you’ve come. I am Hector.”

  Thought so, Nestor said to himself. Watching the Trojan turn on the balls of his feet he felt a murmur of unease. He had indeed been a fighting man in his day, and he recognised a warrior when he saw one. It was something in the balance, in the poise, the same air of restrained speed and danger you sensed in a dozing leopard. Hector overflowed with it. By their sudden stillness the other two kings had noticed it as well.

  “These are my friends,” Hector said, indicating the next two chariots in line. “Aeneas of Dardanos, and Pandarus from Zeleia. We would be honoured if you would ride with us back to the city, one of you with each of us. We will inform your men where to bring your belongings.”

  “Most gracious,” Nestor said. Menelaus, less comfortable with his tongue, only gave a curt nod.

  “I will need my advisor Thersites, of course,” Menestheus said.

  “This is he?” The sight of the crippled man didn’t even cause Hector to blink. “But of course! Crino, you can offer him a ride. Remember he’s an honoured guest. Treat him as you would a king.”

  Thersites looked surprised, for a moment. Nestor wasn’t sure whether that was real or faked; he was going to have to speak to that young man, to take his measure. For now he had other things to think about.

  The Trojans were certainly doing them honour, but there was more to it than that. Hector was known as the greatest warrior of the Troas, perhaps of the whole of Anatolia. There were rumours that he’d won the Hittite victory against Assyria last summer almost on his own. In Greece fighting men spoke in hushed voices of Achilles, and the deeds he’d done from Thrace to Egypt, Phoenicia to Crete; in the east, they did the same for Hector. Like Achilles they said he was a charmer, a friend to all, who could make doubting men eager for the chance to fight for him. Seeing his smile, Nestor could believe it.

  As for Aeneas, he was king of Dardanos, and a fine warrior in his own right. Pandarus was a name Nestor knew too, as the lord of one of the Trojan towns in the interior, and a warrior who had cleaned out the last stubborn bandits from the hills – and kept them out. That last was a great achievement, and it had meant safe roads and rapid travel between Troy and the southern cities of Lyrnos and Pedasos, and beyond to greater prizes like Pergamum and wealthy Ephesus. Safe roads meant more trade, more trade meant more coin. The passage down the Scamander valley had always been fraught with risk before. Now, thanks to hulking Pandarus, it no longer was.

  Something was building here. The Trojans were spreading out, founding new towns and expanding old ones, filling up the land with bustle and business and driving the old days out. They’d reached down the coast to Leris, and up the Scamander to Thymbra and then Zeleia. Nestor had heard they had pushed east along the Simois valley and built a town on the river Granicus, fifty miles from Troy itself. Not all the people in those towns would really be Trojans, of course. But they all called themselves Trojans. They paid loyalty to Priam and taxes to his treasury, and in return he kept them safe and made them wealthy.

  Nestor tried to work out how big Troas was. Much larger than any single Greek kingdom, that was for sure; perhaps as big as Laconia, Messenia and Arcadia all added together. More f
ertile, too. Wealthier by nature. Powerful enough, perhaps, to face all Greece one day.

  He felt a cold finger touch his heart at the thought.

  But he was thinking like Menelaus, in terms of warriors and military power. The Trojans were too, which was why they had their three best fighting men here to meet the Greek kings, but that was unusual for them. They were normally more subtle; this display of strength must be their attempt to show the visiting Greeks something they would all understand. That was unsettling, too. Troy had never felt the need to brag about her military power before.

  He had to admit he was uneasy. He made sure no sign of it showed in his expression as he climbed up on Aeneas’ chariot and braced his feet, but he resolved to keep himself as alert as he could manage while he was in Troy. If Menestheus did the same, and perhaps the odd bard Thersites as well, they would spy out enough to work out what was actually going on here.

  Hector called an order, and the long line of trigas began to move along the dusty road to Troy.