Beware of Greeks

by Peter Tonkin

***

  ‘His mother, Queen Thetis,’ answered Odysseus as we came level with the rhapsode’s stool at the corner of the fire-pit. ‘She announces that Achilles is almost certainly on Mount Pelion with his old tutor then pretends to sail north in search of him. Actually, she turns south and catches up with Dion’s ship at Skopelos. She takes the chance of killing the apprentice there behind the screen of bushes designed to give her privacy and has two of her handmaidens get rid of the body. She moves from one ship to another and next morning as Dion’s ship fights to pull free of a powerful west-flowing current and all hands are either at the oars or the sails, she stabs the rhapsode and pushes him overboard. In the confusion of changing course, no-one notices until it is too late to even think of attempting a rescue. She arrives at Skyros and sends word to Lycomedes. A well-armed contingent of her men is hidden in the city just outside the gates to the citadel. No-one notices except for one drunken watch-keeper on Nerites. She and her women are taken to the palace and vanish into the harem where she immediately seeks to control her son. But as she does so, she discovers to her horror that Lycomedes is not the only one with a deadly secret.’

  ‘Who has a secret?’ I asked as we passed the fire pit and pushed towards the opening of the passageway. ‘And why is it so deadly?’

  ‘The secret is simple and the young man tells it to his mother, as who would not?’ said Odysseus. ‘But it is not only Achilles’ secret. It is Deidamia’s and she dare not tell her parents. Indeed, she dare not tell anyone except her old nurse Rhea. She has lost her virginity to Achilles. Whether Patroclus and he are lovers or not, he finds the young princess irresistible. She has returned his passion, become his secret lover and is pregnant with his child.’[IW5]

  ‘And that changed everything?’ Asked Ajax. ‘How so?’ He pushed out of the megaron into the constricted corridor. People turned to look at who was shoving them and when they saw who it was, they started giving way.

  ‘I assume Deidamia warned Achilles and he passed the message on to his mother, that if King Lycomedes found out his beloved daughter was carrying Achilles’ child then he would throw Achilles and Patroclus out without a second thought. The hold Thetis had over him, Theseus’ murder, happened long ago and in the face of this immediate situation, the king would not hesitate. Suddenly Queen Thetis’ motivation changed. In the short term at least, while she worked out how best to proceed, she had to stop anyone else discovering the truth about Deidamia’s baby. Her task was complicated by Achilles himself. Being locked away was beginning to irritate him beyond measure. He needed someone of his own age to talk to; someone other than Patroclus and Deidamia. And someone suddenly appeared.’

  ‘Me,’ rumbled Ajax. ‘But he never…’ he slowed and looked back at us in confusion. We were about level with the door into his room; however he had all-but stopped moving.

  ‘He never got the chance,’ explained Odysseus, pushing the big man forward once again. ‘Thetis would have found ways to stop him. Achilles would have known you were in the palace, though, and he would have been trying to have a word with you in secret no matter what his mother was up to. Thetis was torn with worry: had Achilles managed to see you without her knowing? What had he told you? Had he given away any secrets? Thetis could not be sure what you knew, so she took what she thought to be the safest way.’

  ‘She poisoned me.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Then murdered Hesira the physician for saving me despite her?’

  ‘It was more complicated than that,’ said Odysseus. ‘Deidamia was young and pregnant; too scared to tell anyone other than her nurse and her lover. Someone—probably Rhea herself—must have suggested that Hesira should be warned of the situation and then sworn to silence. But Hesira seemed untrustworthy to Thetis. He had too much freedom of movement. His first loyalties were to the princess’ parents, not to the princess herself. He was simply too much of a risk. I believe it was not so much that he saved you, Ajax, but the fact that the confusion around your poisoning in the first place gave her an opportunity that was too good to miss. And so she took it.’

  ‘But Rhea? Why harm the princess’ only friend?’ I wondered.

  ‘I’m certain it was Rhea who advised warning the doctor. The situation must have seemed too dangerous to the old woman. She was not a midwife, remember, only a nurse. And she suddenly found herself in the presence of someone who had lost six babies one after the other. What if something similar should happen to her beloved princess? The pressure to warn someone else in the court must have been overwhelming. Thetis would have seen this, I’m, certain. And acted in the only way she had to hand.’

  ‘The hemlock in the honey cakes?’ I asked, glancing away up the passageway where we had first seen the two veiled figures trying to reach Ajax’s room – who I realised must have been Achilles and Patroclus, disturbed in their mission to have a word with Ajax.

  ‘The hemlock in the honey cakes’ confirmed Odysseus.

  ‘But why the cakes—why send them to the Princess. Was she also to be murdered?’ I asked.

  ‘No, lad. The one thing Queen Thetis knows more about than almost any queen is being pregnant; she’s done it seven times after all. Pregnant women have desires that would seem strange were they not carrying a child. Things they must eat and things they cannot bear. I’m convinced she sent honey-cakes to the princess knowing full well even the smell of them would sicken her and she would pass them on to Rhea with her sweet tooth.’

  ‘But the moment you unmasked Achilles and Patroclus everything changed again,’ rumbled Ajax.

  ‘Yes. I should have seen the outcome before I took the action. It was far more dangerous than I thought it would be. Thetis only pretended to run away. She never did. She now has another victim entirely in mind.

  ‘Who?’ asked Ajax as we pushed through at last onto the marble-flagged balcony behind Lycomedes’ palace.

  ‘Achilles himself,’ answered Odysseus.

  v

  ‘Achilles?’ I said, horrified. ‘She’s going to kill Achilles!’

  ‘No, lad,’ Odysseus gave a grim laugh. ‘That would rather defeat her objective. She has been unable to stop the two old kings, even with her hold over the murderous Lycomedes. She has failed in her next objective of keeping Deidamia’s pregnancy secret. Now she is threatening the one man who can stop everything she’s so worried about with a single word.’

  ‘And that is Achilles?’ I asked, still unable to believe what he was saying. So surprised, indeed, that I did not register the vast emptiness that now surrounded us—perhaps also because we were still at the back of a crowd and not really able to see what was going on.

  ‘Achilles himself,’ nodded Odysseus, still forcing us forward in Ajax’s wake. ‘In this situation his strength is his weakness. Perhaps only a mother would see it and only someone as desperate as Thetis would use it. Achilles is motivated by honour. He is, indeed, the very personification of honour. If he swears to something, not even the gods themselves can make him break his word. So her plotting is all reduced to this one thing in the end. To make Achilles swear that he will never go to Troy.’

  ‘But how will she do that if he’s so keen to go?’ I asked as we forced ourselves through the silent crowd, close behind Ajax, right to the very front. But then the huge warrior stepped aside and the answer to my question became obvious. Queen Thetis was standing on the very edge of the abyssal drop that lay beneath the end of the flagged ledge. She was turned almost sideways-on to the crowd, at whose centre, close to where we were standing, were King Lycomedes, Queen Larisa and Nestor, with the vivid figures of Patroclus and Achilles beside them. Queen Thetis was holding Princess Deidamia right on the lip of the precipice. A gentle tug would bring her back to safety. A gentle shove would send her over to her death.

  ‘Momus, god of irony, must be laughing at this must he not, Lycomedes?’ called Thetis across the stunned silence of the crowd as it stood watching her, horrified. ‘That what established you so safely on your t
hrone puts you in such a position now? The gentlest of pushes! Even gentler than the push you gave old Theseus, I would wager.’

  ‘What do you want, Queen Thetis?’ demanded Lycomedes, his voice trembling.

  ‘Why, to talk to one of the lovely ladies of your harem, Your Majesty. To talk to my beautiful son!’

  Achilles stepped forward, tall, slim and straight as a reed in his dress of Tyrian purple, his gold curls glinting as the wind ran through them and the sun struck them. ‘I am here, Mother. What do you want?’

  ‘Your word,’ whispered Odysseus; and indeed, his lips moved in time with the speakers’ through much of the following conversation as though he were the puppet-master and the other two were his puppets.

  ‘Your word!’ spat Queen Thetis.

  ‘On what, Mother?’

  ‘You know very well! Your word that you will never follow Agamemnon to Troy!’

  ‘Consider, Mother,’ said Achilles. ‘If I give my word on this and abide by it as you know I will, then it is likely that my father will have to go in my place and the kingdom will be ruined.’

  ‘Nonsense! You will rule in Peleus’ place! Phthia will come to no harm by his absence. Besides, he will send General Argeiphontes with the army that so nearly bested your Myrmidons when Prince Ajax and the two kings were watching!’

  ‘That has to have been a pretence, Mother. It can only be that my Myrmidons held back from destroying General Argeiphontes’ men because the king my father requested it! Agamemnon will see through such a sham at once—assuming Ajax, Odysseus and Nestor have not done so already and do not tell him what they know! He will see through the pretence and have his revenge on Phthia. You should have no doubt about that.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ shouted the desperate woman. ‘If your father the king goes to Troy and dies beneath its walls or sends General Argeiphontes to do so and Phthia runs to ruin because of Agamemnon’s anger, you will still be safe! Safe! That is all I desire!’

  ‘I am a soldier, Mother! I was born to lead the Myrmidons. If I do not lead them to Troy, I will lead them to some other battlefield at some other time. It is my destiny and I cannot escape it by giving you my word. I cannot escape it, live or die.’

  ‘Very well then!’ Snarled Thetis. ‘We will have the first casualty of this war you are so keen to join! Prepare to watch your pretty mistress die!’ She tensed to push Deidamia over the edge.

  ‘Just a moment, Your Majesty,’ said Odysseus stepping forward. ‘I have a suggestion to make, if you will do me the honour of listening to it.

  ***

  ‘Well?’ snarled Thetis, by no means pleased by this interruption.

  ‘I would suggest, Majesty,’ said Odysseus smoothly, ‘that you are holding in your hands the solution to your problem.’

  Queen Thetis looked at the terrified princess as though she was surprised to find her there. ‘This child? How is she the answer to anything?’

  ‘In herself, she is not, Majesty. But what lies within her might well be.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ demanded Thetis.

  ‘You are, quite understandably, fearful for the future of your son,’ said Odysseus. ‘These are dangerous days, full of calls to battle and preparations for war. Such things as tempt young men thirsty for glory and dangerous immortality. But the Princess there holds a surety for you. She bears your son’s son. Your grandson who may be raised in peace and safety well away from these perilous times. A boy whose mother—or grandmother—might lavish all the love she may no longer be able to offer the boy’s father. All it will take is a wedding.’

  Thetis looked at the princess speculatively, though she did not yet pull her back from the edge. ‘My son’s son,’ she said. ‘And what if this whimpering creature has a daughter?’

  ‘Then I would suggest that you might ask your son to give you his word on that matter. That if the princess is delivered of a daughter, then prince Achilles will return from whatever battlefield he is fighting in to remain by your side for as long as you wish. General Eudorus can lead the Myrmidons in his absence.’

  Queen Thetis stood silently, her mind clearly racing.

  ‘Majesty, it is a bargain you cannot possibly lose,’ persisted Odysseus. ‘Either you have the prospect of many joyful years of raising your son’ son alongside the princess his mother, or you have the prospect of many joyful years with your son and his wife, raising your grand-daughter instead.’

  ‘And would you give your word on that Achilles?’ As Thetis turned to face her son and ask the question, she pulled the princess back from the edge of the precipice apparently without thinking.

  ‘I would, Mother. I give my word that when the princess is delivered of our child, wherever I am and in whatever I am engaged, be it battle or preparation for battle, be it in Achaea or Asia, be it Troy or any of the cities of the Troad or the Trojan islands, I will return if the child is a girl and remain at your side and Deidamia’s while we raise her as a princess of Phthia. But if my wife is delivered of a son, then you and my father together with my wife may have the raising of him.’

  ‘In Phthia!’ snapped Lycomedes. ‘Why in Phthia?’

  ‘It is traditional for the bride to go to the husband’s house, Majesty,’ said Achilles. ‘Besides, how could I want my daughter or my son to be raised at the court of the murderer who pushed the great King Theseus off a cliff?’

  ‘I am satisfied,’ announced Thetis. She pulled Deidamia right away from the edge and pushed her towards Achilles. ‘You may take your princess and have your wedding. Take your Myrmidons and go your way. But she comes to me in Phthia before she comes to term!’

  Even Ajax had had trouble pushing through the crowd to get us here from the gates but the throng seemed simply to melt before Queen Thetis as she strode through the palace to the circular courtyard that fronted it. Achilles and Deidamia, Lycomedes and Larisa, Ajax, Nestor, Odysseus and I followed closely behind them. By the time we came out of the great entrance, Thetis had crossed the courtyard and mounted her chariot—his time for real. She turned away from us, grasped the front, and never looked back as Hypatios drove her out through the gates.

  I looked across the crowd as the chariot vanished down the hill. Beside us at the front of the palace, Achilles was standing with Deidamia’s head on his shoulder. His left arm was clasped gently round her waist. In his right fist he still held the sword he snatched up in the moment Odysseus’ trap revealed his true identity. Patroclus stood beside him, also embracing one of the princesses, this one wearing an indigo veil; he was also clutching the sword which had given him away. King Lycomedes and Queen Larisa stood side by side as though stunned and Captain Adonis worked at mustering and re-arming his men now that the invaders had gone with their queen. I looked at Odysseus. ‘And so she has won,’ I said. ‘All those murders, achieved and attempted, all to ensure that one thing which she now has won! Her heart’s desire, and not a whiff of punishment! It makes you doubt the Fates! The gods themselves! How could such evil win such happiness?’

  ‘I don’t think you quite understand, lad,’ said Odysseus. ‘What has all the stabbing, slitting and poisoning actually won for her in the end? Somebody else’s baby. It will never be her own; flesh of her flesh. I have no doubt Deidamia will be delivered of a son—how could it be otherwise? But she will never dote on him as she doted on her Achilles. And even if he turns out to be Achilles reborn, she must share him with his mother if not with his father. And if he is Achilles reborn, then she will simply have to go through this terrible heartache all over again in twenty years or so, for there will always be wars and a son like Achilles’ son will always be hungry for glory.

  ‘And in the meantime, what has she really won? She will still have the terror she will feel with every report from whatever battlefield her golden boy is fighting on. She will still dream every night that he is dying or dead. Still look for his death in every augury and oracle. Still waste her life praying to gods, who are all too deaf, that they should protect him, k
eep him safe from terrible Thanatos. And she will do all this in the sure and certain knowledge that one day her nightmares will come true. One day the report will come. In the mud and the blood of some far field Achilles will have fallen. And her seventh son will have joined his six brothers and all of them at last are dead.’

  SOURCES

  Major source:

  The Iliad new Penguin edition tr Martin Hammond

  Also tr Caroline Alexander

  Also tr E V Rieu

  Also tr George Chapman

  The Odyssey tr E V Rieu

  Online etc:

  Michael Wood In Search of The Trojan War (BBC)

  Ancient History Documentary The True Story of Troy An Ancient War.

  The Trojan War & Homeric Warfare

  The Trojan War - Myth or Fact

  The Truth about TROY

  Great Battles: Was there a Trojan War? Recent Excavations at Troy

  Naue II: Mycenaean Bronze Sword Tests

  The Trojan War Episode 2: Weapons and Armour During The Trojan War

  Academic sources:

  The Book of Swords Richard Francis Burton

  Mediterranean Portrait of a Sea. Ernle Bradford

  Greek Mythology – The complete guide

  Bulfinch’s Mythology Thomas Bulfinch

  The War That Killed Achilles Caroline Alexander

  The Wooden Horse – The liberation of the Western mind from Odysseus to Socrates Keld Zeruneith

  The Wooden Horse - Some Possible Bronze Age Origins - I. Singer (ed), Luwian and Hittite Studies.

  Creative sources:

  The Silence of the Girls Pat Barker

  The Song of Troy Colleen McCullough

  The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller

  Troy Adele Geras

  NB All ‘Songs’ are based on Ancient Greek poems adapted from various translations.