by Stephen Fry
Sinon’s savage and gleeful chuckling drove the captain of the guard to strike him hard across the face. Priam was about to upbraid him again when another gasping, hacking sound was heard. Laocoön was coming round from his fit. Supported by his sons, he rose unsteadily to his feet and addressed Priam.
‘I beg you, great king. Don’t be fooled. This is all part of the Greeks’ deception. They want you to bring the horse in. Lord Apollo speaks to me, sire, you know he does. I tell you this … I tell you this …’
His voice trailed off, for Priam and the whole court were staring at him in frozen horror. Or rather behind him. Laocoön could not understand it. Only the sea was behind him. He turned to look, but it was too late.
A pair of huge sea serpents had launched themselves from out of the waves. Either side of Laocoön his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus were already being crushed in four colossal tentacles. Two more reached out to coil around him.
The Trojans watched in dumbstruck horror as the serpents pulled their three screaming, thrashing victims into the sea. The men disappeared beneath the waves, a frothing tumult of pleading, outstretched limbs. The whole terrible attack lasted only seconds.
‘And so the gods silence doubters!’ exclaimed Deiphobus with a wild laugh. ‘Father, we can get that horse inside Troy and protect our city and our people for ever.’
‘How?’
‘Simple. Remove the gates from the widest entranceway – that’ll be the Scaean – then demolish the wall around and above it! Just enough to get the horse through. We can board it all up straight away and restore the gates to their former glory soon enough. Oh father, don’t you see? We’ve done it, we’ve done it! We’ve won!’
Deiphobus danced around his father like a five-year-old. Soon other Trojans were dancing too. Before long, messages were being sent back and forth between the horse and the city, and half of Troy came rushing out across the plain.
Garlands of bay and wild flowers were cast over the horse’s neck. Ropes were tied round the lower portion of the front legs and over the head. Trumpets, whistles and drums accompanied the dancing Trojans as, with wild joy, they pulled the horse away from the beach, across the plain, over the Scamander’s chief bridge and up to the Scaean Gate.
If anyone saw Sinon slip away back into the dunes, they did not bother to chase after him. He had served his purpose and could do no harm.
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Odysseus had heard some, but not all, of what had taken place. When the noise of the world outside did reach him, all the separate sounds were fused into a muffled boom that made picking out individual words all but impossible.
It was hot, dark and painfully cramped inside the horse. There were thirty of them in there, crammed in as tight as olives in a jar. Epeius’s vents and ducts were working, but the air that came through was stale and tasted of wood and tar.
The sudden shocking moment when Laocoön had slammed the flat of a sword blade against the wood next to Odysseus’s head had taken him completely by surprise. He had nearly slipped off the narrow wooden bench he shared with nine others. Two more such benches held the other twenty volunteers; all, like him, doing their best not to sneeze, cough, fart, fidget or shift.
So far as Odysseus could tell, Sinon seemed to be playing his part wonderfully. He made out scraps of the Palamedes story being forced out of Sinon just as they had rehearsed it. He heard the whining tone, the highly convincing shrill edge of contempt and disgust in Sinon’s voice. Convincing because Sinon truly did hate Odysseus. No play-acting required. He had hoarded insults and harboured resentment for years. Now he could let all that poison out.
Then came a strange and inexplicable moment. An unearthly screeching, as from some terrible demonic creature, followed by choking human screams and a fraught silence. Had they suddenly turned on Sinon? Were they torturing him?
But no, there was laughter next. Laughter and the sound of music. Suddenly the whole inner frame in which Odysseus and the others sat suspended gave a violent lurch. Only the swift, outstretched arm of young ANTICLUS next to him kept Odysseus from being thrown forward off his bench. He breathed a silent ‘Thank you’ to Anticlus. If he had tumbled down onto the secret trapdoor below, he might have burst through, out of the belly, and landed, back broken, in front of a crowd of Trojans. At the very least, the noise of his fall would surely have been loud enough to ruin everything.
The wrenching jerk was prelude to more shaking and shifting. They were on the move. The Trojans were singing and clashing cymbals, and tugging the horse along the ground, there could be no doubt of it.
Epeius had drilled tiny holes, no bigger than the holes made by woodworm, in the horse’s side at irregular intervals, just enough to allow thin white needles of light to pierce the pitch-black interior. As the horse was dragged over the uneven terrain, the beams darted about revealing eye-whites, teeth and the gleam of swords. Odysseus caught sight of Neoptolemus on the bench opposite, grinning across at him.
‘You’ve done it!’
Odysseus pressed his hands down in the air as if to smother the triumphant excitement. ‘We shall see,’ he mouthed.
The jogging, grating journey across the plain seemed to last for ever. In their time they had all sat on the rowing benches of penteconters, but this was somehow worse. The darkness, the confusion, the terrible possibility that they were being led not to victory but to cruel defeat. At any moment the crunch of axes might come or the furious crackle of fire.
On and on. The scrape and scrabble over rough terrain, the vibrations so violent that Odysseus found himself praying to Hephaestus to keep watch over the horse’s tenons, joints and interior bolts lest they be shifted loose by the incessant jolting and juddering. And all the while the dreadful music: horns, drums, pipes and screeching, tuneless yells. Odysseus told himself these were the sounds of genuine victorious joy. If the Trojans doubted the horse and planned to destroy it, surely the songs and shouts would have a different tone?
Then the swaying, lurching and grinding stopped altogether and a relative silence fell. Voices barked inaudible commands. Then came loud banging. Odysseus thought he recognized the sound of demolition and dared hope that the Trojans had begun work on knocking out a space in the wall big enough for the horse to pass through. Hot globes of sweat were dropping from his chin. The tap-tap sound they made as they slapped onto the skin of his bare knees was unbearably loud.
He heard hissing curses of relief and triumph from the men around him as they thanked the gods. They knew what those noises must mean. Odysseus was sure he could identify the smashing of hammers on walls and the splintering cracks followed by deep thumps that could be made only by blocks of stone breaking up and falling to the ground. And then, after so much more time than Odysseus felt he could account for, they jerked into movement once more, this time on smoother ground. The wooden wheels of the horse’s hoofs trundled freely over flags and paving stones. The cries and calls boomed louder than before. A scream of joy sounded so close to Odysseus’s ear that he almost leapt from his bench again. At first he couldn’t understand it. Then he realized that they must be rolling along through a city street. The belly of the horse would be level with the upper storey or balcony of some shop or dwelling house. Citizens must be crowded everywhere to watch the passage of this huge and extraordinary artefact, the like of which no one had ever seen before. Where would they take it? To the square outside the temple of Athena, he supposed, the one from which he and Diomedes had abstracted the Palladium.
Odysseus laughed silently. This was all so entirely odd. Perhaps it really had been Athena who had planted this idea. It had revealed itself so completely to him. Just as Athena herself had sprung fully armed from the head of her father Zeus, so the idea of the horse had emerged complete to the last detail in his head. Right down to the use of Sinon and the need for the Trojans to think that the last thing the Greeks wanted was for the horse to be taken into Troy. How had such a complex notion come to him? Odysseus allowe
d his head to drop as the thoughts flooded his mind.
‘Sinon and I are both descended from the trickster god Hermes, so perhaps it was more his work than grave, grey-eyed Athena’s? I have to hand it to my cousin: he not only understood and consented to the plan, he saw the need to be bloody and roughed up when the Trojans found him. “No, you must beat me,” he had said. “Break my nose. I wouldn’t have submitted meekly to being sacrificed. To having my throat cut. I’d have fought like a lion. It has to look real.” Now, there was a sacrifice to the cause. Or perhaps Sinon is one of those warped souls who derives pleasure from pain? Agamemnon promised him a giant share of treasure, of course. When this is all over, Sinon will be one of the richest men in the world. Richest commoners, at least. And his name will be remembered for ever. How strange is our mortal zest for fame. Perhaps it is the only way humans can be gods. We achieve immortality not through ambrosia and ichor but through history and reputation. Through statues and epic song. Achilles knew he could live a long and happy life, but chose blood, pain and glory over serene obscurity. I don’t give a fig for fame. If that smug rat Palamedes hadn’t exposed me, I’d be at home with Penelope at this very moment. I’d be teaching young Telemachus how to use a bow and arrow. He is ten years old. Ten. How is that possible? He won’t know who I am. Does Penelope tell him stories about me?’
Odysseus slept.
HELEN’S VOICES
Helen slept too. She had been lost in turbid dreams when the Scaean Gate was knocked down. The approaching din of music and the frenzied clattering of pots and pans in the streets below forced her awake. The maids, pages and slave girls were leaning out of the window, bursting with excitement.
Aethra bustled up, a look of wild excitement in her eyes. ‘Oh, madam my love, come and see, come and see!’
Helen went and saw and thought she must still be dreaming.
The rest of the day and early evening went by like a dream too. Never had she witnessed such crazed celebration and feasting. The wine and grain jars in every storeroom were struck open without a care. The smell of baking bread filled the palace and streets. Outside the city walls she could hear an endless succession of distant bellowing screams as more and more sheep and oxen were slaughtered. The music and the singing never stopped. Troy had turned mad.
Every so often she went to the window and looked out towards the sea. It really was true. Not a Greek ship in sight. How often she had looked and tried to make out which one might have the yellow and black markings of Sparta.
Now Menelaus was on his way home, and she would never see him or her daughter Hermione again. All she had to look forward to were the clumsy attentions of Deiphobus and the sad smiles of Priam, Hecuba and Andromache. ‘We don’t blame you, Helen. Truly we don’t.’ But truly they must. How could they not?
She did her best to look as happy as the rest of the royal family that night, but the moment she was able to make her excuses she slipped away to her chambers, bolting the door against the drunken intrusion of Deiphobus. Her husband, as she supposed she must call him. Her third and worst. Or fourth, should she count Theseus. That was a lifetime ago. Her brothers had been alive to rescue her then.
From her window she could just see the ears of that extraordinary wooden horse. They were pricked up above the roofline. Really the oddest sight.
When Helen finally fell asleep, Aphrodite came to her in a wild and vivid dream.
‘Goddess, I have nothing to say to you.’
‘Impudent child. Do as you are bid this once and I will leave you to your sour matronly chastity for ever after. But for this evening you are mine. I will not see great Troy fall to so mean a trick.’
‘What must I do?’ Helen moaned, tossing her head on the pillow.
Aphrodite told her and Helen rose. For the rest of her life she could never be sure if she had been asleep when she walked and talked that night. She had heard of people who could weave, fetch water and carry on whole conversations while snared in the coils of Hypnos, so it was quite possible. She certainly preferred to think she had slept through the whole thing.
She stood outside Deiphobus’s room, calling his name. He opened the door and smiled a woozily grateful smile.
‘My dear husband, I have neglected you.’ He started to pull her in, but she took a quick step back. ‘First I must put my mind to rest. That great horse. I don’t trust it. Come with me, my love. Let us examine it more closely. Come, come!’
They hurried down out of the palace and through the streets. Some late revellers were winding their way home. Others had fallen drunkenly, and snored where they lay.
‘It is too good to be true, surely?’ she said. ‘It all smells of Odysseus to me. Suppose there are men inside? I think maybe there are.’
‘We looked for signs of an opening,’ said Deiphobus. ‘Smooth all round. No trapdoors.’
‘You don’t know Odysseus.’
‘Then let us burn it down.’
‘There is a better way. You remember how well I imitate voices?’
‘Of course.’
Everyone in Troy had marvelled at Helen’s gift of mimicry. She could reproduce perfectly the voices of Hecuba and Andromache, even Hector’s baby boy, the infant Astyanax.
‘That’s how I’ll flush them out. Oh, but it is huge!’
The horse loomed above them, its gold tassels, glittering eyes and silver-bronze fittings gleaming in the moonlight.
‘Whoa there, my proud beauty,’ said Deiphobus with a laugh, jumping up to spank the rump.
Odysseus woke with a start.
He heard the men around him stirring. Something had struck the horse behind his head. A weak slap, but enough to alert them all. And then … had he gone mad?
Penelope was calling to him.
‘Odysseus, my darling! It’s me. I’m here. Come out. It’s me, Penelope, come down and kiss me, my love.’
He stiffened. This was witchcraft. Penelope had spoken to him in his dreams, but this was waking life. He drew out the dagger from his belt and pricked his thigh with a sharp jab. He was not dreaming. This was real.
There she was again.
‘My darling …’
Maybe it was a god. They could see into the horse and must know who was concealed there. Was this the voice of Aphrodite? Or Artemis, perhaps. One of them trying to save the city they loved.
‘Agamemnon, my husband, are you there? It’s me, your sweet Clytemnestra …’
Odysseus breathed out in relief. It could not be the gods. They, who saw everything, would know that Agamemnon had departed last night for Tenedos with the Achaean fleet and could not possibly be in the horse. He and the rest of the Greek armies should be sailing back by now and be close to the Trojan shore, if not already disembarking and preparing to attack.
Odysseus allowed a sharp ‘sh!’ to escape his lips as a warning to the others to stay quiet.
‘Diomedes? It’s me, darling man, your Aegialia.fn2 Step down, it’s quite safe.’
Odysseus heard Diomedes, two along from him, swear under his breath but otherwise keep still. More voices came drifting up, pleading, cooing, seducing. The men held firm, until …
‘Anticlus, my honey, it’s your Laodamia. Come down and kiss me. I’ve so much to tell you. Our son is quite the little man now; you’ve no idea what he did …’
Anticlus let out a cry of surprise. Odysseus pinched his arm and hissed for him to be quiet. Anticlus was the youngest of the thirty men in the horse, brave as a lion but known to be impulsive.
‘Anticlus? You know it’s me. How can you be so cruel? Don’t you love me any more?’
Anticlus started to call out her name and Odysseus instantly clamped a hand over his mouth and held it there. He could feel the young man’s hot breath and muffled attempts to shout. He pressed harder and harder. Anticlus bucked and tried to wriggle free but Odysseus was firm. When he was sure that Anticlus was still and no longer resisting, it was too late. Anticlus was dead. Odysseus had smothered the life from him.
Down at street level Deiphobus was getting bored. He longed to take Helen to bed.
‘There’s no one there. Let’s go back.’
He took her by the hand and tugged her away.
As they entered the palace, the dream, or Aphrodite’s hypnotic trance, or whatever it had been that had wrapped her in its snare, left her and Helen was suddenly very aware and very cold and very angry. Deiphobus pulled her towards his apartments and she struck him across the face with all her might and ran up the steps to her own rooms.
‘I nearly betrayed them all …’ she said to herself, despairing. ‘Haven’t I done enough harm?’
If there really were men in the horse, then that could only mean that the Greek ships must be lying at sea close by and due to return this very night. She put a lighted lamp at her window, facing out towards the sea. She passed her hands over the flame, hoping that it might make for a signal. Somewhere out there Menelaus would be waiting to come and take her home.
Home! Was there ever such a word?
Inside the horse Odysseus listened hard. No sounds came up from below. He dared to speak in a low voice, just loud enough for everyone inside to hear. To his ears his voice erupted inside the cavernous belly.
‘So far, so good. It must be the middle of the night by now. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ whispered Diomedes. ‘It is time.’
‘Epeius, unfasten the trap.’
Odysseus heard Epeius drop softly down. There was a scratching sound, followed by a squeaking. An oblong of light opened up below them. Odysseus heard a shuffling scrape, which he knew must be Epeius pulling at the ladder.
ECHEON, son of Portheus, gave a cry of triumph and leapt down.
‘Wait!’ hissed Odysseus. The ladder was not yet in position. Echeon fell straight through. They heard his body hit the flagstones below with a sickening crunch.
‘Idiot!’ thought Odysseus. When he saw that Epeius had successfully lowered the ladder, he called out in an urgent whisper. ‘Go down in orderly turns.’