The Song of Troy

by Colleen McCullough

I swallowed. All the world knew of Herakles and Theseus; the bards sang their deeds incessantly. Aiakos, father of the stripling Telamon, had rebuilt our western wall. How many other famous names were there in that little band of Greeks?

  Such was the power in that single word Herakles that even my miserly father was moved to put himself out, give the famous Greek a royal welcome. So that afternoon a feast was laid out in the Great Hall, with unlimited food and wine off gold plate, and harpers, dancers and tumblers to provide entertainment. If I had been awed, so too was my father; every Greek in the party of Herakles was a king in his own right. Why, therefore, I wondered, were they content to follow a man who laid no claim to any throne? Who had mucked out stables? Who had been gnawed, bitten and chewed by every kind of creature from gnat to lion?

  I sat at the high table with Herakles on my left and the lad Telamon on my right; my father sat between Herakles and Theseus. Though the imminence of Hesione’s sacrificial death overshadowed our hospitality, it was so well concealed that I told myself our Greek guests had noticed nothing. Talk flowed smoothly, for they were cultivated men, properly educated in everything from mental arithmetic to the words of the poets they, like us, committed to memory. Only what kind of man was a Greek underneath that?

  There was little contact between the nations of Greece and the nations of Asia Minor, which included Troy. Nor, as a rule, did we of Asia Minor care for Greeks. They were notoriously devious people famed for their insatiable curiosity, so much we knew; but these men must have been outstanding even among their own Greek kind, for the Greeks chose their Kings for reasons other than blood.

  My father in particular did not care for Greeks. Of late years he had formulated treaties with the various kingdoms of Asia Minor giving them most of the trade between the Euxine and the Aegaean Seas, which meant that he had severely restricted the number of Greek trading vessels allowed to pass through the Hellespont. Not Mysia and Lydia, not Dardania and Karia, not Lykia and Kilikia wanted to share trade with the Greeks, for the simplest of reasons: somehow the Greeks always outwitted them, emerged with better bargains. And my father did his part by keeping Greek merchants out of the black waters of the Euxine. All the emeralds, sapphires, rubies, gold and silver from Kolchis and Skythia travelled to the nations of Asia Minor; the few Greek traders my father licensed had to concentrate their efforts upon fetching tin and copper from Skythia.

  Herakles and company, however, were far too well bred to discuss incendiary topics like trade embargoes. They confined their conversation to admiring remarks about our high-walled city, the size of the Citadel and the beauty of our women – though this last they could gauge only from the female slaves who walked among the tables ladling stews, doling out bread and meats, pouring wine.

  From women the talk veered naturally to horses; I waited for Herakles to broach the matter, for I had seen those shrewd black eyes appreciating the quality of my white horses.

  ‘The horses which drew your son’s chariot today were truly magnificent, sire,’ said Herakles at last. ‘Not even Thessalia can boast such stock. Do you ever offer them for sale?’

  My father’s face took on its avaricious look. ‘Yes, they are lovely, and I do sell them – but I fear you would find the price prohibitive. I ask and get a thousand gold talents for a good mare.’

  Herakles shrugged his mighty shoulders, face rueful. ‘I could perhaps afford the price, sire, but there are more important things I have to buy. What you ask is a king’s ransom.’

  He did not mention the horses again.

  As the evening drew on and the light began to fail my father started to sag, remembering that on the morrow his daughter would be led to her death. Herakles put his hand on my father’s arm.

  ‘King Laomedon, what ails you?’

  ‘Nothing, my lord, nothing at all.’

  Herakles smiled that peculiarly sweet smile. ‘Great King, I know the look that worry wears. Tell me!’

  And out tumbled the story, though of course Father put himself in a better light than the actual facts dictated: he was plagued by a lion belonging to Poseidon, the priests had ordered the sacrifice of six maidens each spring and autumn, and the choice of this autumn’s victims included his most beloved child, Hesione.

  Herakles looked thoughtful. ‘What was it the priests said? No Trojan hand can be raised to oppose the beast?’

  The King’s eyes gleamed. ‘Specifically Trojan, my lord.’

  ‘Then your priests cannot object if a Greek hand is raised against the beast, can they?’

  ‘A logical conclusion, Herakles.’

  Herakles glanced at Theseus. ‘I have killed many lions,’ he said, ‘including the one of Nemea whose pelt I wear.’

  My father burst into tears. ‘Oh, Herakles, rid us of this curse! If you did, we would be very much in your debt. I speak not only for myself, but for my people. They have suffered the loss of thirty-six daughters.’

  Pleasurable anticipation crawling through me, I waited; Herakles was no fool, he would not offer to dispose of a God-sent lion without some compensation for himself.

  ‘King Laomedon,’ the Greek said loudly enough for heads to turn, ‘I will strike a bargain with you. I will kill your lion in return for a pair of your horses, one stallion and one mare.’

  What could my father do? Neatly forced into a corner by the public nature of this overture, he had no choice other than to agree to the price, or have word of his heartless selfishness spread throughout his Court – his relatives close and remote. So he nodded in a fair imitation of joy. ‘If you succeed in killing the lion, Herakles, I will give you what you ask.’

  ‘So be it.’ Herakles sat very still, eyes wide and unseeing; nor did they blink, or notice what went on. Then he sighed, recollected himself, looked not at the King but at Theseus. ‘We will go tomorrow, Theseus. My father says the lion will come at noon.’

  Even the other Greeks at table with him appeared awed.

  Delicate wrists loaded down with golden chains, ankles ringed with golden fetters, dressed in the finest robes and with their hair freshly curled and their eyes painted, the six girls waited for the priests to come in the courtyard fronting the temple of Poseidon Maker of Walls. Hesione my half-sister was among them, calm and resigned, though the little twitch at one corner of her tender mouth betrayed her inner fear. The air was filled with the wailing and keening of parents and relatives, the clink of heavy manacles, the quick breathing of six young and terrified girls. I stayed only to kiss Hesione, then left; she knew nothing of the attempt Herakles was going to make to save her.

  Perhaps the reason I did not tell her was because even then I suspected we would not rid ourselves of the curse so easily – that if Herakles did kill the lion, Poseidon Lord of the Seas might replace him with something much worse. Then my misgivings evaporated in the rush of getting from the shrine to the small door at the back of the Citadel where Herakles had assembled his party. He had chosen two helpers only for the hunt: the hoary warrior Theseus and the shaveling Telamon. At the last moment he lingered to have speech with another of his band, the Lapith King Pirithoos; I overheard him telling Pirithoos to take everyone to the Skaian Gate at noon and wait there. He was in a hurry to leave, then, which I understood; the Greeks were going to the lands of the Amazons to steal the girdle of their queen, Hippolyta, before winter.

  After that extraordinary trance in the Great Hall the evening before, no one questioned Herakles’s conviction that the lion would come today – though if he did come today, it would be by far his earliest passage south yet. Herakles knew. He was the son of the Lord of All, Zeus.

  I had four full brothers, all younger than me: Tithonos, Klytios, Lampos and Hiketaon. We accompanied Herakles in our father’s escort, and arrived at the appointed spot on the horse farm before the priests appeared with the girls. Herakles paced back and forth for a good distance in each direction, spying out the land; then he returned to us and set up his attacking position, with Telamon on the long bow and Th
eseus carrying a spear. His own weapon was an enormous club.

  While we climbed to the top of a hillock out of wind and eye range, our father remained on the track to await the priests, for this was the first day of the sacrifice. Sometimes the poor young creatures had been obliged to wait many days in their golden chains, with only the ground to sleep on and a few very frightened junior priests to bring them food.

  The sun was well up when the procession from the shrine of Poseidon Maker of Walls came into view, the priests shoving the weeping girls ahead of them, chanting the ritual and beating tiny drums with muted sticks. They hammered the chains to staples in the ground under the shade of an elm, and left with as much haste as dignity permitted. My father came scampering up the hillock to our hiding place, and we settled in the long grass.

  For a while I watched lazily, not expecting anything to happen until noon. Suddenly the youth Telamon broke cover and ran swiftly to where the girls were crouched, straining at their fetters. I heard my father mutter something about Greek gall as the lad put his arms about my half-sister’s shoulders and cradled her head on his bare brown chest. She was a beautiful child, Hesione, enough so to attract the attention of most men, but what folly to venture to her side when the lion might appear at any moment! I wondered if Telamon had acted with Herakles’s permission.

  Hesione’s hands plucked despairingly at his arms; he bent his head to whisper something to her, then kissed her long and passionately, as no man had been allowed to kiss her in all her short life. Then he wiped her tears away with the flat of his hand and ran, unconcerned, back to where Herakles had stationed him. A shout of laughter floated up to us from the three Greeks; I shook with rage. The sacrifice was sacred! Yet they dared to laugh. But when I looked Hesione had lost all her fear, stood proud and tall, eyes shining, even at that distance.

  Until late morning Greek hilarity continued, then in an instant they quietened. All we could hear was the restless Trojan wind, forever blowing.

  A hand touched my shoulder. Thinking it was the lion, I swung round, my heart racing. But it was Tissanes, a palace servant who worked for me. He leaned over to put his lips to my ear.

  ‘The Princess Hekabe is asking for you sire. Her time is upon her, and the midwives say her life hangs by a thread.’

  Why did women always have to choose the wrong time? I signed to Tissanes to sit down and be very quiet, and turned back to watch the path where it dipped down into a hollow from the summit of a small rise in the ground. The birds had ceased to sing and call to each other, the wind fell. I shivered.

  The lion breasted the rise and padded down the track. He was the biggest beast I had ever seen, with a light fawn coat and a heavy black mane, his tail tipped with a black brush. On his right flank he bore Poseidon’s mark, a three-pronged fish spear. Halfway down and approaching the spot where Herakles lay he stopped in midstep, one paw off the ground, his huge head lifted high, tail lashing and nostrils flaring. Then he saw his victims frozen in terror; the prospect of his enjoyment decided him. Tucking his tail down and gathering in his muscles, he trotted forward with increasing speed. One of the girls screamed, thin and screechy. My sister snarled something to her and she subsided.

  Herakles rose up out of the grass, a giant of a man in a lion pelt, his club hanging loosely from his right hand. The lion halted, lips drawn back from yellowed teeth. Herakles shook the club and roared a challenge as the lion compressed himself and leaped. But Herakles leaped too, in under the frightful sweep of those claws, thudding against the lion’s black-tufted belly with a force that knocked the beast off balance. The lion reared back on his haunches, one paw up to smite the man down; the club descended. There was a sickening crunch as the weapon came into contact with the maned skull; the paw wavered, the man stepped to one side. Up went the club again, down again, the second sound of impact softer than the first, for the head was already fragmented. No fight at all! The lion lay flat on the worn path, his black mane steaming from the warmth of the blood flowing over it.

  While Theseus and Telamon danced out cheering, Herakles drew his knife and cut the beast’s throat. My father and brothers started to run down to the jubilant Greeks, my servant Tissanes sneaking in their wake, while I turned to commence the journey home. Hekabe my wife was in childbed and her life was in danger.

  Women were not important. Death in childbirth was common among the nobility, and I had nine other wives and fifty concubines as well as a hundred children. Yet I loved Hekabe as I loved none of the others; she would be my Queen when I ascended the throne. Her child didn’t matter. But what would I do if she died? Yes, Hekabe mattered, for all that she was a Dardanian and had brought her brother Antenor with her to Troy.

  When I reached the palace I found that Hekabe was still in labour; since no man could be in the presence of women’s mysteries I spent the rest of the day on my own business, which consisted of those tasks the King was reluctant to deal with.

  After it grew dark I began to feel unsettled, for my father had not contacted me, nor were there noises of rejoicing anywhere within that mighty palace complex atop Troy’s hill. No Greek voice, no Trojan voice floated to me. Just silence. Odd.

  ‘Highness, Highness!’

  My servant Tissanes stood there ashen, eyes bulging in terror, trembling uncontrollably.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, remembering that he had lingered on the lion track to watch.

  He fell to his knees, clasped my ankles. ‘Highness, I dared not move until a short time ago! Then I ran! I have spoken to no one, I have come straight to you!’

  ‘Get up, man! Get up and tell me!’

  ‘Highness, the King your father is dead! Your brothers are dead! Everyone is dead!’

  A great calm flowed into me. King at last. ‘The Greeks too?’

  ‘No, sire! The Greeks killed them!’

  ‘Speak slowly, Tissanes, and tell me what happened.’

  ‘The man called Herakles was pleased with his kill. He laughed and sang as he flayed the lion, while the ones called Theseus and Telamon went over to the girls and struck off their chains. Once the lion pelt was spread out to dry, Herakles asked the King to escort him to the horse yards. He wanted, he said, to choose his stallion and mare straight away because he was in a hurry to leave.’ Tissanes stopped, licked his lips.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The King grew very angry, Highness. He denied that he had promised Herakles anything. The lion was sport, he said. Herakles had killed it for sport. Even when Herakles and the two other Greeks grew equally angry, the King would not relent.’

  Father, Father! To cheat a God like Poseidon of his due is one thing – the Gods are slow and deliberate in their reprisals. But Herakles and Theseus were not Gods. They were Heroes, and Heroes are far deadlier, far swifter.

  ‘Theseus was livid, Highness. He spat on the ground at the King’s feet and cursed him for a lying old thief. Prince Tithonos drew his sword, but Herakles stepped between them and turned back to the King. He asked him to capitulate, to make the agreed payment of one stallion and one mare. The King answered that he was not going to be bled by a parcel of common Greek mercenaries out for what they could get, then he noticed that Telamon was standing with his arm about the Princess Hesione. He walked over and struck Telamon across the face. The princess began to weep – the King struck her too. The rest is terrible, Highness.’ My servant used one shaking hand to wipe the sweat from his face.

  ‘Do your best, Tissanes. Tell me what you saw.’

  ‘Herakles seemed to grow to the size of an aurochs, Highness. He picked up his club and crushed the King into the ground. Prince Tithonos tried to stab Theseus, and was run through on the spear Theseus still held. Telamon picked up his bow and shot Prince Lampos, then Herakles plucked Prince Klytios and Prince Hiketaon off the ground and squashed their heads together like berries.’

  ‘And where were you during all this, Tissanes?’

  ‘Hiding,’ the man said, hanging his head.

  �
��Well, you are a slave, not a warrior. Continue.’

  ‘The Greeks seemed to come to their senses… Herakles picked up the lion pelt and said there was no time to find the horses, they would have to leave immediately. Theseus pointed to the Princess Hesione and said in that case she would have to do as their prize. They could give her to Telamon, since he was so smitten with her, and Greek honour would thus be satisfied. They left at once for the Skaian Gate.’

  ‘Have they gone from our shores?’

  ‘I asked on my way in, Highness. The Skaian gatekeeper said that the afternoon was still young when Herakles appeared. He did not see Theseus, Telamon or the Princess Hesione. All the Greeks went down the road to Sigios, where their ship lay.’

  ‘What of the other five girls?’

  Tissanes hung his head again. ‘I do not know, Highness. I thought only of reaching you.’

  ‘Rubbish! You hid until twilight because you were afraid. Find the steward of my father’s house and tell him to search for the girls. There are also the bodies of my father and brothers to bring in. Tell the steward all that you have told me, and command in my name that everything be attended to. Now go, Tissanes.’

  All Herakles had asked for were two horses. Two horses! Was there no cure for greed, no point at which prudence dictated generosity? If only Herakles had waited! He could have appealed to the Court in assembly for justice – we had all heard my father make the promise. Herakles would have got his fee.

  Temper and greed had won instead. And I was King of Troy.

  Hekabe forgotten, I went down to the Great Hall and struck the gong which summoned the Court to an assembly.

  Eager to know the result of the encounter with the lion – and fretting because the hour was so late – they came quickly. Now was not the moment to sit upon the throne; I stood to one side of it and stared down at the small sea of curious faces: faces belonging to my half-brothers, my cousins of all degree, the high nobility not related to us save through marriage. There was my brother-in-law Antenor, eyes alert. I beckoned to him to draw near, then rapped my staff upon the red-flagged floor.