The Song of Troy

by Colleen McCullough

  Odysseus stiffened. ‘Are you called, Achilles?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But it must come soon.’ I held out my hand to him. ‘Promise me that my son will wear my armour.’

  ‘I have already promised that. He’ll get it.’

  Nestor wiped his eyes, blew his nose with his sleeve. ‘It will all be as you wish, Achilles.’ He plucked at his hair with shaky fingers. ‘If only the God would call me! I’ve prayed and prayed, but he doesn’t hear. How can I go back to Pylos without all my sons? What will I tell their mothers?’

  ‘You’ll go back, Nestor,’ I said. ‘You still have two sons. When you stand on your bastions and look down to the sandy shore, Troy will fade to a dream. Only remember those of us who fell, and pour us libations.’

  I cut Memnon’s head off and flung the body at Nestor’s feet. We took fresh heart that day; the shortlived Trojan resurgence ended. They retreated slowly across the plain while I, with an alien agony inside me, killed and killed. My arm felt sluggish, though the axe bit as often and as viciously. But as I ploughed through the best King Hattusilis of the Hittites had to offer on the bloodsoaked altar that was Troy, I grew sick at the carnage. At the back of my mind I could hear a voice sighing, I thought my mother’s, blurred with tears.

  At the end of the day I paid my respects to Nestor and assisted at Antilochos’s last rites. We laid the lad alongside his four brothers in the cliff chamber reserved for the House of Neleus, and hunched Memnon at his feet like a dog. But the thought of the funeral games and the feasting was unbearable; I slipped away.

  Brise was waiting. When was she not?

  I took her face between my hands and said, ‘You always wipe away the grief.’

  ‘Sit down and keep me company,’ she said.

  I sat, but found myself unable to talk to her; an awful coldness was settling about my heart. She went on chattering brightly until she looked at me, then her animation died.

  ‘What is it, Achilles?’

  I shook my head dumbly and got up to go outside, standing there with my head lifted to the infinite reaches of the sky.

  ‘What is it, Achilles?’

  ‘Oh, Brise! I am torn open to the very roots of my being! Never until this moment have I felt the wind so keenly, smelled life so strongly in my nostrils, seen the stars so still, so clear!’

  She tugged at me urgently. ‘Come inside.’

  I let her lead me to a chair and sat down while she sank at my feet and put her arms on my knees, staring up into my face.

  ‘Achilles, is it your mother?’

  I took her chin in my fingers, smiling down. ‘No. My mother has left me for good. I heard her weeping farewell on the field. I’m called, Brise. The God has called me at last. I’ve always wondered what it would be like, never dreaming for an instant that it would be this uttermost consciousness of life. I thought it would be all glory and exultation, something that would carry me physically into my last fight. But it’s quiet and merciful. I’m at peace. No daimons of vanished years, no fear for the future. Tomorrow it ends. Tomorrow I will cease to be. The God has spoken. He will not leave me again.’

  She started to protest, but I stopped her words with my hand.

  ‘A man must go gracefully, Brise. The God wills it, not I. And I am no Herakles, no Prometheus to resist him. I am a mortal man. I have lived thirty-one years and have seen and felt more than most men do who see the leaves turn golden on the trees one hundred times. I don’t want to live longer than the walls of Troy. All the great warriors will die here. Ajax. Ajax! Ajax… It isn’t fitting that I should survive. I’ll face the shades of Patrokles and Iphigenia across the River with everything gone. Our hatreds and our loves belong to the world of the living – not one thing so strong can exist in the world of the dead. I’ve done my best. There is no more. I’ve prayed that my name will continue to be sung through all the generations of men to come. That is all the immortality any man can hope for. The world of the dead gives no joy, but no sorrow either. If I can fight Hektor a million times over on the lips of living men, I will never truly die.’

  She wept and wept; her woman’s heart couldn’t glimpse the intricacy of the warp on the loom of time, so she could not rejoice with me. But there comes a depth of grief when even tears are dried. She lay still and quiet.

  ‘If you die, then I will die,’ she said then.

  ‘No, Brise, you must live. Go to my son, Neoptolemos, and marry him. Give him the sons I have not got out of you. Nestor and Agamemnon have pledged to see it done.’

  ‘Even for you I can’t promise that. You took me out of one life and gave me another. There can’t be a third. I must share your death, Achilles.’

  I lifted her up, smiling at her. ‘When you set eyes on my son, you’ll think differently. Women are meant to survive. All you owe me is one more night. Then I give you to Neoptolemos.’

  28

  NARRATED BY

  Automedon

  We went out across the causeways with light hearts to face an army almost crippled out of existence. Achilles was unusually quiet beside me, but I didn’t think to question the significance of his mood. He stood like a beacon in his golden armour, the fine gold plumes of the helm flying in the wind and bouncing around his shoulders as we lurched over the uneven terrain. Expecting his habitual comradely smile, I turned sideways to grin at him, but that day he forgot our little ritual. He looked straight ahead, at what I didn’t know. A stern and controlled peace had settled upon that stormy face; suddenly I felt as if I drove a stranger. Not once did he speak to me during our drive to the battle place, nor did he give me any kind of smile. Which should have cast me down, yet inexplicably did not. Rather, I felt buoyed up, as if something in him was rubbing off on me.

  He fought better than in all his life, seeming bent on concentrating all his massive glory into the space of a single day. Though instead of working himself into his usual killing furore, he took pains to see that the Myrmidons were prospering. He used his sword, not his axe, and used it in complete silence, as the King does when he makes the annual great sacrifice to the God. That thought gave birth to another; all at once I knew what the difference in him was. He had always been the Prince, he had never been the King. That day he was the King. I wondered if he had some premonition that Peleus was dead.

  As I manoeuvred the chariot around the field I took an occasional glance at the sky, misliking the weather. Even at dawn it had been dull and drear, with the promise not of cold but of tempests. Now the vault was a peculiar copper hue, and to the east and south great black thunderheads were gathering, lightning flickering. Over Ida, where we were sure the Gods congregated to watch the fray.

  It was a complete rout. The Trojans couldn’t hold us, not when every leader of our army seemed possessed by a lesser form of the grandeur which sat upon Achilles like the rays around the head of Helios. It is reflecting off him, I thought; he has become the highest of all kings.

  Not long into the day the Trojans broke and fled. I looked for Aineas, wondering why he was making no effort to hold them together. But he must have been suffering an unlucky day, for there was no sign of him anywhere. Later on I learned that he kept to himself and wouldn’t send his men where they were needed as reinforcements. We had heard that there was a new Heir, we had heard his name: Troilos. Then I remembered that Achilles had told me Priam insulted Aineas at the time he had made Troilos the new Heir. Well, today Aineas had demonstrated that it was a foolish old King of Troy who insulted a Dardanian prince, also an Heir.

  We had seen Troilos on the field before, when Penthesileia fought, and when Memnon fought. He had been fortunate, never coming up against Achilles or Ajax, but that changed today. Achilles pursued him relentlessly, following whichever way he turned, drawing closer and closer. When Troilos realised the inevitable he called for aid, his men hard pressed. I saw him direct the messenger to go to Aineas, who was nearby. I saw the man speak to Aineas, who leaned down from his car with what appeared to be interest. I s
aw the messenger remove himself. But I didn’t see Aineas lift one finger to help. Instead he wheeled his car and took himself – and his men – elsewhere.

  Troilos was game enough. He was a full brother to Hektor and might, with a few more years added, have made another Hektor. At his age, he hadn’t a chance. While I came closer he raised his spear, the driver holding his vehicle steady for the cast, the only one he would loose before we got too close. I felt Achilles’s arm brush mine, and knew he was lifting Old Pelion. That great spear left on a superb throw, winging its way as straight as a shaft from the hand of Apollo. Its iron barb bit deeply into the lad’s throat, felling him voiceless, and above the heads of the despairing Trojan troops I saw Aineas watching with a bitter face. We got Troilos’s armour and the team as well, and cut what were left of his men to ribbons.

  After Troilos died Aineas came to life. He shook off his apathy and threw the remainder of the Trojan army in our teeth, everywhere among the soldiers, but careful never to get within a spear-cast of Achilles. A wily one, the Dardanian. He wanted very desperately to live; I wondered what passions drove the man, for he was no coward.

  The sun had gone, the storm was gathering fast. So massive was the latent power we could feel stored in the sky that the troops began to mutter loudly of omens. The clouds dropped lower and lower, the lightning flashed closer, we could hear the thunder above the roar of battle. I had never seen such a sky before, nor felt the Sky Father prickle and ripple up and down my backbone. The light had grown dim, had an eerie sulphurous glow, and the clouds were as black as the beard of Hades, curling like smoke from a huge oil fire, lit to vivid blue by the lightning. I heard the Myrmidons behind us saying that Father Zeus was sending us an omen of complete victory, and from the way they behaved I fancied that the Trojans took it as a complete Greek victory too.

  There was a scorching flash of white fire right in front of us. The team reared and I had to cover my eyes for fear of being blinded. When the afterdazzle faded I looked at Achilles.

  ‘Let’s dismount,’ I said. ‘It’s safer on the ground.’

  For the first time that day his eyes met mine. Dumbfounded, I stared. It was as if the bolts played around his head; his yellow eyes were alight with joy and he laughed at my fears.

  ‘See it, Automedon? See it? My great-grandfather prepares to mourn me! He holds me a fit descendant of his seed!’

  I gaped. ‘Mourn? Achilles, what do you mean?’

  In answer he gripped both my wrists hard. ‘I’m called. Today I die, Automedon. The Myrmidons are yours until you can send for my son. Father Zeus prepares for my death.’

  I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it! Like a man caught in a nightmare I whipped the team onward. When my shock evaporated a little I sought for the best thing to do, and as unobtrusively as possible I began to edge the car nearer and nearer to Ajax and Odysseus, whose men fought side by side.

  If Achilles noticed what I was doing he dismissed it as quite irrelevant. I looked up at the sky and prayed, begged the Father to take my life and spare his; but the God only roared his derision and set me shaking. The Trojans made a sudden dash for their walls, we followed pellmell to head them off. Ajax was closer now; I kept edging the chariot up until I could get the message to him that Achilles fancied himself called. If any man could avert it, that man was Ajax.

  We were within the shadow of the Western Curtain, too near the Skaian Gate to permit of Priam’s opening it. Achilles, Ajax and Odysseus penned Aineas against the gate in a last ditch stand. Achilles was determined to have Aineas; I could feel it in his silence even as I prayed that he wouldn’t get the chance to come at this most dangerous of all the Trojan leaders left alive.

  I heard him give a grunt of content and saw the Dardanian within range, too beset to take a full account of those ranged against him. He was a perfect target. Achilles raised Old Pelion, the muscles in his arm bulging as he gathered power for the cast, his naked armpit covered in fine golden hair. My eyes followed the line of the spear to Aineas in fascination, knowing that life was over for the Dardanian, that the last great threat was no more.

  It all seemed to happen in the same instant, though I swear that it wasn’t the chariot made Achilles lose his balance. He went over on his right ankle, even though it looked firmly braced in the stirrup, and his right arm flew even higher as he fought to keep his stance. I heard a thud, saw the arrow stuck almost to its bright blue flights in that naked armpit. Old Pelion fell uncast to the ground as Achilles reared up like some titan, then shrieked out Chiron’s war cry in a voice brazen with triumph, as if he conquered mortality itself. His arm fell and drove the arrow in to its hilt, deeper than shame or death. I held onto the team with both hands, Xanthos plunging in terror, Balios hanging his head, Podargos beating a tattoo with his hooves. But Patrokles wasn’t there to speak for them, to give their grief and horror human words.

  All who heard the war cry turned to look; Ajax screamed as if he too had been hit. The blood gushed from that lipless mouth and from both nostrils, cascading over the golden armour in great rivers. Odysseus was right behind Ajax; he gave a shout of rage and futility, his hand outstretched, pointing. Safe near a rock, Paris stood with his bow in his hand, smiling.

  It could not have been long that Achilles hung upright, before he toppled over the chariot’s rail into Ajax’s arms and bore him to the ground with a clang of armour that echoed in our hearts and would not fade away. I was beside Ajax as he knelt with his cousin in his arms, as Ajax took off the helmet and stared dumbly into the scarlet, running face. Achilles saw who held him, but the vision of death was much bigger, much closer. He tried vainly to speak, the words drowned; for a moment the farewell was there in his eyes. Then the pupils dilated, the yellow irises were driven away by featureless, transparent black. Three frightful jerks which taxed Ajax’s strength, and it was over. He was dead. Achilles was dead. We looked into the lucent vacant windows of his eyes and saw nothing behind. Ajax put out a huge, clumsy hand to brush the lids down shut, then put the helm on again and strapped it tightly, his tears falling faster and faster, his mouth all awry.

  He was dead. Achilles was dead. How could we ever bear it?

  Shock must have held both armies immobile; suddenly the Trojans fell on us like hounds licking the blood of men. They were after the body and the armour. Odysseus leaped to his feet, careless that he wept. The Myrmidons were standing silent, the impossible a reality at their feet. Bending, Odysseus picked up Old Pelion and brandished it in their faces.

  ‘Are you going to let them take him?’ he yelled, spitting. ‘You saw what a cur’s trick it took to kill him! Are you just going to stand there and let them take his body from you? In the name of Achilles himself, stand by him now!’

  They shook off their shock and rallied; no Trojan would get near Achilles while one of them lived. Forming in front of us, they took the charge in savage and sullen grief. Odysseus helped the weeping Ajax to his feet, helped him swing the limp and very heavy form into his arms.

  ‘Carry him back beyond the lines, Ajax. I’ll make sure they don’t break through.’

  As if it were an afterthought, he shoved Old Pelion into Ajax’s right hand and pushed him on his way. I had always had my reservations about Odysseus, but he was a king. Sword in his hand, he swung round and planted his feet widely on the earth still steaming with Achilles’s blood. We took the Trojan charge and beat it off, Aineas howling like a jackal when he saw Ajax trudging away. I looked at Odysseus.

  ‘Ajax is strong, but not strong enough to walk far carrying Achilles. Let me catch him up, put Achilles with me.’

  He nodded.

  So I turned the team in pursuit of Ajax, who had emerged from the back of our lines and still plodded towards the beach. At which moment, while I was still too far away to help, a chariot flew past me, its driver aiming to head Ajax off: one of Priam’s sons was in it, for he wore the purple insignia of the House of Dardanos on his cuirass. Trying to put some heart into my
team, I yelled a warning to Ajax. But he didn’t seem to hear.

  The Trojan prince saundered down from his perch, sword in hand, smiling. Which indicated that he didn’t know Ajax, who never faltered as he walked on. He lifted Achilles higher in his arms and spitted the Trojan on Old Pelion, the afterthought Odysseus had placed in his hand.

  ‘Ajax, lie Achilles in the car,’ I said, drawing level.

  ‘I’ll carry him home.’

  ‘It’s too far, you’ll kill yourself.’

  ‘I’ll carry him!’

  ‘Then at least,’ I said desperately, ‘let us take the armour off him, put that in the car. It would be more fitting.’

  ‘And I’d feel his body, not its casing. Yes, we can do that.’

  The moment Achilles was freed from that awful weight Ajax walked on, cuddling his cousin, kissing his ruined face, talking to him, crooning.

  The army was following us slowly, coming across the plain; I kept the chariot just behind Ajax, his great legs toiling as if he could have walked a hundred leagues holding Achilles.

  The God had contained his grief long enough. He let it loose upon our heads, and all the vault of the heavens broke into white bolts of fire. The team shivered and stopped, pinned by fear; even Ajax came to a halt, standing while the thunder cracked and rolled overhead and the lightning played a fantastic lacework in the clouds. The rain began to fall at last, huge heavy drops coming stiffly and sparsely, as if the God was too moved to weep easily. The tempo of the rain increased, we floundered in a sea of mud. The army drew level with us, all conflict abandoned before the might of the Thunderer, and together we brought Achilles in across the Skamander causeway, Ajax leading and the King behind him. In the pouring rain we laid him on a bier, while the Father washed his blood away with sky tears.

  I went with Odysseus to the house to find Brise. She was by the doorpost, it seemed expecting us.

  ‘Achilles is dead,’ said Odysseus.