Now they were in the very Greek camp itself. Like ants in an anthill taken by surprise, the Greeks scattered, running here, there, everywhere. Some took refuge on the ships, others rushed for their huts, still others rallied and attacked. Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus were nowhere to be seen; the wounded leaders hid themselves.
The fighting was so confusing and hot that I only saw flashes of different moments. Hector and others set fire to some of the ships, making a pretty blaze. Ajax—the large one, not his smaller comrade—stood his ground on a ship’s deck and held Hector at bay. He brandished a bronze-tipped pike twice the normal length—but then, he was almost twice the size of a normal man—and challenged Hector. Hector managed to feint and strike off the end of Ajax’s pike, so it became merely an unwieldy pole.
Taunts tainted the air on both sides, so that a deaf man would have the advantage, hearing none of it.
Now Odysseus appeared, squealing like a woman with hot water poured on her arm. But he could do little, because of his wounds.
“Take to the sea, cowards!” a Trojan cried, he and his men charging toward the ships.
But gradually the assault faltered. The ships did not flee, and only a few were actually on fire. Mysteriously the tide of battle turned and the Trojans began falling back. Paris was safe, as were the other commanders. But as they were retreating, Ajax leapt from his ship and grabbed one of the huge boulders used to secure them. He hurled it at Hector, and it struck true, knocking him flat. His comrades swarmed around him and pulled him away, safe beyond the ditch. He was unconscious and spitting blood.
Night fell. I saw, dimly, the curtain of darkness fluttering around me, but still I did not move. To move was to disrupt the vision, and I might never be able to rekindle it. I was not hungry, nor was I tired, but floated where those things were of no concern.
Paris was lying down, pillowing his head on his arms, his helmet beside him. His greaves were off, as was his breastplate, but he kept on his heavy linen corselet. His eyes stared dully; he looked stunned, and kept turning toward Hector. His sword and his bow were carefully laid side by side. Beside him Deiphobus was rubbing his arms with oil and boasting about the day’s kill. He glanced over at the stricken Hector, but there was none of Paris’s sadness about his face. He coveted Hector’s place as commander. How nakedly this showed, in the firelight, when he thought no one saw.
Antimachus was striding about the camp, encouraging his men. In such a time an Antimachus was what was needed. All men have their place.
In the dawn everything changed again. Achilles appeared, striding out in his armor. Achilles! What had become of his quarrel, his refusal to fight? Confused, the Trojans fell back. Hector stirred, recovering himself just in time to see Achilles lowering over the trench. “It is prudent to pull back,” he said. The arrival of Achilles changed all tactics. True, he was only one man, but there were so many prophecies and legends about him that he must be treated as more than one.
The very presence of Achilles and his fresh troops infused new courage into the weary Greeks, and now they attacked with vigor. Suddenly the Trojans’ measured regrouping turned into a rush toward the city walls. The chariots careened madly and the men on foot ran as fast as they were able. The Greeks pursued, catching up to the slower ones, and gave battle.
Achilles led. Achilles caught up with the Lycians and attacked Sarpedon, their leader. The men faced one another, cast spears. Sarpedon fell, and Achilles exulted. A fierce fight broke out for the body of Sarpedon, but it seemed to disappear and no one saw where it went.
Emboldened, the Greeks rushed toward the city, and a company of them tried to scale the walls, again targeting the weaker section. But our repairs held. Now, their prey close enough at last, Gelanor’s men lobbed the scorpion bombs into their midst; the clay containers burst and released their stinging, biting contents. The men fell off the ladders and crawled and beat their way back from the walls, screaming.
And then, his golden armor gleaming, Achilles assaulted the walls himself, as if he would climb them with his bare hands. Running fast and leaping as high as his strong legs would spring him, he reached almost halfway up the steep slanted sides, then slid back. A hail of arrows sought him, but he was too close to the wall for them to strike. Stones dropped, more scorpion bombs, but three times Achilles almost mounted the wall, screaming like an eagle in flight. Later someone even claimed that his fingertips curled around the top, and then that he was pushed back, as if by an invisible bronze shield. Yelling, he tumbled back to the ground, landing heavily on his knees.
Then he was surrounded by Trojans, and he disappeared in their midst; in an instant he staggered out, wounded and reeling. He was assaulted from behind by a nameless soldier. Then Hector suddenly blocked his path, raised his spear, and felled him.
He lay flopping and flailing on the ground. Hector, taking his spoils, yanked off the helmet, held it high. Then he tossed it aside, bent over. It was the armor of Achilles, but underneath was Patroclus. It was Patroclus he had killed. And I heard Patroclus murmuring the words, “You, too, will die soon. Destiny and death hover over you, death by the hands of Achilles, the shining son of Peleus.”
Hector grunted and yanked his spear out of the lifeless body. He gave no sign that he had heard, or heeded, the words. He looked up at the walls, where his countrymen were calling out to him, urging him and his men to come inside. “I’ve work to do first,” he called. He began stripping the golden armor from the dead man, pulling off the finely carved breastplate and throwing it atop the shield, tossing the greaves beside it, setting the helmet like a beacon above them. These were the trappings of a king, the famous armor given by the gods to Achilles’s father, and a worthy prize. Hector called for a cart, and the prize was thrown in. Now the corpse of the fallen Patroclus lay bloody and naked. Before Hector and his men could add it to the wagon to ride beside the armor, Menelaus and another man rushed out from the Greeks and began fighting Hector for it. Each side grabbed a limb and fought like jackals over a carcass, pulling, jerking, growling. I was surprised at the ferocity of Menelaus with his wounds. At length the Greeks won control of the corpse and bore it back to their camp, guarded by the two Ajaxes.
“Inside, inside!” the people were chanting on the walls. “Celebrate your great victory!”
“When the battle is finished, when the Greeks depart,” cried Hector. He insisted on staying out in the field himself with his men. But the rest he allowed to return for the night. Perhaps he did not want to face Andromache, knowing he would not have the strength for a second parting.
The Scaean Gate creaked open as the guards pulled back the heavy doors, and the soldiers stumbled in, dust-covered and dragging. Their families, eagerly awaiting them, rushed them off to warm baths and food, while those without families went to the soldiers’ mess. Behind them the wounded were carried through the city and taken to the growing quarter on the other side where the sick, maimed, and dying were laid out in rows, tended day and night by women and physicians.
Andromache had hidden herself away in her chamber, weaving. She did not come out on the ramparts or wait for Hector except in privacy. Some thought it pride, but I knew it was fear.
“Awaken, my lady.” Evadne was whispering to me. “Awaken, he comes.”
But I had never been asleep in the true sense. I was suspended like smoke somewhere between waking and sleep, between here and elsewhere. Coming back was difficult, like being pulled by a long rope down to the ground. I fought to stay where I was, but the pull was too strong.
“Helen.” Standing by the couch was Paris, very much as I had seen him in my vision. He was dirtier now, his armor bore dents and ugly deep scratches, but his person was safe. “We fought well! Oh, how can you have slept through it all?”
I sat up. How could I tell him that I had seen it all? And would that ruin his recounting it for me? “Had you not returned, I would never have awakened. Better that way,” I said. I touched his hair, the gold dimmed with dust
and sweat.
“We fought all the way into the Greek camp.” He pulled off his breast-plate. Hector and Aeneas and I led the charge through the gate—Hector smashed it wide open with a boulder. Then we set fire to the ships!”
“Glorious!” I said.
“We spent the night in the field. We thought to continue at first light and burn the rest of the ships, but it was not to be.”
“But we saw smoke . . .”
“Only smoke from the night before. But almost as the sun rose, Achilles appeared, leading fresh troops. We could not get close enough to set more ships aflame.”
“Achilles . . .” Oh, I could not tell him what I had seen. I must hear it all afresh, and hearing it from Paris would make it new for me. “I thought he was sulking, refusing to fight.”
“Perhaps—so we thought—he had been singed by our fires, angry that we had come so close, shocked that we had wounded the leaders. Or perhaps he saw his chance, since Agamemnon was down. In any case, there he was, rallying the Greeks, and gradually they pushed us back.”
“He had the power to put fresh heart into them.”
“Fresh legs, in any case. The Myrmidons had not fought yet, sitting out their time with their leader, so they were eager to fight. He led them right up to the walls of Troy—surely you saw that?”
“Oh, yes, but the crowd was so thick. Tell me.”
“He tried to climb the walls himself. His fury and his speed almost drove him over the top. But Antimachus was yelling that something was wrong. Anyone who had seen Achilles run could see that this man was slower. And his spear-throws did not go as far as they should. So when Hector killed him—”
“Easily,” I said. “Easily?”
“Too easily. It should not have been the surprise it was to Hector to find that it was Patroclus, not Achilles, inside the armor.”
“Did he truly have no idea?”
“He was caught up in the fighting, and fooled by the armor. So, yes, it was a shock. He took the armor and it’s here now, displayed in Priam’s palace.”
“I heard it said that no one but Achilles could wear it, it was so heavy and unwieldy, but clearly that was not so.”
“Hector means to wear it. Tomorrow we go forth to fight again,” said Paris. “But that is tomorrow.”
I embraced him, holding him close even with his sweat-soaked corselet next to me. Aphrodite forgive me, but the sweat of a lover smells better than any of her perfumes. I do not think I have ever seen him look more lovely; perhaps it is true that war is a man’s ornament as jewelry is a woman’s.
Hector sleeping out in the field. Patroclus lying dead in the Greek camp. Paris in my arms high in our palace. I wondered, fleetingly, how Achilles was passing this night. I could not know that he was awaiting a new suit of armor, hastily made by the gods, so that he could come and destroy us all in the morning.
LVIII
Before dawn, so that I am not sure Paris slept at all, he was up and readying himself for battle. I watched his dark outline moving in the chamber. He bent over and kissed me, thinking me asleep. I sat up and embraced him, trying to keep the fear and urgency from tingling down my arms.
“Today will be the day,” he murmured. “I feel it.”
“As do I,” I said, wanting our victory, dreading the destruction.
Hector and his men were waiting on the field near the Greek lines, and in the fresh new light their fellow soldiers poured through the gate to rejoin them, chariot spokes catching the sun, winking at those of us watching from the walls. Numbers swelled on the field until it was covered. The area near Troy was empty; everyone was near the ships.
We were too far away to see, but I knew I could remedy that. I went to my chamber and called for Evadne. She would know what to do, how to take me there.
I was at the very front of the lines. I saw Hector—his face looking suddenly much older, his helmet hastily cleaned of its grime but no longer shining—striding amongst the men. He greeted Paris and Aeneas as they joined him, and was giving instructions to his soldiers when suddenly, in the red blaze of the rising sun, Achilles stood on the crest of the defensive trench and cried out. His voice was so loud it blared like a trumpet, his face contorted and his lips quivering. He screamed at the Trojans that he was here to avenge the death of Patroclus, and meant to kill Hector. Somehow he had had new armor made overnight, and it shone like a mirror.
At the sound of his name, Hector flinched almost imperceptibly. Only someone placed as I was could have seen it; surely Achilles did not. Before Hector could retort with a speech of his own, his men were drawing back. The vicious face, the thunderous voice, and the stories about Achilles as an invincible warrior did their work. The Trojans began to flee.
Yes, flee. They turned tail and began a disorderly retreat back toward Troy. In vain Hector and Paris ordered them to stand their ground.
“You fight a man, not a god!” cried Hector. “Stand firm!” But all around him the men were falling back anyway.
“He is mortal, one spear can cut him down!” shouted Paris. “Do not melt away!”
But in vain. The retreat turned into a rout. The Trojans panicked and ran toward the walls of their city. Their allies, surrounding them in the field, were no braver.
Antenor lost two sons, cut down by the pursuing Greeks. Deiphobus, running alongside Hector, panted, “We must all take refuge in the city!”
“No!” cried Hector. “Never!”
The Trojan forces separated. One side, led by Deiphobus, made directly for the city; the others were cut off by the surging Scamander River. Achilles, roaring like the river itself, came upon Aeneas and attacked him. Aeneas stumbled and fell, but somehow managed to escape the killing wrath of Achilles. The enraged Greek warrior had to turn his attention to the Trojans trapped by the river. Suddenly he came upon a young boy—far too young to be there at all—and cut him down, as if he wanted to make up for Aeneas. It was Polydorus, the little son of Priam. He must have slipped through the gates with the soldiers, disobeying his father, running away to battle. He crumpled and fell headlong into the river. Achilles plunged after him, pursuing the flailing Trojans, sword arm swinging, and killed many before being caught in a mighty wave of water, almost drowning. Bedraggled and more infuriated than ever, he hauled himself up on a bank.
“Kill! Kill!” he screamed, slashing at the air around him. “Let my arm grow weary with the killing!”
The Trojans quivered as if enchanted and unmanned.
“There is nothing magic about him!” I cried. “Take action!” But I was mumbling in my dream-mind and my cries reached no one, not even Paris.
Paris! Where was Paris? I did not see him. Oh, let him be safe!
The Scamander was choked with bodies; they swirled and spun in the muddy water, catching on branches. But Achilles was beyond the river now. Those men he killed had done nothing to sate him. It was Hector he sought, Hector he hungered for.
“Hector! Hector!” he screamed. His voice had lost strength, and he rasped, but somehow that was more menacing. He moved like a beast of prey, flying over the terrain, scattering the entire Trojan army across the plains ahead. Oh, the shame! To flee before one man!
Priam, leaning over the walls, gave the orders for the gates to be opened, and the guards pulled at them. Trojans poured in, in disarray and panic.
The entire army had been routed! All the commanders fled, the braggart Antimachus, and Helenus and Deiphobus and Aeneas himself, and Paris. Oh, thank the gods, Paris was safe!
At that knowledge, I stirred on the couch. “Evadne,” I said. Could she even hear me? Was my voice a normal one?
“Yes, my lady?”
“Undo this,” I said. “Paris is back. I must watch with him.”
I know not what she did, but my vision faded and all I saw was my own chamber. I was weak and limp, as if I had been on the battlefield myself.
“Go, my lady,” she said. She touched my hand and pulled me up, slowly. My feet smarted as they touched th
e cool floor.
Like a dreamwalker, I made my way down the broad street to the walls. He was stumbling through the gates when I saw him and rushed to him. “Paris, Paris!” I threw my arms around him. “Achilles,” he murmured. “He turned everything.”
“He is only a man,” I said.
“He holds Hector responsible for the death of Patroclus,” panted Paris, trying to catch his breath. “It is a private quarrel.”
“It is a war! There are thousands of men on the field,” I said.
“But to him, there were only three: himself, Patroclus, and Hector. Or, I should say, only one—himself. He has made the entire war about himself, insults to his honor, and so on.”
I had a wild temptation to say, For once, it isn’t about Helen? But I would not voice those flippant words, not at this moment.
“He has killed his friend, and that’s what torments him. He made him wear his armor and impersonate him, sent him out to his doom, because his own pride refused to let him fight. So who has killed Patroclus, truly? The sword of Hector, or the pride of Achilles? Achilles knows the truth.”
“He betrayed his friend, then.”
“Yes, and now he seeks to assuage his guilt by attacking Hector, but it can never be assuaged. Nothing can change or erase it.”
“You are here, you are safe,” I said. Gods forgive me, Andromache forgive me, but that was my chief concern.
Paris turned away, looking over the ramparts. The field was empty now. Hector stood alone. From a distance, Achilles approached. He had ceased running and was walking slowly and deliberately, inexorably. I could see the front flap of his armor lifting as his thighs moved.
Helen of Troy Page 59
