King in Splendour

by George Shipway

  Trojan warhorns blared. Battle-cries drowned the rumble of wheels, pounding hoofbeats and tramping feet. The enemy charged at a trot because the ancient tactical mode which welds spearmen to Heroes in chariots imposes a pace no faster than a man on foot can run.

  Achaea’s trumpets shouted, and chariots sprang to a gallop.

  * * *

  Charging war-cars rarely meet head-on; one side or the other yaws at the final moment. The battle’s opening collision was a notable exception. Neither Achaeans nor Trojans diverged a handsbreadth from their courses, slammed together and reared in the air like breakers hitting a cliff. The front-line cars of our principal Hosts outnumbered those who opposed them and drove the enemy back. The fighting dissolved into struggling eddies that swirled on the plain to Scamander’s banks. The clamour and the clanging re-echoed from mountains to sea.

  The enemy broke the Arcadians. I mounted quickly and galloped to Idomeneus, led his Cretans forward and bundled the Trojans back. (Because Heroes become discouraged when they see a leader fall I directed this charge from behind.) My reserve was committed and gone; Heroes, once engaged, are lost beyond recall; nothing remained in my hand save small unreliable war-bands, Locrians and the like. With the break-in checked I sped to Menelaus’ Spartans on the right.

  The battle there went well. The Spartans pressed the Trojans and were bringing them near to rout. Menelaus remembered my orders, rode from wing to wing and brayed commands. Sweeping Trojans before them his men swung left like a door and fell on the enemy’s flank.

  In the bustle and excitement I forgot the Trojan reserve: those unsupported chariots far in rear. The fault was mine; the penalty swift. Concealed by skeins of dust that billowed above the battle they advanced unseen and charged the Spartans’ backs. The violence and speed of the onset were not in themselves irresistible.

  The chariots were. Hector had found a secret weapon.

  Achaean war-cars are light and wieldy, bodies of oxhide or wickerwork, beechwood-framed, floors of plaited leather, four broad spokes to the wheels. Horses are bred for handiness, and seldom exceed twelve hands in height. The terrible Trojan vehicles that shattered Menelaus were modelled on the Hittites’ heavy cars: timber-floored, high elmwood sides and solid oaken wheels. A trace horse and two wheelers drew these devastating weapons--enormous Hittite-bred beasts of fifteen hands or more--and two Heroes, at a pinch, could ride beside the driver.

  The onslaught crumpled our Spartans. Talthybius whipped my Kolaxians round and fled. Before we could reach Thorn Hill two hundred heavy Trojan chariots wheeled from the flying Spartans and fell like a roaring landslide on Diomedes’ flank.

  The Argives broke. I was caught in the rabble and swept away like a twig on a torrent. Looking over my shoulder I saw heavy Trojan chariots strike Nestor’s Host in rear. The enemy’s main forces which our Hosts had almost beaten recovered and charged the Pylians’ wavering ranks. Within the time you might count a hundred all Achaea’s war-bands save Ajax’s Mycenaeans on Thorn Hill were retreating in disorder over the plain.

  Talthybius galloped his team across a causeway. I dismounted, leaned on the wall, saw disgraceful rout. Foot and vehicles mingled mobbed the gates and causeways, struggled and fought for shelter within the camp. Luckily the Trojans were slow to exploit success. Successive charges had scattered Hector’s chariots; the temptation of loot--armour and driver-less horses--were baits that delayed pursuit. Patroclus’ Myrmidons, true to his promise, manned the walls in widely scattered groups, hurled spears and arrows and strove to cover the rout.

  Ajax’s miraculous onslaught saved us from total defeat.

  When he saw Achaea’s Hosts reeling back in chaos Ajax posted his bowmen on Thorn Hill’s forward slopes, and under cover of their arrows disengaged. (He sacrificed his archers; not a man survived.) Heroes quickly mounted, spearmen dogged the chariots. At a steady, controlled trot he fell on the backs of the Trojan swarms and hacked a path to the ditch. While his spearmen fled into camp he swung about and counter-charged, killed many of the enemy advancing in confusion, and finally crossed the causeways into safety. He lost a dozen chariots and scarcely thirty spearmen: a major feat of arms that stopped the camp being overrun.

  I propped elbows on the wall’s rough boulders, cradled head in hands and savoured failure’s bitter taste. Trojans hunted our remnants over or into the ditch. Sunset shed a lurid glow on writhing pillars of dust. Gates thumped shut, bars clanged in sockets. War-bands rallied and manned the wall; enemy crowded the crossings, hammered gates, howled war-cries from the ditch’s farther edge. Arrows, spears and slingstones flew like buzzing angry wasps; hand to hand fights erupted at towers guarding causeways.

  An orderless soldiers’ battle, for leaders fought on the wall like any humble spearman.

  Trojans broke through on the right, threaded huts and tents, slaughtered wretched followers as they ran, headed for the beaches and clambered over galleys tilted on their keels, scooped burning logs from camp fires and set five ships alight. Ajax chanced to be nearest this irruption; he hastily gathered a motley force, counter-attacked and drove the enemy out.

  The struggle around the ships was the last of serious fighting. The afterglow of sunset faded from the sky; a cloudless starless darkness enveloped the camp. Trojans posted pickets beyond the ditch; we heard them laughing and singing, bibulous with victory. Hector’s war-bands bivouacked on the field that we had lost; voices droned from afar, and feminine cackles fluted--women, we learned later, brought cookpots and victuals from Troy. Camp fires like small pink roses blossomed the night-palled plain.

  I sent runners to summon leaders. Together we sorted out muddled war-bands, posted sentries, detailed inlying pickets and a strong reserve on call, sent the remainder to eat and drink. Torches flitted like fireflies, flames from burning ships leaped and died on the beaches, an acrid reek of smoke and blood hung like a taint on the air, the moaning of wounded men was a threnody seaming the dark.

  By midnight we reduced the camp to tolerable order, and I called a Council of War.

  * * *

  ‘What now?’ Diomedes asked.

  We gathered round a fire in my wooden palace’s court, an assembly of all leaders save Achilles. (Patroclus listened gravely from the outer edge of the gathering.) Firelight planed hollows on weary, defeated faces. I met unforgiving eyes, and said dully, ‘I planned the battle we lost today. Do you want to elect another high commander in my place?’

  A lengthy silence. Feet scuffled churned-up dust.

  Menelaus said briskly, ‘Don’t be so despondent, Agamemnon. Nothing wrong with your tactics--we all but won the fight. How could you anticipate Hector’s secret weapon: those damnable heavy chariots? We'll put our heads together and devise some kind of counter.’ A belligerent glance swept the circle. ‘Don’t you agree, my lords?’

  ‘No one, sire, can take your place,’ Odysseus said baldly. Nestor croaked, ‘Only you, Agamemnon, have the skill to mend our fortunes. I, the oldest among you, say this from my knowledge of war.’

  Heroes murmured agreement. (A grudging assent from lesser kings whom the day’s events had discouraged. One of them, in fact--Leonteus of Orthe--launched three galleys later and slipped away.)

  I said, ‘Very well. I have a means in mind to deal with Hector’s chariots. First we must tally our numbers. Your casualties, gentlemen? Nestor?’

  ‘Fifteen chariots gone, forty Heroes and Companions, around a hundred spearmen. Wounded?’ The old man shrugged. ‘A hundred and more--but half are fit for battle.’

  One by one the leaders stated losses. My dagger marked a stroke in the sand for every ten men dead, a cross for five lost chariots. (Leaders were not unscathed: Diomedes wounded again, Menelaus nursing an arrow graze.) I calculated the day had cost us the equivalent of a powerful Host, as though Argos’ warriors, say, had vanished into air.

  I brushed a hand across the scratches in the sand. ‘How much loss do you think the Trojans suffered?’

  ‘Equal to o
urs at the least,’ Odysseus asserted. ‘We mowed them down by the score. Until Hector charged …’

  ‘To out-match the enemy, therefore, we require reinforcements.’

  ‘Where can you find them?’ Menelaus inquired. ‘Will The Lady lend wings to warriors safely abed in Achaea?’

  ‘The Myrmidons,’ said Diomedes angrily, ‘haven’t struck a blow and are perfectly intact!’

  Nestor prodded spear butt in the fire; sparks volleyed like shooting stars. ‘Can no one make Achilles end his sulks?’

  I caught Patroclus’ eye. ‘Will you persuade your friend?’

  The Myrmidon hunched his shoulders. ‘Achilles is very angry. You wronged him, sire, and the insult festers. I doubt--’ Tiredness and frustration scraped raw nerves like acid; I exploded in blazing wrath. ‘If Achaea’s success or failure balances on a slave girl I’ll give the woman back!’ I shouted for Eurymedon. ‘Find Briseis, bring her out! Patroclus, Odysseus, take her to Achilles, offer my apologies and do your best to convince him we need every man who can lift a spear if we’re going to win this war!’

  They vanished into the night, the woman padding behind. I said, ‘Gentlemen, let us discuss the problem of Hector’s heavy chariots. Their advantages are these: solid construction, weight and speed which shatter our lighter cars arrayed in compact ranks. Hector’s handicap is this: the chariots are cumbersome, slow to turn or swerve. So, we do not present a solid target but order our cars in open array in pairs. Each pair chooses a heavy chariot, evades its frontal assault, jinks and attacks on the flanks like deerhounds mauling a running stag!’

  An argumentative babble followed a thoughtful silence. Heroes dissected the factors, traced wiggly lines in sand, moved pebbles here and there like checkers on a board. I signalled to Eurymedon for wine, and silently breathed relief. Warriors forgot despondency in tactical discussions--a theme ever dear to Heroic hearts.

  From a medley of suggestions a general consensus emerged; all that remained were details. The Trojans, I stated, believed us a beaten army cowering behind defences and preparing to take to the ships. The last thing they’d expect was a sudden sally in strength. So, with every man who could walk we would launch an attack at daybreak. Mycenae’s squadron and Sparta’s chariots provided the counter-chariot force. The remainder would engage Troy’s light chariots and spearmen.

  So much, I reflected gloomily, for those modernized armoured tactics inherited from Atreus.

  The conference dispersed. Ajax and Menelaus warmed themselves at the fire and murmured desultory talk. Dying embers lighted Odysseus, Briseis drooped behind him. My heart sank. ‘Has Achilles refused?’

  ‘No, not quite. Declines to leave his tent and won’t, as he says, accept soiled goods.’ He quizzed the woman appreciatively. ‘Wouldn’t mind her myself! What do you say, sire--will you swop her for a dozen jars of wine?’

  ‘Get on with it, man!’

  ‘Achilles says you can have the Myrmidons, but Patroclus will lead them.’ Odysseus unbuckled brazen skirts and sat. ‘That’s better,’ he grunted. ‘Haven’t take the weight off my feet since daybreak!’

  ‘Rest while you may, for we ride into battle at dawn.’ I explained the methods decided. ‘An antique fight, I’m afraid, the kind that Perseus knew, the result depending solely on personal courage and skill.’ I knuckled smarting eyes. ‘Ajax, will you be my partner in hunting the heavy chariots?’

  He grinned widely. ‘You do me honour, sire!’

  Odysseus said in startled tones, ‘You’re not going to fight in the forefront?’

  ‘Indeed. In every man’s life a time arrives when he has to stake his head. Tomorrow--or is it today?--that moment arrives for me.’

  I called Eurymedon to disarm me, stretched on a cot and closed my eyes.

  The longest night I have known, alive with terrifying dreams.

  * * *

  In the first grey gleam of morning the gates swung wide and chariots crossed the causeways.

  Noises of assembly had alerted Trojan pickets; the enemy Host was armed and horses harnessed. Shouting and yelling they rode to repel the attack.

  Mycenaean and Spartan armour flowed out in seven separate streams, formed in pairs and galloped hard for the heavy Trojan chariots. Each couple went regardless for the target they had chosen. Despite criss-crossings and misunderstandings resulting in savage collisions four hundred Achaean chariots fell headlong on the foe.

  Occupied in killing Trojans and trying to preserve my life I cannot describe the general run of the fight. I picked a heavy chariot, bellowed to Ajax. Talthybius swerved left from the enemy’s path, Ajax jinked to the right. The three-horse team sped between us; Talthybius twitched his rein and brushed the Trojan’s nave. I lunged as the chariot hurtled past, impaled the driver’s chest and hooked him from the chariot. Impetus all but snatched the ashwood shaft from my grip; for a moment I fought for footing while a body transfixed on my spear jolted alongside the offside wheel. (The Hero parried Ajax’s thrust, but a driverless chariot is lost to the battle.)

  ‘Bear right, Talthybius, right!’ I roared. ‘Go for the blue car crossing our front! Strike him on the nearside!’

  I shouted to Ajax and pointed the quarry.

  My memories after the opening clash are vague. Galloping, swerving, checking, turning, hoarse from yelling instructions, sweating from fear and exertion I pelted about the battlefield in a whirl of flying chariots, scurrying spearmen, crackling collisions and dust. Ajax galloped wheel to wheel, parted when I signalled, hammered in from the farther side and struck like a falling thunderbolt. Heroes flung from chariots fought duels shield to shield, loose horses dragging splintered poles swept suddenly out of the murk, warriors badly wounded staggered across our path--and then you saw in the fog a heavy three-horse chariot, hauled aside and hit. My spear was lost in the fighting; I slashed my sword at chariots thundering past.

  Talthybius told me afterwards we accounted in all for six. The first is etched on my memory, the others hazy as dreams.

  My battle ended abruptly. A throwing spear came from nowhere and stuck like a quill in my bicep, the bloodied barb protruding on the end of a dangling shaft. Talthybius called to Ajax, turned his horses and fled. Tyres rattled on boulders, he pulled to a halt on the stony slant where Thorn Hill swelled from the plain. Bodies dotted the slopes where spearmen had clashed against spearmen; no one alive remained on the hill.

  I propped myself on a wheel. Ajax stormed up and dismounted. He looked at the spear and soundlessly whistled. ‘Return to camp, sire, and have Machaon attend the wound.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Your dagger, Ajax. Cut the shaft and pull out the barb.’

  I shall not describe that painful operation. Ajax laid the shaft on a wheel rim and sawed. He was gentle as could be, but the wood proved tough and his dagger, I feel, was blunt. At last the shaft fell away; tenderly he withdrew the head. Bronze grated on bone, and I almost fainted. Talthybius tore his tunic, stanched spurting blood and bound my arm. ‘Come, sire,’ he said as he tied the knot. ‘You need a proper dressing.’

  ‘No. When leaders fall or leave the field warriors lose heart. Let be. I shall recover.’

  Using Ajax’s spear as a staff I painfully climbed the hill. The ebb and flow of fighting, charge and counter-charge, advance and retreat dishevelled the plain from the foot of Troy’s mount to the ditch of our camp, from Scamander’s banks to Simoeis. Shouts and clashes and clanging and screams blended like the howling of a gale. Half-hidden by drifting curtains of dust war-band grappled war-band in turbulent confusion, smaller knots of horse and foot swirled in fierce contention, chariot circled chariot in individual duels. Loose horses galloped aimlessly, dead men sprawled in heaps, leaderless spearmen clustered back to back, chariots hung tiptilted, wheels revolving slowly. Small necklaces of plunderers dribbled from the fight, burdened with looted armour or leading captured horses.

  An untidy, archaic affray--and the most tremendous battle in Achaea’s bloodsoaked history.
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br />   A chariot swept from the ruck and scraped to a halt at the foot of the hill. ‘What’s the trouble, Agamemnon?’ Menelaus hailed. ‘Having a rest?’ He saw the reddened linen swathing my arm. ‘How badly are you hurt?’

  ‘A scratch. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Good. The battle’s almost won.’ An exultant grin split the sweat-streaked face. ‘Paris is dead. I spotted the bastard and chased; an arrow spiked his eye before I caught him. Didn’t get his armour either--Trojan spearmen carried off the body. My partner’s dead and I can’t tackle heavy chariots single-handed. With your sword-arm damaged you’ll fight no more--so can you spare me Ajax?’

  Ajax looked at me imploringly. I nodded assent. He and my brother rattled away together into the dust. I cradled a throbbing arm and scrutinized the conflict; our two-pronged attacks had all but eliminated Hector’s heavy chariots. In an orderless, widespread struggle the general flow of the fighting crept nearer the plateau of Troy. Here and there the enemy broke, whole war-bands panicked and streamed to the rear. One hard push by a compact force might settle the issue decisively; but I had no reserve in hand, no mass of manoeuvre for turning a flank.

  A most unmethodical battle.

  Beneath my eyes the Myrmidons, of all unlikely warriors, struck the crucial blow. Spearmen and war-cars massed in a bunch, advanced at a trot and carved through the fray like a ram. A scar-faced Hero led in a yellow chariot. They rampaged through the fighting, trampled friend and foe alike, remained in dense formation and thrust for the citadel’s mount. I gnawed a knuckle and prayed for the leader to turn: no war-band, however valiant, could carry Troy in a rush.

  The Lady granted my plea. The Myrmidons wheeled and battered the enemy’s backs.

  Few warriors, struck from the rear, continue contention in front. Though the fighting was too dispersed for the stroke to be wholly decisive the Trojans began to retire in a hundred trickling streams. The retreat was far from rout; the enemy withdrew in reasonable order, repulsed a feeble pursuit--after battling from sun-up till noon horses and men were exhausted--and rallied in array below the plateau.