A Second Chance

by Jodi Taylor

  I got about an hour’s sleep and then was awoken by Kal, yammering in my ear. That really shouldn’t happen to anyone first thing in the morning.

  ‘Max! Wake up. They’ve gone. Get your people to the walls. They’ve gone. The Greeks have gone.’

  I’m really not that good in the morning. I rolled off my mat, struggled to my feet, staggered a little as my limbs sorted themselves out, and blinked while my brain got itself into gear.

  Others were stirring around me, banging their shoes together to dislodge scorpions and reaching for their equipment.

  ‘Right,’ I said, before they all scattered. ‘Stay in pairs. No one goes anywhere alone. Take a minute to check your equipment is working before you go. There won’t be any action replays so we have to make sure we get it right first time.’

  I grabbed a waterskin and a recorder.

  Guthrie was barking orders at his team. Every historian was to have an escort. Leon and Weller were to remain behind with the pods.

  ‘Move,’ I said, impatient at the delay and terrified of missing something. The Greeks had gone and standing on the beach should be one of the most widely recognised objects in all the world. In all of History.

  The Trojan Horse.

  The actual Trojan Horse.

  Finally.

  ‘Remember,’ called Leon after me. ‘Check under the tail.’

  Old joke.

  We scattered to our tasks. Everyone knew the area for which they were responsible. We’d been over this so many times and now … now, finally, the moment was here.

  I was going to see the Wooden Horse of Troy.

  I flew through the streets, hardly caring whether Guthrie was with me or not, making straight for the western wall. Along with everyone else in Troy. I fought my way through the excited crowds. Guthrie stuck with me and it was a good job he did or I’d have been trampled half a dozen times. It wasn’t an ill-natured crowd. They just wanted to see.

  As did I.

  I had to see …

  We struggled up a stone stairway and out on to the walls. The breeze tore at my hair. The walls were jam-packed with excited people. I bobbed up and down in frustration. In the end, Guthrie used his elbows and we fought our way to the front. I stood on tiptoe, craning my neck left and right, trying to take it all in at once. All around me, Trojans pointed and exclaimed.

  Kal was right. They were gone. The Greeks were gone.

  I could imagine the night they’d had. With Achilles dead, I guessed the heart had gone out of most of them. Their greatest fighter was dead. They were still on the beach. Ten long years had passed and they were no closer to taking the city than the day they arrived. The walls of Troy still stood strong. They’d had enough. They hadn’t even waited for the dawn.

  I imagined them, one by one, pulling silently away into the night, eager to leave this cursed place behind them. And rather than let the world witness the humiliation of seeing his forces abandon him, Agamemnon had gone with them. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be left alone to face the mockery of the Trojans. Or even worse – the entire world. Everyone would know what had occurred here. The failure of his great venture. Ten years wasted and nothing to show for it. News of his shame would fly around the known world.

  The Siege of Troy was over.

  I heard a loud scraping noise and to my right the Scaean Gate was dragged open. A troop of heavily armed soldiers marched out. The Trojans cheered. The gate closed again behind them. They were taking no chances. These were war-hardened, cautious people. The legend that they had knocked down their own gate to give entrance to a giant wooden horse was suddenly completely unbelievable.

  Because there was no Trojan Horse.

  I could see pretty well the whole plain from where I was standing, up and down the coast, right down to the shoreline, and there was no Trojan Horse.

  No giant wooden construction of any kind.

  I felt a huge cold wave of disappointment and disbelief. First no Helen and now, no Trojan Horse. It shouldn’t make any difference, of course, but it did. To me, it made a massive difference. There never was and never had been a Trojan Horse.

  I could hear excited chatter all around me. Next to me, an old man in a stained ochre tunic was shouting excitedly and pointing. I shut it all out and tried to concentrate.

  The plain was far from empty. The shoreline was littered with debris left behind by the retreating Greeks. Useless pieces of armour, broken gear, chariot wheels, spars, pieces of ships that had been cannibalised, the smoking remains of campfires – all the unwanted detritus of war littered the plain.

  There were even a number of horses, standing here and there, their heads down, thirsty, their manes and tails ruffling in the breeze – obviously too old to make the return voyage. They looked sad and abandoned on this long and lonely beach.

  I could see no sign anywhere of the Greeks and their ships. The sea was empty and the horizon clear.

  A swelling murmur ran along the walls. A man shouted. A horn rang out. The wind picked up again and, above me, flags and pennants streamed sideways, snapping in the wind. I blinked dust out of my eyes.

  Another horn sounded a reply down on the plain. The soldiers broke ranks and began to poke around the remains, kicking over old pots and rubbish, looking for anything of value.

  With no signal given that I could see, the Trojans left the walls. The Scaean Gate dragged itself open again and the citizens of Troy, confined behind their own walls for ten long, long years, streamed out across the plain.

  We watched them go. I preferred to stay on the walls. The view was much better from up here. I pulled out my little recorder. Guthrie, as he always did, watched my back. I panned up and down the shoreline a couple of times. I got shots of the walls, and then turned back into the town, to record the last of the near hysterical exodus from the city.

  That done, I stood resting my arms on the wall and had a bit of a think.

  I called Van Owen, who confirmed she and Ritter were safe and working. I called Leon, who reported there was no one around – Helios and his family had gone to the walls, along with everyone else.

  Peterson reported that he, Kal, and Evans were out on the plain and all was well. In fact, if I screwed up my eyes, I was pretty sure I could see Markham out there as well, turning over a broken javelin and talking to Roberts.

  So what was making me so uneasy?

  Beside me, Guthrie stood quietly, alone with his own thoughts, as usual.

  The Greeks were gone. The Trojans liberated. No Trojan Horse. Was I confusing unease with disappointment? Disappointment that one of my favourite moments in all of History just hadn’t happened?

  This was stupid. When you sit down and think about it – how likely was the Trojan Horse? That they would find enough wood to build such a huge structure in the first place? That men could conceal themselves inside and not be discovered? That the Trojans, after a ten-year war that had cost them so dearly, would actually bring down their own walls?

  There never was and never had been a Trojan Horse.

  I remembered my own, special little Trojan Horse, made for me by Leon all those years ago. Our arguments over where the trapdoor had been. He always maintained it couldn’t have been in the belly as so often depicted. He favoured under the tail. I had rather looked forward to seeing Greek heroes wriggling out from the Horse’s backside like so many giant tapeworms.

  But it was not to be.

  There was no Trojan Horse.

  And then, thank the god of historians – I woke up.

  Yes, there was!

  Right here in front of me. I was looking at it. And another one over there. And two more over there. And a whole group of them over there. There wasn’t just one Trojan Horse. There were nine, ten, eleven – at least twelve that I could see, and maybe more.

  My thoughts were tumbling all over the place. I let them. I let them wander wherever they wanted to go. They knew what they were doing.

  I had part of the picture. No
t the whole thing, but I had a beginning.

  But, first things first. I called Van Owen. ‘Who’s with you?’

  ‘Ritter.’

  ‘Send him back to your pods. And Roberts and Evans. Get them to fill every available container with water. Fill the tanks. Get as much as they can. Secure all food supplies. From this moment, we are self-contained. We eat and drink nothing – nothing, do you understand? – from contemporary sources. I’m up on the west wall, under the pennant with the blue horse. Can you meet me here? Soonest.’

  ‘On my way.’

  I called Leon, faithfully guarding the other pods, and gave him the same instructions. ‘Weller and Ritter will assist. I’ll explain later. We’re a bit busy, but it’s important.’

  ‘Understood,’ he said calmly, and now I could relax a little.

  I called in Peterson as well and he, Guthrie, Van Owen, Kal, Markham, and I sat under a shady tree in the small square next to the fish market. We kept our voices low, but we needn’t have bothered. The city was empty. After ten years, only those who couldn’t actually walk were still inside the walls.

  Peterson had liberated a couple of flat loaves since no one had had breakfast.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Well, firstly – no Trojan Horse.’

  People nodded. They were disappointed as well. It’s always important to know the truth, but we all need our stories.

  ‘Although, that’s not true. There isn’t one Trojan Horse. There are twelve of them. Think about it.’

  Kal said, ‘There are a dozen horses out there. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Horses are valuable. Very valuable. Trained chariot horses almost beyond price. They’ve left twelve behind. Why?’

  ‘They’re old. Or injured. Not worth space on the voyage.’

  ‘So why not slaughter them, cut them up, and eat them on the way home? No one in this part of the world has seen much meat go by recently.’

  Van Owen said, ‘Because there’s something the matter with them. There must be.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peterson, in sudden excitement, ‘if you read Homer, the Iliad opens with a plague. First, the dogs fell sick, then the horses, then the people. They put it down to the wrath of Apollo. These are some of the sick horses.’

  I continued. ‘And the Trojans, who are hungry and without the benefit of Homer and hindsight, will take them inside the city. They’ll be slaughtered. There will be offerings to the gods – which the priests will eat afterwards. The soldiers will get the lion’s share and the rest divided amongst the people. A modern cow can feed over a thousand people.’

  Don’t ask me how I know these things. I just do.

  ‘One of these admittedly rather stringy horses could feed, say, six hundred. Minimum. That’s over seven thousand people directly contaminated. Most of them soldiers. And it won’t stop there. The blood runs off into the gutters. Dogs and cats will lap at it and then roam the city and spread the sickness. No one will wash their hands properly. A baker will handle contaminated meat and then go on to bake his morning loaves. Which people will eat. Years of warfare and a restricted diet will have made these people vulnerable. In twenty-four hours, virtually everyone in the city could be puking and shitting uncontrollably. All right, some will hardly be affected and maybe not many will actually die – but they’ll be in no condition to defend themselves.’

  I stopped and pulled off another piece of bread.

  Kal said, ‘And then what? All right, it’s ShitCity for a couple of days, but how is that a problem?

  ‘Because if the Greeks come back, barely anyone will be able to lift a sword.’

  ‘But why? Why would the Greeks come back? Are you saying they left these horses deliberately? To poison people? And then they’ll come back and take the city?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, suddenly grinding to a halt. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘No.’ said Guthrie. ‘It doesn’t matter whether or not the Trojans can defend themselves. Even if the Greeks turn up, the Trojans will nip back inside their walls, shut the gates, and everyone’s back to square one. The one thing we do know is that the gates and walls make this city almost impregnable, whether manned or not. They could certainly hold out long enough for people to recover.’

  ‘True, Major. So you think the Greeks have gone for good?’

  ‘Yes. I think they’ve gone for good.’

  I could hear people’s brains turning, still trying to reconcile the legend with the facts. And if we were having trouble, imagine how reluctant the rest of the world would be to learn there was no Helen, no Trojan Horse, no heroes, no gods, just an undetermined skirmish that lasted for ten years and then just petered out. People like their stories – their legends. They don’t give them up easily.

  I sighed. ‘Well, we have a job to do. So long as we don’t eat or drink anything contemporary, we should be fine. Warn your people and let’s get on with it.’

  We went back to the walls.

  They were already leading in the horses. To modern eyes, they were scrawny-looking things – typical horses of the day. Big heads, barrel bodies, and thin legs. Their heads hung low, but they didn’t look sick.

  So, this part of the legend was true. The Trojans themselves voluntarily brought their downfall into their city.

  And the next part was true as well. Above the Scaean Gate, a lone figure raised her arms. Unlike the rest of the royal family who, with the exception of Paris, ostentatiously dressed in every shade of the rainbow and glittered with gold and jewels, she was simply dressed in white, as if personal appearance was of no importance to her. In contrast to the women around her, with their intricate hairstyles dressed with combs and pins of silver and gold, her red-gold hair exploded around her head like a sunburst.

  Her voice, clear as a clarion, cut through the racket. I couldn’t make out the words, but we all knew whom this was.

  This was Kassandra, daughter of Priam, one of only two people in Troy who warned against bringing the Trojan Horse into the city. And no one listened to her.

  Her beauty supposedly caused the god Apollo to fall in love with her, and when she spurned his love – which you just don’t do to a god – he cursed her twice. Firstly, with the ability to know the future. And secondly, and most cruelly, that no one would ever believe her.

  They didn’t believe her now. King’s daughter or not, she was just that mad bat Kassandra, the one who was always ranting on about something or other. They laughed and pointed. And laughed again.

  She redoubled her efforts.

  They redoubled their laughing.

  And then, in mid-rant – she stopped. She lowered her arms, turned her head and, for one moment, I thought she looked directly at me.

  I couldn’t look away. I wanted to. But I couldn’t.

  Then Guthrie spoke and the spell was broken.

  Considerably shaken, I stepped behind him, out of her sight, just to give myself a moment.

  The horses were followed by cheering crowds. All over the city, butchers would be sharpening their knives. Priests were lighting fires. Troy was preparing to party. Party until it dropped.

  We were out there, of course. We’d have been mad not to be. So long as no one ate or drank anything, we’d be fine.

  The party started as the sun slipped below the horizon. The last carefully hoarded supplies were broached as people flung years of restraint straight out of the window. After ten long, bitter years, they finally had something to celebrate.

  And celebrate they did. The entire city was one giant street party. Every lamp was lit. Drink flowed. The smell of roasting meat was everywhere. Long lines of people danced along the streets, picking up and discarding others as the fancy took them. Many couples peeled off into dark doorways and a whole new generation could have been conceived that night.

  Every square had at least one bonfire and winding queues of waiting people. Roasting horsemeat smells quite good, but none of us was tempted. I’d made it a hanging o
ffence, anyway. I’d personally checked our supplies and I knew Kal had done the same on the other side of the olive grove. We would only ever have this one opportunity and I wasn’t going to squander it by having half my team on the sick list.

  So we moved among the crowds, laughing, dancing, recording, and, in my case, wondering what the hell would happen next.

  I’d never actually been on an assignment where this had happened. We jump to specific events, already having a fairly clear idea of what will happen. Sometimes minor details are wrong, but if we jump to Hastings 1066, we know the Normans will win. We might not know how, and the arrow in the eye is something we’re going to have to sort out one day – but the point is – we know the Normans win. As Professor Penrose had once pointed out to me, our work was hazardous but predictable.

  Now, we had no idea how this would end. Anything could happen. It was quite exciting. I said so and Guthrie rolled his eyes.

  I called a halt at midnight, expecting some muttering about party pooping, but we were all exhausted. We’d been at it since dawn.

  And starving, too. I ate nearly two mouthfuls of Markham’s ghastly stodge before I realised what I was doing.

  And then we all went to bed.

  I woke early the next morning and lay for a while, staring up at the fading stars and still thinking about yesterday and what I was missing. Around me, I could hear my team moving around. I sat up. Roberts and Markham were tea monitors this morning. I took mine a little way off, sat with my back against an olive tree and thought.

  And got nowhere. I just couldn’t see how this would end. By now, of course, most of Troy would be groaning in the gutters and pebble dashing every available surface. Even those who had escaped food poisoning would have the hangover from hell. Some – possibly many, given their weakened state – would die, but not enough for Troy to fall.

  I was still missing something.