“Odysseus!” the old man cried, waving his fist. “Treacherous dog! Cut the head from his shoulders, my son! Kill the cur!”
Now there were cries and shouts from below, and men started appearing from the shadows of the ruins. Hundreds of soldiers—Mykene, Thessalians, and mercenaries alike—were running to the main street where Hektor rode. They lined up on each side of his path, watching as the Trojan prince passed, Odysseus riding by his side. There were some jeers, but they were smothered quickly. Then there was silence as the two riders made their way up to the Scaean Gate.
Polydorus hurried to the side of the tower that looked down on the gate. There stood a huge dark-haired man in black armor. Polydorus knew immediately who he was. What is happening? he thought.
There was a brief conversation among the three men in front of the gates, and then Achilles stepped aside and walked away, apparently satisfied. Hektor looked up, and his voice boomed out. “Open the gate! Hektor, prince of Troy, commands it!”
Polydorus ran to the inward side of the tower and leaned far over the battlements.
“Open the gate!” he shouted down to the guards. “Hektor has returned! Open the gate now!”
Andromache was resting on a couch on the east terrace when the distant sound of cheering came to her ears. She sat up and glanced at Axa, who gazed at her in puzzlement. They both rose and went to the terrace wall but could see nothing from the vantage point. The cheering was getting louder all the time.
“I will go and find out what is happening,” she told her maid.
“Perhaps the enemy has left and we are saved,” Axa ventured.
“Maybe,” Andromache replied doubtfully, and left her apartments and hurried through the palace.
Outside the Royal Guard also was uncertain about what was happening. They had unsheathed their swords, ready for action. Then Polites appeared with his bodyguard, looking alarmed.
“Why is there cheering, Polites?” Andromache asked, but he shook his head.
Then a rider galloped up the stone streets toward them. He threw himself off his horse and cried, “Prince Hektor is back, lord! He is here in the city!”
The sound of cheering came closer, and now Andromache could hear the words repeated over and over: “Hektor! Hektor! HEKTOR!”
Hope blossomed in her heart, immediately followed by a stab of fear. The summer had been tedious but uneventful. Although the enemy was at the gates, it was impossible to stay frightened all the time, and eventually a complacent calm set in as long hot day followed long hot day. Now the wheel of events was starting to turn again, and something inside her told Andromache that this was the beginning of the end.
When her husband finally came in sight, walking his horse slowly up toward the king’s palace, he was surrounded by a mob of cheering Trojans. Soldiers had formed a circle of protection around him, but people kept trying to break through in a bid to touch his robe or sandals. The black horse fidgeted nervously, but Hektor kept him walking steadily on a tight rein. As he reached the palace, the Royal Guard pushed the mob back, but the people continued shouting his name and cheering.
Hektor smiled when he saw Andromache and reined in his horse. He dismounted wearily, then embraced her, holding a hand out to his brother. “Andromache. Polites. It is good to see you both.”
“We thank the gods you are here, Hektor,” Polites replied. “But why and how? You come unlooked for.”
Hektor shook his head. “I must speak to Father first.”
“But Father is not well,” Polites told him.
“I know,” Hektor countered, sorrow in his voice. “Nevertheless, he is still the king, and I must speak to him first.”
He gripped Andromache’s hand tightly for a heartbeat, then let her go and turned and walked toward the king’s palace with his brother. Andromache returned to her apartments, her mind in a whirl. Waiting never had come easy to her, and she found herself pacing up and down the terrace, restless with uncertainty and anticipation. The sky darkened, and the two boys went to their beds, but still Hektor had not come.
Finally the door opened with a whisper, and he was there, dressed in an old gray tunic and threadbare cloak. She ran into his arms. He held her for a while, his face pressed deep into her hair. Then she looked up at him and said, smiling, “On the bank of the Simoeis I told you we would meet again.”
Gazing into her eyes, his face grave, he told her, “There is to be a duel, Andromache.”
She took a deep breath and asked, “It’s with Achilles, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I killed his friend Patroklos, you see, and he wants vengeance.”
She found anger surging up inside her and pulled away from his embrace. “This is not a game, husband! This friend of his came here, like Achilles, to plunder the city, to kill and to maim. Do you owe it to Achilles to fight him because you killed his friend? Hektor, you have killed hundreds in battle since this war started. Do you have to fight all their friends, too?” She heard the heavy sarcasm in her voice and hated herself for it, but she could not stop herself. “This is a grand nonsense, husband!”
He opened his mouth to speak, and she cried, “And do not say the word ‘honor’ to me! I am sick and tired of that word. It seems to me that honor means whatever you men want it to mean.”
Hektor watched her until her rage subsided a little. “If I fight Achilles, they will let our women and children go. Agamemnon has pledged this, and Odysseus guaranteed it.”
“And you believe them?” she asked, but her anger had weakened, and she could lean on it no more. “Will Astyanax be taken to safety?”
He shook his head sadly. “If they had agreed to that, I would not have trusted them.”
“This is still a grand nonsense,” she repeated sadly.
“What is wrong, Andromache?” he asked gently.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. What is wrong with me? she thought. My husband returns to me, having secured the lives of Trojan women and children, yet I am shouting at him like a fishwife.
She smiled at him. “I’m sorry, my love. But what happens if Achilles kills you? Will Agamemnon then keep his word? Why would he?”
He explained. “The gates will be opened at dawn, and the women and children allowed to leave. They will be escorted to the Bay of Herakles, where they will take ship for Lesbos. The gates will close again at noon, when the duel will start. So Achilles and I will not meet until after the innocents are freed.”
“Can you win?”
“I have beaten everyone who has ever come against me. And I have beaten Achilles before. You were there.”
“Yes, it was brutal.”
He nodded. “Fistfights can be like that. This will be a duel to the death with swords.”
Her blood ran cold as she thought of it. “It must be quick,” she told him, thinking back to Helikaon’s duel with Persion.
“Yes.” He nodded. “The longer it goes on, the more likely he is to kill me. He is very skilled, very fast, and he is younger than I am. But he has weaknesses. Pride and vanity are his constant companions. They are unreliable friends and often give bad advice.”
“That is not very reassuring,” she said, smiling slightly.
He shook his head. “It is all I have to offer, Andromache.”
Hektor called for food. He ate a meal of salt fish and corn bread, and they both sipped wine as they talked deep into the night. She told him of the desperate situation in Troy, the fact that the entire city now relied for water on one unreliable well, and the dire state of the granaries. They discussed the successes of the Xanthos and those of the Trojan Horse. He asked about Astyanax, and she made him laugh by telling him the trivial gossip of the palace.
At last Hektor, weary beyond words, threw himself on the bed and was instantly asleep. Andromache watched him for a while, her heart aching. Then she walked back out onto the terrace.
The moon was riding high, and she stood looking at it for a while. Then she did something she had not done sin
ce she had left the sanctuary of Thera. She prayed to her own special deity, Artemis the moon goddess.
“O Lady of the Wild Things,” she pleaded, “protector of small children, take pity on your sister, and protect my husband tomorrow. Guard him so that he can return to guard his son.”
Then she lay on the couch listening to the night sounds of the city and eventually drifted into a troubled sleep.
It was daylight when she was woken abruptly by a shrill cry. She leaped up, startled, and rushed indoors. There she found little Astyanax standing in the doorway to his bedchamber, gazing up in fear at Hektor, who had donned his bronze armor, including the high helm with its black-and-white crest.
Hektor laughed and pulled off the helm again. “Don’t be frightened, boy.” He knelt in front of the child and picked him up, holding him in front of his face. “See, you remember me. I am your father.”
Astyanax grinned with delight and cried, “Papa! Did you bring my pony?”
“Not yet, boy. When you are a bit older, you will have the pony I promised.”
The child reached out and ran his small finger along the lines of the golden horse embossed on Hektor’s breastplate. “Like this, Papa?”
“Yes, just like this one.” Hektor looked at Andromache, and there was anguish in his eyes as he held the boy close to him. He shook his head, and Andromache knew what he was thinking.
“Many other men’s sons will live because of what you do today, my love,” she reassured him.
He breathed a deep sigh, looking down on the child’s flame-colored hair. “It is not enough,” he answered. “I can never do enough.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE BRAVEST OF THE TROJANS
As dawn cast its pink rays over the city, the massive Scaean Gate swung open a crack and a small girl toddled out. She was scarcely more than a baby, with big blue eyes and golden curls. When she saw the armed men lined up outside, she stopped in surprise, then sat down suddenly. Sitting in the dust she started to wail.
A young woman followed her through the gates, crying, “Susa, I told you to wait for me!” She saw the enemy soldiers, and her face went ashen, but she ran forward and picked up the child. She carried a shapeless bag of belongings under one arm, and she tucked the crying girl under the other. Then she looked around.
Odysseus stepped forward. “You know where you are going, woman?”
She nodded, bobbing her head nervously.
“Then go!” he roared, pointing down the road that led through the lower town and across the Scamander plain to the safety of the sea.
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered, passing him, head down. “Thank you, lord.”
Next through the gates was a skinny old crone with two children, a boy and a girl, held tightly by their hands. She glared when she saw the soldiers and hurried past the watching ranks as quickly as possible.
As more women came out from the gate, Odysseus signaled to his Ithakan riders to accompany the exodus toward the Bay of Herakles. One trotted his horse up to the first woman and, leaning from his mount, picked up the crying toddler by one arm and lifted her up in front of him. The girl stopped wailing instantly, startled into silence.
Throughout the morning there was a continuous stream of refugees out of the city until, Odysseus guessed, the line of them stretched all the way from the Scaean Gate to the bay. There were a few donkey carts and a couple of starved-looking horses, but most of the women walked. There were wives with small children and some young women traveling in groups, but many of the refugees were sturdy older women, soldiers’ wives and camp followers who were used to walking long distances behind moving armies. They did not pale when they passed the enemy warriors; they marched with their heads high.
Odysseus glanced at Agamemnon from time to time. Tall and stooped in his black cloak, the Mykene king was standing watching the refugees. Odysseus was reminded of a hungry vulture deprived of its prey. Alongside him was a thin, swarthy man called Dolon. Each time a woman or child with red hair came out of the gates, Agamemnon would look at Dolon, who would shake his head. Odysseus knew the man once had played a role in the Trojan royal household and guessed he would be well rewarded for this day’s work.
Long before noon the trickle of refugees from the gate stopped. There was an expectant silence among the waiting soldiers, then finally Hektor himself walked out. He was in full armor of bronze, his black-and-white crested helm held under one arm and four swords in the other hand. He looked twice the size of any of the men around him, and he gazed at them without expression. The Scaean Gate closed behind him, and they all heard the locking bar being rammed firmly into place.
Odysseus walked up to the prince, who asked him, “Will they be safe, sea uncle?”
The king nodded. “You have my word. The first ones to leave are already on Kypriot ships. The masters have been well paid to take them to Lesbos. And many will have enough rings for passage far away from here.”
Hektor’s face was grave, and Odysseus could see the tension around his eyes.
“Then let’s get on with it,” he said.
Followed by hundreds of warriors, the two walked around the walls to the west of the city. There the wall was lowest, and the people of Troy could watch the combat from the battlements. A wide area of ground had been leveled off during the night, and a huge circular trench dug, wider than a man could leap across. It was filled with glowing coals, and the heat rising from them made the air shimmer. The arena of combat inside the trench was more than fifty paces wide, and Odysseus knew the ground had been scrutinized closely for loose pebbles that could make a fighter lose his footing. Thousands of soldiers were gathering around the circle, six to eight deep, jostling for a vantage point. The ones at the back pushed forward; those at the front tried to stay back from the heat of the coals.
Achilles was waiting alongside the priest of Ares. He was garbed in his black armor and helm, and if he noticed the heat, he did not show it. There were four swords at his feet, as agreed. Hektor checked the straps on his breastplate, then put on his helm. He placed his swords on the ground by the priest. Odysseus noticed that the hilts of Hektor’s swords were incised with the horse insignia of the house of Priam.
The thin dark-clad priest raised his hands and cried out in a reedy voice, “O Ares, lord of war, man killer, bringer of glory, hear our words. Look on these two great warriors. Each has served you well, O hater of mankind. Today, if you will it, one will stalk the sunlit Fields of Elysium. The name of the other will echo down the halls of history, and all men will honor him for eternity.”
Two scrawny goats were dragged up, and the priest cut their throats with a curved knife as they cried out in fear. Their blood splashed on the ground, drying instantly on the hot earth.
A huge plank of wood—a door, Odysseus guessed—doused in water was thrown over the trench as a bridge. The two champions each picked up a blade, then walked across the bridge, steam from the coals rising around them. The bridge was withdrawn. Odysseus looked up at the western wall. It was packed with silent watchers. There were thousands of spectators at this death match, but they were so quiet, all he could hear was the two men’s footsteps as they walked to the center of the arena.
They touched swords in salute. Then they circled. Achilles attacked first with lightning speed, and Hektor blocked and parried, sending back a blistering riposte that made Achilles step back. They circled again, watching each other’s eyes.
“Will you wager with me, Odysseus?” asked his kinsman Nestor, king of Pylos, who was standing beside him. “Our great Achilles against your friend Hektor?”
“I am proud to call Hektor my friend, but I will not wager on him,” Odysseus replied. “By Hera’s tits, even the gods will not gamble on this battle.”
Hektor hacked and thrust; Achilles parried and countered. Suddenly Achilles launched a ferocious attack, his blade moving like quicksilver. Hektor blocked it, then spun on his heel and hit Achilles in the face with the back of his fist.
Achilles stumbled, righted himself, and swiftly brought up his blade to parry a death thrust to the neck. His riposte was so fast that Hektor threw himself to the ground, rolled, and was up again in an instant. They circled again.
Odysseus watched spellbound as the duel continued. Both fighters were endowed with natural balance and speed. Both had honed their skills in a thousand battles. Achilles was the younger man, yet he had spent all his short life seeking fights. Hektor battled and killed only when he had to. Both men fought coolly and with patience. Each knew that the slightest misjudgment could end his life. Each probed for weaknesses in the other; each tried to read the other’s moves.
The pace quickened, and the swords clashed in a whirl of glittering bronze. Attacking with controlled fury, Achilles forced Hektor back toward the fiery trench. They had to move carefully there, for the edges of the trench were crumbling in the heat. Hektor’s foot slipped. The crowd on the wall gasped. Achilles lunged. Hektor parried, regained his footing, and sent a flashing riposte that slid off Achilles’ breastplate. Both men stepped back, as if by consent, toward the center of the circle.
Odysseus knew that most duels began with heat and fury, then settled down to a game of endurance and concentration. No two duelists were exactly matched; all knew this. And there would always come a point when the seed of doubt entered the mind of one fighter: Is he better than I am? In this duel both men wanted to win. But was the difference between them that Achilles feared losing? Hektor had no such fear. Indeed, Odysseus wondered if it was Hektor’s weakness that at his core he did not care if he lived or died.
Achilles attacked again. Hektor ducked beneath a murderous cut, his blade flashing out and slicing Achilles’ cheek. Achilles stepped back a pace, wiping blood from his face, and Hektor allowed himself a heartbeat’s pause.
Then Hektor attacked. Achilles blocked the sword, rolled his wrist, and lanced his blade into the meat of Hektor’s shoulder. Hektor swayed back, preventing the point from thrusting deeply, but his sword fell from his numbed hand. The crowd gasped, and several people on the wall cried out. Achilles moved back two paces and gestured to the Trojan warrior to pick up the weapon.
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