Their forces were much weakened. They could not have taken the city directly. But they entered through the mouth of the tunnel on the hill beyond Troy.
Later the Greeks told of a dream, or vision of the prophet Calchas, aboard ship as they left in disorder after their defeat It was a dream of a huge horse, containing some of their own men, left as a gift from them for the Trojans, trustingly dragged into the city. By night, according to Calchas’ dream, the soldiers inside released themselves and opened the city gates. The Greeks flooded through; the city was taken. Later still, this dream became the story told by the Greeks as true. That they came out of the belly of the city, that it was taken by a ruse, is true but the rest is not. For, how, after all those years of war, could we have trusted such a gift?
I was to discover not too long after who had revealed the secret of the tunnel in return for a promise of ruling the kingdom when the Greeks were triumphant Naomi knew even sooner. She told me many years later how she was pushed aboard the Greek ship by her soldier lover during the rout. How the boat sailed for Tenedos. There on the shore the night before Troy fell, she saw the face of the traitor. She told me, ‘He’d come across the sea, travelled across the isthmus, then sailed to Tenedos, where he found us. I saw his face. He passed where I was sitting on the beach at night – he had come from the Greek camp – Agamemnon’s arm was round his shoulders. Agamemnon was saying, “Farewell, new King of Troy. I shall be there at your wedding.” The night was bright as day. I saw the moonlight on his traitor’s face as they put up the sail of his boat and, as the boat floated out, Agamemnon stood on the beach with his arms raised in comradely farewell.’
‘What did he mean about the wedding, do you think?’ I asked her.
‘He had been promised Helen as his wife,’ Naomi said promptly.
‘Agamemnon promised him his own brother’s wife?’
‘He would have promised anything for victory.’
‘And any man would have done anything to gain her,’ I said. ‘I wonder when this arrangement between Agamemnon and the traitor came about. How long before the fall of Troy?’
‘It would have been when the reinforcements came,’ she asserted.
‘Our victory would not have been enough for him. He wanted more. He wanted Helen.’
We had time, later, to reconstruct the events. What follows is not what I saw, for in these situations no one sees everything. I say what I saw and what the survivors told me.
The party of men, about twenty of them, led by Diomedes, crept through the tunnel and into the body of the temple, where injured men and some of the Ethiopian women and children slept. They trod carefully between the sleeping figures but a soldier awoke, cried out and they slew him. Then a baby woke. They speared the child, moving on rapidly, but the mother, grasping for it, finding it gone, screamed out, then endured the unthinkable experience of having the body of the child, wrenched from the spear like skewered meat, flung on her, bleeding. As she screamed, another soldier put his knife to her throat. She went on screaming, and was killed.
People were waking, in confusion, crying out, or lying dazed as the enemy moved nimbly and quietly through their prone figures. The sleepers awoke from celebrating a victory; their antagonists were warriors, their edges honed sword-sharp by battle, seeking revenge. They moved silently, their faces blackened, killing where they needed to. Before anyone really knew what was happening, they were through the temple and at the gates. They killed the guards rapidly and six of them began to lever up the heavy wooden crossbar which secured the gates, while the others protected them with drawn swords.
There were men and women, now fighting to get to the gates and defend them. Paris came naked, with his sword, and attacked Diomedes, who had to turn to defend himself. The blacksmith, hearing the outcry had raced from the smithy and felled one of the Greeks with the hammer he had seized up. Penthesilea and Troilus joined the fight against Diomedes. A deadly struggle in darkness took place. Now came the battering at the gates from without. And, having heard that the struggle to open the gates had begun, six Greek soldiers started to scale the walls from outside. Scrambling over them, these Greeks then overcame the sentries on the ramparts and began to fight their way down the steps to join the group trying to open the gates. Two were killed and one wounded but the arrival of the other three proved enough of a reinforcement to help Nestor’s son and the others to lift the bar. The gates screeched as a yelling band of armoured men, some fifty of them, in full armour, burst through the Scaean Gate. A small group raced through the city to the other gate, opened it, and in came a further fifty men.
In the end it was so simply done. A mere one hundred Greeks burst into the city in darkness, while we were off guard, tired after rejoicing, taking the first rest we had been granted for a year and a half. And it was over for us from that point on. The Ethiopian and Trojan forces managed to drive out the invading force at the Scaean Gate. They battled outside, while inside the city the second wave of Greeks fought on, inch by inch, to join up with their comrades.
Now the two armies joined battle for the last time. The mighty figure of Achilles could be seen trading sword blow for sword blow with the Amazon general, Penthesilea. All around, men struggled desperately. In the darkness Penthesilea’s tiny figure could be seen, nimbly evading the mighty thrusts of Achilles’ sword, but her efforts may have exhausted her, or she was unlucky. Achilles thrust her through the chest. She put one hand to her breast – and fell.
In the palace I, the prophetess, was at the top of the steps leading down to the city, wielding my brother’s sword. I had been asleep in the women’s room, when the outcry woke us. Babies and small children started yelling, women were shouting questions when suddenly, just as the first torch was lit, two Greek soldiers appeared looming in the doorway. The women seized what they had, even brooch pins, and prepared to defend themselves. I somehow ducked past them in the darkness, and ran into the great hall where stood my mother and father, bewildered. My mother was ill and shaking, one arm around white-faced Polyxena. Creusa was there, with her boy, and Andromache, with hers. My brother Hector’s old sword, the one he had used as a lad, trailed from my mother’s hand. It was dented and had a broken hilt, had been kept by my mother out of sentiment and never handed over to the smith for remaking as it should have been. She held the sword out to me.
‘Find Helenus,’ she said. ‘Fight with him.’ I shall never know why she gave me Hector’s old sword to help defend the city. She embraced me, then, with dignity, she put her other arm round my poor broken father and I ran from the room, leaving the group, my father, young sister, my mother, my brother Hector’s widow and her child, my sister Creusa and her child, all together in the room. All are dead now, of course, except Andromache.
It was dark, Greeks and Trojans fought here and there. Cries and shouts rose. I found Helenus by a miracle, it seemed, and together, at the top of the steps leading up to the palace and the city ramparts, attempting to prevent more Greeks from entering the palace, we fought There were four of us – crippled Advenor, who had come from the stables when the noise began, Helenus and I, and Penthesilea’s general, who had become separated from the main troop of Amazons fighting outside the city gates. She had been in the stables with Advenor, taking her pleasure, adventitiously, as soldiers do.
Now I was looking down into the blue eyes of Menelaus. His red hair was damp with sweat. He grinned.
Helenus, grasping his sword, gasped, ‘You’re on the wrong level, Menelaus. Your wife’s below – with Paris.’ The Greeks pushed up. Menelaus swung his sword at Helenus and missed. From above Advenor struck one of the Greeks inexpertly on the head. The man slipped and fell on the steps and lay in the blood gouting from his head. But in spite of what we did they were all warriors and we were not They pushed us aside and ten men, Menelaus with them, ran in the darkness towards the palace. One of them struck down Advenor as he ran by.
Advenor lay still, on the cobbles outside his own stables. Helenus disappe
ared as did the Amazon general. She went to find her regiment, but by then they were mourning for Penthesilea, whom Achilles had killed outside the gates. I followed the soldiers. Menelaus turned, saw me, seized me and dragged me into the palace with him. But even as, grasping me, he confronted my family, the battle for the city was not yet over. There was fighting everywhere.
The Amazons, though, were departing. Penthesilea was dead – they must have known the war now could have only one conclusion. It had been outside the gates that one of Penthesilea’s soldiers, fighting the mighty Ajax, had turned her head to see Achilles kill her leader. Then began the high intolerable wail, and this sound, piercing all other noises, brought the other women running. The terrible high-pitched mourning around Penthesilea’s body began even in the midst of battle. The Greeks ceased to attack them. They parted ranks to let the women gather up their leader. Soon the broken column of women, still wailing, stooped on their horses, Penthesilea’s bloody body across the pommel of one of them, was making its way across the plain from Troy, back to the mountains, where they would bury her.
After her death at the hands of Achilles the great man had stood still, gazing at her fallen body. Thersites had bent to strip her armour. ‘No!’ roared Achilles. ‘No!’
Thersites turned. In a voice of great scorn and contempt – for Penthesilea, for Achilles’ seeming sentimentality – he said, ‘It’s a woman, Achilles. This thing is an enemy woman,’ and he kicked the body in the side.
As Thersites once more bent over the corpse Achilles pulled back his arm and with his spear still stained with Penthesilea’s blood, pierced Thersites through. Thersites fell to the ground, writhing with the spear through his chest.
A great ‘Ah!’ of shock and blame went up from the Greek ranks. Achilles got into his chariot, whipped up his horses and rode straight through their ranks with a terrifying, set face, and down to the beach and into the sea, still in his armour, the plume of his helmet blowing.
I did not know this, nor of Memnon and his troops chasing Achilles and his Myrmidons all over the plain of Troy nor of Memnon’s suddenly sparing the life of the great hero, as he had him on the ground, ivory-tipped spear pointing at his centre. I did not see Paris, gallant in defeat, defending himself against Agamemnon on the steps of Troy as the first wafts of smoke began to waver up. I did not see Paris die, for which I am grateful, nor did I see the deaths of my other brothers.
I was in the great hall. I had cut Menelaus’ arm, before he disarmed me. It was with this arm he grasped me, his blood was staining my dress. Menelaus and the remaining Greeks, spears raised, swords drawn, surrounded in the darkness my parents, and Creusa, Andromache and their children. Polyxena had fainted when they pushed through the entrance, Menelaus dragging me. She lay on the floor. The smell of smoke began to enter the room. The Greeks were already burning the city.
Menelaus, as we came in, had peered through the gloom for his wife, and not found her. Terrible screams came up from the city, making the silence in this room more strange.
‘You know where she is – fetch Helen,’ he ordered. He pointed quite arbitrarily at Creusa, who, with a terrified glance, left the darkened hall still clutching her son. A Greek went with her to make sure she did not escape. I supposed she went to Paris’ house. For me, everything was like a dream. I did not realise that the blood dripping down my dress was only partly Menelaus’ – I had been wounded in the side. Mercifully, even now, perhaps because of my dazed condition, I cannot see plainly Menelaus snatching Andromache’s child from her arms and swinging him round, battering his head against the wall. I know he flung the lifeless body into a corner, know Andromache broke from the surrounding ring of soldiers and went to the body, crying out, ‘You have killed my husband, now my son. Now kill me – my life is over. Let me die. I never want to see another dawn. Menelaus – I beg you – kill me.’
Even as she uttered this appeal a soldier came behind her and snatched her cloak-pin. It was gold. The other soldiers stood restlessly – they did not want Menelaus to get Helen; they did not want to see the king and queen of Troy persecuted; what they wanted was to get into the storehouses and find the treasures of Troy, into the women’s room, to find jewellery, the men’s room for swords and armour. Even as my nephew was killed, his mother mourned and I feared for my parents’ lives, I felt the need of these men for loot.
It is still unbearable to remember. Time has no meaning during events like this – these moments are very long and very short at the same time, no one in such a situation can believe what they are seeing is really happening.
Later, memory is a burden but, again, a kind of incredulity exists – did it happen, was the person I am now actually there, at that time, taking part in events? Did I do this or that? Should I have done something else? Was I, was I there?
I remember thinking Menelaus would go soon; go to his wife, his comrades. But he did not Then I thought, he must know the war is over, that is why he does not go. It is over. The Greeks are victorious. We will die. I saw my parents, my father leaning on my mother, Andromache bent over her child in a corner, Polyxena stirring, panting on the ground. She seemed to be speaking, but I could not hear her voice. Menelaus still grasped me, automatically, as a man holds his cloak. His mind, I think, was entirely on Helen. I grew weaker as my blood continued to flow. He had not noticed that either, though I was beginning to feel pain and realised the chief wound was mine. An infuriated soldier threw Creusa into the room. He shouted, ‘Your wife is gone! And a man in armour ran up and seized the child from this woman’s arms.’
Menelaus took a step forward, dragging me, smacked the soldier across the face with the flat of his sword. Creusa smiled up at him from the ground. ‘My husband has the child.’
Menelaus went to her and kicked her, crying, ‘Two more to find and kill.’ He told the soldiers to take us to the temple and guard us. From the ground by Menelaus’ feet, Creusa looked up at me, still dangling on Menelaus’ right arm, and murmured, ‘Right, Cassandra. Right.’ Her eyes closed. I heard my mother saying to Menelaus, ‘The city’s on fire, oh Great King. Run, or you’ll burn up. Run and find your wife.’ And he did. He turned without a word, dropped my arm and charged out of the room. Andromache had the dead baby in her arms. She was smoothing his hair and talking to him. I went and sat by her.
Somehow, as the soldiers pushed and shoved, supporting each other we were urged down the steps to the city. Andromache still carried her dead child. There were dead sprawled over the steps. Beside them houses were ablaze. The Greek soldiers were staggering from doorways through smoke, laden with gold and silver vessels and handfuls of jewellery. Paris’ house was on fire. Lower down I saw Paris himself, dead, in a heap of Greek soldiers. I heard the crackle of fire, women screaming and, close to me, Andromache crying. There were sounds of some fighting taking place in odd corners, in someone’s garden, round a corner. In the nook where they put up the stall selling fish, struggling figures could be seen through smoke. Lower down still, on the patch of ground between two houses where children used to meet to play knucklebones or fire little bows and arrows, two big-helmeted Greeks were fighting, presumably for the pile of rugs and household ornaments lying nearby. A woman staggered by, screaming, both hands to her head, blood between her fingers, where the earrings had been pulled from her ears. Still we descended, Andromache leaning on me, holding her boy’s corpse, Polyxena dragged between two soldiers, my mother guarded, supporting my father. The smoke was beginning to choke us. It billowed over the dead, lying everywhere. The forge was on fire, flames gushed from the entrance to the temple. Soldiers rushed out, one dragged a girl, another a heap of armour. Inside the priestess screamed.
We went through the Scaean Gate – the last time I ever did so – and that is all. I recollect Except for the dead body of the oracle lying like a heap of rags by one gate post I am happy. I did not see, as my mother did, Agamemnon killing my father. He dragged him into the flaming temple and slew him there. But my father would not hav
e minded making his end there, with the temple as his funeral pyre.
And so my poor Troy, poor city, was broken, looted and burned. Alas for the city, alas, too, for those whom once it nurtured.
And there was more to come. In Mycenae, Clytemnestra heard the news of the Greek victory.
Part Three
Thirty-Four
Mycenae
‘Victory! Agamemnon has victory! Your husband is alive and triumphant!’
This was the message of the soldier from Troy when he arrived. He wore a stained blue tunic smelling of the fire in Troy, a deadly reek of wood, oil, burned clothing and flesh. As he told me the story of the entry through the tunnel, the battle in the city and the victory I thought – this soldier has come as a hero, battle-stained, riding from the port with the marks of his triumph about him. His story told, he took out an elaborately worked embroidered scarf, also smelling of smoke, dropped to his knees and presented it to me. I thought, looking at his streaked, triumphant face – good boy, good little hero – you have burned, raped and looted the enemy. Now see what is in store for you at home.
We were in my private room, but outside the hubbub was beginning. Women and servants cried out. I had been weaving, as ever, my cloak for Agamemnon, nearly finished now.
For days I had sensed bad news coming. For three nights, the first being the night they sacked Troy and killed the Trojans, I had been at my loom. Those days I spent, red-eyed, brain racing, awaiting the ill-tidings I knew would come. While I paced the ramparts at Mycenae, looking out across a smooth, blue sea, the girl, Electra, watched me as a cat watches a moth flying round the room. The sun was hot across the blighted landscape of Argos.
Harvest was coming and there was almost nothing to reap, or gather. The land was full of widows, orphans and maimed men. People could no longer understand why, across that sea, such carnage was taking place, why it should go on. Slaves rebelled, there were robberies from one farm to another, caused by desperation; Aegisthus rode the land, putting down trouble. As he went he secretly fomented discord. ‘Your lord cares more for plunder than he does for you, perhaps,’ he would suggest to the hard-pressed oldest son, no more than thirteen, on a poor farm. ‘Will booty bring back your husband?’ he would ask of a widow. ‘I say this only to show how I share your feelings. Now your man is dead, you may think quiet prosperity would have been better than adventure.’ ‘I pity you,’ he would say to a weeping father. ‘Young men, raised by fierce leaders, can be seduced into reckless wars in search of gain. But who will look after you in your old age? Seeing your grief even I find myself forced to wonder why they had to take families’ only sons for this war.’
Cassandra Page 34
