A Song of War: a novel of Troy

by Kate Quinn

  “You could have been a queen, then?”

  “I wouldn't mind being a queen, but not of Troy. In Troy, I’d still have my father standing over me with his hand out for the rest of my life, queen or no.” She turned over. “Here in the encampment, I am a slave… but only in the eyes of the Trojans, who cannot see me. I’m free to go where I wish, wear what I wish, say what I wish, and no one beats me. I’m free to laugh out loud, drink wine, scream loud enough to wake the shades in Hades when you’re inside me. In fact, I’m almost a queen, but...” she trailed off.

  “But?”

  “But I fear what will happen when the war is over.”

  Agamemnon knew where this was going. “Don’t worry about the end of the war,” he said after a while. “You will be cared for.”

  She paused, weighing his words, then changed the subject. “You know that Achilles has a new slave girl? Briseis.”

  “I’m surprised he bothered with a girl. Everyone knows Achilles and Patrocles are lovers.”

  “This one’s a princess, or maybe a queen. Captured in the raid on Mythimna. They say Achilles is obsessed with her. And she’s not in his bed. Not yet anyway. He treats her as though she were some kind of Olympian gift, something priceless.” A pause. “He might even marry her, I heard.”

  “Once he’s had her—and he will, eventually—she’ll just be his fuck piece, Olympian sent or not. And who marries their fuck piece?” Agamemnon scoffed and instantly realized that he’d fallen into her trap.

  Chryseis turned her head away—a trifle dramatically. “It’s amazing what love can do in such a short space of time.”

  Agamemnon tried—and failed—to keep the anger from his voice. “Even if Achilles did marry his new girl, I cannot be seen to be following that bastard in anything he does. I am high king,” he added. “I set behavior; I do not follow the behavior of others.”

  Her voice dripped sarcasm. “I’m sure I understand. Even if I’m just your fuck piece.”

  Agamemnon refused to allow himself to be moved by her pique. He looked around her room—it was almost as grand as his own quarters, hung with rich cloths and decorated by expensive Trojan spoils. There was even a small statue of the sun god, Apollo. Even though he hated the gods, Agamemnon had taken it as a share of his prize and gifted it to her; Chryseis had been daughter to a powerful priest of Apollo in Troy before she had become his concubine.

  He looked away from the god’s impassive visage and over to Chryseis. She was sitting at her table, naked still, pouring wine from a krater. Agamemnon drank in the sight of her. She was beautiful—no, more than beautiful, she was magnificent. Heavy breasted, dark haired, violet-eyed, ripe, and eager. He wanted her. All the time. If there was anything good to have come out of this war, it was her. She was the only thing that brought a modicum of joy to his life. And he was being a fool—she was more, far more, than just a captive. He loved her.

  “I will take you to wife when we return to Mycenae,” he stated—and meant it.

  Chryseis placed her wine cup down. “Don’t tease me like that,” she said, her eyes full of hurt. “It is not fair of you to do so.”

  Agamemnon looked up at the ceiling. “I’m not,” he said after a moment’s thought to make sure that he was going to go through with it. “You act as though you are already queen anyway,” he added. “We’ll make it official when the war is won.” When he was no longer held beside the standard of Achilles.

  He heard her approach the bed. “What about your other wife?” she asked.

  “Clytemnestra despises me,” Agamemnon said, squeezing his eyes shut. “How could she not?” He remembered the look on Clytemnestra’s face, the horror in her eyes as he’d rammed the dagger into their daughter’s chest. He heard once again Iphigenia’s choking sob as her life’s blood poured out in sacrifice.

  Of course Clytemnestra abhorred him.

  He puffed out a breath and looked over at Chryseis. Just doing so made the burden of the war, the burden of his guilt, the burden of years fall away. He reached out a hand, beckoning her over to him. “Word has it that Clytemnestra has taken a lover. I couldn’t care less that she has, but it will give me reason enough to set her aside and take a new wife.”

  Chryseis smiled, sauntering over to the bed. Agamemnon could see that feral hunger in her eyes and knew that this round would be more exquisite than the last.

  The weather outside was warm, making it humid and sweaty in the council hall. Agamemnon had ordered a separate building constructed for these meetings—it kept the princes away from his own quarters. At one time, he’d quite enjoyed the idea of making all of them crowd into his room whilst he sat on his dais above them. But now things were different: frankly, the proceedings frequently degenerated into orgies with the flute girls, and whilst Chryseis knew that he was hardly the kind of man to abstain, something about tupping a slave in the bed he often shared with her didn’t sit right with him. He chided himself for getting sentimental.

  The hall was a basic construction, to be sure, and he knew that Achilles had privately criticized him for having it built, but the timber used was taken from Trojan land—ostensibly rendering it plunder and thus giving the high king first choice on it. He knew that this right of his kingship irritated Achilles, which was why Agamemnon delighted in enacting it at every opportunity. The Phthian prince was such a preening, pouting, self-important, arrogant fool that someone level-headed needed to take him down a notch or two.

  And that someone had to be the high king because the others were so in awe of his prowess with sword and spear that they couldn’t see the potential destructiveness of the man’s colossal ego. He was another one of those “my mother was a goddess” lunatics—the Trojans had them, too—and the ones that thought themselves semi-divine were always, always convinced they had some kind of grand destiny that everyone had to be party to.

  Agamemnon knew differently. The gods laughed at them all. Laughed at men like Achilles with his sense of destiny, laughed at men like himself with their shattered dreams of grandeur and empire.

  The flute girls brought wine and refreshments, but even before Agamemnon could begin with an appraisal of rations, troop welfare, reinforcements, and the annual animal sickness that he felt the warriors needed to know about, Achilles was raising his right hand for attention. Agamemnon was sorely tempted to ignore him but decided against it.

  He knew—everyone knew—what Achilles was going to say anyway. Agamemnon saw his herald, Talthybius, roll his eyes and fought hard to resist smiling. Of them all, the herald understood this war and the machinations of the men. He was devious—rumor had it he had spies in Troy itself—he was cowardly, silver-tongued, self-serving, and utterly transparent in his desire for gold. Hence he was a man that Agamemnon could trust.

  “High King,” Achilles began.

  Agamemnon sighed. Achilles didn’t just fight like a god, he looked like a god. Tall, bronze skinned, dark haired, green-eyed, lithe, and muscular, his right arm a mass of crisscrossed scars, badges of honor from his many (and always victorious) combats. If there was any justice—any at all—the bastard should be hung tiny like a Hittite stripling. But there wasn’t any justice: Agamemnon had seen him in the gymnasium, and Achilles’ cock was as prodigious as his fucking ego.

  Gods, he really hated him.

  “Sure we thank you for your hospitality.” Achilles gestured to the food and drink arranged on the trestle before them. “The sea gives forth its bounty… as do the Trojans,” he added, garnering a laugh from the assembled princes, which irritated Agamemnon. “The sun warms our necks,” Achilles went on, his green eyes sweeping the room. “The men are rested... perhaps too rested... after a slow winter. I think the time has come for us to push hard on the Trojans. Bring them to battle so that your brother’s wife will be returned to him—and we can end this war!”

  “We don’t need an assault at this time, Achilles,” Agamemnon made sure his voice was heavy with dismissive boredom. “My strategy is working. The
raids are bleeding the Trojans dry—you’re a spectacularly successful pirate,” he added, knowing that the term would vex a hero like Achilles. “Besides, we have new recruits in from the mainland to swell our ranks—feckless boys with no idea of what the reality of this war is. Continuing the raiding strategy is a good way to blood them.”

  “There is always an excuse, Agamemnon!” Achilles snapped. “Always a reason that we should not march out and take the glory that we—kings, princes, and common spearmen—deserve. Diomedes!” he turned to the Argive king, tall and strapping in his famous lion-skin cloak. “What say you?”

  Diomedes hesitated; he was younger than most, but he had a wealth of fighting experience—he’d been at Thebes before Troy, and some counted him almost equal to Achilles with the spear. “I would favor marching out,” he agreed, getting a nod of approval from Achilles. “I hear truth in Agamemnon’s words on feckless boys, but raiding is nothing akin to a real battle. A sword has to be tested to see if it breaks, bends, or cuts.”

  Achilles’ eyes glittered with triumph as he turned back to Agamemnon and then to Ajax of Locris—or Ajax the Ox, as Agamemnon called him, privately, of course. Most used the epithet because of his size, but Agamemnon thought the moniker fitted Ajax’s mental capacity perfectly. The huge warrior shrugged. “You know me. I’d rather be fighting,” he said in that slow way of his. Agamemnon ignored him. Asking Ajax to add his wit to the argument was like asking for a contribution from a five-year-old. “We’re not talking about a sword, though, are we? If the army bends or breaks, what then? Oh yes. It’s very dramatic for all of you, charging off to the fight with the brazen hordes at your back. Right up until the moment things go wrong, and then what? You’d have me risk all on the throw of the dice when we’re strangling the Trojans. Slowly, I’ll grant you. But surely. There will be no assault,” Agamemnon stated. “Not until I deem it time.”

  Achilles was florid. “We need to attack!”

  “We need to attack, all right,” Odysseus of Ithaca rose to his feet, shouting over the Phthian prince and causing all to look at him. “We need to attack the fucking wine krater!”

  That got a laugh, and Agamemnon could see the bluster leave Achilles like air from a bladder. Odysseus was a canny bastard, Agamemnon thought. The Ithacan king was no ally of his, but he was grateful to him for cutting short the argument. Odysseus saw things with greater clarity than most of these idiots.

  Achilles glared at him, and Agamemnon knew—knew—that he was trying to garner support for a challenge to his power. He was young. He was strong. He was a great warrior. He had divine blood. He should be the leader.

  At least that’s what he thought.

  But Agamemnon knew the reality was somewhat different. They would not follow Achilles because, in the end, Achilles’ concept of honor was too great. Achilles liked to play fair: pitched battles over sudden raids. And a high king could not play fair. The high king had to balance egos. Had to balance risk and opportunity. Had to balance the details of men lost and men replaced. Had to balance prizes.

  Prizes.

  That’s what it all came down to in the end.

  Agamemnon knew well that all these men had invested too much in the struggle to gamble on a new leader now, a leader untested and glory-drunk. He tipped back his cup of wine and beckoned for more, his eyes flicking to Menelaus, who sat staring into the distance, no doubt thinking of his lost love. Agamemnon despised his younger brother’s weaknesses. Not that he’d give that voice because when angered, Menelaus was a fearsome warrior, and his wife Helen was a touchy subject. Agamemnon thought she was a troublesome bitch, but she was the cause of this war as far as Menelaus was concerned.

  If Achilles were high king, he would push for single combat between Menelaus and Prince Paris and—whatever the outcome—would abide by it. If Menelaus, the rightful husband, won, Helen would be delivered and the Achaeans would return home—Troy would stand, and her gold would be intact. If Paris, the wife-usurper, won, the Achaeans would return home in defeat—Troy would stand, and her gold would be intact.

  And none of them wanted that.

  Too much had been lost, too many lives wasted. Even for the spearmen soldiers who fought the battles—there were unfaithful wives back home, wives with other men’s children in their bellies, their own children grown, who did not know the faces of their real fathers.

  Troy had to fall. And not because of Helen. Not because of honor, though they all pretended that was what it was about. Troy had to fall because they’d all lost too much to countenance anything else. And the only thing that could make it right was gold. That was all that mattered now. When honor faded, when love had gone, when friends were long since ashes on the pyre, cold profit was all that remained. They would buy back their honor with Trojan spoils.

  And in the years to come, bards would sing of this conflict as though it were something great and glorious. They’d sing of gods and men, of deeds great and bold. Agamemnon drank deep again as the flutes played and the drunken warriors brawled and boasted, and could not refrain from laughing aloud at the stupidly of it all.

  Balancing egos.

  It irked him to do so, but Agamemnon ordered an increase in raiding activity, reasoning that it would keep Achilles’ bloodlust in check, bring in some much-needed—and easy—victories and bolster morale. And let Achilles believe that his counsel had been heard. Agamemnon dearly hoped the Phthian would be killed on one of these assaults. A stray arrow, a well-cast stone, a broken chariot wheel leaving him at the mercy of rampant Trojans. But Achilles always returned in victory and was never shy about boasting about the old prophecy that Troy could not be taken without his help, his bloodline.

  The priest Calchas, of course, endorsed this; Agamemnon was all but convinced that the priest had some hold over the man. He had tried many times to coerce Calchas to his side, but the man seemed so stalwart in his beliefs. It was possible that he was in Achilles’ employ, or that he was simply in love with him after the leader of the Myrmidons made no secret of the fact that he liked men as much as he liked women.

  That had to be it. Achilles was as handsome as a god, with a warrior’s sculpted physique. It would be a festival day for Calchas if the Phthian prince ever deigned to let the priest play his flute.

  That afternoon, in the quiet of Chryseis’ quarters, Agamemnon put forward this theory.

  “It’s possible,” she said, chewing on a tip of hair in that way she did when in thought. “It seems that Achilles always has the gods on his side. It’s very convenient for him.”

  “And a pain for me,” Agamemnon complained.

  “The women are talking,” Chryseis said—carefully. And that worried Agamemnon.

  “About what?” he asked, pouring wine for them both. He liked to show her that despite the fact she had once been his captive that was no longer the case. They were partners in wit, in bed, and in life. She was a match for him intellectually, and that excited him—she offered a unique perspective on things.

  “They say that the men are getting restless. That they’re spoiling for a fight.”

  “They always are until it comes to it,” Agamemnon muttered. “Especially the new ones who’ve never been in a fight.”

  “It’s not just the new ones,” Chryseis said. “Even the kings and princes now talk of our lack of action. That while we spend time raiding, the Trojans are garnering new allies. That they could be recovering their strength.”

  We, Agamemnon thought. Not they. She was saying that she considered herself Achaean now, which pleased him—even if he suspected that she had only said it to underscore her loyalty; Chryseis was nothing if not calculating and unscrupulous. Something else they shared. “My strategy is working,” he said.

  “If it were just the men carping, I’d understand it,” she said. “But it’s not. Skara told me that Ajax the Ox and Diomedes are frequent visitors to the Myrmidon section of the camp. And now that old whitebeard Nestor of Pylos and King Odysseus come, too.”
/>   “Skara?”

  “Patrocles’ bed-warmer, the Thracian girl with the tattoos. She leads all the women in the Myrmidon camp—well, she did till Briseis arrived.”

  “You’re friendly with Achilles’ new piece?” Agamemnon arched an eyebrow.

  “Apollo, no!” Chryseis squeaked. “She keeps to herself. Quiet, strange thing. Skara, now, she and I pretend to be friends. What we’re actually doing is pumping each other for information on our men—you and him. But she’s stupid, and I’m not, though I’m allowing her to think she’s manipulating me and not the other way around. So she opened up. She says Achilles’ cronies are coming around to his way of thinking. That strangling Troy is not the way to finish things…” she hesitated, looking straight at him, “and that more direct action should be taken. With a firmer hand at the tiller.”

  Agamemnon rose to his feet. “So he’s actually going to challenge me as high king.” He laughed. “I can scarcely credit it.”

  “But he might just try it, Agamemnon. You should act. The stick with which Achilles hits you is inertia. Take that away from him, and what does he have? A good kill tally?” She laughed. “Men hold him in such awe, but men do not see what I see.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “That he is merely a weapon in your armament. Like a spear or a sword, Achilles is a tool in your hand. That you hate him should not be relevant. Use him. We’ve all heard the story—Troy cannot be taken without him.” She shrugged. “Give him what he wants. You are high king, my love. You are above the petty concerns of Achilles. He wants a legend. Let him have it. I know what you want. You want an end to this. And you want to keep your kingdom intact. You fear that a major assault—if lost—will damage us too greatly, that we will lose our grip here. But consider: we cannot do nothing. Troy suffers, yes, but I know she cannot be starved out. She will not capitulate. The deadlock must be broken.”