by Kate Quinn
Achilles leaned past me. “I don't want to talk to him,” he said.
I shook my head. “I cannot be your herald,” I said. “My voice... ”
Achilles gave a sharp nod. “Of course.”
He pointed at a spot. “There. Halt there.”
I rolled us to a good stop. A day driving in mist had done much to resurrect my skills.
Hector took several steps toward us, as if unsure of himself.
“Achilles,” he said.
“I am here to kill you, not to talk,” Achilles said.
“I didn't mean it to happen... ” Hector began.
Achilles cut him off. “I have killed three of your brothers today,” he said. “And none of them so much as warmed me up.”
At Achilles’ words, which were loud, there was a howl from the gate. I looked up, and there was Hecuba, and there beside her, Priam. And at Priam’s shoulder, forty feet above my head and yet almost close enough to touch, there was Andromache with a bundle in her arms that must be her infant son. The rest of Priam’s sons and daughters stood there with her, young Polites and muttering Cassandra and dark-skinned Hellenus, who had escaped Achilles’ spear today and still stood in his bloodstained armor, but it was Andromache I stared at, and I shivered. Because she stood just exactly where I had stood in my own gate tower, watching Achilles kill the men of Lesvos.
And now I was in a chariot with the killers, ready to rob her husband of sweet life.
I’d like to say our eyes met, and some understanding passed, but how could it? She watched her husband with a desperate intensity, and I was in the guise of a man, a killer.
I might even have wondered how I, who had been like Andromache, could be the agent of her husband’s destruction. But I stepped on my qualms and my guilt. I had chosen a side. Instead of waiting, like a woman, for a man to break my life, I would kill or die and take what I wanted, which had nothing to do with any of them. If I had an ally, it was Achilles, who hated the gods.
“Achilles, I want none of the boasting war-talk,” the Trojan hero said. “Patrocles died in a brawl, a terrible melee; he killed my charioteer, and we all... that is... before I could... ”
Achilles looked at me. “Ready?” he asked.
“Achilles!” Hector said. In that moment, he was great. He knew that something unfair had happened, and he was trying to make it right. Patrocles had not died in a heroic duel. He’d been stabbed in the back, fighting six men. Achilles knew it, and I knew it, and Hector knew it. “Achilles, we two know this war to be foolish. We two can end it.”
Achilles nodded. “We could,” he agreed. “But instead, I will kill you, and the whole thing will roll on. Don’t feel bad, Brother. In a matter of weeks, I, too, will be dead.”
“Damn it!” Hector roared, his frustration peaking.
Achilles looked around. He spoke far more quietly. “Listen, Hector. They are all around us, the gods. And your father and Agamemnon care nothing for the cost. They have their epic war. Look at your father, Hector. Is he holding you back? No. He plots even now; my death will mean that the Myrmidons will withdraw, and then Troy will win. Your death will not prevent the Trojans from struggling. Look! He throws the dice with your life.” He laughed, and it was not a girl’s laugh or a kind laugh; it was another I’d never heard, cynical, hopeless.
“We could stop this,” Hector said. “Listen, Achilles. My wife bid me farewell this morning and never wept. Our son wept—my helmet’s plumes frightened him; I had to take it off before he knew me and would be comforted—but she never wept. She will weep only if you kill me.”
Achilles was moved. My eyes went to Andromache on the walls and the bundle in her arms. I felt Achilles pressed against me, and I thought—maybe Hector has done it.
But when Achilles spoke, he said, “I wept myself this morning. Because Patrocles was dead.”
“By the gods!” Hector shouted. “Men die in war!”
“Yes,” Achilles said. “Many men. Patrocles. You. Me.” He nodded.
“We can stop this!” Hector repeated.
“Really?” Achilles asked. “You think you can end the war? Go to your father now. Tell him that I, Achilles, offer this: if I kill you, he surrenders his city immediately to me; there will be no sack, I give my word. If you defeat me, the Myrmidons sail away. In weeks, the siege fails. Tell me this is not fair.”
Hector looked at the ground. “My father will never agree,” he said. As an admission, it was torn from him like a cry of pain.
“Exactly,” Achilles said. “I didn't even want to talk to you, Hector. You are a fool. An honest, honorable fool. A tool for men and gods. Go to your chariot. Fight your best.”
Achilles turned. The Trojans were shouting from the wall like jackals, and the Achaeans shouted from behind us like hyenas, and in that moment my contempt rose to choke me like a cloud of smoke when a man pisses on a fire. I was running with the lions. The other animals looked very low.
Achilles pointed up at the gate houses, where there were two men with bows. “Be aware,” he said to me. “These are not honorable men.”
I didn’t understand him. “The Trojans?”
“Just Priam,” Achilles said. “And what’s left of his fifty sons.”
I drove the chariot in a lazy circle until we came to the right distance, perhaps a hundred paces from Hector’s chariot. My hands were shaking, and Achilles put his spear into a socket built into the axle and rolled his shoulders once before taking a javelin from the basket. Just for a moment, he put his right hand over mine.
“You have made this easier for me,” he said. “I thank you.”
I thought of the crazy woman, and my fears receded. My heart still beat too fast, and my eyes had an odd tick. Nonetheless, I retied my reins around my waist, tested the tension. Achilles’ chariot was not built like any other Achaean chariots; the reins passed through a small circle of bronze mounted on the yoke, and this allowed me a greater purchase on the horses’ mouths, even with my hips; but it made the horses more vulnerable, more sensitive, and I had to be careful. Any move on my part could be taken as a direction change. It was the best rig for a small charioteer, but it required discipline to use well.
There was another difference: our axle was almost at the middle of the car, so that there was very little weight on the yoke of our horses. Hector’s chariot was in the Hittite style; the axle was at the back, and the whole weight of the warrior and the car sat in the yoke, pulling the horses down.
I was just wondering about this when Hector’s chariot exploded forward.
I was ready enough. I cracked my whip, and Achilles’ horses responded with courage; both pushed with their back legs first, and our chariot shot forward. This time I was ready, and I leaned forward, allowing the reins to be slack, and snapped the whip a second time.
Hector’s charioteer did a trick, passing our left side instead of our right; but he wasn’t as good as Kabriones had been. I didn't have the skill to respond, but I had time to lean a little to my near-side horse, and we passed a whole chariot width apart, left to left. The left side was the shielded side, and I had my left arm buckler as Achilles had his round shield, and as we passed, Hector rifled a heavy javelin...
... at me.
Lady!
I got the rim of Automedon’s buckler up.
Hector’s spear blew through the hide and the bronze rim, folding the top of the buckler as if it were parchment.
My rapidly raised left hand shortened the reins.
Balius felt the bit and slowed, turning to the left at speed.
Xanthus followed his partner.
The shaft of the spear turned, with my buckler as a fulcrum, and rising, struck me in the face, breaking my nose.
But Balius had made the turn, and we crossed the rear of Hector’s chariot a single pace away, close, and Achilles didn’t throw. Instead, he leaned out and jabbed his spear point into Hector’s right leg, under the armor—just a touch as we passed, but Hector shuddered, and then
his chariot was stretching away, and I was driving, blind in pain.
Perhaps the Lady took the reins. Or perhaps I am stronger than I give myself credit for. Either way, we continued our turn, by chance or design, as my left hand sought my face. I thought I was dead, and only the knowledge that I could get us both killed kept me from sinking to the bottom of the chariot as blood fountained down my face. I hung for three or four heartbeats, facedown over the front rail. But then I got my head up as we slowed.
I was not dead, and I could see. We continued our turn, and then I could see Hector, clutching his thigh, black blood flowing down his right leg, and the charioteer, whipping his horses.
Running. Hector’s charioteer had panicked, or Hector had ordered him. As far as I could see, they’d won the pass, but they were fleeing, and then Achilles grunted something. His arms enfolded me from behind; an odd embrace, pressed into my back, his shield over my left side, his right hand over my face so that my nose screamed its agony again.
Something struck us; something that hit Achilles’ outflung arm so hard that the top of his shield slammed into my helmet.
His right hand still covered my face.
“Don't flinch,” he said and reset my nose in a new explosion of agony, his fingers wrenching the bone and sinew to their duty.
I screamed, and his arms were gone, and the pain was much better. I could see.
He had a black-fletched arrow in his shield.
“Archers,” he shouted, pointing at the wall.
I could not raise my eyes to follow his hand. My head hurt, my face burned, and I had to follow our adversaries.
There was a road around the wall. Every town had one, and Troy’s, of course, was three times as broad as the track that runs around Mythimna, but even so it was only just wide enough for a single chariot. And it rose and fell with the terrain; there were tree roots growing out into the road and other signs of years of war: the carcass of a sheep that had to be driven around, a dead dog, stones from a wall collapse.
We were far behind Hector as we made the first major turn on the west side of the city.
“Don't let him get so far ahead that he can drive through the gate,” Achilles said to me. He was so calm that he might have been on his couch, playing his lyre. “You look terrible,” he said with a smile.
I got myself together, got my hips farther down, and cracked the whip, and our gallant team surged forward, but I knew that we’d been fighting all day, and Hector’s team was fresh, and I saw little hope in catching him. And indeed, I was, I think, gladdened. I didn't need another fight.
And then Hector’s team stopped.
Achilles shook his head as if in disgust.
I had to concentrate to negotiate a narrow spot on the track, and when I looked up, Hector’s chariot was still stopped. I could see now—there was a tree down across the track.
Then Hector’s team turned off the track and trotted down the slope, going through a field of barley to get around the downed oak. You must understand, aside from the mound and city of Troy, the stand of ancient trees beside the Achaean camp, and the olive grove on the east side, the plain is flat, at least until the bluff off to the east. You can drive a chariot anywhere. Roads are easier, but any field is a chariot field. They drove around the downed tree.
It was tall, but the trunk was only as big around as a man, but beyond the tangle of its roots was an olive grove, and Hector’s chariot hadn’t seen it. They went even wider.
“Don’t follow them,” Achilles said. “We’ll go over.”
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “But not in this case.”
He smiled. He was like a different man.
We reined to a stop at the trunk. Achilles leaped down and ran to the horses’ heads. He stepped them across the trunk in two short heaves.
I knew then what he intended, and I jumped down and grabbed the rear of the car and lifted. A chariot car only weighs what a child weighs. I lifted with all my might and got the wheels well up on the curving trunk, the horses did the rest, and we were over. I leaped in, gathering the reins and retying them as Hector’s charioteer realized how much time we’d saved and whipped his horses to a fresh effort. We’d cut two hundred paces off their lead without tiring our horses; we were halfway around the walls.
An arrow clipped Achilles’ helmet and screeched off into the barley field.
“Look how Priam trusts his son,” Achilles said. We were rolling, moving fast again, and he took my little buckler from me and bent the top edge back to shape.
Hector’s team began to open their lead, and I was unwilling to tire our horses. So I let them trot, and I probably saved our lives, for as we rolled along the track, Hector’s chariot vanished as if scooped up by the gods. Perhaps it was the pain, but for a moment I was astonished. Troy sits at the edge of a steep bluff on the east side of the city. And sure enough, the road dropped sharply, and only our slow speed saved us. I leaned back, hard, into the weight of the reins, slowing the horses, and even still they went over the edge, and we were falling. The car skidded, ran on one wheel, and we hit a rock.
And then a young sapling. And the sapling clipped the car and righted it with a blow as heavy as one of Achilles’ spear-blows; had that sapling been a hand’s breadth one way, it would have taken off our wheel; the other way, and we would have rolled.
Instead, the gallant horses slid to flat ground and ran, as if afraid of the chariot behind them, and their last effort finished our righting; the car slewed twice like a drunk woman leaving a party, and we were on the flat and on the road, and we’d eaten another fifty paces off their lead.
Now we were so close that Achilles pulled another javelin from the basket and stepped forward. His hip moved mine as if I were a child. He was so strong, and I fought him because if I swayed my hips, the horse would read it as a turn.
His javelin rose like a songbird and swooped like a falcon. He threw just over their car, and the driver started, pulling hard to the right; his chariot wobbled, turned, righted itself, and ran on, but we were closer yet.
Now we were turning again. We’d passed across the short north face of the city, where the temples are. This time I saw an archer loose from the high walls; but I never saw the arrow in the air, and it fell well behind us, and my attention was on Hector anyway. He threw backward, over his shoulder, with a twisting motion that spoke of long practice, and his javelin skipped off the yoke and the chariot pole between the horses and stuck in the cowhide of the front of the car.
Then his charioteer was turning with the path.
We closed the gap because his charioteer slowed while I did not. I had his measure; I knew his story. The great Kabriones had died the day before, probably at the hands of Patrocles. His new charioteer was not willing to have his car on one wheel.
I was. I knew I was with a god. I was god-born. I had no need for fear; the chance sapling had shown me that.
And then we were along the north wall where the great gates are. I could see, even past my swollen nose, the Trojans leaning down from the gate towers. The gates were open.
But we were only two or three horse lengths behind Hector. I cut inside, snapped my whip, and my beautiful beasts gave me more; I called their names, no longer caring who heard my high woman’s voice, and they gave me their hearts and ran, and we flew.
No gate for Hector. No respite. No mercy. We were so close I could see the blood in his chariot; Achilles’ thrust had gone deeper than I thought.
He threw like Zeus, however. His throw, Achilles’ throw, and an arrow off the gate house all came together, and then we were past the gate and running, almost neck and neck on the Field of Ares, and I slashed at Hector’s charioteer with my whip. But his horses were fresher, and he pulled away and shot back onto the wall-track ahead of me, and I let him and slowed. Without a word from the great Achilles, I angled off to the south, off the track, and into the barley, which swished away under our wheels and under the bottom of o
ur car, and I let my horses breathe while Hector looked for us, far to my left on the track. We were out from under the archery of their assassins. And on better ground. I made the turn along the south wall easily; I had no narrow track to negotiate, no dog carcass, no dead sheep.
No tree.
Achilles laughed. We were on the back side of the city, far from prying eyes. He kissed my cheek beside my swollen nose. “You love this,” he said, in wonder. “You are like Patrocles, in a woman.”
Almost I could leave the story there.
It was a moment of godhood; we rolled through the barley as if galloping on clouds of gold, and then we were past Hector, and I was turning, a long, lazy turn along the lowest part of the bluff, rolling down into the lower fields while Hector’s charioteer fought to get his car over the edge and down the escarpment without tumbling. I thought it must be something that daring Trojan charioteers did, that insane descent; a boy’s trick used in war. But they were turning inside us, and they made a bowstring while we were the bow.
And then we were running along the foot of the bluff. Hector was ahead again, but only by ten horse lengths, and then it took half that for his horses to get to speed, and we were on him. My horses were heroes; they’d had an easier loop, and now we came on the way a better rowing crew takes a weaker, hand over hand as we came up, and I cut inside Hector’s team at the turn to the north wall; the track widened there but was still only just two chariots wide; on my left was the wall of the city, rising stone on stone to the hardened mud wall above me, and on the right of Hector’s chariot, a five-pace fall to the plain, and I dared it, hub to hub with Hector’s chariot, the teams side by side, and Hector and Achilles went spear to spear. I saw none of it, unable to take my eyes from the blurring boundaries of my horses; my adversary slashed at me with his whip, and I took the sting on my right arm and the impenetrable scales of my shirt and slapped back, not at him, but at his off-side horse.
