by Kate Quinn
Paris hesitated, licking his ruined lips with a nervous tongue.
Philoctetes lowered his bow. He jerked his head toward the city, its pale walls barely visible through the trees. “Run.”
Paris took one step back, then another, not daring to turn away from the old archer. But as Philoctetes remained still, bow lowered toward the ground, Paris turned and stumbled back the way he had come.
Philoctetes raised the bow of Heracles. He drew the string smoothly to his cheek.
Paris heard the creak of the bowstring; on the instant, he gave an undignified shriek and moved faster, as fast as his battered body would allow.
But it wasn’t fast enough. Philoctetes loosed; at such close range, the arrow punched through the heavy leather vest into Paris’ back. A good bow—made of horn and sinew, not of ibex or exotic wood, not decorated with silver or gold. It did all that was required of a bow—the only thing that was required.
Paris fell facedown on the ground. Philoctetes went to him slowly and fired one more shaft into his back, but the prince of Troy didn’t flinch as the arrow drove into his body and pinned him to the earth. He was dead already. He was dead from the moment he had raised Achilles’ own blade against him.
Philoctetes dropped the bow in the dirt. It was, after all, just a bow. And Heracles had been an ordinary man, for all his songs and fanfare. Paris was an ordinary man. And Achilles, too.
The bow was useless to him now, for a man couldn’t fire an arrow into his own heart. Philoctetes still had his dagger, a small but wickedly sharp blade. He drew it from his belt and stared down at its point, gleaming in the fallen sun.
Life without honor is not worth living.
He’d heard that refrain all his life, it seemed—from everyone who fancied himself a hero. From Achilles. From Heracles, long ago. From the Amazon woman who had fought and died with such beauty, such grace.
Paris had been a man devoid of honor. But to shoot him from behind, as he ran in fear—that was dishonorable, too.
A hero would do it now, Philoctetes told himself dully. Open his veins. Die a grand and moving death, with his beloved’s body in his arms.
Slowly, reluctantly, he sheathed the knife. He wasn’t a hero. He was a man—an ordinary man, as they all were, whether they knew it or not. And ordinary lives were worth living.
He still couldn’t bring himself to look at the ruin of Achilles’ body. It was not the way he wanted to remember his beloved. It wasn’t the way he wanted the world to remember Achilles, either—as a hero, a legend spun out of his own control.
When the war is over, he promised Achilles, looking away, I’ll see that the world remembers you. As you truly were, my love. Not as the hero they made you.
He found the trail in the shadowed dusk, following it numbly through the shadows of gathering night.
The camp was somewhere ahead, and Odysseus was there, too, waiting, wondering where his hero had gone. Philoctetes could hear a lyre in the distance, faint and melancholy. A wind moved off the river, tugging leaves from the trees, scattering them in his path. As they fell down around him, brushing his cheek, he smelled dust and sweat and summertime, and though the twilight stole the color from the world, still the leaves that fell were as green as olives.
THE SIXTH SONG
The Horse
by Vicky Alvear Shecter
“Alas,” Odysseus said to himself in dismay. “What will become of me?
It is bad if I turn and run, but it will be worse if I am left alone and taken prisoner...
But why talk to myself this way? Cowards quit the field.
A hero must stand firm and hold his own.”
Homer, the Iliad
ODYSSEUS
“There is no honor in deceit,” Diomedes huffs as we scale a drainage path on the south side of Mount Ida.
This again.
I say nothing, for what is there to add? Diomedes of Argos is the greatest of warriors under High King Agamemnon’s command now that mighty Achilles is dead. And the great warrior has made it clear that he does not like my tactics. But I no longer care about his preoccupation with honor—I care only about results. Honor took us into this war, and honor has kept us here for far longer than anyone ever dreamed possible. And whether it requires lying, cheating, or trickery, the only honor that matters to me now is the kind that ends with me going home.
To Penelope. To Ithaca. To my son. To my father.
When our climb grows steep and our worn sandals slide on rocky soil, Diomedes curses under his breath. By the gods, unless there is combat involved, he’s as fussy as a virgin on her wedding night.
His complaints make me miss Achilles. Despite his monstrous pride, at least our fallen hero never whined as much as does Diomedes. And yet I can’t seem to shake the young king of Argos. Like an annoying rash, he keeps coming back. He insists on joining my expeditions lest I find some adventure without him and earn the fame that eludes me but collects around him like thunderbolts at the Cloud-Gatherer’s feet. And all the while, we both pretend that as long as he complains about using trickery, it does no harm to his honor.
“And if anything stains this fur,” Diomedes continues, “I will kick my foot up your arse so high you’ll be sneezing leather for a week.”
Very heroic of you. Again I keep my tongue, even though I want nothing more than to rip off my friend’s prized lion-skin cloak and shove it down his noble throat.
Who, I ask you, dons such a conspicuous thing to go on a secret mission? I wear my lowest man’s dirtiest rags. Why? So I do not stand out. Because the point is to move undetected, not draw the eye like golden Zeus on his fucking throne.
One of my scouts earlier reported that a man in finely woven clothes and gold jewelry had left Troy and was headed toward the mountain. When I set off to investigate, Diomedes insisted on accompanying me. I paid little attention because I was too preoccupied with questions. Who from the palace would leave now, and for what purpose? Have the Hittites finally decided to send reinforcements to the Trojans? By the gods, we are too damned close to lose now just because a bunch of spoiled, perfumed foreigners from the east finally found their balls.
A small temple to the local gods sits on the eastern summit of Mount Ida, so there is a chance this official is only a priest trying to carry out the business of worship despite the dangers of ambushes by our men. Either way, we must know.
We spot human waste and the occasional carcass on this little-used path, more evidence that either some of the abandoned villages are repopulating or there is a meeting of some kind convening. My heart pounds with the chase, and I speed up, crouching carefully.
Diomedes grunts in protest. What, is it unseemly to crouch and run like a beast? Even when you are dressed as one? Gods, but I am so, so very tired of heroes and their preoccupation with their image.
Diomedes’ lion cloak is the perfect example. He claims he slaughtered the great beast with his bare hands. But I was there. And it was no such thing.
It was in the early days of the struggle against Troy, when it was all a great adventure and we all “knew” we’d be home with ships full of gold within the year, two at the most. Diomedes and I had gone on a raid for supplies. We’d come across a small village recently abandoned—the young men to fight for King Priam and the women and children for the safety of life inside the gates of Troy—leaving only a pair of long-haired elderly caretakers of the sickly temple lion to fend for themselves.
The men I quickly dispatched, without Diomedes’ help, by the way. I began loading up an abandoned cart with goods, food, and weapons. Diomedes, of course, refused to help with such “base” work.
Instead, he circled the lion. Did I mention the creature was blind and dying? Diomedes claims the “great beast” attacked him. What actually happened was this: my hero friend approached the tethered sleeping cat and gave it a cautious kick on its bony rump to see if it still lived. The old lion raised its massive shaggy head—blinked once, looked at him as if to ask, “Wh
at took you so long?”—and dropped it back down with a heavy, hopeless thud. Diomedes leaped on it and cut its throat.
The beast’s roaring was insufferable—Diomedes’, I mean. The lion barely had enough strength to flick the tip of its forlorn tail in relief at being put out of its misery.
Of course, there was no one left alive who could identify this “mighty beast” as the gelded, pitiful, starving thing it was. But the skin looked majestic and fearsome when he brought it back to camp, holding it aloft like a triumphant god while I stumbled like a peasant leading the half-starved, overburdened line of donkeys and rickety carts loaded with the goods that kept us alive. But then again, I was only a farmer-king of rocky Ithaca, not the golden ruler of Argos. How much someone who looked like a god could get away with! The back-slapping by his sycophants only encouraged him to exaggerate his kill until, by the end of the night of wine-soaked celebration, he was virtually Heracles strangling the Nemean lion.
At the feasting, others asked me if I’d seen his extraordinary battle with the beast. “He’s lying,” I’d said plainly, staring into the fire. The men roared with laughter. “He said ‘he’s lion,’” they claimed. “Oh, that Odysseus and his word play! He is so right. Diomedes is indeed the LION of us all.”
What could I have done except laugh and hold out my cup to honor the hero as he weaved, grinning drunkenly with pride? Even in those early days, the boys needed a hero to believe in. Plus, no matter what I said after he’d made his claims, I would have sounded unmanly. Jealous. Spiteful. Womanish. Better to play along. I’ve learned well enough that honor is more self-claimed than won. And he who claims it first wins.
That very night, jealous Prince Ajax of Locris began plotting a lion hunt so that he, too, could earn the praise of his fellows. Never mind that we’d hunted the region dry of all game within months of arrival on the Plain of Troy. He would not be outdone by Diomedes. Eventually, I had to tell Ajax that all of the lions were now inside the Scaean Gate at the palace bestiary, so his only chance to outdo Diomedes would be to keep fighting until we took the city. I would personally release the palace lions, and he could hunt them then.
This appeased him. Stupid ox.
The Trojans had, by this point, likely already killed and eaten most of their nonworking animals inside the gates. Besides, lions will be the last thing the big man will chase once he has his pick of gold and women inside the city.
If we can ever manage to find some way to break through those cursed gates, of course.
As always, I find myself wishing our heroes spent half as much time killing the sons of Troy as they spend trying to surpass each other in these ridiculous games of one-upmanship. We would have been home long ago if they had.
We climb onto a rocky outcrop on the edge of the trail path. After detecting movement below us, I signal Diomedes, and we crouch behind a strand of stunted cypresses, waiting for our quarry.
I freeze like a rabbit under the shadow of a hawk, but Diomedes twitches and fusses like a flea-covered rodent. He’d stepped on the tail end of his cloak when he crouched, and he’s trying to adjust himself so as not to scuff it. The resultant rustling explodes like a lashing of storm waves on a rocky shore. I grip his shoulder hard to quiet him, but he backhands my arm off, making even more noise. Meanwhile, our quarry nears. He will be an easy catch—if Diomedes doesn’t scare him off first. By the gods, if I have to sprint down this mountain because my partner has scared off our prey, I will kill—but then something strikes me.
I have an idea.
As our victim grows ever nearer, I remove my dagger. Thankfully, Diomedes also stops moving at the sound of the climber’s heavy breathing.
Hold, hold.
Just as the stranger comes upon us, I prick the tip of my dagger sharply into the meaty part of Diomedes’ ass.
He jumps and roars in surprise and outrage, tripping over his tawny pelt so that he tumbles and rolls directly onto the man’s path, looking like a giant sow trying to escape a furry yellow sack.
The man freezes as if confronted by a real beast. Every boy in every land knows the rule—never run in the presence of a giant cat; it only spurs them to the chase. The man is clearly still trying to understand what the tumbling, cursing creature is before him, giving me the distraction I need to circle behind him and put a dagger to his neck.
“Do not move,” I drawl.
“What in the name of all the gods is that thing?” the man breathes, staring wide-eyed as golden Diomedes straightens, red-faced and furious, slapping at the dirt besmirching his beloved cloak.
I quickly divest our prisoner of his spear, dagger, and axe. The man has an odd spicy scent that pricks at my memory. “What in Hades is that smell?”
“Cinnamon,” the man explains in a low, cultured voice.
Ah, the wiry black hair, the Aegyptian oil, the dark-skinned face. I know this man! I turn him around and begin to laugh. “Prince Hellenus! Son of Priam, it is good to see you again. But why are you out here alone on this abandoned mountain path?”
“I’m headed to the temple to pay my respects.”
“Ach, no need to pay your respects to me, my old friend,” I say with a wide grin. “But thank you. I am honored,”
He blinks, not getting the jest, nor recognizing me, it seems.
His handsome face—more angular and severe than I remember it—darkens. “Who are you to speak to me this way?”
“You wound me, friend,” I say with a mocking smile.
After I bind his arms with the pretty but strong leather belt I rip from his waist, I stand up straighter and cross my arms in the noble gesture of kings and warriors. “For I am Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and this is Diomedes, king of Argos. You, sir, were present at my wedding.”
The man’s eyebrows rise. “King Odysseus? In slave’s rags?”
From him, too? I ignore the obvious point that if he had clothed himself in rags, we would not have gone after him. At the same time, I signal Diomedes to secure the area in case his guards are hiding. “How come you to travel by yourself? Where are your men?”
“I am alone,” Hellenus says, then adds, after watching Diomedes, “Is he the son of Heracles?”
This makes my partner smile. I close my eyes and sigh, but fuck him, he really does look impressive with his spear planted and lion-skin cloak billowing behind him. Though it doesn’t stop me from enjoying a small sense of superiority that Hellenus has no memory of meeting godlike Diomedes so many years ago at my wedding.
Still, despite my affection for the Trojan prince—for I remember him as a smart yet haunted young man—I press my weapon harder against the knob of his throat. “Where are your men?” I repeat. A prince of Troy does not travel alone, even a minor prince like this one.
“I told you,” he says. “I left alone. I was angry.”
I look up into his sunken eyes, registering with vague irritation that, once again, yet another princeling towers over me. “What are you angry about?”
“Helen,” he says.
I snort. “Welcome, then. Everyone here wants to wring her pretty little neck.”
“Why are you angry at her?” Diomedes asks, scowling mightily. “We are preparing an offer for a trade now that Prince Paris is dead.”
Paris’ death—now that was a gift from the gods. Or more accurately, from gray-bearded Philoctetes, safe-keeper of Heracles’ bow—and more importantly, another man of practicality like me. He could’ve acted the hero and avoided shooting that soft Trojan prince in the back after the man felled Achilles. A hero always fights face-to-face. Yet Philoctetes acted for the greater good, and not just to improve his own personal reputation. He dispatched that pretty princeling like the rat he was.
Still, the old, limping fool came back from the site of Achilles’ and Paris’ deaths seemingly more broken than before.
When I put a hand on his shoulder in commiseration at Achilles’ pyre, he backhanded me away with surprising force. “Do not,” he’d growled without even look
ing at me, “ever touch me or come near me again, you backstabbing, piece-of-sheep’s-shit herder-king. Are we clear?”
I put both hands up and took a step back, leaving him be. Of course, he’s never forgiven me for leaving him at Lemnos after that terrible snake bite that kept him from joining the high king’s fleet years ago, but in my defense, I thought I was doing him a favor. I assumed he’d make it back home and escape this folly of a war without any loss of honor or dignity. But he never left. You’d think I’d torn him from the arms of his most beloved the way he continues to fume at me.
Still, in the month that has passed since Paris’s fall, there has been a good deal of arguing in King Agamemnon’s hut about what we might trade for Helen—or even whether she is worth anything at all at this point. Though I learned quickly enough not to give voice to that thought in front of her long-jilted husband, Menelaus of Sparta.
“There will be no trade,” Hellenus nearly spits. “Because Helen has remarried.”
“What?” I croak. “That can’t be... I don’t understand—explain.”
“My brother Deiphobus. We both sought to marry her. He won. I lost. And so I removed myself from the palace for a time to serve the priests of Cybele at the mountain’s summit.”
“She married Deiphobus?” I say after picking up my jaw. “What in Priam’s prick was she thinking?”
Hellenus winces at my words but ultimately ignores the insult to his father. Before I can say anything else, Diomedes punches Hellenus in the back of the head, which sends him hurtling into me, his chin smacking my forehead. I curse, though part of me acknowledges that this is one of the few times being short is an advantage. If I’d been of height, the snap of his head would have surely broken my nose. Instead, it only grazes my forehead.
I struggle to hold our captive up. “Diomedes, control yourself,” I bark. “Reserve the violence until we need it.” Hellenus rubs the back of his head, cursing in his mother tongue.
