The Gates Of Troy

by Iliffe, Glyn

  While the sun set to leave a clear blue sky, tinged with pink in the west, he climbed the hill to the encampment of the main army. This was still in chaos, with soldiers running in all directions and captains barking orders in a dozen different accents and dialects, so he strolled under the sycamore trees and found his way to the standing stones guarding the entrance to the amphitheatre overlooking the Euboean Straits. The benches on the rocky slopes of the arena, where the Greek leaders had sat during their debates about the impending war, had been removed and the place was again a natural, three-sided bowl looking out to the east.

  Eperitus moved to the eastern ledge and sat with his legs dangling over the cliff top, looking down at the vast armada of ships in the bay below. Scores of tiny black figures were still working on the galleys, some fitting spars and adjusting rigging while others knelt on the decks in teams, mending the sails that had been stowed for many weeks. Innumerable small boats crept up and down between the rows of ships, ferrying an endless traffic of crew and supplies to and from the shore. And above the hubbub of voices and the constant sound of hammering was the rushing of the westerly wind, which in the morning would drive the fleet to Troy.

  But Eperitus’s mind was not on the activity below, or the looming shadow of Troy. Slowly, his thoughts and emotions were learning to accept that Iphigenia – beautiful, clever, compelling Iphigenia – was gone. He had failed to protect her from Agamemnon’s black ambition, and though he felt frequent surges of anger towards the King of Men, these were quickly quenched by the knowledge he could do nothing to exact his desire for revenge. Clytaemnestra had tricked him into promising not to harm her husband, robbing him of any solace for the cold emptiness of his grief, and for the second time in his life a great evil had been carried out before his eyes that he was powerless to prevent.

  And yet he was no longer compelled to follow Odysseus to Troy and serve under the overall command of Agamemnon. As the final preparations of the small Ithacan fleet were being completed, Odysseus had turned to Eperitus and released him from his oath of service.

  ‘We’ve tried our hardest to stop this war, Eperitus,’ he had said, ‘but Achilles is right: there’s a greater force at play here than we can hope to defeat. Zeus himself wants it, meaning our pathetic efforts were damned from the start. But whether that means I won’t see my home for twenty years, or whether I can still cheat my doom, remains to be seen. However, that’s my fate, not yours, so I’ve decided to grant your request.’

  ‘Request?’ Eperitus had asked, though knowing in his heart what his friend was about to say.

  Odysseus turned his sombre green eyes on him, and it was as if the last shred of his hope had gone. The king seemed to have accepted, at last, that he could not escape the war; that he would not see the woman he loved, or the child he barely knew, for many long and unbearable years to come – if he ever saw them again at all. And Eperitus knew that, in his sadness, Odysseus did not want both of them to be sucked into the inescapable, all-consuming whirlpool of Troy. If his friend was free, then part of him would be free also.

  ‘On the day Telemachus was dedicated to the gods you asked me to release you from your oath of service,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you the chance to go, if you still want it. I know how hard it will be for you at Troy, to see Agamemnon every day and yet be powerless to take the revenge that your honour requires. I’d rather you go back to Ithaca and protect my family and my home, until I return or Telemachus is old enough to rule in my stead. But I won’t order you, Eperitus: the choice is yours to make.’

  Eperitus had not responded, but the possibility of turning his back on the war and leaving Odysseus had haunted his already dark thoughts ever since. It would be a betrayal; maybe not of his honour, but at least of his friendship with the king of Ithaca. He would fade into obscurity, a failed warrior fleeing the ghosts of his past. The alternative was the torment of facing Agamemnon every day at Ilium, sworn not only to permit him to carry on existing, but also to prevent others from taking his detestable life. Odysseus, in his wisdom, had known both options were difficult, and would not insist he choose one or the other.

  Eperitus lay down on the soft, springy turf-the grass lush and green from the unseasonable rain – and looked up at the azure sky, already pricked by one or two stars. Suddenly a deep exhaustion came over him and his whole body felt leaden and drained of energy. He closed his eyes and listened to the preparations going on above and below him, as if he were in a bubble protected – at least for a short while – from the clamouring of war. Then, with the sound of the west wind filling his ears, he fell asleep.

  He was woken by a long, low howling from the trees nearby. He sat up and looked about himself, but everything was dark and still under a moonless night sky. The westerly breeze sighed in the topmost branches of the sycamores, but there was no sound from the camp now. Below him, the fleet bobbed gently on the oily black surface of the bay, the shapes of the galleys only faintly distinguishable in the starlight. Then another lonely, mournful cry stretched out into the night air, closer now than before, and he stood and pulled his sword from its scabbard.

  As the blade scraped out to shine with a dull gleam, Eperitus saw a shadowy figure enter the amphitheatre from between the two standing stones and come towards him. It was tall and slim, cloaked from head to foot in black, but as Eperitus turned the point of his sword towards it the hood was pulled back to reveal a woman.

  ‘Clytaemnestra!’ he exclaimed, shocked to see her pale, pretty face staring back at him. ‘What are you doing here? When did you arrive?’

  The queen ignored his questions and, covering the small distance between them, threw her arms around his chest and laid her head against his shoulder. Even in his shock at seeing her he had felt a surge of guilt and expected her anger; so the feel of her body pressed against his and her long hands on his back brought a strange sensation of relief. He put his arms around her and stroked her hair.

  ‘I failed,’ he said softly. ‘I couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘You tried,’ she answered, her voice small and hoarse. ‘Don’t blame yourself. Our daughter is gone. I sensed her soul leaving this world as I stood in the courtyard before the great hall this morning, looking down across the plains.’

  ‘But Mycenae is three or four days away on horseback, and even by ship you couldn’t have reached Aulis this quickly.’

  She nuzzled closer into his arms, so that her voice was slightly muffled by the thick cloak. ‘I have powers you can’t imagine, Eperitus, powers that go beyond visions and inner knowledge. I used them to come to you. To remind you of your oath.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ Eperitus replied bitterly, thinking again of Iphigenia’s ordeal in the glade and the sight of her blood trickling from the altar. ‘It was a cruel deception, Clytaemnestra. Cruel and hard to bear.’

  ‘Yes, but necessary. You may be Iphigenia’s father, but it was through the pain of my body that she was brought into the world. My patience taught her and my love cared for her, long before you even knew she existed. Would you deny my right to take vengeance on my husband?’

  ‘Of course not – but why wait for the war to end? Can’t you use these powers you boast of to destroy Agamemnon?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I want to kill him with my own hands. But for that I will have to wait until he returns to Mycenae. That’s why I want you to keep him alive until the war is over, if you can.’

  Eperitus pulled away.

  ‘You ask too much! If you’d seen what he did, Nestra – if you’d seen the look of relish in his eye when he brought that blade down . . .’

  ‘Enough!’ she shouted, and the echo of her voice rang off the sides of the amphitheatre. ‘Enough. I understand how hard it is for you to stay your hand, and that’s why I had to rely on the only force I knew could possibly restrain you – your own sense of honour. But I promise you, the time will come when you can take your revenge on Agamemnon – the gods have revealed it to me. His downfall will begin at
Troy, by your hand.’

  Eperitus smiled derisively.

  ‘Then haven’t your gods also told you Odysseus has given me leave to go home? He, at least, understands how difficult it will be for me to live in the shadow of Agamemnon after what he did to our daughter.’

  ‘But you must go,’ Clytaemnestra exclaimed. ‘And not because I want you to protect Agamemnon.’

  ‘Oh? Then for what? To be pulled apart by my sense of honour and my desire for revenge?’

  ‘You’re speaking like a fool, Eperitus. Don’t you realize your destiny is with Odysseus? Gaea has revealed to me that Troy will not fall unless both you and he are there. I knew it long before I asked you to run away with Iphigenia and me, but I chose to ignore what the goddess was telling me, just as Odysseus has been trying to ignore his own fate.’

  Eperitus turned and walked further along the ledge, looking out over the vast Greek fleet. He kicked a stone and watched it disappear into the darkness below.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said caustically. ‘Your precious Agamemnon and the doom of Troy are safe. I’ve decided not to accept Odysseus’s offer: my place has always been at his side, so I’ve decided to go with him to Ilium. What else is there left for me to do? At least I can seek some form of vengeance in Trojan blood, even if you’ve ensured I can’t look for it in the death of your husband.’

  Clytaemnestra approached and took his hand. ‘Don’t resent me, Eperitus. I did what I had to do. But another fate awaits you at Troy, a fate that has already been hinted at by Calchas. Have you forgotten the second secret he spoke of?’

  Eperitus looked at Clytaemnestra, her face beautiful but cold under the starlight.

  ‘I’m tired of prophecies and secrets, Nestra. Let the cruel gods do as they please with me; after Iphigenia’s death, I don’t much care about anything any more.’

  Clytaemnestra put her arms around him again and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You’ll care about this, my dear,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll care about this.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  TENEDOS

  Helen stood on the battlements of Pergamos, looking out across the plains and the glittering sea to where the sun was setting in the west. But for the guards at the angles of the walls, she was alone, leaning her elbows on the parapet and thinking about the events of the previous few days. Since arriving in Troy she had been treated with reverence and even love by its citizens. Paris had made a deliberate point of wandering the streets of Pergamos and the lower city with her at his side, and wherever they went they were greeted with an uproar of delighted voices. People rushed from their houses to press around the couple, their faces bright with joy for the prince’s happiness, and yet awed at the sight of the mysterious woman he had brought back with him from Greece. Some of the older Trojans might have shaken their heads in disapproval as she passed, guessing that such beauty would only bring grief to Ilium, but after Priam had welcomed Helen no one would dare voice their opposition to her. And the whole city had come out to cheer the wedding procession that morning, dressed in their finest clothing and with baskets of flowers on their arms, ready to cast on the road before the feet of the newly married couple.

  Helen smiled to herself at the memory. She still wore her wedding dress – a long white garment in the Trojan style – and as she ran her hands down it the light material felt smooth and rich beneath her fingertips. The delicate blooms that Andromache and Leothoë had woven into her hair remained fresh and bright, and she almost regretted the knowledge that they would be removed before she and Paris were alone later. But she also knew that Andromache and Leothoë had prepared something special for her wedding night: a dress made from layers of gossamer that could be removed one at a time to tease out Paris’s passions; and a blend of perfumes that they promised would keep her husband attentive until dawn. Trojan women, it seemed, had a gift for lovemaking. Their knowledge of how to please a man in bed stunned Helen, and her new friends were not timid when giving her their advice. All day long, even during the solemn religious ceremony that had formalized her union with Paris, her thoughts had returned repeatedly to the night ahead and the new ways in which she would stimulate Paris’s passion.

  Though the quietly spoken Leothoë had shown nothing but kindness and love to Helen, she also had duties within the palace and was a wife to the king, so was often away performing her various tasks. Andromache, on the other hand, was a visitor and a newcomer to Troy, and she and Helen were able to spend most of every day together, quickly becoming good friends as they explored the city or ventured out on to the plain and the surrounding countryside. Andromache helped Helen improve her use of the Trojan tongue – something that little Pleisthenes was picking up rapidly in the company of Priam’s many grandchildren and their nurses – and together the two women would talk about their lives, past and present, and their hopes for the future.

  Helen’s hopes were already being translated into reality. She could not recall a happier time. When Paris was with her, mostly in the evenings, she felt the joy of a love she had never experienced before; and when he was busy with affairs of state in a city now preparing for siege, Helen enjoyed a freedom she had not known since childhood. She was no longer constrained by the strict palace life of Sparta, and while she missed her three other children there was much to distract her from her unresolved grief. There was the much talked about threat of war looming over Ilium, yet Helen was hopeful it would never happen. Even if Menelaus and his brother could muster a strong enough force to attack Troy, they would be too afraid to leave their own cities unprotected in a divided Greece. And, if against all her expectations they did come, Paris had given her his word on Tenedos that his fighting days were over. There were more than enough fighting men to deal with any Spartan and Mycenaean armies that dared set foot on Trojan soil, and Paris had already done more than his fair share of fighting in the service of his country.

  As for Andromache, she had but one hope – to marry Hector. They had known each other for many years through Hector’s close friendship with her brother, Podes, but Hector’s mind was always too bent on the advancement of Troy to be concerned with matters of love. Even though Andromache had finally persuaded her brother to take her to Troy, Hector had been so busy with matters of war that she had not even set eyes on him before Paris and Helen’s wedding, and then only briefly. But Helen could not tolerate the thought that her friend should not share in her happiness at being in love, so promised Andromache her help. She had already persuaded Paris that Hector needed children, and that Andromache would prove an ideal mother, and to that end Paris agreed to invite Hector to eat with him and his new wife the next night. Helen, of course, had already invited Andromache, and with a touch of her own blend of perfumes who knew what the result might be?

  With such satisfying thoughts drifting through her mind, Helen had hardly noticed the sun sink below the horizon. A few fishing vessels bobbed up and down on the gentle waves in the wide bay into which the Scamander and the Simo¨eis flowed, but the mass of high-sided galleys that were there the first morning she had looked out from Troy’s walls were gone. Hector had stopped the building of further ships to concentrate instead on bolstering the city’s defences; the vessels that had already been built had been sent further up the coast to fetch the armies of some of Troy’s vassal cities, bringing them back to join the force that was being amassed under Hector’s command. The vast camp that had filled the northern quarter of the plain below had now moved to the eastern side of the city walls opposite the Dardanian Gate, where it was swelled every day by a constant stream of Troy’s allies. When Andromache’s countrymen, the Cilicians, had reached the city walls a few days before, Helen had joined her friend to cheer their arrival. The fact they were coming to fight Greeks and might die in a war brought about by her arrival concerned her a little, but she found the splendour of the military display – and the equal attention her own presence received – exhilarating.

  A familiar squeal of laughter and the cl
acking of wood made her turn and look down into the palace gardens behind her. There was Pleisthenes, holding a wooden stick in his good hand and fighting against the combined forces of Aeneas and Deiphobus, who were similarly armed. Helen smiled, despite the fact that her son should have been with Antenor, who because of his ability to speak Greek had been asked to tutor the boy in the ways of his new homeland. Instead, Pleisthenes was driving the two young Trojans back before him, pursuing them around the rectangular pond and through several neatly pruned bushes before dispatching each of them with neatly placed thrusts of his sword.

  ‘At least he won’t have to worry about fighting when the war comes,’ said a voice, speaking in Greek.

  Helen turned and the smile fell from her face. ‘Oh, it’s you, Apheidas,’ she said, taking a step backwards. ‘What are you doing up here?’

  ‘I’m here to inspect the guards,’ he answered, glancing at the men on the walls, whose eyes were no longer snatching sly glimpses of Helen but were fixed firmly on the darkening ocean beyond the mouth of the harbour. ‘I want them alert and watchful for the arrival of the Greek fleet.’

  ‘They’ll not come here,’ Helen said, trying to sound assured of the fact. ‘If you lived in Greece as you say, you’ll know that no king would dare send an army abroad and leave his home unprotected. Not with so many old grudges and scores to settle among the different states. If he did, he’d return home to find his kingdom lost and his family murdered.’

  ‘You shouldn’t overlook the power of your own beauty, Helen,’ Apheidas responded. ‘With a prize like you at stake, I’m only surprised they’ve not arrived already.’

  She gave the Trojan captain a haughty look. ‘And if the war comes you’ll blame me for it, no doubt.’

  ‘Blame you? Not at all – I’ll be thanking you. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to kill Greeks and send them fleeing back to their rotten little country with their noses bloodied.’