‘A replacement, perfectly simple. Chryseis is my property, my prize. You’ve all got your whores here and your hetairas back home. I see no shortage of sluts bouncing about your bivouacs each night, and you bastards all look sleepy-eyed in the mornings. Some of you can barely stand up, let alone fucking fight. Do you really imagine I’m going to stand and dangle my balls and let myself be robbed while you lot carry on having your fun? No fucking way. I’m telling you, I’m going to be reimbursed.’
‘But you’ve already been offered a good ransom, brother.’
Menelaus was thick and slow as fog, though you could tell from the look on Achilles’ face that he had some idea of what was coming. Agamemnon leered.
‘Thank you, brother, but I’ve made it clear I don’t want paid in precious metal. It’s a girl for a girl. Get it?’
‘We’ve no such fund,’ said Achilles, ‘to compensate incompetent leaders for their incompetence. So where exactly do you propose to find a replacement to satisfy your lust? The men have their prizes – all the girls have been allotted and shared out long since. You can’t ask us to pool everything and start again.’
‘No? Maybe you’re right, maybe I can’t ask it. I can fucking order it, though. As your leader. What do you think of that?’
Everybody looked at Achilles.
He kept his cool. ‘Look, leader – if that’s how you want to be addressed you’d better start by earning the right to it. It’s perfectly simple: you have to give up the girl. I’m sure in spite of what Calchas has said we can renegotiate the ransom.’
Agamemnon waved a big arm.
‘Still not getting it, are you? Let me spell it out for you then. I am giving up the girl. But I’m not accepting any ransom. I piss on the fucking ransom. I wouldn’t take it in a tart’s arse. I’ll help myself to your prize first, or some other fucker’s, but your bit Briseis will suit me nicely, now that I think about it. One way or the other I’ll not be left empty-bedded.’
There was a stunned silence, broken by Achilles, who whipped out his sword and stood ready to swing at Agamemnon.
‘You bastard! You barefaced fucking cheat! Always grabbing at the fucking truffles! And always grudging the next man what’s his by rights! My prize was hard won. I won it as I always do – in the front line, where you’re never fucking seen! You wouldn’t know what the front line looked like. You couldn’t even find your way to it. And my prize came from the men, by the way, out of the ranks – it was a tribute from the force. You can’t take away what’s been given by the army, not even as leader. How would you expect the troops to follow you after that? Mine won’t, that’s for sure. A common fucking grifter!’
‘Now hold it there, Achilles –’
Nestor was trying to rise.
‘No, I’m on my feet, Nestor, I’m having my say. I’m going to give it to the bastard straight. It’s high time somebody did – long past it!’
He turned to face Agamemnon full on.
‘Listen, bastard-face. I had no quarrel with Troy when I followed you out here. No Trojan ever called me Greek dog. No Trojan ever killed a friend of mine, or milked a cow, or as much as trod on a blade of grass. I came here for your sake, you ungrateful cunt, for your own ends and for your brother’s, to bring back his Spartan whore and help you loot everything you can lay your thieving hands on, you common thief. And coward to boot, while we’re about it. You’ve never had the balls to go out on a raid. You leave that to better men, and when the fighting’s hardest you always fall back and let me take the brunt of it. Don’t think the men don’t see it for themselves – always the middle of the deployment for you, safety in numbers and well away from the front, though you’re first at the trough every time after the heat’s over, your snout’s always quickest in at the snatch and grab, front of the fucking queue for you then, the pig who wants the lion’s share. Well have it, pig-face. But I’ve not come all these miles to burn and murder other people just to be treated like shit to suit your avarice. Or to die in a conflict that for me has neither meaning nor fucking morality. So you can stuff your war. I’m fucking off. I’m withdrawing the Myrmidons. I’m taking my ships back to Phthia.’
‘Take them!’ Agamemnon waved him a mock salute. ‘Deserter!’
Howls of protest from Achilles’ followers, but Agamemnon had been stung.
‘It’s what you are, you and your fucking Myrmidons! Cock-suckers, every one of them, taking their turns with Patroclus! Well you can fuck off, all of you, yes, you can take your fucking ships. And I’m taking your woman. And you know why? Because I can, that’s why, because I’m Chief Motherfucker, which means I have the power, it’s as simple as that. I might have relented if you hadn’t been so bastard arrogant just now. But you always think you’re number one, don’t you? Well then, this will fucking teach you, and any others like you –’
Agamemnon glared across the ranks.
‘– to learn your fucking place. And to be loyal for once.’
‘Loyal!’
Achilles should have left it at that but rose to the bait.
‘Loyal to you? A fucking buffoon! A dog-eyed, doe-hearted drunkard! I’ve been everything including loyal in spite of your awesome fucking inadequacies. But now you’ve exposed yourself for what you really are – a mean little bully, like most cowards. And you’ll regret it. You’ll regret it on the day the Trojans’ best man cuts your troops to pieces and you’ll wish my Myrmidons were there to defend you, you spineless cunt! But on that day, we’ll stand back and watch you die and we won’t lift a fucking finger!’
Agamemnon spread his arms wide, acting out his offended innocence. ‘You see? What did I tell you? Disloyalty, desertion – and a monstrous fucking pride. As if we needed him for a victory. And he’s actually revelling in the prospect of our defeat. I could have him executed right now for treason!’
Shouts from all quarters. The Myrmidons drew their swords. Nestor had heard enough. This time he rose and put up his hand for silence. He spoke slowly and quietly as usual, shaping his phrases like a draughtsman in his dry, dispassionate voice.
‘Agamemnon, I ask you, forget your rank for now, and step aside from the path you’ve adopted. Don’t stoop to robbery, I beg you, because that is precisely what it would be. Achilles is quite correct, you can’t take back what has been given by the army. The girl was gifted not to you but to Achilles. Do the decent thing and let him keep her. And you, Achilles, learn to sweeten your words when you address your leader. Agamemnon is also correct. Your tone is entirely arrogant and excessive, leaving aside the treason. A little modesty might become you better.’
Old Nestor of Pylos, sand and surf, polish and politics. He’d seen two generations fly up and vanish with the smoke, and he knew how to cool the tempers of the third generation, using the choicest phrases culled from his sweet-tongued oratory. His portrait graces the web. His tongue drips diplomatic honey. His cloak is embroidered with bees, emblems of his industry and craft, always attuned to the overview, the ultimate aim. On this occasion, however, even his famous rhetoric had no effect. Achilles was already walking out of the Assembly and Agamemnon was bawling after him.
‘Insubordination! You all see it! Treason and desertion! Dead man walking! Come back, you bastard, and obey orders!’
Achilles paused in his exit for one last blast.
‘Fuck your orders! And fuck you! And fuck all of you for letting him get away with it! Take the girl. I’ll not stoop to fight you for her, though everybody knows I could flatten you with a single blow. I won’t, because I don’t fight with cowards, especially cowards who pull rank. But just try to take anything else that’s mine, you filthy bastard, and I’ll spill your fucking blood for you, it’ll run hot off my blade, and my spear will blacken with your bowels for everybody to see and cheer. Just give me the excuse for it and you’re out of action, friend, you’re a fucking dead man!’
That was it. Achilles and Patroclus swept back to their tent, Achilles swearing he’d fight no more under Agamemnon.
He didn’t set sail as he’d threatened, but he might as well have done. He withdrew the Myrmidons and announced that the Trojans could come and set fire to the Greek fleet for all he cared; he’d only defend his own ships if he were attacked.
Agamemnon was a lot more worried than he made out. To save the army he agreed to launch a ship to take Chryseis home to her father. But he also carried out his threat to take Briseis from Achilles in exchange, and he sent his two heralds to bring her, by force if necessary.
It wasn’t necessary, and the two men were embarrassed, but Achilles broke the ice for them.
‘It’s all right, I’ve nothing against you men, you’re obeying orders, that’s all. I know what you think of them – and of the turd who issued them. Do what you have to do. But you can bear witness for me: that man Agamemnon has lost the plot, he’s stark raving mad and ought to be relieved of his command. If the men don’t know it now they’ll know it when they need me most. And by then it will be too late.’
He said his goodbye to Briseis. The poor bitch went unwillingly. Who’d want to leave Achilles to be teamed up with Agamemnon, who by every account made love with all the sophistication of an ox? But neither of them had a choice. The girl went with the heralds, and Achilles went to his tent, turned his back on Troy and broke down in the arms of his chum.
Achilles leaves his tent, strides from the camp, wanders along the desolate beach, scanning the barren waves, and weeps into the water. And his goddess mother comes to him in the form of a mist arising out of the infinite ocean, up from the depths of the endless heaving water, where she sits with Nereus, her father, the Old Man of the Sea. The cool mist comforts Achilles, enfolds him, and he tells his troubles to it, whispers his sorrows into its white encircling arms, which soon become the arms of Thetis. Her face and figure appear too, and her long golden locks, drenched and glistening with brine, and suddenly there is the complete form of his mother, kneeling beside her son, asking him the reason for his tears, though she knows already. And so Achilles explains everything to her and asks her to go to Zeus and beg for revenge against Agamemnon. He wants a revenge that will involve the whole army. He wants the Greeks to be driven back to their ships with huge loss of life.
‘Hurl them back on their hulls,’ he urges. ‘Let them feel the barnacles on their backs. Drive them into the sea itself, and make the sea turn red. Then we’ll see how they like their commander. Maybe this will teach them the lesson they need to learn. They could have spoken up for me. But they let a thief and swindler have his way.’
Tears stain the sea-nymph’s cheeks and blur the divine eyes. But it is not only her son’s grief that moves her – she has her own sorrow, knowing all too well what fate has in store for him and that he is doomed to an early death on the plains of Troy. But she strokes his head and leaves him with her kisses, assuring him she will do her utmost to move Zeus against the Greeks while her son stays by his ships and takes no part in the fighting.
On his face, he feels the last touch of his mother’s fingers, arms and hands dematerialising as white mist. Half goddess, half vapour, she trails away from him, then turns again into Thetis of the Silver Feet and speeds upwards to snow-capped Olympus, to clasp the knees of Zeus.
I was given the job of taking Chryseis home and giving the priest back his daughter. In return, he’d pray to his god to take away the plague. We sailed there with a quick wind chasing us all the way, making love to our sail there and back, keeping it big-bellied, with the dark-blue waves hissing and singing round our prow.
The old boy was overjoyed. Blood and wine were spilled and we gorged ourselves on roast meat well washed down, and sang sweet songs to Apollo. As you do. The god must have been pleased. He gave us a good night’s sleep and a breezy morning to blow away the thick heads and cobwebs and waft us back to Troy. Aurora’s rosy fingers brushed the east, the sail filled and billowed, the archer Apollo himself appeared at the stern, sped us forward with a following wind, and the wave round the stem spat like a snake all through the dark choppy waters to the Greek camp, now free from plague.
High above the camp, on snow-clad Olympus, Zeus listens to Thetis’s earnest entreaty, bows his sable brows. The ambrosial locks roll forward, all Olympus shakes, and, in spite of Apollo, fates are sealed. Achilles’ wish is granted. He hears the soft whisper in his ear, his mother’s voice, coming at him out of the breathing sea.
‘He’s fucked himself!’
Achilles came striding back along the shore, back to his ships and his waiting Myrmidons.
‘The Chief Motherfucker has fucked up! He won’t know what fucking hit him! And serve him right, the obnoxious arrogant bastard! Fire away, you blackheads, burn the fucker alive!’
At the camp, we found Achilles eating his heart out for his lost girl. In his solitude and bitter anger, he longed for the din of battle to tell him that the Greeks were in deep trouble. We were his friends and comrades, but he’d have been glad to see half of us butchered in an afternoon just to teach Agamemnon his lesson.
SIXTEEN
Something is speeding through the starry night. Down from Olympus it streaks like a meteor, silent and bright, following the pointing finger of almighty Zeus, headed for the Greek ships, for Agamemnon’s tent. It’s a false dream, an evil dream, the first part of Zeus’s plan to grant Achilles’ wish and his mother’s petition by luring the Greeks into a battle with false expectations of success. The god has instructed it to enter Agamemnon’s dreamless head and fill it with fantasies.
Wake up, it tells him, prepare the army for action. The Greek hour has come. Strike the Trojans now, and you’ll take the city in a day.
And so the king lies and dreams of what is not to be . . .
What exactly put it into his head we never knew. Maybe the poor fool did dream something. Maybe there are such things as lethal dreams, sent by the gods. Maybe there are gods. Maybe evil exists. All I know is that on the morning after we got back from delivering Chryseis, Agamemnon gave the order.
‘The whole army will immediately stand to its arms!’
It had come to him during the night, he said. Troy’s time was up and the city was there for the taking. Call it a commander’s instinct. Today’s the day. We launch a full-scale attack on Troy and we sweep through its streets, leaving not a man alive. Then we go home.
He didn’t advance a single military reason for the plan, but it didn’t matter. He’d inspired the army, not so much with a vision of victory as with the hope of every individual soldier, the hope all soldiers feed on: to end the war, stay alive, and go home to wives, children, old folks, soft beds, sweet sleeps and all the happy tedium of peace.
But he didn’t inspire Thersites.
‘So you scented victory during the night, did you? Maybe you farted in your sleep. That’s about all the victory you’ll ever smell from that old arsehole, believe me, lads! He’s fucking honking!’
Roars of laughter from the men. Fury from Agamemnon.
‘Shut the fuck up, you gobshite! You’re the only arsehole around here, with Achilles gone, and an obnoxious one at that, you bandy-legged buffoon!’
The bandy legs were the least of Thersites’ defects. He was short and club-footed. His shoulders were so misshapen they almost met over his sunken chest and they were topped by a pointy egg-head, bald but for a few short sproutings of hair. His tongue was too big for the ugly gash of a practically toothless mouth, and whenever he opened it a stream of invective was released at somebody, invariably one of the top commanders, with Achilles and Agamemnon his preferred targets, along with myself. I always accepted his insults with a shrug and a grin because the comic routine provided the troops with a necessary therapy, so I reckoned. The filthy quips never failed to make them laugh. You only had to look at the ugly bugger and you started laughing, and when he played to the gallery the obscene entertainment always made a demoralised man feel better. Nobody else could have got away with the things he said, but Thersites was licensed to jest and not get killed for it.
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br /> ‘So the Chief Motherfucking Farter hasn’t had enough yet, eh?’
To get an idea of Thersites’ voice you had to imagine a turnip talking. The raw, saw-edged, strident whining started up and the men grinned and cocked their ears.
‘What’s biting your big fat arse now, mule breath? What more can you possibly want, you insatiable fucking thief? Treasures and trollops, you just can’t get enough of either, can you? Your huts are so full of fucking spoils you’ve nowhere left to stuff them, have you? Except up that monstrous arse! Is there room to ram another fistful of gold up there – gold some poor Trojan sod has paid for ransom? It’s ten to one the capture was made by one of the lads and you’ve scooped up the takings as usual, right up your jammy arse! Which is where he hides his fucking nuggets, boys – he shits them out and stuffs them back up there when no one’s looking, after he’s done his business. That’s why he won’t shit with the rest of us, that’s why he hogs his own private crapper, so he can stash his ill-gotten fucking gains where neither man nor beast would care to look. Fuck me, he’s so fucking mean he grudges even his turds an exit!’
The men were helpless by now, but Thersites was just getting into his stride. He knew that if Agamemnon laid a finger on him they’d revolt.
‘Laugh away, lads, you may think I jest, but I’m telling you right here and now you’re looking at the worst unprincipled swindler that ever led an army into the field. Led – that’s a joke, by the way. And you poor bloody infantry, you’ll sail for home right now if you’ve any sense. What, line up behind that arsehole? You can’t. Because he won’t be in the front, will he, where he can fart on you, he’ll be well behind you, in his fucking tent, rear support command, while you get shot to pieces. And he’ll be well behind Briseis too, mounting the new piece of arse he filched from Achilles, showing her how the fucking bull does it! That’s the only rear support you’ll ever see from that pair – a non-useful bitch and a complete fucking turd-chaser!’
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