Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  It was hotting up. Aeneas came charging up fast on Aphareus, aiming for the throat. You could see his eyes, like chips of ice, fixed on it. Right on target.

  And as in spring-time the showers assault the young flowers and render them wet and heavy, so Aphareus’s head lolls slowly sideways, a tender bloom laden with rain, and he crumples up in crimson sleep, at rest under his shield.

  Fucking sure he did.

  Then Antilochus took out Thoön, stabbing him hard from behind and severing the vein to the neck. Thoön collapsed backwards, clawing the empty air. The blackheads all rushed up to save him from being stripped and Antilochus was forced to withdraw.

  Adamas came after him and was about to make his stab when Antilochus suddenly turned with his shield up. The spear drove into the centre of it and stuck.

  ‘Rammed and jammed!’ Antilochus grinned. ‘Ready for your punishment, loser?’

  Adamas turned and ran.

  Meriones ran faster.

  ‘Say goodnight, soldier.’

  He struck the poor bastard horribly, first spinning him round then driving the javelin in hard between the genitals and the navel, the worst of wounds inflicted by man or war-god and the last place a soldier wants to be hit. But there it stuck. Meriones kept the weapon in and watched until the writhing stopped.

  Helenus saw red and came up screaming. Meriones got out of the way sharp and Helenus hit Deipyrus instead. It was a savage slash and a fabulous one. The big Thracian blade sheared off the helmet and along with it half the man’s head, exposing the brain. Deipyrus too went into the dark.

  Now Menelaus lost it. He lunged at Helenus. But he was half blind with rage and only just managed to slice his man’s hand. Which was just as well, as Helenus was fitting an arrow to his bow at the time. The arrow went off harmlessly and the blackheads dragged him off to safety, Menelaus’s spear still trailing from his hand.

  ‘My spear!’

  ‘Never mind your spear!’ I yelled. ‘Enemy eyes on you!’

  Peisander already had him lined up and threw. Menelaus whipped up his shield and the spear snapped. Menelaus charged him with his sword out, and Peisander whipped out an axe. I took a second to admire it. A lovely piece of bronze with a long polished olive-wood haft. But Menelaus didn’t have time for the aesthetics. The heavy blade came crashing down on him and must have made his head ring like hell. His helmet held, though, and Menelaus swung back with his sword, striking Peisander low on the forehead, just above the base of the nose, a fucking skull-cruncher of a blow. The bones cracked and splintered, the blood sprayed out, and Peisander’s eyes spilled out of his face. He reeled for a second or two before dropping dead.

  Menelaus spat on the corpse. ‘Better smell your way to hell then, you eyeless arsehole!’

  He stood there for a few seconds, staring down at the body. Next thing we knew he’d sunk down beside it, his head in his hands.

  ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ shouted Meriones. ‘He’s a sitting duck!’

  What was he doing? What was he thinking? Or what was Penelope thinking for him as she wove his expression into the web? She captured him so precisely, you could almost hear the words . . .

  Will it never end? Why can’t we finish them, or they us? Men tire of everything in the end – of music and dancing and eating and drinking, of sleeping and making love. Even of love itself, of all those things that endure so much longer even than conflict. But these Trojans and their allies, they’re bloodthirsty beyond belief, gluttons for war and all its miseries. And so are we. It’s inhuman. And yet it’s what we humans do, and what we are. And I’m sick of it, weary under the sun, tired, tired of being a man.

  Menelaus was having a breather before going back to the butcher’s yard. He ripped Peisander’s armour from him, handed it to his men and returned to the front line, where he came under instant attack from Harpalion, the Paphlagonian.

  Big mistake. Harpalion must have thought Menelaus was feeling weak or dizzy and decided to go for glory cheaply. A big thing to go back to Paphlagonia and say you’d killed the Greek leader, second in command. Except he never saw fucking Paphlagonia. His spear stuck so deeply in Menelaus’s shield he couldn’t pull it out. So he turned and ran back to the lines, where his father was waiting for him. That was his second error of judgement. Meriones lined him up, calmly fitted an arrow to his bow and fired. The arrow drove deep into the right buttock, passed clean through the bladder and came out under the pelvic bone. Harpalion collapsed, screaming his head off and wriggling like a worm, the arrow still in him and the blood pouring out of him, a dark gush in the dust. The Paphlagonians lifted him into a chariot and raced him back to the city.

  The speed was unnecessary. Death was never going to come quickly, not with a wound like that. But it would come all right, no matter how fast they drove, or how slow. His father went with him in the chariot, bent over him, sobbing all the way. He was Pylaemenes, King of Paphlagonia, and he’d brought the youngster proudly to the war at Troy, laughing off a seer’s prediction that he’d die there. That was the initial mistake. But you don’t need a seer to tell you not to go to war. Not if you can fucking avoid it.

  Harpalion, as it happened, had spent a lot of time with Paris. They were great chums, even lovers, so it was rumoured. He’d certainly drunk plenty of Paris’s wine in their long nights together. A friendship ended by Ares. Paris swore and loosed off an arrow into the crowd, not caring where it struck. Euchenor took the hit.

  He was another one with a seer for a father – Polyidus of Corinth, whose sad duty it had been to inform his son that if he stayed on at home he would contract a painful and lingering disease. The years would waste him and prostrate him and he’d die in bed. If he sailed with the Greek fleet he’d be killed in action. So his fate was forked; there was no third way. He turned his back on prostration, indignity and pain, and went off instead to the end he expected every day in Troy, to be so suddenly engulfed by the unlovely and eternal night.

  So it was no accidental arrow after all. Paris shot at random but the gods guided the missile. It came whistling at his head, giving him no time either to blink or think. Target, contact, whack! His destiny hit him near the ear, just under the jaw, slicing upwards through his head, so that he escaped the prolonged agony he’d elected to avoid. A quick death, then. An arrow through your head. It has to be.

  A good shot for the blackheads, with fate on their side. All the same, the bastards were being punished. Both Ajaxes stood in the field like two immoveable oxen, giving them sheer hell. The Runner didn’t have his Locrian troops with him – they were well in the rear. But they were firing effectively enough from back there. They weren’t the close-combat sort, much preferring the bow and the sling, and their rain of missiles was beginning to grind down the enemy spirit. Hector galloped up and down the line, calling in the best men, but he could hardly find one that was both alive and unwounded. The battle for the ships was proving costly to both sides. He collected a bunch of blackheads and held some sort of emergency field meet, Hector’s horse rearing and stamping and pawing the air the whole time. They must have been debating whether to withdraw, regroup and attack later or go for the charge. Paris joined them, and a minute later they came at us. We answered them, dug our heels in. Men down on both sides, fresh bodies all over the field, with heaps of wounded, and the noise of battle rang on and out across the windy plains and all the way up to Olympus.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Something had to give. And it did. Hector led one more charge, an all-out fucking attack, and it broke us. Nestor was still with Machaon, but when he heard the commotion he came riding up to find us in full retreat and the blackheads pouring over the wall. A complete rout. We were all wounded. Nestor looked at Agamemnon.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  Agamemnon looked finished, totally shagged out. Nestor was bone-weary too – he had a right to be at his age – but he still had that glitter in his eye.

  ‘What’s the plan?’r />
  ‘Plan?’

  ‘We need a new action plan, and we need it now.’

  We waited. Agamemnon leaned on his spear, breathing heavily.

  ‘I’ll give you a new action plan, Nestor, and it’s the best one yet. Withdrawal. End the war. We’re fucked and we know it. We just need to admit it. I move we get out now while we still can. Otherwise we’ll die here and never see our homes again. There’s no shame in saving our skins and getting back to our families, is there?’

  Nestor grew gaunter. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

  ‘Don’t you? Well, I’m telling you all the same, you’re fuck-all use to your families if you’re a corpse on a foreign field. Tonight you’ll all be dogmeat, and tomorrow dogshit, crapped out on the plains of Troy. Then they’ll roll your bones into the ocean and the rest of you will be fish turds. There won’t be a scrap of you left to fucking bury. No hero’s grave for any motherfucker – just a drift of shit in the sea. How does that suit you?’

  Silence and black looks all round. Anger and dismay. A few of the leaders looked at me. They were expecting an eloquent answer to the pathetic defeatism they’d just heard. It didn’t need eloquence. I asked the cunt if this was his idea of leadership – to run away?

  ‘After so long a struggle? And all those good men gone? For nothing? Fuck you, man, no! That would suit us fine if you were commanding a crowd of cowards but you’re in charge of soldiers. We’ve been through wars before – some of us have known nothing else, since we were young men. It’s what we do. So for fuck’s sake ask us to act like soldiers if you want to act like a leader. If not, step aside.’

  Sufficiently withering. He winced under it. I gave him some more.

  ‘And how do you propose that the men manoeuvre the ships into the sea and hold the lines at the same time? Have you thought it through? The blackheads will be all over us and we’ll be wiped out. Call that a leadership decision? There’s precious little behind it – except the brain of a sparrow and the teeth of a fucking hen!’

  Agamemnon ground his teeth.

  ‘Nobody ever accused you of holding back, Odysseus. But as you’re so superior to me in all departments, can I ask you – any of you – does anybody have a better idea? Some brilliant strategy – other than the heroic fucking death? Or the fucking unheroic, as it will turn out. Anybody? I’m all ears. Let’s have it. The floor is yours.’

  The bastard had got out of it. And he was right. Nobody had a clue what to do. There was some mumbling and throat-clearing and then Diomedes said something about visiting the field and pressing the men to fight harder. It was hardly Greek strategy’s finest hour. Field? What field? There was no fucking field. Our backs were to the water and the blackheads were all over the place. We were the crutch brigade, FUBAR, sheep to the fucking slaughter.

  It was the one point in the war I felt so desperate I could almost have prayed for divine intervention. I didn’t. But we could certainly have used some special help at that juncture. And so Penelope decided to send us some.

  Here she is, in all her glory – the goddess Hera, setting out for Lemnos, dropping to the Pierian range and to idyllic Emathia, sweeping the snow-crests, the white hills of the horse-breeding Thracians, skimming the highest peaks but never deigning to descend too close to the ground. From Athos she soars over the foaming ocean, scanning the heaving sea, gliding like a gull, unwetted above the white horses, their manes blown back by the wind. And in that majestic way she comes down to Lemnos, where she finds the object of her quest, Death’s brother, the god of Sleep, and at last touches down.

  She has already visited Aphrodite, artfully masking her true motives, and so has at her disposal all the armoury of female charms and the whole panoply of words, the sweet bewitching words that turn a wise man into a fool. And there is no fool like an old fool, even if he be a god, as well she knows, and as Zeus is soon to find out. But to be sure of her success, she asks Sleep to seal the bright eyes of Zeus for her as soon as he has lain between her thighs and drunk deep at her secret well. Armed then with these charms and escorted by Sleep – she bribes him easily by promising him one of the delectable young Graces – Hera speeds back across the sea, leaving Lemnos and Imbros behind her. Sleep then hides himself in a pine tree while Hera alights on Gargarus, Ida’s highest crest, where Zeus is resting.

  He doesn’t have a chance. The pendants hang from her earlobes like clusters of mulberries, the colour of her nipples as she bares her white breasts . . .

  The grass springs up beneath them, the dew-wetted hyacinth and lotus, the clover and crocuses crowding round, lifting them from the ground, making them up the tenderest of beds for their hour of love.

  Alone. And yet not alone. An audience accompanies the coupling gods, diaphanous, divine, looking on, all those females, mortal and immortal, whom Zeus has loved already. Zeus’s memories of all those previous women stand there, each one personified, as if present and seeing unseen. Ixion’s wife is there, who bore him Peirithous; Acrisius’s daughter, Danaë, whose slim ankles linked themselves round his ribs and gave him Perseus; Phoenix’s daughter, who gave him Minos and Rhadamanthus; Alcmene of Thebes, mother of lion-hearted Heracles; Semele, whose son Dionysus brought purple pleasure to men; Demeter, Queen of the Lovely Locks; the incomparable Leto . . . The pleasurable memories are endless, and the thrilling contrasts and resemblances. Even Hera herself is present! But the younger Hera, who had first ravished him. The great god now surrenders all reason to her again and is reduced to oblivion in her arms, while Sleep slides down now from his pine tree and plays his part.

  This leaves Poseidon, protector of the Greeks, free to intervene.

  A god-almighty storm got up – no warning – and came screaming over the sea, over our ships, hitting the Trojans at the wall. It was the motherfucker of all hurricanes, and it was at our backs. It did us some damage, but it did a lot worse to the other lot. It was like being given extra arms and legs and horses and chariots. We were hurled at the bastards. The sea swept us up the beach and all over them. They were swamped. It was a decisive moment.

  Hector didn’t buckle. Give the bastard credit: he led a fresh assault, screaming at his men to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. He threw at Big Ajax, but the spear failed to penetrate. Ajax ran in and hurled a huge rock at Hector, hitting him in the upper chest just below the neck. The impact twirled him round like a kid’s top, and he crumpled up, gasping. He looked fucked for sure. And Ajax was already whipping out his sword. But the spears came at him, and a hedge of men surrounded Hector and got him into his chariot. They hurried off out of harm’s way, with our lads snapping at their heels and the Ajaxes right out in front.

  When they reached the Xanthus, they stopped to lay him out on the ground and splash water over him while their spearmen kept the Ajax boys at bay. They were close enough to see the bastard apparently revive and sit up. But then he threw up a mass of black blood and fell down again.

  ‘He’s fucking had it!’ shouted Big Ajax. ‘Let them take the cunt! He’s dogmeat!’

  After that sudden boost to morale we attacked as though we’d gone mad – as we very likely had. Hooah for the rush of fucking battle! The Runner loosed off a fantastic shot and struck Satnius, a famously beautiful lad – the son of a water-nymph and a handsome mortal, if you believe Penelope, conceived among the reeds of the river Satniois to the sounds of lapping water and slurping cattle. You could say he was just too young to meet the early death Ajax gave him – except you could say that about every soldier, even the ugly ones. We were all too fucking young to die. But even Penelope, no friend to the blackheads, deplored his demise and wept it into the web. The tears were Naiads’ tears, purer than pearls, more lasting than bronze.

  Polydamas was intent on recovering the body. He was a shit-hot spearman and hit Prothoenor just below the shoulder. The blade drove deep into the upper chest, close to the throat. Close enough to do the business. Prothoenor fell, clawing up fistfuls of dust. And he kept on clawing too.


  Deep night descended on his eyes?

  In your dreams, soldier. Death on the web is swift as the shuttle, soothing as the loom. Death on the field is hard and slow.

  Polydamas hooted and cut the air, recreating the shot.

  ‘How d’you like that one? Fucking plum job, don’t you think? Tell you what, motherfucker, you can keep the spear. Use it as a walking stick – to help you down to hell, you fucking fragment!’

  Big Ajax heard the boast and answered it.

  ‘Try one of mine, loudmouth!’

  But Polydamas leapt to one side and avoided certain death – spelling death for Archelochus. The lance, not intended for him, struck him as beautifully as if he’d been the target, right on the uppermost segment of the spine, where the head met the neck.

  ‘Oh fuck!’

  It was his farewell speech, the last two words he ever said. Both sinews were severed and he came crashing down face first. Ajax whooped and ran to retrieve his spear. But Acamas was already over the body. He was Archelochus’s brother, and grief and rage made him reckless. He brandished his spear and screamed at Ajax.

  ‘Bring it on, arsehole! You don’t scare me – and neither do you!’

  A Boeotian called Promachus had just darted in on the sly to try to snatch the corpse from between Acamas’s legs. He thought he was covered by Ajax. He thought wrong. Acamas rammed the bronze blade deep into the man’s bent neck and forced him into the dust, gurgling and choking.

  ‘Who’s next? You want some?’

  He’d spotted Peneleos coming at him. But then Peneleos thought better of it and went instead for Ilioneus, the only child of Phorbas, the famous sheep-owner. Peneleos hit out one-handed, and the spear plunged into the target’s left eye-socket, just beneath the eyebrow. It went straight through the brain and came out at the nape of the neck. The eyeball shot out along with it.