Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

Hermes came in too, hot from Olympus by order of Zeus, to guide Priam through the Greek camp and render him invisible until he’d arrived at Achilles’ quarters. Otherwise he’d have been butchered long before he reached him, or seized for ransom. And how else could he have done it unless by divine aid? A cool and courageous spy with a streak of daring or with a clever comrade can make his way through enemy lines. But two old fossils and a train of mules, clanking with treasure? Easier to make way for the gods – if there’s room in your universe for gods and you are not the prisoner of a closed mind.

  Enter therefore Hermes. The Argus-slayer bound to his immortal feet the famous golden sandals that bore him up on the pathways of the wind over land and sea. Disguising himself as a young man, he intercepted Priam just as he and his ancient retainer had passed the tomb of Ilus, stopping at the river to let their beasts drink. Hermes approached and pointed out the danger Priam was putting himself in. Passing himself off as a squire of Achilles, he offered to befriend the king and lead him safely to his son’s killer and to the body of his beloved son.

  ‘But what about his condition? Isn’t he by now less than butcher meat? Isn’t he mere offal and gnawed bones?’

  Hermes smiled radiantly.

  ‘No, that’s just the wonder of it. He’s exactly as he was twelve days ago when he died. Even though Achilles has dragged the corpse around the tomb every morning without mercy, the body doesn’t suffer, doesn’t decompose. That’s what the gods can do for those they love. And it is obvious the gods loved Hector like no other.’

  So Hermes acted as their guide to the Greek camp and conducted them to Achilles’ quarters. He moved the massive beam that secured the gate, the one it took three strong men even to lift. That’s when Priam understood that his kind helper was no human being after all. Having fulfilled his orders, Hermes revealed his identity and left, telling Priam not to be afraid but to go right in, walk straight up to Achilles and tell him who he was. He’d already laid sleep on the eyelids of the sentinels in their bivouac at the rampart gates.

  You could say, of course, that Hermes was unnecessary. You could say that sheer exhaustion was sufficient to make the sentries sleep. You could say that soldiers who have been engaged in a long conflict and have recently routed the enemy in an all-important battle for survival have every right to sleep. You could say that they felt safe in supposing that the enemy would not attack again that night, not so soon after such a hard battle. You could say that the Greek army had grown relaxed and confident following Hector’s death. You could say that the Myrmidons in particular, much as they respected their leader, were sick of mourning and long faces and restraint and had been partying for some time now in the long nights, drinking and singing and sleeping it off. You could say that there were a great many men out and about on those nights, men less interested in revelry than in looting, stripping the many corpses that strewed the plain between the Greek ships and the city, and that it was not unusual to see carts trundling back to camp in the dark, clinking with bronze, carts that nobody troubled to intercept or even ask who they were and what they were about, as if they didn’t know.

  Or you could simply smile and say you believed in gods.

  Whatever the truth of the matter, Achilles was certainly shocked. He was sitting a little apart from the main company, at a table with two friends, and he’d just taken some food and drink when this unkempt old man entered the hall, came right up to him, knelt down and kissed his hands. Achilles instinctively reached for a weapon, then stopped. Everybody looked up and stared in amazement.

  Priam spoke first.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. I am who I am. Think of your father tonight, Achilles, as I’m sure you think of him often – an old man, just like me, perhaps beset by his enemies and no son at home to defend him. But even he has the happiness of hoping for his son’s eventual return, however improbable it may seem to him now. I don’t have that happiness, and I never will. I have only my grief. The war has taken the only sons that mattered to me, all of them killed in action by Ares in his anger. I am begging you now, for your own father’s sake, to reverence the gods and honour the dead. Give me back the body of my son for ransom. And remember that I have had to endure what no man should – I have lifted to my lips the hands that slaughtered my son. I have kissed in entreaty the hands of the killer.’

  As Priam spoke, Achilles did remember his own father, the father he knew he would never see again, and his heart filled up with grief. He took the old king by the hand and put him gently away from him so that he could sit on his own for a moment and control the spasms of sadness, the shaking, shuddering sobs that suddenly took hold of him. And the combined sorrows of the two men, young and old, filled the quarters and brought lumps to the throats of the hardened soldiers who sat around.

  At last Achilles stood up and lifted the old man from the ground, pitying his white hairs. He sat him down beside him and begged him to let his grief be silent for a while.

  ‘I know you are a man of many sorrows. But I too, old man, must give up this grief at last, by the order of the gods. Of what use is it in the end? Trouble and suffering are our lot, and we must endure it; there is no other way. The gods, it seems, have woven sorrow into the very fabric of our fated lives. If it were not so, we too would be gods. And even the hottest tears in the end go cold on the face.’

  Priam raised a trembling hand, but Achilles touched it softly, asking him courteously to hear him out.

  ‘The gods have two pitchers, one brimming with sorrows and one with joy. From these is poured out our destined portion. Most men are given a mingled vessel. But to certain other men the gods give nothing but sorrow. Madness comes over them, and they wander lonely and desolate over the bright earth, unhonoured either by gods or men. It is a tragic portion and a terrible one. My own father had blessings, fabulous wealth, good fortune and a goddess for a wife. But he will have no sons in his age and will never see me again – this I can tell you here and now because it is known to the gods. I have been far removed from this father of mine for so long. And to what purpose? What have I been doing all this time? Causing misery both for you and for him, in this awful bloody war.

  ‘No, listen to me –’ as Priam tried again to interrupt –‘I’m almost done. You too were happy once. From Lesbos to the Hellespont, they say there was none happier. Or greater. And now the gods have brought you bitterness out of the sea, out of the sky. You have been brought low. But you have to bear it and put away your sorrow, the years of siege and suffering. You must stop grieving. Tears won’t bring your son back to you. Though waterdrops will one day wear down the walls of Troy, no amount of salt you can shed will ever make him stand up again. Your own day will come before that happens. And all your sorrows will be over.’

  Priam listened. But he persisted in his mission, asking Achilles not to delay any longer but to take the ransom and release his son’s body. He wanted no philosophy: he wanted his son. ‘And may you yet come home at last in peace because you took pity on me and showed me mercy.’

  Achilles looked at him, and for a moment the old insane anger flickered in his eyes. ‘Don’t drive me mad, old man, I beg you. I can tell you that I have already decided to give you back your son. But leave me a little. The truth is, I hardly know myself any more. It’s this miserable grief. It’s made me mad. And I don’t want to lose control again and do you harm, a supplicant under my own roof, such as it is. That would be dishonourable, adding to the dishonour I’ve done you already. Just let me be, please, for a few moments.’

  The old man understood and held his peace, and Achilles stumbled from the room and out of the lodging, under the stars. Automedon and Alcimus went after him and brought in the ransom. Achilles ordered the women to wash the corpse and anoint it as best they could and to dress it well away from Priam, in case the spectacle of what had been done to his son should cause him to lash out in his grieving anger and make Achilles also act in a way he would later regret. And when the wounds had been disguised, he took He
ctor in his own strong arms and laid him on a stretcher, calling on the ghost of Patroclus not to be angry with him because of the rich ransom – though it was not the ransom that had touched his heart. Then he went back to Priam.

  ‘Now let us eat and drink together.’

  Priam was reluctant, but Achilles was patient with him and asked if he knew the story of Niobe. Priam knew it; everybody in the world knew it. But he let Achilles tell him the legend, as he appeared to take some comfort in the telling.

  And so Achilles reminded the king of how Niobe had lost all her twelve children, six daughters and six sons, because she’d boasted about the number of her offspring, setting herself above Leto of the Lovely Cheeks, the mother of Artemis and Apollo, who had only those two children to show for herself, lovely though she was, whereas Niobe had twelve. And in their anger against her stupid pride, Leto’s children quickly saw to it that very shortly she had none – not a single child left. With their arrows, Artemis the Archeress and Apollo of the Silver Bow bereaved her utterly and without exception. And her offspring lay for nine days unburied in their own blood, exactly where they’d fallen, not unlike Hector. Only on the tenth day did the gods grant them burial.

  And even Niobe took food at last, when she’d wept her heart away. As do all of us. As indeed we must. And now they say Niobe herself is turned to stone and still broods on her grief, far away on the lonely mountains among the cliffs, the untrodden hills of Sipylus, where they say the wood-nymphs come to sleep after dancing on the banks of Achelous. There stands she still, poor marble Niobe, in her lapidary grief, brooding on the desolation she caused and which the gods gave her. Yet even Niobe ate and drank when the time came.

  ‘And so must you, old man. I have been turned to stone,’ said Achilles, ‘but now I’m flesh again, and you’ve made my heart beat once more.’

  So they ate and drank together, the killer and the man he had bereaved. War had divided them and grief united them, and, despite himself, Priam admired Achilles, the strength and beauty that made him like a god. The king asked for a couch for the night; he was so exhausted, having not slept since Hector’s death, and now the food and wine had made him give way at last. Achilles had handmaidens pile couches in the portico, afraid that if some of the chiefs came to talk they’d spy Priam and inform Agamemnon, who’d be sure to say Achilles had gone soft and ought to be overruled.

  Achilles asked the old king how long he’d need for mourning. Nine days, said Priam, with the burial on the tenth and the barrow built over the burned bones on the eleventh. And on the twelfth day there would be a return to war. Achilles readily agreed to a truce for these eleven days, and Priam lay down in the porch and gladly slept, though with many thoughts still running like troubled streams through his head and heart as he dreamed. Achilles slept with Briseis by his side, beautiful Briseis, whose beauty was scarred now by her own nails.

  But Hermes did not sleep. He returned in the middle of the night, entered invisibly, and whispered in the king’s ear to get up and go, afraid that if Agamemnon accidentally discovered him in the camp, Troy would have to pay a ransom three times heavier than he’d already paid for Hector. Or worse. There was not enough left in the coffers of the shattered city to meet such a ransom, and the price might instead be Priam’s life.

  Priam sat up suddenly, alarmed in the darkness. Had it been a dream? He roused the herald and they left unseen as the golden dawn broadened over land and sea.

  Cassandra saw them coming as she stood on a tower of Troy, tall as pale-gold Aphrodite and every bit as alluring. She climbed to the summit of Pergamos and cried to all the people to come and greet dead Hector. Her shrieks brought out the whole town from their sleep, and they thronged the gates, waiting for their king’s return with his load of grief. He shouted for them to make way for him, and they crowded after him and watched as Hector was laid on a stately bed.

  Andromache comes first.

  She draws down his dead head on her breast and weeps for him.

  ‘And for my fatherless son, and for our city that will surely be toppled now, and for the women and children that will be carried off in the murmuring hulls, and our own boy along with them, unless the Greeks choose to kill him right here and now, in revenge perhaps for some friend, some comrade that Hector killed – he brought down so many hundreds and filled their mouths with dust – and for which the little mite will be hurled from the highest tower to spill out his brains in front of the city.’

  Hecuba is next.

  Baring her ancient breast again, she draws down the dead head to it and puts the nipple to the still lips, screaming to the gods to bring the life-giving milk back again into the glands, to flow once more into the mouth, to bring her child alive again and make her boy grow strong.

  ‘Even though Achilles took so many of you in the field or sent them overseas, sold them into slavery in Samos or in Imbros or in smoke-capped Lemnos, bring me one, just this one, I beg you, back to life, O ye gods, to suck my breast and live again.’

  The breast lies withered on the face, the nipple dry, the mouth without motion, the lips without language.

  Last comes Helen.

  She laments that she never heard a single bitter word from Hector in all the years of blood she has caused. Even when everyone else reproached her – brothers, sisters, the brothers’ wealthy wives, who stood to lose their husbands, their fortunes and their freedom, even their lives – even then, the kind and courteous Hector never failed to take her side. Now he is gone, and there is no one left in the whole wide windy city to befriend her. ‘So I weep for you, Hector, and for my wretched self.’

  Even as she speaks, they turn away from her with a shudder, she the cause of all their grief.

  Finally, they go up to the mountains to bring down timber for the pyre, sure of Achilles’ truce. Nine days they mourn. And on the tenth, as the sun rises, they carry Hector out of the gates, lay him on his pyre and set fire to it. And the next morning, when Aurora makes the sky rosy with another dawn, they gather round it again and quench the dying embers with blood-red wine. And his remaining brothers and friends gather up his white bones and put them in a golden urn wrapped with a purple cloth. Then they lay the chest in a grave under broad slabs of stone, and over it they heap up the barrow, looking high over the Hellespont. They troop home, back inside the city walls, and prepare for the solemn feast in the palace hall.

  And thus hold they funeral rites for Hector, tamer of horses.

  PART THREE

  THE HOMECOMINGS

  THIRTY-SIX

  After Hector was wiped out, things hotted up again, and the conflict that had dragged on so long reached its end at last. Inevitably bloody. You expect nothing else after a long war.

  With his best son now a handful of heroic ashes, Priam looked about him for extra backup. He got it from an unexpected quarter, a woman soldier and an interesting ally, Penthesilea, leader of the Amazons. She was a Thracian and a queen, a daughter of Ares. A glory girl. The Thracian bit was true, at least, and she had had her day of glory in the field, even if Ares didn’t show his face. Nor did Apollo, though she was just up his street, an archeress of incomparable ability. She took out scores of us all in one day, until Achilles killed her. Unknowingly, as it happened. It was only when he wrenched out his spear after a shit-hot throw and took off the helmet that his mouth fell open.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He removed the upper-body armour and exposed a pair of tits. Aureoles like Aphrodite’s. Chestnuts.

  ‘Double-fuck!’

  She could have been his captive, his queen.

  ‘He’s falling in love!’ laughed Thersites. ‘And with a woman too! Wonders will never cease!’

  Achilles didn’t answer. He was staring into the dead face. Thersites jeered again.

  ‘Look at you, you pathetic cunt, bubbling over a slut! And an Amazon slut at that, you sloppy old darling!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’

  Thersites kept on gnawing the bone. Never could kno
w when to stop. Blind and deaf to the signals. Not dumb, though. The yapping carried on.

  ‘It’s her fuck-hole you’d like, isn’t it? Come on, admit it!’

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘You fucking heroes. Can’t keep your dicks under control!’

  ‘I’m warning you!’

  Thersites ignored it. He jabbed the pale corpse in the eye and spat on it. ‘She was picking off our lads – and you’re still fucking drooling over her!’

  Achilles went white with rage. ‘Get away from her, you bastard!’

  Thersites grinned. ‘In a minute.’

  He kicked open the legs, revealing everything that made Penthesilea a woman.

  ‘Well, I’d say that settles it – she’s female all right. Quite a crack on her, eh? There you go, whore! Try a few inches of Greek bronze up your Amazon cunt!’

  He inserted his spear and thrust up hard, grinning round at the gathering of faces, waiting for the applause.

  ‘And that’s the only hard-on you’ll get up you now, fair Thracian – this arsehole Achilles hasn’t got the balls for it anyway, not since his little bumboy went belly up, eh?’

  Achilles reared up to his full height and smashed Thersites on the side of the head. He used his bare fist, no weapon, but it was so powerful a blow you could see the shattered teeth spraying out and scattering on the ground. Not that he had many but he’d fewer now, not one left in his head. It didn’t matter to him. He was killed instantly.

  Everybody went quiet.

  Thersites was a piece of shite – or had been. But even a piece of shite is worth something, socially speaking, if he’s an aristocratic piece of shite, and Thersites was every ugly inch the noble shite. He’d crawled out of an elegant arsehole, the working part thereof, uppercrust. It was blue blood that had just been stopped in those shitty veins. And Achilles had stopped it. Some of us were happy enough with that, but there were plenty who’d fed on his venom, and they were the ones who now did the muttering.