by Ben Bova
The man blinked several times. He’s trying to find a way to deal with us without humiliating himself, I reasoned. He doesn’t want a fight, and neither do I.
“I can pay for what ever food you provide,” I said.
“Pay?”
I held out the spear. “Take it. Its point is made of iron, far stronger than your bronze spearpoints.”
He hesitated. “Bronze holds a sharper edge.”
“And shatters where an iron point holds strong.” With a nod, he took the spear from my hand. He hefted it, then allowed a slow smile to creep across his bearded face.
“Hittites, eh? You’ve come a long way, then.”
“We have,” I said, making myself smile back at him. “And we’re hungry.”
He nodded and turned to the stolid, thickset wench stirring the pot. With a kick to her rump he barked, “Find more meat for the stew! We have hungry mouths to feed.”
It turned out that he was not a difficult man, after all. His name was Oetylos, and like the rest of the High King’s men he was from Argos.
“Agamemnon is a mighty king,” he said over his wooden bowl as we sat together. “Who else could have brought all these kings and princes together to bring Helen back to her rightful husband?”
I ate the hot, spicy stew slowly and let him talk. I needed to know more about this Agamemnon. I needed to know how I could get this mighty king to release my wife from slavery. And my sons, if they still lived.
9
I woke with the sun. A chill wind swept in from the sea as the first rays of light peeped over the high wall of the city, up on the bluff. My men, who had been sleeping on the ground wrapped in their cloaks as I had, stirred and began to sit up, coughing and complaining, as usual. Looking around for Poletes, I saw him huddled with several of the dogs, scratching fleas as he still slept.
Silent, sad-faced women brought us wooden cups and filled them with a thin barley gruel. My wife was not among them. We sat in a circle and sipped at our breakfast while the Achaian camp slowly came astir. Poletes joined us, grateful to be given a steaming bowl.
Then Thersandros came striding among us, fists on his hips. “Hittite!” he called to me.
I got to my feet. There was little sense of discipline that I could see. Instead of saluting him I merely walked over and stood three paces before his wary eyes.
“Do Hittite warriors know how to dig?” he asked me, almost in a growl.
“All soldiers learn to use a shovel,” I replied. “My men have built—”
He cut me off with a curt gesture. Pointing to the top of the earthen rampart that protected the camp, he said, “Then take your men up there and do what you can to strengthen the wall.”
I wanted to tell him that he would be wasting our abilities; we were soldiers, not laborers. Instead I said, “How soon can I see your High King? I want to offer—”
“Offer your backs to the shovels,” Thersandros said. “My lord Agamemnon has other things on his mind this morning.”
With that he turned and walked away from me.
A soldier learns to obey orders or he doesn’t remain a soldier for long. I decided there was nothing I could do but bide my time.
My men were on their feet by now. Walking back to them, I told them that our task this fine, breezy morning was an engineering detail.
Magro saw through my words immediately. “They want us to dig for them?”
I nodded and smiled grimly.
Oetylos had shovels waiting for us. Grousing and frowning, my men took the tools and started trudging up the slope of the rampart.
“You, too, storyteller,” Oetylos said to Poletes, and he threw the old man a filth-encrusted burlap sack: for carrying sand, I surmised.
We were not the only ones plodding up the rampart. Work gangs of slaves and thetes were also heading for the top, shovels on their shoulders, with whip-brandishing overseers behind them. At least we had no taskmaster to shout at us.
The rampart stretched along the length of the beach, protecting the camp and the boats pulled up onto the sand. I could see only one opening in the sandy wall, protected by a ramshackle wooden gate and guarded by half a dozen lounging spearmen. In front of the rampart was a broad ditch, studded with wooden spikes, as was the top of the fortification itself.
Once at the top of the rampart we had a fine view of the plain and the city of Troy up on the bluff. Its walls were crenellated, its gates tightly shut. Inside the Achaian camp warriors were eating a breakfast of broiled mutton and thick flat bread, while their slaves and men-at-arms yoked horses to chariots and sharpened swords and spears.
“They’re going to attack the city,” I surmised aloud.
Poletes answered in his surprisingly strong voice, “They will do battle on the plain. The Trojans will come out this day to fight.”
“Why should they come out from behind those walls?” I wondered.
Poletes shrugged his skinny shoulders. “It has been arranged by the heralds. Agamemnon offered battle and white-bearded Priam accepted. The princes of Troy will ride out in their fine chariots to fight the kings of the Achaians.”
That didn’t make much sense to me, and I wondered if the storyteller was trying to make up a dramatic scene out of whole cloth.
As the sun rose higher in the sparkling clear sky we worked at improving the rampart. I immediately saw that the best thing to do was dig sand out of the bottom of the ditch that fronted the defensive wall and carry it up to the top. That way the ditch got deeper and the rampart grew higher. It was hot work, and my men sweated almost as much as they grumbled and swore about their work.
I dug and sweated alongside them. I assigned Poletes to stay at the summit, watching over our weapons and shields and jerkins, which we had left there. We worked in our skirts, bare to the waist.
The morning was quite beautiful. Up at the top of the rampart the cool breeze from the sea felt good on my sweaty skin. The sky was a wondrously clear bowl of sparkling blue, dotted by screeching white gulls that soared above us. The sea was a much deeper blue where restless surges of white-foamed waves danced endlessly. Grayish brown humps of islands rose along the distant horizon. In the other direction Troy’s towers seemed to glower darkly at us from across the plain. The distant hills behind the city were dark with trees, and beyond them rose hazy bluish mountains, wavering in the heat.
Slaves and thetes of the other digging crews scrambled up the slope lugging woven baskets filled with sand.
I saw that Poletes had wandered off a ways to talk with some of the others, his skinny arms waving animatedly, his eyes big and round. At length he returned to our cache of weapons and clothes and beckoned to me.
“All is not well among the high and mighty this morning,” he halfwhispered to me, grinning with delight. “There’s some argument between my lord Agamemnon and Achilles, the great slayer of men. They say that Achilles will not leave his lodge today.”
“Not even to help us dig?” I joked.
Poletes cackled with laughter. “The High King Agamemnon has sent a delegation to Achilles to beseech him to join the battle. I don’t think it’s going to work. Achilles is young and arrogant. He thinks his shit smells like roses.”
I laughed back at the old man.
My men and I toiled like laborers while the sun climbed higher in the cloudless sky. Agamemnon and the other Achaian leaders must be very fearful of the Trojans, I thought, to put us to work on improving their defensive barricade.
Then a handful of thetes began pushing on the wooden gate. It creaked and groaned as they pushed it slowly, slowly open. The chariots began to stream out onto the plain, the horses’ hooves thudding on the packedearth ramp that cut across the trench running in front of the rampart. All work stopped. The men still down in the trench scrambled up to the top of the rampart so they could watch the impending battle.
10
Bronze armor glittered in the sun as the chariots clattered through the gate and arrayed themselves in line abreas
t. Most were pulled by two horses, though a few had teams of four. The horses neighed and stamped their hooves nervously, as if they sensed the mayhem that was in store. I counted seventy-nine chariots, a pitifully small number compared to the assemblages of the army of the Hatti.
I myself had seen more than a thousand chariots assembled before the walls of Babylon. My grandfather claimed there were ten thousand at the battle of Megiddo.
Each of the Achaian chariots bore two men, one handling the horses, the other armed with several spears of different weights and lengths. The longest were more than twice the height of a warrior, even in his bronze helmet with its plume of brightly dyed horse hair.
Both men in each chariot wore bronze breastplates, helmets and arm guards. I could not see their legs but I guessed that they were sheathed in greaves, as well. Most of the chariot drivers carried small round targes strapped to their left forearms. Each of the warriors held a heavy hourglass-shaped shield that was nearly as tall as he was, covering him from chin to ankles. I caught the glitter of gold and silver on the hilts of their swords. Many of the charioteers had bows slung across their backs or hooked against the chariot rail.
A huge shout went up as the last chariot passed through the gate and down the heavily trodden rampway that crossed the trench. The four horses pulling it were magnificent matched blacks, glossy and sleek. The warrior standing in it seemed stockier than most of the others, his armor filigreed with gold inlays.
“That’s the High King!” said Poletes over the roar of the shouting men. “That’s Agamemnon.”
“Is Achilles with them?” I asked.
“No. But that giant over on the left is Great Ajax,” he pointed, excited despite himself. “There’s Odysseos, and—”
An echoing roar reached us from the battlements of Troy. A cloud of dust showed that a contingent of chariots was filing out of the large gate on the right side of the city’s wall and winding its way down the incline that led to the plain before us.
Foot soldiers were hurrying out of our makeshift gate now, menatarms bearing bows, slings, axes, cudgels. Down the ramp of packed sand they hurried and spread out behind the line of Achaian chariots. A few of them wore armor or chain mail, but most of them had nothing more protective than leather vests, some studded with bronze pieces. Squinting into the bright sunshine, I saw that Trojan footmen were lining up behind their chariots. None of the troops marched in order, on either side; they simply ambled out like a horde of undisciplined rabble.
The two armies assembled themselves facing each other on the windswept plain. It grew strangely quiet. The clouds of dust the chariots had raised eddied away on the breeze coming from the sea. The river we had forded the day before formed a natural boundary to the battlefield on our right, while a smaller meandering stream defined the left flank. Beyond their far banks the ground on both sides was green with tussocks of long-bladed grass, but the battlefield itself had been worn bare by chariot wheels and the tramping of horses and warriors.
For nearly the time it took to eat a meal, nothing much happened. The armies stood facing each other. The sun climbed higher in the nearly cloudless sky. Horses whinnied nervously. Heralds went out from each side and spoke with each other while the wind gusted in our ears.
“None of the heroes are challenging each other to single combat this day,” explained Poletes. “The heralds are exchanging offers of peace, which each side will disdainfully refuse.”
“They do this every day?”
He nodded. “Unless it rains.”
A question popped into my mind. “Why are they fighting? What’s the reason for this war?”
Poletes turned his wizened face to me. “Ah, Hittite, that is a good question. They say they are fighting over Helen, the wife of Menalaos, and it’s true that Prince Paris abducted her from Sparta while her husband’s back was turned. Whether she came with him willingly or not, only the gods know.”
“Who is Prince Paris?”
“King Priam’s youn gest son. Sometimes he is called Alexandros.” Poletes broke into a chuckle. “A few days ago Menalaos, the lawful husband of Helen, challenged him to single combat, but Paris ran away. He hid behind his foot soldiers! Can you believe that?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent.
“Menalaos is King of Sparta and Agamemnon’s brother,” Poletes went on, his voice dropping lower, as if he did not want the others to overhear. “The High King would love to smash Troy flat. That would give him clear sailing through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Black Waters.”
“Is that important?”
“Gold, my boy,” Poletes whispered. “Not merely the yellow metal that kings adorn themselves with, but the golden grain that grows by the far shores of that sea. A land awash in grain. But no one can pass through the straits and get at it unless they pay a tribute to Troy.”
I was beginning to understand the reason behind this war.
“Paris was on a mission of peace to Mycenae, to arrange a new trade agreement between his father, Priam, and High King Agamemnon. He stopped off at Sparta and ended up abducting the beautiful Helen instead. That was all the excuse Agamemnon needed. If he can conquer Troy he can have free access to the riches of the lands beyond the Dardanelles.”
“Why don’t the Trojans simply return Helen to her rightful husband? That would put an end to this war, wouldn’t it?”
Poletes smiled knowingly. “It would indeed. But you have not seen the golden-haired Helen.”
“Have you?”
He shook his head sadly. “No. But everyone who has agrees that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Aphrodite’s child, they claim.”
“No woman could be so important that men would fight a war over her.” But I remembered that the night before I was almost willing to attack Agamemnon’s lodge to seize my wife and sons. Almost.
“Perhaps so, Hittite,” said Poletes. “Helen is merely an excuse for Agamemnon’s greed. But the Trojans won’t give her up and here we are.”
A series of bugle blasts erupted on the plain before us.
“Now it begins,” Poletes said, suddenly grim, hard-eyed. “Now the fools rush to the slaughter once again.”
11
Standing beside Poletes atop the rampart I watched as the charioteers cracked their whips and the horses bolted forward, carrying Achaians and Trojans eagerly toward each other.
I focused my attention on the chariot nearest us and saw the warrior in it setting his sandaled feet in a pair of raised sockets, to give him a firm base for using his spears. He held his body-length shield before him on his left arm and with his free hand plucked one of the lighter, shorter spears from the handful rattling in their holder.
“Diomedes,” said Poletes, before I asked. “Prince of Argos. A fine young man.”
Shrieks and screams filled the air as each warrior shouted out his battle cry. The horses pounded madly across the field, eyes bulging, nostrils wide.
The chariot approaching Diomedes swerved suddenly and the warrior in it hurled his spear. It sailed harmlessly past the prince of Argos. Diomedes threw his spear and hit the rump of the farthest of his opponent’s four horses. The horse whickered and reared, throwing the other three so far off stride that the chariot slewed wildly, tumbling the warrior onto the dusty ground. The charioteer ducked behind the chariot’s siding.
Other combats were turning the worn-bare battlefield into a vast cloud of dust, with chariots wheeling, spears hurtling through the air, shrill battle cries and shouted curses ringing everywhere. The foot soldiers seemed to be holding back, letting the noblemen fight their single encounters for the first few moments of the battle.
I could see no order to the battle, no judgment or tactics. The nobles in their chariots merely rushed into single combat against the enemy’s chariot-riding noblemen. No formations of chariots, no organized plan of attack, nothing but chaos.
One voice pierced all the others, a weird screaming cry like a seagull gone mad wit
h frenzy.
“The battle cry of Odysseos,” Poletes said. “You can always hear the King of Ithaca above all the others.”
I was still concentrating on Diomedes, eager to learn how these Achaians fought their battles. As his opponent sprawled in the dust, his charioteer reined in his team and Diomedes hopped down to the ground, two spears gripped in his left hand, his massive figure-eight shield bumping against his helmet and greaves.
“A lesser man would have speared his foe from the chariot,” said Poletes admiringly. “Diomedes is a true nobleman. Would that he had been in Argos when Clytemnestra’s men put me out!”
Diomedes approached the fallen warrior, who clambered back to his feet and held his shield before him while drawing his long sword from its sheath. The prince of Argos took his longest and heaviest spear in his right hand and shook it menacingly. I could not hear what the two men were saying to each other, but they shouted something back and forth.
Suddenly both men dropped their weapons and shields, rushed to each other, and embraced like a pair of long-lost brothers. I was stunned.
“They must have relatives in common,” Poletes explained. “Or one of them might have been a guest in the other’s house hold sometime in the past.”
“But the battle …”
Poletes shook his gray head. “What has that to do with it? There are plenty of others to kill.”
The two warriors exchanged swords, then each got back onto his chariot and they drove in opposite directions.
“No wonder this war has lasted for years,” I muttered.
But although Diomedes’ first encounter of the day ended nonviolently, that was the only bit of peace that I saw amid the carnage of battle. Chariots hurtled at each other, spearmen driving their long weapons into the entrails of their opponents. The bronze spear points were themselves the length of a grown man’s arm. When all the power generated by a team of galloping horses was focused on the gleaming tip of a sharp spear point, nothing could stand in its way, not even many-layered shields of oxhide. Armored men were lifted off their feet, out of their chariots, when those spears hit them. Bronze armor was no protection against that tremendous force.
