by Glyn Iliffe
‘What does a woman know of honour?’ Hector replied, this time looking up at his parents. ‘If I turn and flee now I will be no more of a man than you are, dear Mother.’
The usual stern self-confidence was gone from his face, and at the sight of this change Helen suddenly realized that Hector knew he was going to die. Perhaps others sensed it too because a few amongst the crowd began to wail, raising their voices in the monotonous sound of mourning that had been heard too often in Troy in recent days.
‘Silence!’ Priam ordered, raising his shaking hand high. ‘My son is not dead yet. He stands as he has always stood, defending the gates of Troy against those who would seek to conquer it.’
The wailing fell away. Then, as Achilles strode across the plain with his shield blazing like the sun, someone tossed a handful of flowers from the ramparts. The stems scattered about Hector’s feet and the yellow petals stared up at him, bright and cheerful in the warm glow of the afternoon. He looked at them, transfixed by their simple beauty, and for a moment the darkness that was sweeping towards him was forgotten. Then another clutch of flowers was thrown from a different part of the walls, and another, and another. More followed, until Hector stood amid a carpet of red and white, yellow and blue, green and pink, while the air around him was filled with petals, floating like snow to settle in his hair and on his cloak.
Helen hid her face in her hands, ashamed of her tears before such bravery.
As the mist evaporated in the warm sunlight Odysseus splashed across the clear, slow-running river and lifted Achilles’s shield from its shingle bed. Eperitus watched the water stream off it to reveal the gold and silver figures moving beneath. Odysseus balanced it on his arm for a moment, enthralled by its beauty and craftsmanship, then quickly slipped it off again and handed it to Achilles.
‘I need a weapon,’ Achilles announced, passing the strap of his shield over his shoulder and staring across the plain at Hector, who was still standing defiantly before the Scaean Gate. ‘Every breath that man takes is an offence to me and the sooner I kill him the sooner I can return and mourn the one whose life he took.’
So this was it, Eperitus thought as he slid his sword from its scabbard and handed the hilt to Achilles: Hector had decided to stop running and face the inevitable. He must have known it was his destiny to fight Achilles and that the outcome of their combat would ultimately decide the outcome of the war; and yet Eperitus was surprised to see him standing there. For ten years he had led the Trojans in battle, skilfully repulsing one Greek attack after another, and yet always reluctant to face Achilles or challenge him to single combat. Had some part of him – as with every warrior – baulked with fear at the sight of Achilles? Or was it that Hector was more concerned with preserving his city for as long as possible, rather than risking everything in a duel with Achilles? Whatever the answer, he did not flinch now as Priam and Hecabe pleaded with him from the city walls, or show any signs of fear as he leaned on his spear and looked across the plain towards his enemy in the middle of the ford.
Achilles took the proffered sword and, with a snarl of hatred, began wading towards the opposite bank of the Scamander. Odysseus and Eperitus followed, while behind them the massed ranks of the victorious Greeks came streaming down the slopes to the fords, which could once again be crossed in safety. As Achilles stepped out on to the plain before Troy, the stamp of hooves and a loud cry made him look over his shoulder to see Peisandros driving the prince’s chariot into the water. A few moments later he called the team to a halt beside Achilles and jumped down.
‘Your spear, my lord,’ he said.
Achilles took the thick, monstrously long weapon and smiled grimly as he stared up at its broad head.
‘Wait here,’ he ordered.
Then, balancing its familiar weight in his hand, he ran towards the sun-bleached walls of Troy where Hector waited for him, surrounded by a ring of flowers that the women of the city were still tossing to him from the battlements. Peisandros stayed where he was, stroking the noses of Xanthus and Balius, but Odysseus and Eperitus ran after the prince. They were soon within bowshot of the walls, where Achilles came to a halt and planted his spear in the ground. The early afternoon sun flared up from his armour, blinding the watchers on the walls, but the look on his face as he glared at his enemy was as dark as the deepest pit of Tartarus. Hector moved back and, for a moment, Eperitus thought he would run, but some god must have breathed courage back into his limbs for on his third step he halted. He took his spear in both hands and held it across his body as if to bar Achilles from the city.
‘I’m done with avoiding you in battle, Achilles,’ he said. ‘For ten years we’ve danced around each other, too fearful to fight and too proud to run, but now the time has come for Zeus to decide between us. I expect you to show me no mercy, for I will show you none, but I will make one request of you before we fight.’
‘What is it?’
‘If Zeus’s favour rests on me and I succeed in killing you, I will not dishonour the father of the gods by mistreating your corpse. I’ll take your armour as a trophy of my victory, but your body will be returned to the Greeks for cremation with the proper rites. I ask you to do the same for mine, if you defeat me.’
‘No,’ Achilles responded, scowling at Hector. ‘You and I are enemies, not friends to make cosy bargains with one another. That armour you wear with such pride is already mine, loaned to Patroclus, not you. And for the suffering you have caused me by his death I will drag your body back to the ships and give it to the dogs. No flames to devour your dead flesh, Hector, only the teeth of savage beasts!’
He plucked his spear from the ground, pulled it back behind his ear and hurled it with a shout that shook the air. Hector ducked aside at the last moment and the bronze point buried itself in the old oak opposite the Scaean Gate. He turned his shocked eyes upon it, realizing it had only missed him by a finger’s breadth; but as he watched its long shaft still quivering with the force of the throw he also understood that the gods had preserved his life and handed him the advantage. He looked back at Achilles, who had drawn his sword and was now charging across the open ground towards him, snarling with anger. But the distance between them was still wide and Hector no longer felt any fear. The lethargy of dread and doom that had given his muscles a leaden heaviness was lifted from him and he felt a rush of nervous energy burst through his whole body. Drawing back his spear, he took careful aim down the shaft and launched it with all his force, bellowing his rage and resentment.
The slender missile rushed with deadly accuracy at Achilles, catching him full on the shield and knocking him on to his back in a cloud of dust. The crowds on the wall shouted out in joy, but their elation was short-lived. Achilles staggered back to his feet and kicked aside the broken halves of Hector’s spear, the force of the blow having failed to pierce even the outermost layer of his magical shield. Now it was Achilles’s turn to cry out in triumph. His face a mask of hatred, he dashed forward and hewed his sword down against Hector’s shield, sending the Trojan reeling back towards the sacred oak. Achilles came on relentlessly, swinging with terrifying speed and force at his opponent’s neck. The arcing blade would have taken the head off any ordinary man, but Hector’s instincts did not fail him; he ducked the blow and launched himself shield-first at the Phthian, knocking his legs from under him and rolling him over his back to crash in the dust behind him. Hector turned on his heel and drew his sword in the same movement, only to find Achilles back on his feet again and charging at him with the speed and energy of his pent-up hatred. Their blades clashed and scraped against each other, echoing back from the walls of Troy and mingling with the horrified shouts of the onlookers above. But the fury of Achilles’s attack forced Hector back, battling with all his skill and experience just to survive. Then the Greek lashed out and the tip of his weapon drew a line of red across Hector’s forehead. The Trojan rocked back beneath the blow, clapping his hand to the stinging wound, and Achilles circled swiftly to block his esca
pe route to the Scaean Gate.
As the two men eyed each other from over the rims of their shields, Achilles edged back towards the oak tree – watching Hector closely for any attempt to run towards the gates – and pulled his spear free with a grunt. Hector closed the distance again, not wanting to give Achilles the chance for another cast. Then a voice called his name from the battlements and he looked up to see Andromache. Her beautiful eyes were red and her cheeks stained with tears. Helen was at her side, supporting her, but as she looked at her husband facing the monstrous Achilles, her courage left her and she buried her face in Helen’s neck.
By now the Greek army, with the Myrmidons in the van, was crossing the ford and forming a dense barrier of shields and spears just beyond the range of the archers on the city walls. Hector glanced over his shoulder and knew he was trapped, but he no longer cared. He turned to Achilles, renewed hatred burning through his veins. There before him stood the black heart of all Troy’s suffering, but if he could strike him down now it would end the war and release Ilium from the stranglehold of the Greeks. The farmers would take up their ploughs again and the fishermen their nets; merchants from the east would no longer bring weapons and armour, but coloured garments and silver ornaments for the women of the city; Andromache would smile again and little Astyanax could play beyond the walls for the first time in his life. There would be peace again and the only fighting would be in the songs of the bards, sanitizing the memory of the war and glorifying the sons of Troy, with Hector foremost among them.
But the songs had not been written yet, and would not be until Peleus’s son was dead. Hector mumbled a quick prayer, surrendering himself to the mercy of Apollo, and ran forward. Achilles ran to meet him, his spear held in both hands and the point aimed at Hector’s stomach. Hector twisted aside and turned as Achilles rushed past him, striking out with his sword. The blow rang out against Achilles’s helmet but failed to pierce the thick metal. Shouts of dismay rose up from the walls, but Hector barely heard them as Achilles rushed at him with renewed vigour. They met head on, their shields clattering loudly against each other and for a moment Achilles’s long spear left him at a disadvantage against Hector’s sword. In that brief instant of time, drawn out by the quickening of his senses, Hector recalled the one weakness that Achilles was said to possess – his heel. Against all his warrior’s instincts to strike at the head or torso, he hacked down at the back of his opponent’s foot. But Achilles was quicker. He punched the shaft of his spear into the Trojan’s face and knocked him to the ground. With a triumphant shout, he moved to plunge the sharpened bronze into Hector’s prostrate body. Hector kicked out in desperation, finding Achilles’s stomach and sending him sprawling back against the bole of the sacred oak. Hector leapt to his feet and ran after him, his sword raised over his head.
In an instant Achilles’s shield was raised, catching the sun as the figures of men and animals moved rhythmically through the concentric circles that spread out from its centre. It was enough. Hector’s eyes followed them for a moment too long, noticing the enchanted designs for the first time, and Achilles’s spear found the gap between his breastbone and his throat. The momentum of Hector’s attack carried the point through his body and back out by the nape of his neck, stopping him dead. He hung there for a few beats of his heart, then the weapon was pulled free and his heavy body crashed backwards into the long grass.
A sudden, incredulous silence swept across the plain. Even Achilles looked surprised as he stared down at his defeated enemy, his bloodstained chest still rising and falling with its final breaths. Then he stabbed the air with the point of his spear and sent a mighty shout of exultation up to the heavens. His triumph was echoed by the Greeks, while on the battlements of Troy the shocked silence gave way to hysterical cries of disbelief and anguish. As Eperitus ran with Odysseus to join Achilles, he looked up to the walls and saw Helen, her pale face even whiter now as she tried to stop Andromache hurling herself from the parapet.
When they reached Achilles he was already tugging the shield from Hector’s limp arm and throwing it behind him, before kneeling at his side and unbuckling the purple belt Ajax had given him after they had fought on the slopes above the Scamander. The Trojan’s huge body was motionless but for the faint movement of his chest. His eyes were closed and his chin and neck were stained with fresh blood. Then, as Achilles began to unfasten the ties that held his breastplate in place, Hector seized hold of his wrist.
‘Achilles,’ he whispered, though the effort brought on a fit of impulsive coughing as more blood flowed into his throat. ‘Achilles, don’t throw my body to the dogs. Ransom me to my parents so they can give me the proper rites and cremate me with honour.’
Achilles knocked his hand away and spat in his face.
‘You’ll have no honour from me. Be thankful your corpse’ll be left for the dogs and carrion fowl; if I had the appetite, I’d carve your flesh right here and eat it raw before the walls of your own city! Not even if Priam were to offer me your weight in gold would I give your body back to him, not after what you’ve done to me.’
‘Damn you, Achilles!’ Eperitus protested, stepping forward. ‘Hector has fought well; he deserves to be treated with honour. Leave his body here for his own people to claim him, or be cursed by the gods for your savagery.’
‘Savagery?’ Achilles snapped, pulling the breastplate from Hector and throwing it at the Ithacan’s feet. ‘What man can endure a war like this and not succumb to savagery? Can you, Eperitus? And you needn’t look at me with such disdain either, Odysseus. Do you think I don’t know who planted the gold beneath Palamedes’s tent?’
Odysseus’s eyes narrowed slightly but he said nothing as Achilles stripped Hector of his greaves and his tunic to leave him naked in the long grass. Then, as Peisandros drove up in Achilles’s chariot, the prince drew his dagger from his belt and slit the tendons at the back of Hector’s feet, from heel to ankle, causing him to cry out pitifully. Next he passed Ajax’s purple belt through the slits and, dragging Hector behind him, tied him to the back of his chariot. Peisandros jumped down lightly and joined Eperitus and Odysseus as the prince piled the captured armour in the back of the car. The wailing from the walls of Troy grew in intensity as Achilles stepped into the chariot and, with a shout at the horses, sent it trundling off towards the ford.
Eperitus watched Hector dragged to his death, his head knocking over the stony ground, and was filled with contempt – for Achilles, for the war, and even for himself for standing by and allowing such things to happen. Though he had endured ten long years of fighting with little complaint, and knew that with Hector defeated Troy could not stand for much longer, he was filled with a sudden urge to leave Ilium and never bear weapons again. The nature of the war had changed; or maybe he had changed; or maybe it was both. But his heart for fighting had left him and, like Odysseus, all he wanted now was to go home and find peace.
Chapter Thirty-Six
AFTER THE FUNERAL
Omeros drew on the strings of his tortoiseshell lyre and began to tell the tale of Orpheus’s journey to find Eurydice, his beloved wife, who had been killed by a snake bite and condemned to eternity in the Underworld. It was a sad story that did little to lift Eperitus’s already melancholy mood as he sat next to Odysseus in the king’s hut. Eurybates, Antiphus and Eurylochus were also seated around the blazing hearth, while two more chairs sat empty between them, the fleeces that covered them glowing orange in the light of the flames.
‘More wine, sir?’ asked a slave, peering over his shoulder and seeing the empty cup in his hand.
Eperitus nodded and handed him his cup. As the dark liquid reached the rim and the slave moved off to serve Eurylochus, whose hateful eyes were ever flickering towards Eperitus, Omeros reached the climax of his tale. Having persuaded Hades to release Eurydice, Orpheus broke the one condition imposed by the god of the Underworld – not to look back before he reached the land of the living – and lost his wife for ever. For some reason, whether
it was the wine or Omeros’s skill as a bard, Eperitus felt his heart sink lower and he let his gaze fall on the flames quivering over the hearth.
While the others listened intently to the conclusion of the song, the words faded into the back of Eperitus’s mind and he recalled the horrors and excesses he had witnessed over the previous days. More than anything, as he watched the fire, he was reminded of the funeral pyres on the plain and the countless bodies of Greeks and Trojans burning brightly in the darkness. It had taken the exhausted army the rest of the afternoon after Hector’s death and the whole of the next day to gather the slain, while the Trojans had done the same under truce. So many had been killed on both sides that the wood for their pyres had to be collected from as far away as the foothills of Mount Ida, and every wagon and cart, mule and bullock had to be commandeered to bring it back. That was twelve days ago now, but Eperitus could still smell the burnt flesh as clearly as the spices in his wine.
But if the scene on the plain had been horrific, the cremation of Patroclus by the ships was opulent, ghoulish and profane in the extreme, making Eperitus shudder with disgust at the memory of it. The humble mourning of the rest of the army for their lost comrades was made a mockery of by the excessive grief of Achilles for his friend. Refusing to wash the caked gore of battle from his own body, he laid Patroclus on top of the great mound of wood and then fetched Hector’s corpse, which he threw face-down in the dust before it. Sheep and cattle were sacrificed by the dozen, but instead of offering the fat and thigh bones to the gods as he should have done, Achilles laid them on top of Patroclus’s body and slung the carcasses of the slain beasts upon the piled wood around him – a blasphemy that caused even Great Ajax to turn away in shame. Next he slaughtered four horses and two of Patroclus’s hunting hounds to add to the growing heap of death, before placing jars of honey and oil between the cadavers – gifts suitable to a god, but not a mortal man. His final act was to murder the twelve prisoners he had taken during the fight in the river, slitting their throats one by one and throwing their bodies on to the pyre, which welcomed them greedily. This stunned the onlookers and raised murmurs of dissent among the attendant kings and leaders, appalled by the affront to the gods. But Achilles ignored them and none dared challenge him while he was in such a fell mood, for fear of having their own corpse added to the heap; but there were few now who did not doubt his sanity as he stood before the raging flames with his arms held up to the night sky, shouting defiance at the gods. His voice was lost in the howling wind and the roar and crash of the waves out at sea, but even though Eperitus’s sharp hearing could not hear the words, he knew the immortals did. And whatever curses may leave a man’s mouth, the gods always spoke last.
