The War At Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  Though he had seemed to begin haltingly, his voice had gathered power as he felt the host warming to him, and when his peroration rose to a climax at the end, his words were swallowed in a great assenting roar. Odysseus surrendered the sceptre to Nestor, and then stepped back, wondering what he had done.

  But old Nestor built on what he had achieved, reminding the throng how, on their first departure from Aulis all those years ago, Zeus had sent a flash of lightning to hail them on their way. He too was roundly cheered, so by the time Agamemnon came to issue his commands, the whole mood of the army had lifted. The men fell to with a will -- sharpening their weapons, checking shield-straps and harness, yoking the horses to the chariots, and assembling in battle order. Attended by his commanders, Agamemnon sacrificed an ox to Zeus. The sacred grain was scattered, the libations poured. As smoke rose from the altar fire, Agamemnon offered up a prayer that the Lord of Olympus not let the sun go down until he had vanquished the army of Priam and over-run his halls and palaces. Then the heralds shouted for the army to advance, the gates were opened and the army of the Argives marched out onto the plain.

  Dense cloud scarfed the summits of the Idaean Mountains that day, driving a bitter drizzle down across the Scamander into the faces of the advancing host. Horses shied against it. Men marched in silence with their heads down, hearing the sound of their own progress in the creak of leather, the jingling of harness and the chink of metal against metal above the tramp of their feet. The drizzle was not yet heavy enough to make the dust lie, so it rose around them in gritty swirls, darkening the air, and as they began to fan out in a wide front across the field, they heard a withering sound, like the noise made by a huge flock of migrating cranes, drifting towards them on the breeze. When they raised their eyes, they saw the Trojan host advancing from the city to meet them, ululating as they came.

  A low moan rose from the Argives as they saw the size of the forces ranged against them along the ridge of the high mound that was known as Thorn Hill. Odysseus ordered his chariot ahead of the line to get a better view. He could see a tall figure wearing a high-plumed helmet parading in his chariot before the massive battalion of spearmen at the Trojan centre, and knew that it must be Hector. He recognized Aeneas and the Dardanians standing to his right, and beyond them shone the shields and standards of the Phrygians, the Mysians and the top-knotted warriors of Thrace. On the left flank were the Lycians, Carians and Pelasgians out of Larissa, but there were other, more exotic forces gathered there too -- Paeonian archers with their curved bows, Paphlagonians from the eastern lands south of the Black Sea, and even a contingent from the distant Alizones. Agamemnon’s hopes that Priam’s strength had been depleted suddenly seemed as doubtful and insubstantial as his dream.

  The wind was gusting too, blowing the dust back into the men’s eyes, but when Odysseus looked back along the Argive lines he sensed something of the trepidation that Priam’s host must also be feeling. Even without Achilles and his Myrmidons -- whose presence might be sorely missed before the day was done -- those lines were long, deep, and well-armoured. And once battle was joined, the Argive warriors would have no choice but to drive forward, for with their backs only to the sea, there was nowhere else to go.

  Odysseus wheeled his chariot round and cantered his team across the rough ground to join Agamemnon and Idomeneus where they stood in conference at the centre of the line. ‘They have the advantage of the rise,’ he called. ‘Hector’s not about to come at us, so we might as well grit our teeth and take it to them.’

  Agamemnon gave a dour nod. ‘I’m going to advance the Locrian bowmen first. Idomeneus will do the same with his Cretan archers. That should thin them out a little where they stand.’

  ‘There’s a mist gathering too,’ the Cretan said. ‘It could give us some cover.’

  ‘Then we just push and pray,’ Odysseus smiled. ‘Good hunting, gentlemen.’ He was nodding to his driver to turn the chariot round again, when Agamemnon said, ‘Hello, what’s this?’ All three men squinted against the glare of the drizzle towards the Trojan lines where a single chariot was rattling swiftly down the slope, raising dust and stones in its wake and cheered on by the host behind. It was pulled by a sleek pair of blacks adorned with scarlet crests that matched the tall plume of the driver’s helmet. Clad in a panther’s skin, with a bow at his back, he carried a sword in the scarlet baldric that crossed his breastplate, and two spears were fixed to the rails at his side. ‘It looks like someone’s out to make a name for himself,’ Agamemnon muttered. ‘Does anybody recognize him?’

  The others shook their heads. Then another chariot broke free of the Trojan lines to follow the first down the hill. At the foot of the rise both teams pulled up, and there was a brief exchange between the drivers before they advanced slowly, side by side, across the open plain.

  ‘The second man’s Hector,’ Odysseus said. ‘I watched him marshalling his centre just now.’ He turned at the sound of a chariot clattering along the Argive line and saw Menelaus speeding towards them from his place at the head of the Spartan levies, steam rising from the dappled haunches of his team. Dust skidded from the wheels as the horses were reined in, panting and snorting. He saw a fierce ardour in the King of Sparta’s eyes.

  ‘The blacks are driven by Paris,’ Menelaus shouted. ‘I’d know him anywhere. I think my hour has come, brother.’

  Without taking his eyes off the approaching chariots. Agamemnon nodded. The wind shuddered through the tall sweep of his horsehair plume.

  Paris halted his chariot about fifty yards in front of the Argive commanders, but Hector came closer, holding his plumed head high. Damp sunlight glinted off his shield. A shout came from somewhere down the line. Then a stone was thrown at him. It missed by a yard or more but his team whinnied and shied. Another stone followed, falling closer still. When Hector reined in his team, the horses shook their heads close enough for the Argives to see their eyes roll and their nostrils flare.

  ‘Stay your hand there,’ Agamemnon shouted down the line. ‘This is a prince of Troy Show him some courtesy before we drag him through the dirt!’

  Hector pushed back his helmet so that he could be better seen and heard. ‘Do I have the honour to address Agamemnon, son of Atreus, the Lion of Mycenae and High King of all Argos?’ he shouted above the gusting of the wind.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Then I bid you welcome to Troy. I’m glad to see that you have found the will to match your might against my own at last.’ Briefly he looked up and down the Argive line and then back, smiling, at Agamemnon. ‘Though I regret we lack the pleasure of Achilles’ company today.’

  ‘Then you will miss him more than I do,’ Agamemnon scowled. ‘But I came here to fight, not to bandy words. Say what you have to say and let us get to it.’

  ‘Very well! My brother, the noble prince Paris stands here at my back ready to meet any of your champions in full and final settlement of this conflict. He freely concedes that his actions is the cause of this great quarrel, and has no wish to see many good men die needlessly on his account. So let it be agreed that all other troops lay down their arms while the duel is fought, and that whoever wins the fight will keep the Lady Helen along with all her wealth, while the rest of us swear in blood to honour a pact of peace and friendship.’

  A damp gust of wind ruffled the manes of Hector’s horses. One of them champed at the bit. Its bridle jingled. Along the line men strained to hear.

  Agamemnon leaned his weight casually against the chariot rail. He was about to declare that he had not brought the whole fighting force of Argos half way across the world merely to watch a duel, when his brother Menelaus spoke out. ‘This is my time, brother. Let me accept this challenge. I have the right.’

  Agamemnon saw the confidence in his brother’s eyes. He had no interest in pacts of friendship but nor could he deny Menelaus this chance for vengeance. He nodded and Menelaus urged his chariot forward of the line. ‘You know me of old, Hector!’ he shouted. ‘We have met on bet
ter days than this. I have broken bread and mixed wine with you, and we have worshipped the gods together. I remember a time when we spoke of friendship, you and I. But if you are the honest man I believe you to be, you will acknowledge that I am the injured party in this quarrel. It was my trust that was abused. It was my hospitality that was violated. It was my friendship that was dishonoured. And the villain who did these things stands at your back growing pale as I speak.’

  For a moment Menelaus held Paris in his glare, and then dismissed him from existence with a derisive shift of his eyes.

  ‘What you say is true,’ Menelaus added, ‘-- only one more death is needful now, and the gods have already appointed it for him. He and I will shortly settle accounts once and for all. You and I can perhaps speak of friendship again when I am standing over his lifeless body.’

  Agamemnon made as if to intervene, but Menelaus held out a hand to restrain him. ‘Bring two sheep to the sacrifice!’ he called to Hector. ‘A black ram and a white ewe -- and we will do the same. Then fetch your father, King Priam, out of Troy, and let him take an oath on this agreement, for I have been given little reason to trust the word of any of his sons.’

  Hector looked to Agamemnon who heaved an uncertain sigh before nodding his assent. A murmuring rose from the opposing armies on both sides of the plain. Hector and Paris withdrew, and while a herald was sent to summon Priam, and the sheep were tethered for the sacrifice, the charioteers and archers pulled back from the front, and the infantrymen lowered their spears and shields.

  Throughout all the difficult years she had lived as an exile inside the walls of Troy, Helen’s heart had never been heavier than in the moments when she stood on the parapet above the Scaean Gate watching Paris drive his chariot out onto the plain to confront the massed ranks of the Argive host.

  Earlier that morning she had beseeched him not to do what he intended to do. But as had increasingly been the case in recent years, he had chosen to ignore her pleas, for his pride was more susceptible to taunts from his brothers than his heart was to Helen’s complicated feelings. And what made things all the harder was the knowledge that, adoring her as he did, Paris could not understand why she did not simply want him to go out there and triumph over the man from whom he had taken her all those years ago.

  For Helen those years had been far from the dream of love that had drawn her out of Sparta. Revered by some in Troy and reviled by others, she had soon found herself to be a lonely stranger in a foreign city. Thankfully, Aethra was there to keep her company. Otherwise she would have been reduced to utter dependence on Paris’s love for her, if King Priam had not also proved to be as infatuated by her beauty as his son. In many ways she felt that the father saw her more clearly, for Priam had known enough suffering in his time to recognize the wounds behind her beauty. He understood how she was hurt and oppressed by the envy and backbiting of the women around her. Above all, he understood the melancholy and guilt that overwhelmed her whenever she thought about the child she had abandoned -- a child who must now be older than Helen had been when Theseus and Pirithous abducted her. He understood why Helen could never be truly happy in Troy.

  And Priam understood these things as Paris did not. From the first, Paris had inhabited a self-sealing dream of love, seeing things only on his own enraptured terms. And Helen had been drawn deeply into that dream with him, living her life at a pitch of intensity such as she had never previously known. It was as though that love elevated them to a visionary realm beyond the ordinary, a realm whose landscapes were reflected in the blue, dolphin- crowded waters of the seas they crossed, in the fragrant enchantment of Aphrodite’s temple on Cyprus, and among the hot dunes of Egypt where their passionate adoration for each other felt entirely at one with the timeless love of Isis and Osiris. But then they had come back to Troy, and after the first elation of their triumphal entry to the city, the world had gradually closed down round them. And how could it have been otherwise when the world was at war and their love was the cause of it?

  For life inside Troy had been harder in recent years than the Argives camped in their rough lodges outside could ever have guessed. As the cities of their allies were attacked and burned, the Trojans lost both markets for their manufactured goods and sources of supply. Prices had risen with the war, and the luxuries to which the people had grown accustomed were much harder to come by. Food was rationed. Anxiety grew, and when the Argives made their first successful landing on the Dardanian shore, panic gripped the city for a time. In the middle of all this, Paris and Helen, who had once been icons of the city’s grandeur, were now perceived as the principal cause of its grief. Increasingly they were isolated figures, and isolated with a love that had lost the rapturous intensity of an illicit passion and yet found no other, more substantial way to be. It became hard for them not to blame each other for the losses they had suffered.

  There had been nights when they lay side by side, tense and unspeaking in their bed, like prisoners confined together for a crime they could neither repent nor condone. There had been dawns too when, after grieving far into the small hours for her child, Helen woke to look at the lax, vulnerable form of the familiar stranger sleeping beside her and wondered how she could ever have felt it right to put a whole world at risk just to be with him, to love and follow him, and dissolve her body in his embrace.

  And now, on this day, when she must stand on the parapet watching him go out to fight with Menelaus to the death, it felt as if all the love and tenderness in her life was about to be subsumed within the mutual violence of the two men she loved most in all the world. And she knew that the man she had deserted must feel only hatred for her now, while the man for whom she had deserted him had left their chamber that morning, flustered and angry that she could not simply pray for him to win.

  King Priam stood beside Helen at the parapet, his cloak blowing in the wind that swept across the plain where the might of the Argive army was ranged against his city. These days he was an old man who had seen much of the confidence with which he had prepared himself for war with his enemies evaporate across the years. Like Agamemnon, he too had once dreamed of a quick conflict in which his own assembled powers would settle the issue once and for all, but this long war of attrition had drained both his strength and his coffers. As news came in of city after city burned, of brief successes followed by immediate setbacks, of ships sunk and armies laid low by pestilence, of friends and allies killed and their wives ravished, increasingly the mood of the old king had veered between outraged defiance and long fits of gloom in which he was haunted by dark pictures from his youth. He would wake in the night, remembering how both the priests of Apollo and his crazed daughter Cassandra had prophesied ruin on his city, and he would see again and again the torn body of his father Laomedon slain by Heracles in the citadel of Ilium, while women screamed and the palace burned.

  He had asked Helen to join him on the parapet that morning, for her presence was a constant consolation to his harassed mind, but as he asked her to point out each of the Argive heroes who had been no more than names to him before, he was confronted by the imminent gravity of his situation. It was not just Agamemnon and Menelaus, Ajax and Diomedes, Odysseus and Idomeneus that he saw, formidable in their war-gear though each of them might be: he was appalled by the sheer scale of the anonymous host assembled round them -- thousands of warriors drawn from the cities, mountains, plains and islands of Argos and far beyond, for the single purpose of tearing down the high walls round him, slaughtering his people and plundering his city of every last jot of its wealth. What had taken years of skill and cunning and perseverance to build might be reduced in a day to no more than a stinking rubble of smoke and ash.

  Yet Priam had prayed to the gods and made his offerings, and he too had great powers gathered at his side. And there had been encouraging reports of sickness and disaffection in the Argive camp, and everyone in Troy had rejoiced to learn that Achilles, son of Peleus, that ferocious young killer whose name and reckless deeds
had long since chilled even the bravest of hearts, had withdrawn his forces from the fray. So there had been hope in Priam’s thoughts that morning as well as trepidation.

  And then the herald came with the news that the issue was to be settled in single combat between Paris and Menelaus, which had never been his own intention. No one had said anything of this to him before they left the city. Priam’s trust was in the power of his forces and the strength of his walls more than in the skill and courage of his son. So what could have happened out there on the field that Hector should have agreed to put everything at risk on a single throw? It could only be that the same rash heart that had occasioned this war was rushing to bring it to a quick conclusion now.