The Trojan War

by Bernard Evslin

  Thereupon she took a vial of a thick gluey red ointment that smelled of honey and baking bread—the odor of desire. Invisible, she flew to the garden of Chryseis and smeared, with this venom of desire, the thorns of the roses that Cressida was picking. The thorns pricked Cressida’s hands. Suddenly she burned for Diomedes and she knew that before the night had passed she must find a way to him.

  “But will he want me?” she thought to herself. “He is in love with battle. Killing Trojans is his one passion. And murder is an absorbing business. Will it leave room for gentler occupations? Agamemnon I could twist around my finger. But for this Diomedes I feel a kind of terror. I must make myself irresistible to him. But how? By giving him what he wants the most. Yes … victory over the Trojans, that is what he wants the most. If I can bring him information that will help him achieve victory, then perhaps he will love me. Do I know any secrets? Nothing that is not generally known. Chitchat about the court, observations about the personal habits of Priam’s sons and daughters—these will not be useful to him. No … I need something big, important. If, for only an hour, I could be that sour-faced Cassandra with her talent for reading the future, then I could come to him filled with the authority of an oracle, a priestess of knowledge, and could make him love me. But that’s it! Cassandra! Locked in her head is what I must know. I must unlock it. But how? She despises me. Whom does she not despise? Her brother, Troilus—that’s who. She dotes on him. Watching on the wall, she has eyes only for his deeds, his safety. She would tell Troilus what I want to know. Then I must try to know Troilus a little better. It should not be difficult. He has a roving eye. It has rested on me occasionally.” And so, as we shall see, goddesses can be outwitted too. Or rather, can outwit themselves. For Aphrodite, attempting to confound the Greeks, had kindled a tiny flame that was to grow into a fire big enough to burn Troy even unto the last timber.

  Chryseis visited Hector to tell him of Cassandra’s prophecy, claiming it as his own. Hector interrupted him.

  “If I had any doubts about fighting Achilles,” said Hector, “I am quite rid of them now. I have always expected him to vanquish me. His pedigree is much finer than mine. He is not only the son of Thetis, queen of nereids, but great-grandson to Zeus himself. We lift our weapons against him in vain. With much pain we have learned that he cannot be hurt by spear-cast or sword-thrust. No arrow can wound him, no dart pierce his magically toughened hide. And in the use of weapons he has no equal. Yet, I have always known that I must challenge him one day, for I am the best we have, and we must counter their best with ours. To challenge him, to meet him, to pray for strength and skill somehow to pierce that invulnerable hide—to do this and then to die—this I have known to be my fate ever since Paris returned with Helen from Sparta. To meet him, to fall, and to account myself lucky to be spared the sight of Troy being sacked—that has been the best I could have hoped for. Now you tell me that my death must lead to his? And you call this a gloomy prophecy? My dear man, it is the best news I have heard in almost a decade. I just hope I can trust it. I don’t take much stock in readings of the future, you know. We have a prophetess in the family who claims to be divinely inspired, and she is invariably wrong. However, I shall do my best to believe what you tell me. Now I shall seek out Achilles with great joy. And joy strengthens a man’s arm.”

  “Pray, prince Hector, consider—”

  “Enough, good Chryseis. You have pleased me. Don’t spoil it. Take this bag of gold, and go. And be sure to watch from the wall tomorrow. It should be an interesting afternoon.”

  THE WRATH OF ACHILLES

  ACHILLES TOOK THE FIELD. all aglitter he was in the new armor forged by Hephaestus. His shield burned like the sun-disk at dawn; his plumed crest burned with the colors of the sunset. Between dawn-colored shield and sunset crest his face burned white-hot as noon with pent fury. He leaped into his brass chariot and shouted to his horses. But instead of charging toward the enemy lines which they always did at the first sound of his war-shout, this time Xanthus and Balius tossed their heads, turned their long faces to him, rolling their great golden eyes.

  “Pray, forgive us, master,” said Xanthus. “But one word before you go into battle.”

  “It is this,” said Balius. “Do not seek Hector in single combat. If you find him, you will kill him, for no one stands before you—”

  “And if you kill him,” said Xanthus, “you must die within three days, because that is the decree of the Fates.”

  “I cannot believe my ears,” said Achilles. “When in the field no one questions my commands—from the lowliest Myrmidon to the most powerful member of the War Council—I am certainly not accustomed to consulting my chariot horses concerning tactics.”

  “It is for love of you we speak, dear master,” said Xanthus. “Now do as you will.”

  “But one favor,” said Balius. “Please leave instructions that we be burned on the same pyre as you. We do not wish to be driven by another master after your death.”

  “Noted,” said Achilles. “Now be silent and obey orders. Forward!”

  As Achilles took the field, Hector was being dressed for battle. Not by his squire, but by his wife, Andromache, who had begged him to let her prepare him for this day’s fighting. He had hesitated. She had been present at the conversation with Chryseis and knew the prediction about his death. But she had not said a word to dissuade him from meeting Achilles. She had saved it all up, he was afraid, for this last hour before battle. And the one thing that could weaken him, he knew, was her weeping. But she had asked to be allowed to help with his armor and he could not refuse. And now she was dressing him in the gorgeous metal that he had taken from Patroclus.

  “Dear husband,” she said. “I am filled with such love and admiration that my hands tremble, and I can scarcely bind the latchets of your corselet. For in this heaven-forged armor you shine like the very morning star.”

  He looked at her in amazement. No tears, no reproaches, no mournful face. She was alight with love, brimming with serenity. Never since the beginning of the war had she exuded such confidence. He did not question her, but accepted her mood with glad heart. He would have felt differently perhaps had he known how she had arrived at her present mood. But it was a secret he was never to learn.

  The night before, Andromache had left Hector’s bed. She wrapped herself in a dark cloak and made her way through the sleeping city. Mounting the inner steps to the wall and keeping to the deepest shadows, she avoided the sentry and climbed down the other side of the wall. There she crossed the Dardanian plain to a bend of the river called Scamander. Now she unwrapped her cloak, pulled her gown over her head and stood naked, white as a birch, in the moonlight. She stepped into the river up to her knees.

  “River!” she called. “O tall brown god who loved me while I was yet a maid. River-god, strong brown lover, Axius, spirit of the Scamander, answer me now—for I have come to you once again.”

  The river was a blackness spangled with gold in the moonlight. And gold was the color of the god who arose before her.

  “Many tender maidens bathe in my stream,” he said. “Which one are you?”

  “Andromache.”

  “Oh, yes? … I think I remember. Very sweet and willing. How have you been since last we met?”

  “Flourishing, my lord. I am wife to Hector, son of Priam, first among the princes of Troy.”

  “Hector—the great warrior?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been wed?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Why have you left his bed and come to seek me now?”

  “Tomorrow Hector fights Achilles.”

  “Foolish child! Hurry home, wake him up, take him into your embrace! It is your last night together.”

  “No.”

  “No? Did you say it was Achilles he was fighting?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what I thought. My dear child, no one, no one at all, engages Achilles in single combat and returns to hi
s wife. It’s just not done. The man is completely fatal. Couching here on my river-bed I have watched him in action now for nine years and, believe me, he is the complete widow-maker. Go home and love your husband, lady; tomorrow you are a widow.”

  “I beg leave to differ,” said Andromache. “There is something in woman that rebels against these ordinances of the Fates … these absolute iron edicts concerning the future. We do not like to foreclose on possibilities. To us the future is precisely that which is pregnant with new life, new chance, new luck. I have heard the prophecy concerning Hector, but I will not accept it. And I need an ally strong as Fate. That is why I have returned to you, O river-god.”

  “Strong as fate? You flatter me. More powerful gods than I bow to fate. I do well enough here, but after all I am only a small local deity. Beyond the banks of this river I have no authority whatever.”

  “Ahh—but rivers rise. Rivers rage. Rivers overflow their banks and extend their authority across great fields. They sweep away walls, cities. Rivers drink floods and grow to mighty torrents rivalling the sea. You are too modest, Axius. It is a new quality. I never noticed it before.”

  “And you are a very clever, very persuasive lady,” said Axius. “Something I did notice before, but had forgotten. Speak plainly; what is it you want me to do? Ask me what you will, and if it is in my power I shall help you.”

  “Trojan meets Greek upon your bank tomorrow. Hector will meet Achilles on your shore. Go into flood, my lord. Rage over your banks—but selectively. Sweep Achilles away. Drown him in his heavy armor.”

  “How do you know they will fight upon my bank?”

  “They shall. I promise.”

  “Then I promise to do what I can. Sweet Andromache, you have returned to me on a night of hot moonlight when I was feeling old and stagnant, and have restored to me the lusty tides of my youth. I will do as you ask though stronger gods oppose me.”

  Andromache returned to the palace and, later that morning, as she helped Hector on with his armor, she still gave off the fragrance of that river which half-girdled Troy, running from the mountains to the sea, with dragonflies blue as jewels darting at its ripples and with elm-tree and willow and tamarisk dipping toward their reflections. And yet it was a river which could change its temper with brutal suddenness—drinking rain, gulping floods from the hills, and rising, raging over its banks, devouring town and village.

  And Hector, donning his shining armor, felt himself fill with the strength of that river whose presence had been brought into this room by his river-smelling wife.

  Andromache spoke: “One request. You know I never meddle into your affairs. But do me this favor, my husband, my lord, and let me advise you out of a dream that came to me in the night.”

  “Speak, my dear.”

  “Do not seek Achilles beyond the Scamander, but stay within the bend of the river, and let him come to you. If you do so, according to my dream, you shall defeat the son of Peleus and win everlasting glory … and return to me after the battle is over.”

  She fell to the ground and hugged his knees.

  “Promise!” she cried. “Promise, oh, husband, please promise!”

  “I promise,” he said.

  A detachment of Trojans pretended to flee before Achilles and his Myrmidons, drawing them toward the Scamander. There they turned to face the Greeks within a half-circle of marshy land lying in a bend of the river. Achilles could not use his chariot; its wheels sank up to their hubs in the marshy ground. So he dismounted and fought on foot, followed closely by his Myrmidons. But mounted or afoot he moved through the Trojan ranks like Death itself with his scythe. Every thrust of his spear drank blood. Charging ahead he broke the Trojan ranks, and the brown columns of his Myrmidons, festive as ants, gorged their swords on the flesh of the scattered foe.

  Now Hector and his picked guard charged into the marshy arc in a flank attack on the Myrmidons. Howling with ferocious joy Achilles sought Hector through the mob of fighting men.

  “Stand, son of Priam!” he roared. “Try your stolen armor against my weapon’s edge! Stand and face me or my spear will find your life between your shoulderblades, and you shall die a shameful death!”

  Despite himself Hector found his courage melting at the sound of that terrible voice. He did not turn and flee, but retreated slowly until his back was to the river and he could retreat no further.

  “Now! Now!” shouted Achilles. “You have a narrow choice, killer of Patroclus. Death by water or death by blade.” And he drew back to hurl his spear. But Axius arose invisibly from the depths of the river and cast a cloak of mist about Hector. Achilles, poising his mighty lance, saw Hector disappear. Saw mist rising from the bank of the river, hiding his foe from sight. He cast his spear into the column of mist, but saw it sail harmlessly through and land in the river. For Axius had lifted Hector in his arms and borne him safely to the other side of the river. And all Achilles could see was tatters of mist drifting across the face of the water, and he knew that Hector had escaped his wrath once again.

  Now, in terrible fury at this loss, he turned upon the other Trojans, and killed, and killed, and killed. The wet marshland grew wetter yet with running blood. Men sank to the top of their shin-greaves. Only Achilles remained lightfooted as a demi-god, running over the surface of the mud like marsh-fire. His new-moon sword rose and fell as if he were mowing a field. Every time it fell, a Trojan died.

  Finally, the Trojans in panic fled into the river. But Achilles followed with his Myrmidons and slaughtered them as they tried to cross the ford. Bodies fell into the river and disappeared. The water ran red as sunset. Now Axius arose again from the depths of the river—in his own form this time—and Achilles found himself confronting a figure tall as a tree with greenish, coppery skin.

  “Halt, Achilles,” he said in a voice that rumbled like a waterfall. “Son of Peleus, halt—before I drown you beneath fathoms of my outraged stream.”

  “You must be the god of this river,” said Achilles. “Very well. I have no quarrel with you, my lord. My business is with Trojans.”

  “But I have a quarrel with you, you tiger in human form. How dare you stain my waters with blood? Pollute my stream with corpses? Prince of Phthia, you have offered me deadly insult, and now you yourself must die.”

  Axius leaned down scooping into the river with his mighty hands and flung a wave at Achilles. The heavy water hit him full, knocking him off his feet, tumbling over him. He fought for breath. Every time he tried to rise another wave knocked him down. The river-god stood waist-deep flinging torrents of water over the bank. Caught like a beetle in his heavy armor, unable to rise, Achilles was rolled over and over into the river itself. He must surely have drowned had not his mother been Thetis, daughter of Nereus, Old Man of the Sea, who bequeathed to all his descendants the power to breathe under water. But the Myrmidons had no such lineage; they were capable of drowning, and those that had followed Achilles into battle were caught in the rising waters and drowned, every one.

  Achilles, who had stumbled to his feet, saw his men drowning about him, and could not help them. He sprang into the middle of the stream and challenged Axius, shouting: “Fight fair, you watery demon! I have contended with you in your element, and you have not killed me. Now come up on land and fight me with sword and spear.”

  But Axius uttered a cataract laugh and, knowing now he could not drown Achilles, tried to crush him under a weight of water. He curled himself into a huge crested wave that towered taller than any building in Troy and smashed this entire mass of water down on Achilles, who was hurled to the bottom of the river. He felt himself being pummeled, beaten, choked—felt an unbearable pressure squeezing his ribs. His arms were crushed against his sides; he could not even raise his sword.

  Seeing his enemy pinned helplessly to the river-bed, Axius now scooped up boulder after boulder and rained them down on the Greek hero—like a boy pelting the ground with stones, trying to squash an ant.

  But Thetis, Lady of the Liv
ing Waters, knew everything that was happening in every sea and stream and river of which the earth drank. Rising swift as thought from the depths of the sea she appeared before Hephaestus, who worked at his smoky forge inside his volcano. Clasping him in her cool arms she flew the hot little lame god to the lips of the crater, and said: “Look! See what’s happening! Axius is murdering my son!”

  Hephaestus, blissful as a babe always at Thetis’ touch, half-dazed before the sea-magic of her beauty, dived back into the volcano, returned with an armful of fire from his forge. Now this fire is hotter than man ever sees burning in any furnace. It is the essential flame, the very core of flame, burning deep in the bowels of the earth, and is the source of all flame. And the lame god cast this fire that was hotter than fire down upon the river-bank. It kindled reeds, elm-trees, willows, and heated the mud itself to a molten mass. The river boiled. Axius, god of the river, felt his flesh scorching. And while he was a god and could not die, he could feel pain, and the pain of Hephaestus’ red fire was so terrible that he cried: “Hold, Hephaestus, hold! Hold off your red fire! And I will break my vow to Andromache and allow the son of Thetis to escape!”