by Byrne Fone
Thus the great war began. Soon we heard from those pilgrims who still braved the cross-country route that the Achaeans were making forays into towns further and further away from Troy, coming south closer and closer to Chrysa. Indeed some of those who stopped for a hasty prayer at the temple were fewer pilgrims than refugees, in flight from coastal towns. From their camp not far from Troy itself, large sorties led by Achilles, whose name all the world knows, and by Agamemnon whose name is despised by just as many, had captured and sacked cities as far away as Cyme, five days journey down the coast, and as near as Lyrnessus, just a day’s ride from Chrysa. They told me that in their wanton rage for destruction, the Achaeans were razing not only villages, but that even temples had been burned.
We could not believe that even these barbarians would destroy sacred places. To burn a village was an act of war, but to destroy a temple was blasphemy. But we could believe the stories about the brutal murders and about what they did to women, and especially to young and beautiful women. The stories were too unsparing in their detail to disbelieve, so much so that my father insisted that I could not stay in Chrysa, for every day, we heard rumors that the Greeks were raiding closer and closer.
I refused to go; I would not leave him, and he, of course, would not, could not, leave the temple, for he was its chosen priest and guardian.
“If I am to die, it will be here,” he said.
“Then I will die with you.” I said in return. I love you, I will not leave you.”
“I love you,” he said and took me in his arms, and as I knew he would, said “And I am your father; you must obey.”
Tears, arguments, pleading, to no avail.
At first he had thought to send me to Troy and seek the protection of the king who revered Apollo and who Apollo protected. “Behind Troy’s great walls you will be safe, he said, “and as my daughter, honored.” But Thyestes, son of that same farmer who long ago revealed to him his destiny, and who had agreed to accompany me, advised against it.
“The journey is too dangerous and too far for a woman,” he said. “She will have to travel in a cart, with a handmaiden, a driver and at least two men, across enemy infested country. This will attract attention. So much could happen before we reached the safety of Troy. No, I suggest Thebe.”
Thebe just two day’s ride away, was under the protection of King Eetion, a pious man and the Princess Andromache’s father. All agreed I would be safe behind strong high walls, and so with Ismene my handmaid, and with Thyestes and Eteocles, his friend and heart’s companion, who agreed to remain with me for as long as was needed. We left, and in a just a few days time we came to Thebe where Eetion greeted us and promised sanctuary. I sent a messenger wearing Eetion’s livery bearing a small clay mouse, which was the sign I had agreed that I would send back to my father when I was safe behind the walls.
But we were wrong, so wrong. The war did not come to Chrysa. Its temple was too sacred, perhaps even for Achaeans to burn. No, the war did not come to Chrysa, but it did come to Thebe and to me.
One morning, just as the gates of the city had been opened to admit the farmers bringing goods to the market, without warning and before anyone knew what was happening, the farmers threw off ragged cloaks to reveal armor. From the covered wagons, usually full of produce, foot soldiers suddenly leapt and from out of the copse of trees that bordered the river a horde of chariots thundered toward the gates. The guards tried desperately to close them, but were overpowered by the sword-wielding foot soldiers, and almost without resistance the chariots swept through. The alarm bells sounded, but the sound was overpowered by the clatter of chariots and the horrid shouts of the triumphant invaders as they poured into the streets and into the market square that was already teeming with buyers waiting to secure the best of the day’s provisions.
I saw it all, for with Thyestes and Eteocles I was waiting on the steps of the king’s house fronting the square. I had gone to the market to find some cabbages and fish to make a good dish for Eetion, to thank him for his kindness. Suddenly the chariots swept into the square. In them were tall and terrible men in armor, on their heads horse-plumed helmets with staring eyes, spears gleaming in their hands. With horror I saw that many spears were bloodied. And running by the sides of the chariots were soldiers, shouting horribly, brutally. I saw one soldier thrust with his spear and spit an old woman like a chicken. She sank into the dust as the soldier ran on without a second glance. All around, in the square, in the side streets, soldiers were cutting down the masses of people, swords flashing, blood spurting over baskets of carrots and cabbages fallen from lifeless hands.
Thyestes shouted to Eteocles, ‘Stay with Chryseis,’ and drawing his sword he was into the fray. The alarm bell had roused the garrison and it now began to pour into the streets. Behind us, King Eetion himself appeared, terrible in his armor, with a brace of spears. One he threw with unerring aim and downed a passing charioteer. Behind him arrayed in battle armor too were his seven sons. The king and his sons leapt with bloodcurdling cries down the steps of the palace and into the melee. The appearance of the king and his sons and his soldiers—far outnumbered I could see with sinking heart by the hordes still pouring through the gates--seemed to halt the onrushing tide of men, but only for a moment.
The chariots now formed a dizzying circle speeding around the square, The foot soldiers meanwhile were on the outside of the circle, spearing a body if it still writhed on the ground, cutting a throat that called for help, pushing women or boys against the walls and raping them quickly, and as quickly killing them. I could see flames begin to curl around the houses. I stood behind Eteocles, his sword drawn.
A quartet of soldiers, seeing me on the steps of the palace, started toward us with lust in their eyes. Eteocles pushed me back and leaped out toward them, shouting to me to run for safety into the palace. But I would not run; Eteocles stood his ground to protect me. He caught the first soldier with his sword. I saw it enter his body and hit hard bone. With satisfaction Eteocles wrenched it free and the soldier spat up black blood. The next one, scrambling up the palace steps, was upon him. Eteocles ducked as the soldier swung at him, and then upright, with full force brought his blade down on his enemy’s shoulder. He crumpled and fell screaming. Eteocles turned to see that I had not run at all, but still stood, my face white I am sure but not with fear. I had picked up the fallen sword and stood with my back to the column. Let no one say that I am not my father’s daughter.
The other two soldiers, thinking me an easier prey, were making for me. But still I did not run, remained with my back to the tall column, Eteocles in front of me. This was enough to lure the soldiers on and in the mad heat of their chase they raced back up the stairs. But Eteocles, grasping a spear from the dead hand of one he had slain, ran it with all his strength between the shoulder blades of the soldier who was just about to attack me and throw me to the ground. The other soldier seeing this turned, his eyes filled with blood rage and came toward me. Then a hiss of air and steel passed close to my ear and suddenly there sprouted from his chest the walnut shaft of a Trojan spear. I heard the voice of Thyestes—“Well fought!” He had seen my plight. Then he was gone, back into the savage mass of fighting men.
I was weakened by my ordeal and did not know if I could withstand another assault. And, as if in response to my weakness, the assault was upon me. Two soldiers appeared out of nowhere, one moved toward Eteocles, the other toward me. He reached me, grasped me by the arm, started to pull me down the steps. I screamed and grappled with him. The other attacker fought with Eteocles. Suddenly with a hideous clatter a chariot veered out of the circling column and made straight for the porch on which I stood. It thundered toward us and the sight transfixed us all into immobility. In the chariot, standing close to the driver a tall man with a glittering helmet and gilded armor brandished a spear. As the chariot rushed towards us the soldiers shouted “Achilles, Achilles, Achilles!” My heart sank. Great Achilles had come to wreck havoc and ruin on us all. The cha
riot slowed, but barely; the driver suddenly reigned in and the chariot seemed to pause in mid-flight and the warrior in the glittering armor, with one hand holding the chariot rail swung himself out, precariously balancing on the lip of the chariot. With a loud shout to the soldier attacking me of “She’s mine,” in a single movement he snatched me around the waist and pulling me, screaming, to him, vaulted back into the chariot as it wheeled away in a cloud of dust. As we raced away I could just see the soldier attacking Eteocles bring his sword down against the side of Eteocles head—just as he raised his arm to fend it off. I remember nothing else.
Chapter 6
Chryseis
I awoke the next morning in a small tent, lying on a pallet on the ground. Someone had covered me with a woolen blanket, but I was stiff and sore from the hard ground and the cold; there were dark bruises on my arm. What had happened? I panicked. Had I been raped after all? No, I had not, of that I was sure. Then memory stirred. In rush it all came back and I relived again the horror. I threw off the blanket and struggled stiffly to my feet. The tent flap was open and the sun threw a shaft of morning light into the tent. I realized that a curtain had been pulled across the place where I had slept. I peered around the other side of it. Another low pallet was on the ground, clothes were draped over a stool, a man’s clothes. A golden helmet lay on a low table. Achilles. I was in the tent of Achilles.
I took a breath of deep relief; he had done nothing but respect me. With that indrawn breath I also realized that the smell of burning flesh was in the air. I went to the entrance and stooped through the low tent flap and came out into the sun. Stony ground, small tents pitched everywhere, scrub grass and pines were what I saw. I saw too plumes of acrid smoke rising into the sky. They came from a nearby field and mirrored the more distant and even darker clouds that hung like a shroud over what I knew to be direction of the city. The sky was black with death. As I came out of the tent, an old man, my only guard, kindly gave me water and some bread. “No my lady,” he said, as I began to walk toward what I knew immediately were funeral pyres, “ it is best if you stay here.”
There in the field below the campsite many pyres were burning, the flames crackling as the flesh caught fire and the fat burned from the bones. Before them a priest was standing, sprinkling lustral water on ground. His voice distantly carried to me. His words were unclear, but I did not need to be told that he was saying prayers for the dead. Along the edge of the field soldiers in battle gear were drawn up. In front of them were their commanders, and at the head of them, standing stiff and bare-headed, Achilles.
Who are the dead?” I asked my guard.
“Ours. And theirs.” He said. “All who died are honored. But most of all Eetion and his sons for they fought bravely and died like men and heroes, even though they were the foe.”
My heart leapt into my throat; I felt sick and afraid and alone. Eetion, King of Thebe, into whose protection I had given myself. That dear old man. Dead.
“And his sons?” I said, but feared to hear the answer.
“All dead,” he replied.
“Do you know if Eteocles, Telemon’s son….” I could not finish the question.
“ I know of no Eteocles, lady,” he said.
I sent up a prayer to Apollo then and there for Eteocles, living, or dead.
I watched the burning from my vantage there on the little hillock, surrounded by a score of campaign tents. Horses were all around, hobbled so as not to stray, and near them the war chariots, still dusty and covered with mud, were drawn up in rough order. On many I could see dark stains dried almost black, the blood of innocents on the weapons of war. For all this slaughter Achilles had been responsible. He commanded death. Yet now he honored the dead, the same that he had slain. For the dreadful slaughter of my people how could I forgive him? For such honor to our dead how could I not respect him?
Later, after the pyres had burned and the rites were done, Achilles came to me. He saluted when he saw me. I feared him, but I did not hate him.
“Thank you,” I simply said.
He only nodded, then said: “Make yourself ready, Lady, for we must go.”
Tents were stowed into packs, fires stamped out, and the small army waited the order to march. Once again I found myself in a chariot, though this large one capable of holding a driver, Achilles, and me. He did not tie me. He could have done. He could have treated me like captive chattel, trussed or chained to the chariot rail. But he did not. Instead he wrapped a warm blanket around my shoulders and showed me how to hold on to the chariot rails to steady myself.
With Achilles’ chariot in the lead, followed by the others, and by the column of foot soldiers, we set out. This time we set no swiftly careering pace, but moved at such a speed that the men who jogged behind would not tire too soon. As we passed the field where the pyres still smoked and from which the ashes of the dead had been gathered and interred in a mound marked with spears standing upright in the ground, Achilles raised his hand to signal a halt. At his barked command, the column turned, faced the field and presented arms, an honor from soldier to soldier, from the living one last time to the dead.
We rode on in silence. He did not look at me. He did not speak. I realized I was exhausted and felt myself slump down to the deck of the chariot. He saw me and gently helped me slip down so that I could curl myself at his feet. He took a wineskin from his side and offered it to me.
“Drink, Lady,” he said. “Have no fear. I know who you are. I honor the Archer God, as do you.”
Despite the rough jogging of the chariot I must have fallen asleep. Or perhaps the wine was strong or even drugged. When I awakened I saw that we had come into low hilly lands. I could see in the distance Mount Ida, snow capped. I knew with a pang of almost unbearable longing that if we were to deviate from our course, go south instead of north, we would come to Chrysa, my father, home. But of course I knew where we were bound.
Two days we traveled and at the end of the second day we came down into flat lands. I could see the ocean glinting, smell the sea. I had not seen it for months and I knew how much I had missed it. It was not long till in the distance I saw Troy’s high tower rising above the horizon, then gradually the city itself came into view. But we were not going there, that great city where Priam ruled and Andromache, Hector’s wife and Eetion’s daughter, perhaps did not yet know that her father now was dead. We turned toward the sea and as the sun was setting we came to a high wall. From wooden watchtowers a challenge came. But no one doubted who it was awaiting entrance at the gates. No one need be told that Achilles, slayer of men, had come back with plunder and with captives. We entered the camp. Men ran up to unyoke the horses. The tired soldiers dropped their heavy packs and, dismissed by Achilles and the commanders, disappeared into the forest of tents. Achilles helped me from the chariot. A slave waited nearby. “Take her to Agamemnon’s tent with the other prisoners,” he said. He paused a moment, bowed. He looked at me regretfully. “My Lady,” he said. “Forgive me. I have no choice.”
No choice indeed. I was paraded before the king, one among the other captives, including my beloved Briseis who I encountered that day for the first time. We stood before him, amongst the sacks of gold, the lambs and cattle, the chests of coins and jewelry, human parcels amongst the captured loot, Achilles looking on. This was how it was done. The king decided what things he wanted to keep as his share of the spoils, what people he wanted to keep for his use and pleasure.
Agamemnon chose me, of course, for his own, even though Achilles had captured me. But he did not come to me that night nor the night thereafter. On the third night a slave put out silks for me to wear. She would not look at me, kept her eyes downcast, seemed to be afraid of me, for it had gotten about that I was sacred, daughter of Apollo. But I told her not to fear, no wrath would settle on her.
“What must I do?” I asked.
“Wait, my Lady, just wait,” she said, and seemed to stifle a sob.
When he did finally come, like Achill
es, I too had no choice.
Chapter 7
Chryseis
Sometimes when the king’s story-teller lets it be known that he has composed a new tale or another version of the old familiar stories, we are allowed to leave the women’s tent and listen, though always with a guard since we are captives and slaves, our only purpose to serve the king. We walk in single file from our tent pitched a short distance from that of the king, along the narrow path, trodden smooth now over the years, that leads to the place of assembly. As I walk I hear the eerie sounds of the night birds, the plaintive and musical cry of the cuckoo, the mournful calling of the owl; small creatures in the grass scurry away as we come. From someplace in the camp a horse whinnies; something is dropped with a clatter; a low hubbub sounds from the assembly field toward which we walk; someone in a tent curses as we pass; I smell millet and onions cooking. In the distance the waves break against the beach where the long ships have been pulled far up on the sand, the sound a slow steady rolling beat almost more felt than heard. I cannot see them, but I know that the wine dark waves rush in from some distant world in steady procession, propelled across the lengths of the sea until they come roiling and crashing against the hulls of the black ships where their smooth fluid darkness is broken into moonlit spray and sea foam. Then, their force spent for a moment; they retreat back again out into the night, down the beach and dissolve, only to return again to make another assault on the land. The sound calls me home and I wonder if I will ever see it again.
I put one foot in front of another, walking step by step, slowly, head bowed. I do not look to either side; I only listen to the sea, to the night birds, to my heart that nowadays seems only to beat in the cadence of a funeral dirge. In this slow dreamlike way I used to walk in the little procession that crossed the fields from my father’s house to the temple. He in front, behind him one of the assistants leading a lamb or a goat to the altar, and I behind, at the end, carrying a sheaf of grain or a basket of fruit to add to the day’s sacrifice. My father always told me to walk gravely and slowly, not to dishonor the god with unseemly haste. I always wanted to run, because it seemed to me that the god would not mind if I did. I loved to run across the fields of wild flowers, treading on mint and thyme as I passed, flying I liked to think, until I came breathless to the very edge of the cliff beyond our village and there was the sea, stretching out for an eternity into the sun. Walking so slowly, assuming an air of solemnity that I did not always feel, bound me. I felt I wore invisible shackles and that because of them I was not free. I told my father this one day. “Chryseis, Chryseis,” he said, “my sweet little bird.” He took me in his arms: “Freedom is not measured by how fast we go.” I feel a tear start.
