Trojan Women- The Fall of Troy

by Byrne Fone

  The day passed in strained and painful silence, save for the sounds of never ending death that we could not fail to hear. I feared to leave my rooms; he would not. My maids eventually came and padded silently about, bringing food and drink, straightening from the night before. I did not command them to help me dress. Paris, still half-clothed polished his armor. Armor, I thought, that it seemed he did not intend to wear.

  I tried to work at my loom and weave the story of this war. In length after length of fine wool I have woven over the years the tale of all our lives. There is Menelaus, standing enraged on Sparta’s shore, having found me gone. There is Agamemnon, his daughter dead in his arms. There are bright seas and a thousand ships, and Troy glittering on its mountainside. There is Achilles, slayer of men and his Patroclus. Hecabe, Priam, Paris, all of them, all of us. It is a dreadful record that I weave. I have woven the death of men; must I weave the death of love as well?

  I must have dozed, or else I simply sat staring blankly into space, my heart a desolate waste, my body numbed by poppy juice and wine that a maid had silently set by my chair. The night had come. The moon had risen and it sent a silver beam through the window. No lamps were lighted, but the moon cast its light on Paris, who lay on the bed, his robe fallen away, his body that of a naked silver god. He moved sensuously in his sleep, aroused by some dream of love. But I know that it was not a dream of me.

  Disgusted I went to the window. It was silent. Below me the Trojan plain was covered as if with a huge cloak of jet black velvet, sprinkled with a million stars fallen from the sky to light it. The campfires glittered—Greeks and Trojans-- an untold wealth of gleaming points of light before the walls. It was as if each lighted fire was a beacon warning all the world that the god of War waited in the darkness, ready to march with the rising of the sun.

  The door burst open. Hector strode in, in full armor, his face grimed with filth and blood. Without looking at me he went to the bed and pulling Paris from it like a rag doll, he said in a low and level voice, “Paris, get up!” His voice was so full of rage that it sent a chill of terror straight to my heart. Paris, fear and confusion in his eyes, turned scarlet and ran to the other side of the room, putting the bed between himself and Hector.

  “Well, brother, how nice,” he said. He bent to the bed, and picking up the crumpled robe, pulled it around himself to hide his nakedness.

  “No, brother, it is not ‘nice’,” Hector said, “to see you here, naked and besotted while brave men die and the walls of our city are in danger. It is a disgrace, my brother, and I should kill you now. You shame us all.”

  I ran to Hector. “Please,” I said. “He will come. It is my fault. He has said he will come.” I was disgusted with myself, but I could not help it myself from saying it.

  “No my lady,” Hector said in that terrible low and menacing voice, “for once it is not your fault. And yes, he will come. Never fear. After all, we go to kill Achilles.”

  And with that he turned and left, leaving the door open, swinging on its hinges, as if to invite Paris to follow. Paris stared blankly at the open door and into the darkness beyond.

  Chapter 32

  Andromache

  Hector came late at night, his armor stained with blood, exhaustion in his face. I helped him take the heavy armor off, bathed him and rubbed oil into his aching muscles, made him warm wine. We sat together holding hands as young couples in love do when they think no one sees them. We have never stopped being a young couple, in love.

  “I have no choice,” he said. “Look, come to the window.”

  He led me to the window, but I already knew what I would see. The armies spread out across the plain, sleeping killers, waiting for the sunrise.

  “No choice?” I said trying to fight back the tears. “You have a choice. Choose me. Choose our son. Do not leave us here alone. No choice! Choose to leave the battle to your commanders. They know your plan. They will carry it out.” I knelt before him and took his hands in mine.

  He could not look at me. He turned his face away.

  “I will lead us to victory tomorrow,” he said. “You will see.”

  “But what of the day after that? And the day after that? And day in and day out as long as this war goes on.” I felt hysteria rising. “Think of us, alone here, never knowing if you will live or die. Never knowing if I am wife or widow. Never knowing if my son any longer has a father. Soon enough our days will end. Let me end them here, alive, with you.”

  “Don’t you think I know this,” he said, pacing across the room and back.” It’s all I think of. But I have chosen you, don’t you see? I have chosen to fight for you so that no damned Achaean will take you a screaming captive to some far distant barbarian shore and force you to serve him at his at his table and in his bed.”

  “If I do not go into this battle, then what will my men say? That I have fled, like Paris? No, I am Hector, Prince of Troy and one day to be king. Can I abandon this city in its most desperate need? There is nothing to be said my love. Nothing. War is the work of men. This man does not run from battle. I will go in the morning at first light.” Then kneeling beside me, where I had slipped down unto our bed, and pulling me to him, he stroked my hair. Quietly he said. “I fight for him too, for our son.” He pointed to the cradle where Astynax slept, oblivious to my tears, unheeding of my despair. I clutched Hector to me. In the middle of the night when I awakened from a terrible dream---I saw him dead, and heard the lamentation in the temple as we mourned him-- he soothed me and held me in his arms and together we drifted back into sleep.

  Hector rose in the dim pre-dawn light, armed himself, and made ready for war. There was nothing left to say between us that had not been said. He kissed me; we held hands for a moment. I was beyond tears now. Then going to the cradle he picked up our son, Astynax, who he likes to call little Scamandrius. But as he took him in his arms, perhaps frightened by the fearsome aspect of his father’s helmet, narrow eye slits and long black plume, the child began to scream. Hector laughed, and took his helmet off.

  “Such screaming will never do for a boy who will one day be king,” he said. He kissed his son, and then kissed me. But as he left I was sure that all that he could hear was the frightened sobbing of his son, following him into the dawn.

  Chapter 33

  Kassandra

  No one comes now. The king no longer sends his spy. I live alone. I scream in the night and no one comes. I shout and pound on my door, but I am not heard—or I am ignored. Only my maids attend me; they bring me food and open the door so I can walk on the parapet and see all that takes place on the plain far below. Sometimes I think that I will fly away, off the parapet to freedom in some distant land. Or maybe I will throw myself from this height and let them find me there in the early morning mist, broken and bloody. But I know what will come. I have another destiny, so I do not do it.

  I never sleep now, so I saw Hector come riding in late at night. He saw my mother and Helen, that I know, and his wife, poor faithful thing, doomed, like all of us. This morning as the armies begin to stir he rides out, armor gleaming. And with him is Paris, my lovely brother. Oh brother, Paris of the golden hair, how splendid you look as you ride to war. You are like some sacred stallion belonging to the gods. My sweet Paris in your glittering bronze, as you gallop down the ramp toward the wide-open gates you know that you are beautiful and you are laughing as you ride. Hector does not laugh. Does he know where he goes? Alas, I do.

  I had a dream the other night. I am a bird, a falcon I think, and I fly from the balcony of my tower, up, high above Troy and surveyed all the realm of Priam. I circled gaily toward the north, saw ancient Dardanos far below, founded by our most ancient kin. I flew low along the banks of the Hellespont, saw fish jumping in the sea, and then rose high to look across the ocean to Samothrace, the holy island from whose mountain top Poseidon watches all the realm of the wine dark sea. Then swooping wildly, floating upon the clouds, taking the wind and rising direct into the sun, I rushed like a s
wift feathered arrow shot from an ox-horn bow and passed across the river Simoeis. Then I saw Mount Ida in the distance marking the furthest boundary of our land. There I have gone to pray at the shrine of Zeus when Hector made sacrifice there. From Ida Zeus rules us all. As I flew high, intoxicated by my freedom, breathing the thin chill air, I swooped up over the mountain and saw Zeus upon his throne on the highest peak, far above the timberline. He is terrible and wise, sitting alone upon Ida shrouded in black storm clouds from which he sends his lightning to strike fear into the hearts of men.

  The priests say that the gods look down on us and watch us as we live our lives. In this endless time of war surely they are watching. And what is more they have taken sides. I have seen it. In my dizzy flight I passed above Mount Killikolone and there seated among the oaks and pines, looking down upon mankind as if watching the runners at a game, I see them, the gods who love us. There is Apollo. He hates Achilles and his hatred will guide the fatal arrow that ends that hero’s life. Artemis too, that most terrible goddess who Agamemnon insulted, like the others surveys our struggles as if they are spectators and we are bulls dying in the ring. There is Aphrodite who from her seat on the mountain-top waits to lend aid and succor to our city. When battle rages she fights beside her lover Ares who manipulates the wars of men. She is besotten by my brother Paris whose careless passion has brought us all to grief.

  I continue my flight far to the other side of the lands of Troy. Below is Thebe, its towers ands temples ruined, its king dead by Achilles’ hand. I see below me, like miniatures, the houses of Holy Chrysa and the Smintheum where Apollo dwells, so sacred none dared harm it. Along the coast I fly low, like a hungry hawk looking for mice or hares in the underbrush, but instead of prey I see the dead on the ground and ruined farms and blackened fields and the stench of death is so suffocating that I rush as high as I can into the clear air, so high that I can see Tenedos, an island jewel in the azure sea, and soon I am within sight of the Achaean camp, its ships resting arrogantly upon the shore—our shore.

  Their might is frightening, and frightening too is what I see upon the height that rises in the ocean shore just near the Achaean camp. This is what men call the fortress of Heracles, where it is said that the hero himself took refuge from monsters from the sea that plagued our city in time gone by. Though it protected Heracles it has failed to protect us. Upon its heights the gods in whose hearts hatred of Troy burns gather to cheer on their favorites. Poseidon come from the sea waits there, revenge in his heart because of a debt long unpaid that Troy owes him. Hermes, who brings good luck, has cast his lot with the Achaeans too. Hera, consort of Zeus hates us as does Athene, because it was our Paris who denied them the golden apple. As we fight on the plain below, so the gods battle one another in heaven. They will go to battle and use us all—Trojans and Achaeans alike--as pawns in their deadly game, moving us like counters from one place on their board to another, working their will by letting fly or staying a spear, turning a chariot aside, raising a storm of dust to blind a warrior so that a favorite can thrust his sword home through the leathern armor and into the beating heart.

  Now I see the towers of Troy before me, and below me the Tomb of Ilus, and then the city. Below me a tiny figure—ah my brother, there you are-- limps up the road and slips into a secret postern gate. There is a light in Helen’s room. And on the Trojan plain and before the city walls, a black carpet covers the earth punctuated by pinpricks of flame, two great armies camp there around their fires, waiting for the morn.

  Above me the stars wheel across the sky in their never-changing course. As those spheres of fire revolve in the eternal heaven, I hear the music that they make, meant to keep the world in harmony, sound an ominous and discordant note echoing across the plain from the direction of the sea .But wait! As I rush toward descent there is a fragment, a hint of prophecy.

  I hear a silver trumpet sounding a fearsome fanfare. I know with certainty that the hour is now at hand. War will soon be upon us and the fulfillment of Troy’s dark destiny will be set in train. Will they then still call me mad? As I feel my strength leaving me and as the dream begins to fade, I rush back toward Troy’s high walls. Below me on the seashore a man stands alone, staring into the ocean distance, seeing something far away. It is Achilles, waiting for his fate. I do not see his friend, his passion, the man for whom he lives. I do not see Patroclus.

  Book Six: Briseis

  Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of Patroclus, flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her breast, her neck, and her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful as a goddess she wept and said, "Patroclus, dearest friend, when I went hence I left you living; I return, O prince, to find you dead; thus do fresh sorrows multiply upon me one after the other. I saw him to whom my father and mother married me, cut down before our city, and my three own dear brothers perished with him on the self-same day; but you, Patroclus were always kind to me and I shall never cease to grieve for you.”

  -Iliad, Book 19

  Achilles, you died on the fields of Troy, a world away from home, and the best of the Trojans and Achaeans died around you.”

  –Odyssey, Book 24.

  Chapter 34

  Briseis

  Like all women, I stand on the fringe of the world of men, for they do not allow us at the center of events. Or so they like to think. But even standing at the edge of their closed circle, if you watch you see much, and know much. As I go about my business doing the work expected of me, I know that I fade into the background of the life men lead in Achilles’ camp. The arts of war are masculine arts and so they do the things men do and in which women have no part. Not only that, but they live for each other, and so unlike some men—like Agamemnon need it be said-- they do not desire me so they do not see me. They are not unkind to me, indeed both of them treat me more like a lady of consequence—which I was, then as a servant-- which I am.

  But as I went about my work, making food, mending clothes, I could not help but sense tension building, and building between them. It is the war of course and it is Achilles’ self-imposed exile from it, an exile he has also imposed upon Patroclus as well. Though we are nowhere near Agamemnon’s forces, we know what goes on. Battles go on. Trojans attack, Greeks counter attack. Though as a spy I have been of little use to Odysseus—because I have not wanted to betray Achilles—yet I do not seem to avoid picking up bits and pieces of news as I serve Achilles and Patroclus their dinner and they talk on, not worried about my presence or what I might hear. What I hear is that Achilles has managed to be kept well informed not only about the progress of the war, but the secrets of Agamemnon’s councils. In neither case is the news good. The Trojans seem to win every skirmish, and take bits of ground nearer and nearer to the Greek camp and of most concern to their ships. The king and his generals are at odds—some urge abandoning the war altogether; others urge attack but only of the king will reconcile with Achilles and let him lead the charge. The king refuses to reconcile and insists he can win without Achilles. And of course Achilles refuses to fight until the king makes amends for the slight to his honor that Achilles believes has been inflicted on him.

  A day or so ago, I came to the tent, thinking the two of them were elsewhere. But they were there and I heard them, shouting at one another. Never has this happened. Patroclus and Achilles who have never raised their voices in anger to one another.

  “I will not fight; let the king ruin it all. I heard Achilles say. There are some things a man wont do and I won’t bow down to that drunken sot.”

  “But our men, our brothers, our friends, they are dying, and we sit here. We might as well be killing them ourselves.” This was Patroclus and his voice trembled with anger and frustration.

  Achilles did not answer. I stood outside the tent. I knew I shouldn’t, but I was transfixed. For I realized that if Patroclus could convince Achilles to fight, then my own people were in danger. My own people. But who were they? It was Achilles who had saved me from death.
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  “Every day they move closer to our camp and to our ships,” I heard Patroclus say. “One day they will overpower us and what then? Will they burn our ships and leave us all stranded here to be picked off like rabbits. I wont allow it.”

  “We have our ships here, on our shore. They will not burn those.” Achilles said coolly.

  “I see” Patroclus said, and the anger in his tone was even more intense. “So will you cast off and leave Troy, leave your friends behind, dead? Is that what you call honor/”

  “Don’t preach to me about honor,” Achilles answered. I have no stain on me nor will I ever. If I have to I will storm the walls of Troy myself, at the head of my brave men, but I will not do it with as a vassal of Agamemnon until he abases himself in the dust before me to pay for the insult he has paid me. “

  “And meanwhile our men die and without you they cannot win.”

  “That is not my choice, “Achilles said coldly.

  “The let me make mine,” Patroclus said.

  They had become calmer and I sensed that affection had triumphed over anger.

  “What will you do? Achilles said in a quiet voice. I felt the apprehension in his tone.

  What he did all the world knows all too well.

  In desperation Patroclus played his final card.

  “Lend me your armor. In it I will go to battle. When they see you—me—riding to the field you know what will happen—they will believe that you have come to war and out of fear they will surely scatter and retreat.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. How could that plan work?