Troy: A Brand of Fire

by Ben Blake

  *

  The king’s palace stood at one side of the Pergamos, the great citadel at the northern end of Troy. On three sides the roof of the lower stories formed balconies outside windows on the upper floors. On summer evenings it was possible to sit and drink wine while looking over the Bay of Troy, or westward over the plain teeming with horses. Usually Priam sat to the south, above the city itself, letting the palace shelter him from the wind.

  This evening not even that was possible. The Meltemi had been blowing hard for nearly a week, and his bones were too old to enjoy sitting in that chill wind. Servants had closed the light summer shutters and set lamps around the room. A brazier sat in front of the fireplace, occasionally grumbling to itself as the wood within crackled as it burned.

  Hecuba had gone to her own quarters, with her own servants. Probably she was planning Hector’s wedding. It would be soon, Priam knew: a chariot had already been sent to inform Eetion that the prince of Troy was home, and his bride was now expected. Marriages, and so alliances, were the domain of the queen: those, and the sanctuaries. Priam had always been content to leave them to his wife, while he busied himself with trade, and when necessary with war.

  “Tell me,” he said. “What should we be wary of, now we know Andromache is to be your wife?”

  Ucalegon steepled his fingers and said nothing. He was a good advisor, the kind who knew when to speak and when to shout, and most of all when to stay silent. A rare gift, that. By the wine tray Hector poured himself a quarter cup, watered it heavily, and then came back to his chair before he spoke.

  “Not the Dardanians,” he sat at length. “Marrying Creusa to Aeneas was a clever move. As well as making them both happy.”

  “Obvious,” Priam said.

  Hector nodded. “Not the Lydians either, since Mother came from there. The only difficulty I can see would be the Trojans from outside the city.”

  “I agree,” Priam said. “Your solution?”

  Hector shrugged. “Leave it to Mother. This is her affair.”

  “And if Andromache proves less adept at dealing with those affairs than your mother is?” Priam asked. “You must know it for yourself, son, so you can teach her. Or teach another wife, if Andromache should die. You may have to do this when both the queen and I have gone to the next world. So bend your mind to the task. What is your solution?”

  Hector nodded again. He’d had time to bathe now, and had changed his armour for a plain shirt and equally simple kilt and boots. The fading yellow of bruises showed below the cuffs and hem, marks of a hard campaign in the east, but if he was weary it didn’t show. The young were resilient. The young and very strong could deal with almost anything, and Hector was very strong. Sometimes he almost seemed made of stone.

  “In this case, the solution is for me to go see Pandarus,” Hector said. “I can go tomorrow, spend a day with him and still be back in Troy before Andromache can set out from Thebe-under-Plakos. He’s no fool, and he trusts me – as I do him. But this is going to be a problem soon, Father. A lot of Trojans live outside the city now. Keeping them content is harder every year.”

  “You expect trouble?”

  “Perhaps not in the way you mean,” Hector said slowly. He sipped from his cup. “I can’t see an uprising, if that’s what you ask. But Zeleia has two thousand citizens now, and Pandarus is something close to a king in his own right there, just as much as Eetion is in Thebe. Leris and Mela are thriving. Even on the edges of the plain of Troy towns grow every year; I remember when Bunarbi was a tiny fishing port. Now five hundred souls live there.”

  “What would you do about it?”

  “I have no idea,” Hector said frankly. “It’s a new situation, one we haven’t faced before. Troy has always been one city and a few settlements scattered around it. Now there are Trojans from the Hellespont to Mount Ida, and as far east as the Granicus. They’re loyal to the city, but in fifty years they might not be. Do you have a suggestion?”

  Ucalegon leaned forward slightly. “I suggested that royal cousins be placed in the towns as children. When they grow they would be governors, in the name of the king of Troy.”

  “That could work,” Hector said, after a moment. “As long as they’re clever enough to govern well, and while the supply of royal cousins holds out.”

  Priam smiled. “Make sure you and Andromache have many children. It seems you’ll need them.”

  Hector returned the smile, but didn’t answer. He never talked about the women he’d known, or in this case that he would know. Unlike Paris, who couldn’t seem to touch a woman without boasting about it the next day. It was hard to stay angry with Paris for long, though; even the women rarely managed it. He would give a self-deprecating smile, and the old laughter would glimmer in his eyes, and suddenly it was impossible not to forgive him.

  “There is word from the west,” Ucalegon said.

  Hector looked up. “My aunt?”

  “No good news on that score. Telamon still refuses to let her leave.” Priam’s brows had drawn down. “I sent Antenor back to Greece a month ago, to speak with the kings one by one, in their own halls. It might be possible to cultivate some support that way. Though I hold out little hope.”

  “She has been there twenty years,” Hector said. His deep voice had become rough with anger. “Half her life. We treat our horses better than that brute Telamon treats her.”

  “I agree,” Priam said. “Which is why, if he fails to gain support, Antenor is to inform the High King that duties on Argive goods using the Trojan Road are to be raised by half. More than that for olive oil and wine.”

  “Good,” Hector said. “If they won’t behave like civilised men, we shouldn’t treat them as such.”

  “And if the taxes bring no response?” Ucalegon asked over his steepled fingers. “If the Greeks are enraged, rather than chastened?”

  “Then we’ve lost nothing,” Hector shrugged.

  Priam was looking at the councillor closely. “What is it you fear, my friend? Will they attack us?”

  “They might,” Ucalegon allowed. “An Argive fleet could burn Bunarbi, or Leris in the south. That would hurt us as much as raised taxes hurts them. Nobody wins in such a dispute.” He folded his hands and sighed. “Oh, never mind me. I’m just trying to think of all the possibilities.”

  “They would be fools to attack Troy,” Hector said. “One sight of our walls and half the soldiers would flee back to their ships and row for home as hard as they could. We are not an easy fruit to pluck.”

  “We would also have Hittite support,” Priam said. “Your new stature with Urhi-Tešub will stand us in good stead, if the Argives are stupid enough to challenge us over this.”

  “Paris,” Ucalegon said, choosing his words with obvious care, “believes we should consider a raid on Salamis, if the taxes fail. So does Antenor.”

  Hector wasn’t likely to pay much attention to anything Paris said, of course. The eldest brother had little except contempt for the youngest. The smiles and mischievous eyes that charmed so many women worked no spell on Hector. But he’d listen to Antenor’s ideas, which was undoubtedly why Ucalegon had added that name too. It was a shame that Antenor was the same age as Priam, and wouldn’t be there to offer advice to Hector when he became king: not for long, anyway. Most of that burden would fall on Ucalegon, who was a decade younger.

  Priam hoped he could find a way to bring Aeneas to the city more often. The young king of Dardanos was cleverer by far than Ucalegon, or Pandarus in Zeleia; as wily in fact as Antenor himself. If Priam had realised that a little earlier he would have made it a condition of Aeneas’ marriage to Creusa that they spend each summer in Troy. But he hadn’t, and now Aeneas didn’t want to leave his little city on the Hellespont, so another way would have to be found. He and Hector had been friends since childhood. There must be something that would persuade Aeneas to come. Priam made a mental note to speak with Hecuba about it. Perhaps the priests she dealt with would have an idea.

  �
��A raid in Greece would be a last resort,” Hector said now. “It could be done, from a simple military standpoint. Especially now we have Phereclus here from Colchis, to build us ships to match those of the Euxine Sea. I could lead it myself easily enough.”

  “No,” Priam said. “Bad enough that you must fight for Hattusa when our liege lords call. I will not send you to raid the Greek coast as well.”

  “Aeneas, then,” Hector said. “Or Pandarus, for that matter. But only if all else fails. Taxes might not inflame the Argives to war, but an attack on their homeland will.”

  “Telamon is old,” Ucalegon pointed out. He’d formed his fingers into a pyramid again. “Old and fat. He cares for nothing but wine and spilling his seed in whores. A raid on Salamis will enrage him, but it need not spur him to action. We don’t have to worry about him.”

  “We don’t have to worry about this matter at all, for the moment,” Priam said. “It’s a suggestion only, one I’d like my son to think on before Antenor returns from Greece.”

  He wondered, actually, whether it might be wisest to accept the loss of Hesione and move on. The gods knew, Argives had taken women from foreign lands before. To them it was nothing out of the ordinary. Andromeda from Joppa, Ariadne from Crete, Medea from Colchis: even their father-god Zeus had taken one, turning himself into a great bull to seize Europa from Lydia and carry her away to be ravished. There was hardly a city in the world that had not lost a queen or priestess to the raiding Greeks.

  But it was different when it was your own sister. Priam heard those other names as only that, words without faces to go with them, no stories and characters at all. No tug at his heart. He’d known Hesione though, had grown up with her in this very palace. When she was very small he used to bring her flowers from the meadows, and she’d accept them with grave solemnity, as though he was a suitor declaring his love. She was gentle, a compassionate soul, and his own spirit bled to think of her caged by a tyrant far from her home.

  But Hector barely remembered her, and to his children she would be just a name like all the others, words without faces to go with them. Hardly something for Troy and the Greeks to argue over.

  He would talk to Laocoon, he decided. The Seer gave good advice, although usually Priam had to sacrifice a ram or spend the night making offerings at Athena’s temple before he heard it. Still, the guidance of the gods could be a good thing, as long as it didn’t go too far. Troy was Priam’s to rule. He would not give that up even to a goddess.

  He sipped his wine, almost as heavily watered as Hector’s, and wished his bones didn’t feel so cold. Outside the Meltemi went on blowing, its voice like children crying in the dark.