Troy: A Brand of Fire

by Ben Blake

  *

  The Greek kings were called to see Priam the next day, an hour after a ship ran ashore a little way up the Simois River.

  Nestor thought immediately that the deceit must be about to end. He became certain of it when the three men entered Priam’s diamond-patterned throne room to find the walls lined with soldiers in full battle dress. They were Apollonians, their cuirasses lacquered in white and gold, spears upright in one hand and swords belted at their hips. The best Troy had to offer, their elites. Nestor felt his muscles tighten even as he observed Menelaus’ chin come up, and his eyes flare in anger. This was not going to be a pleasant meeting. The presence of those fighting men made that obvious.

  Hector was armoured too, standing to one side of the dais with his silver helmet gleaming under one arm. On the other side stood Antenor, his lined face impassive, and beside him the very tall figure of Laocoon, the seer.

  Nestor was expecting trouble, but not the shock that awaited them.

  “I wonder,” Priam said to Menelaus, with no introduction at all, “whether you recognise this.”

  A servant came forward to pass something to the Spartan king. It was too small for Nestor to see what it was, until Menelaus gasped in disbelief and opened his fingers. There on his palm rested an emerald cut into twenty faces, set into a sheath of filigreed silver. It meant nothing to Nestor, but Menelaus had lost all colour and his hand was shaking.

  “What is this?” Nestor asked.

  Priam smiled. “Tell him, lord of Laconia.”

  “It’s… Helen’s,” Menelaus stammered. “My wife’s. I gave it to her when we married. It came all the way from India.” He looked up at the throne. “How did you come by it?”

  “Helen gave it to my son Paris,” Priam said. “When he took her from Sparta five days ago. A ship brought the news this morning.”

  Menelaus’ hand tightened convulsively around the gemstone. “You will hand her back. At once.”

  “Strange,” Priam mused, “how often I have said that about my sister, with no result. Tell me, king of Sparta. How hard did you try to see Hesione returned to me, through all these years?”

  There was a deadly silence.

  “You will return her,” Menelaus repeated.

  “There is no need for this,” Menestheus began, but Priam stopped him with a raised hand. “Antenor.”

  A door opened, somewhere Nestor couldn’t see. A moment later three people emerged from behind a statue in one corner, of the Trojans’ father-god Tarhun throwing a thunderbolt. A man and two boys, the elder approaching the age where he would be called a man himself. Nestor thought they were family, a father and his sons most likely.

  “This is Balzer,” Antenor said. “Until recently, he and his family lived in a town called Teos, on the coast of Mysia. You may have heard of it.”

  Menelaus only glared, but Menestheus shook his head. Nestor tried to watch them and Priam as well, with a little bit of attention left for Antenor and the three newcomers. He moved only his eyes, giving nothing away, his thoughts shut behind his mask.

  “Balzer is going to tell you a story,” Antenor said. He nodded to the Mysian.

  “I was a carpenter,” the southerner said. “I had a good business, a good life in Teos. Then we were raided. Men in black armour. They killed my wife and ravaged the town.”

  “You must have had sentries,” Menestheus began. He broke off when Hector tapped fingernails against his silver helmet.

  “I heard the names they called each other,” Balzer went on. “Achilles. Eudorus. Patroclus. They were Myrmidons, and they would have sold my sons into slavery except that Achilles released us, on condition that my daughter Išbardia went with him as his bed mate.”

  “Thank you,” Antenor said. “You may go.”

  Balzer put hands on his sons’ shoulders and guided them away. There was silence until the hidden door closed behind them.

  “You see,” Antenor said then, “the Argives are still abducting women from the Anatolian shore. Hesione was not an isolated incident, and these takings are not a thing of the past. Greeks have not raided here for a generation, and you’ve told my emissaries that stealing our women is a thing of the past, not to be concerned over anymore. And now this.”

  “That was not me,” Menelaus began.

  Antenor spoke right over him, a shocking insult to a king. “My own thought is that the Argives have avoided our shores out of fear of Hittite retaliation. But now you’ve forgotten that lesson, or else you think Hattusa is no longer able to protect us. Or that Troy cannot protect herself. Whichever is true, Greece thinks, once again, that she can plunder and steal with impunity.”

  “You cannot,” Hector said, speaking for the first time. “Troy will not allow it. If women are things of no value, to be taken at will and used, or abused, then that truth works for us as well as for you. Since Argives see women as trophies, as plunder, why should not Troy?”

  “This is why you invited us,” Nestor said. It was the first time he’d spoken, too. “It was all a pretence, just to get Menelaus out of Sparta so Paris could sneak in behind. No more than that.”

  “Precisely,” Priam said.

  “I will take Helen back,” Menelaus grated. “Whatever it takes, I will find her and take her back.”

  Hector smiled thinly. “You won’t need to find her. She’ll be right here in Troy.”

  “And here she will stay,” Priam said, “until the Argives show they are willing to negotiate in good faith. You have never cared a fig for the concerns of Troy. Now you must.”

  “I demand to see my wife,” Menelaus snapped.

  “Demand?” Priam repeated.

  He gave no signal that Nestor saw, but the guards around the perimeter of the room took a single step forward, all as one. Menelaus opened his mouth and then closed it again. He’d never been an especially forceful man; Agamemnon was the dominant brother in that respect. Menelaus looked at the soldiers and let himself be overawed.

  “Your wife isn’t here,” Antenor said. “She and Prince Paris will make their way to Troy at a different time. But if she was, my lord, we would still not let you see her. Go home, all of you. Go and tell your people that the women and towns of Troas are no longer yours to despoil as you please. And then, if you wish to talk, you will be welcome back in Troy.”

  “This is an outrage!” Menelaus shouted. But the Apollonians were moving forward again, pushing the three Argive kings towards the ornate doors. On his throne Priam smiled and seemed not to hear. Nestor watched him as he backed away, but he didn’t see any emotion at all on that ageing face before the doors swung shut.