Troy: A Brand of Fire
Page 61
*
Are all our actions thus Fated? Those of gods and men alike?
Once I believed as most men do, that it is the three sisters of Fate who control our destinies; the fine-armed Daughters of Night. Clothos the Spinner, who spools the thread of a life onto her spindle. Lachesis the Allotter, who measures the thread. And Atropos the Inexorable, who cuts the thread with her shears, and turns a deaf ear to all pleas. They cannot be persuaded, or bribed, or bargained with. They are implacable, and even gods die at their hands in the end.
I no longer believe so.
We choose our fates, we mortal men. More often than not it’s we who set our own paths. And in choosing we condemn ourselves to blood and ruin, time and again as generations pass.
We did so in the years before Agamemnon called the Greek kings to war against Troy.
Telamon could have handed Hesione back, and been honoured for it. Instead he let himself be ruled by pride. Atreus, and later Agamemnon, could have pressured him to do so, and yet did not. Antenor could have shown more caution, Priam held out against the yearning of his heart to see his sister again. And so, and so; and step by step the world was dragged into the most ruinous war any of us had ever known, even in myth.
Could the gods have been involved in this? Guiding men’s hearts, hastening their tongues, heating their blood? Perhaps. But events would have proceeded the same way without them, and so I tend now to believe events did proceed without them. We men are good at choosing ruin. We don’t need gods to show us the way.
That winter messages ran through Greece, calling the kings and their armies to Aulis on the second full moon after the Festival of Anthesteria. At the same time similar missives spread across Troas and beyond, to the allies and friends of Troy. To Pandarus on Mount Ida, and Aeneas in Dardanos. South to king Crethon of Kolonia, Eetion in Thebe-under-Plakos, and further afield to Sarpedon of Lydia and Chromis of Mysia. Word ran back, promising aid when the attack came.
One other city was asked for aid. There was never any doubt what Miletos would do. It had suffered worse than any at Greek hands, and its king Danel sent back a vow to help Troy stand with all the strength he owned or could call on.
Meanwhile moats were cleaned out and deepened. Walls were rebuilt and made higher. Men were recruited as soldiers and trained. Fletchers produced barrels full of arrows, to be stacked on every rooftop and every tower; carpenters turned out spears by the thousand; metallurgists produced swords and points and buckles for cuirasses. Food was dried and stored carefully in jars.
The Greeks knew all this was happening but were powerless to prevent it. Ships do not sail the seas in winter. Those which try too often end wrecked on rocks, or simply vanish, swallowed by storm waves or dragged down by Nereids, the nymphs of the sea. But men trained in Greece too, while artisans churned out all the weaponry of war, and in the ports shipwrights worked day and night to make new galleys to carry the armies to Troy. I saw them myself that winter, in Attica where men laboured at the great harbour of the Piraeus. I even helped to carry a timber for a hull once, when one of the workers caught his foot and twisted the ankle too badly to walk.
“You’ve a sturdy heart,” one of the men said to me afterwards, “but your body isn’t strong enough for this, Thersites. Best leave it to us.”
That was my contribution, during those long months of preparation. I carried one log to be split for planking. Hardly a hero’s effort; but then, whoever heard of a hero like me?
But I should not be dismayed. I am still here, when so many heroes who went to Troy lie still in its black earth. That winter they yet lived, and prepared for what was to come.
About the Author
I’m Ben Blake, and I hope you enjoyed the first volume of my version of the tale of Troy. If you could leave a review that’d be great.
The second volume, Heirs of Immortality, is due out in the autumn of 2014.
Feel free to contact me if you like, whether you liked the novel or not;
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/benblakeauthor.
Blog: https://benblake.blogspot.co.uk/
Email: ben.blake@hotmail.co.uk
Also by Ben Blake
The Risen King
Blood and Gold (Songs of Sorrow volume 1)
The Gate of Angels (Songs of Sorrow volume 2)