Authors: Colleen McCullough
‘What is this?’ I asked, not knowing how to take more anguish.
The tip of the weapon went to his throat, he offered me its hilt. ‘Kill me! I failed you, Achilles. I took away your honour.’
‘I failed myself, Patrokles.
I
took away my honour.’
‘Kill me!’ he implored.
I took the sword and flung it away. ‘No.’
‘I deserve to die!’
‘We all deserve to die, but that won’t be our fate,’ I said, fingers busy with the buckles on my cuirass.
He began to help me; habits are ineradicable, even in pain.
‘I’m to blame, Patrokles. My pride and my ambition! How could I leave her fate hanging on such thin, flimsy strands? I was learning to love her, I would have married her gladly. No shame in it to divorce Deidamia – she was a shrewd plot between my father and Lykomedes to keep me out of trouble. You told me to send Iphigenia straight back to her mother, and that was sound advice. I said no because I couldn’t bear to imperil my position in the army. I listened to pride and ambition, and I fell.’
The armour was off. Patrokles began to stow it away in its chest. Always acting as my servant.
‘What happened then?’ I asked him as he poured wine for us.
‘It looked good,’ he said, coming to sit opposite me. ‘We got the deer.’ His eyes darkened, gathered tears. ‘But I decided not to share the glory with Automedon. I wanted all your praise for myself alone. So I went with the deer and hid behind the altar on my own. Then the creature grew agitated, began to bleat. I had forgotten to drug it! Had Automedon been with me, we could have muzzled it. But on my own – impossible. Kalchas found me. He’s a warrior, Achilles! One moment I was staring up at him, the next he had taken hold of the chalice and struck me with it. When I came to I was bound hand and foot, a cloth in my mouth. That is why I beg you to kill me. Had I taken Automedon, all would have gone as planned.’
‘To kill you, Patrokles, would mean I’d have to kill myself. Too easy. Only as living men can we eke out our punishment. As dead men we feel nothing, shades knowing neither joy nor pain. No fitting retribution,’ I said, the wine sour on my tongue.
He swallowed, nodded. ‘Yes, I understand. While I live I must remember my jealousy. While you live you must remember your ambition. A worse fate than death by far.’
But Patrokles did not have to remember the look in her eyes, the contempt. What must have passed through her mind between the time they told her the truth and the moment Kalchas’s knife found her throat? How must she have thought of me, who had acted like her well beloved, then heartlessly abandoned her? Her shade would haunt me for the rest of my life. Short and glorious, then! Let my life be short and glorious.
‘When do we go back to Iolkos?’ Patrokles asked.
‘Iolkos?
No! We sail for Troy.’
‘After this?’
‘Troy is a part of my punishment. And Troy means I will not have to face my father, for I will die there. What would he think of me if he knew? Let the Gods spare him that.’
NARRATED BY
Agamemnon
I had my daughter buried at dead of night in a deep grave, unmarked, under a pile of rocks by the grey sea. Nor could I dower her fittingly in death, save to dress her richly and put all her little hoard of girlish jewels on her.
Achilles had promised to send a message to my wife blaming all of us; I could try to avert that by getting to her first. Yet I couldn’t find the words or the man. What man could I trust who wasn’t sailing with me? And what words could soften the blow I dealt Klytemnestra – what words could lessen her loss? No matter what disagreements had flared between us, my wife had always considered me a great man, one worthy to be her husband. Yet she was a Lakedaimonian, and the influence of Mother Kubaba was still very much alive there. When she learned of Iphigenia’s death, she would try to bring back the Old Religion, rule in my stead as High Queen in fact – and in power.
At which moment I thought of a man in my train whom I could spare: my cousin Aigisthos.
The history of our House – the House of Pelops – is horrible. My father, Atreus, and Aigisthos’s father, Thyestes, were brothers who vied for the throne of Mykenai after Eurysthesus died; Herakles should have inherited, but he was murdered. Many crimes were committed for the sake of the Lion Throne of Mykenai. My father did the unspeakable: murdered his nephews, stewed them, and served them up to Thyestes as a dish fit for a king. Even knowing this, the people chose Atreus as High King, banished Thyestes. Who fathered Aigisthos on a Pelopid woman and then tried to foist the child off on Atreus as
his
son after Atreus married the woman. That was not the end of it. Thyestes connived at my father’s murder and returned to the throne as High King until I was grown enough to wrest it off him, banish him.
But I had always liked my cousin Aigisthos, who was far younger than I, a handsome and charming fellow I got on with better than I did with my own brother, Menelaos. However, my wife neither liked nor trusted Aigisthos because he was the son of Thyestes and had a legitimate claim to the throne she was determined none but Orestes would inherit.
I sent for him as soon as I had worked out how much to tell him. His standing depended absolutely upon my good favour, which meant it behooved him to please me. So I sent Aigisthos to Klytemnestra, well primed and loaded with gifts. Iphigenia was dead, yes, but not at my command. Odysseus had planned and executed it. She’d believe
that.
‘I
won’t be away from Greece long,’ I said to Aigisthos before he left, ‘but it’s vital that Klytemnestra doesn’t go to the people and revive the Old Religion. You’ll be my watchdog.’
‘Artemis has always been your enemy,’ he said, kneeling to kiss my hand. ‘Don’t worry, Agamemnon. I’ll see that Klytemnestra behaves herself.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Of course, I was hoping for spoils from Troy. I’m a poor man.’
‘You’ll have your share of the spoils,’ I said. ‘Now go.’
The morning after the sacrifice I woke from a wine-soaked sleep to find the day clear and calm. The clouds and wind had fled during the night; only the water dripping off the tent eaves spoke of the moons of storm we had endured. I forced myself to offer Artemis thanks for her co-operation, but never again would I petition the Archeress for help. My poor little daughter was gone, not even a grave stele to keep her from anonymity. I couldn’t look at the altar.
Phoinix was in my tent flap agog to commence embarkation; I decided on the morrow if the weather held.
‘It will hold,’ the old man said confidently. ‘The seas between Aulis and Troy will stay as placid as milk in a bowl.’
‘In which case,’ I said, suddenly remembering how Achilles had criticised my supply plans, ‘we’ll offer to Poseidon and take a chance. Cram the ships, Phoinix. Cram them to the gunwales with food. I’ll ransack the countryside for it.’
He looked startled, then grinned. ‘I will, sire, I will!’
Achilles haunted me. His curses rang in my memory, his contempt seared my marrow. Why he blamed himself I couldn’t begin to understand; he was no more capable of defying the Gods than I was. Yet I felt a grudging admiration for him. He had had the courage to flog his guilt in front of his superiors. I wished that Odysseus and Diomedes had not been so concerned for my safety. I wished that Achilles had lopped my head off, ended it there and then.
They pushed my flagship off its slips the next morning as dawn was beginning to suffuse the pale sky with rose. My hands planted firmly on the rail, I stood in the prow, feeling it dip and tremble in the quiet water. The start at last! Then I made my way down to the poop, where the ship’s sides curled up and over into a cowl and the figurehead of Amphitryon watched forward. I turned my back on the oarsmen, glad that mine was a decked ship, that the rowers sat atop the deck and thereby left enough room below for my baggage, my servants, the war chest and all the impedimenta a High King needed. My horses were penned up along with a dozen others right beside the spot where I stood, and the sea rushed smoothly not far below the deck. We were very laden.
In my rear they slipped into the water, big red-and-black ships like centipedes with bristling oars for legs, crawling over the surface of Poseidon’s unfaltering, eternal deeps. Twelve hundred of them altogether when the tally was in; eighty thousand fighting men and twenty thousand helpers of all kinds. Some of the extra ships contained nothing but horses and oarsmen; we are a chariot people, as are the Trojans. I still believed that the campaign would be a short one, but I also understood that we would see no fabled Trojan horses before Troy fell.
Fascinated, I watched the scene, hardly able to credit that mine was the hand at the helm of this mighty force, that the High King of Mykenai was destined to be the High King of the Greek Empire. But not a tenth of the ships had gone down into the sea before my crew had rowed me out into the middle of the Euboian Strait and the beach was tiny in the distance. I knew a momentary panic, wondering how such a vast fleet could manage to hold itself together through the open leagues ahead.
We rounded the tip of Euboia in blazing sun, passed between it and Andros isle, and as Mount Ocha faded at the stern we struck the breezes which always blow around the open Aegaean. Oars were fettered gratefully to stanchions, men swarmed around the mast; the scarlet leather sail of the imperial flagship blossomed under the pressure of a southwest wind, warm and tender.
I strolled back along the deck between the rowing benches and mounted the short steps to the foredeck, where my special cabin was built. In our wake many vessels plied steadily through the swell breaking in tiny waves about their beaked prows. It seemed as if we were staying together; Telephos was standing right forward, turning his head occasionally to shout instructions to the two men who leaned on the rudder oars, steering us straight. He smiled at me contentedly.
‘Excellent, sire! If the weather holds we’ll keep up our pace in this wind, it’s perfect. There shouldn’t be any need to put in at Chios or Lesbos. We’ll make Tenedos in good time.’
I was satisfied. Telephos was the best navigator in all of Greece, the one man who could guide us to Troy without our running the risk of beaching on some strand far from our destination. He was the only man to whom I would have entrusted the fates of those twelve hundred ships. Helen, I thought, your freedom is short-lived! You’ll be back in Amyklai before you know it, and it will give me enormous pleasure to issue the command to cut off your lovely head with the sacred double axe.
The days passed happily enough. We sighted Chios but pressed on. There was no need to revictual, and the weather was so good that neither Telephos nor I cared to stretch our luck by dallying ashore. The coast of Asia Minor was scarcely out of sight now and Telephos knew the landmarks well, for he had passed up and down that coast hundreds of times during his career. He pointed out the huge isle of Lesbos to me gleefully, sure enough of his course to sail west of it, out of sight of land. The Trojans would not know we were coming.
We came to harbour on the southwest side of Tenedos, an isle very close to the Trojan mainland, on the eleventh day after sailing from Aulis. There was no room to beach so many ships; the best we could do was to let them ride at anchor as close inshore as possible, and hope that the clement weather persisted for a few more days. Tenedos was a fertile place, but boasted only a small population due to its proximity to a city held the largest in the world. As we came in the Tenedians clustered along the shore, their helpless gesticulations betraying their awe.
I clapped Telephos on the shoulder. ‘Well done, pilot! You’ve earned a prince’s share of the spoils.’
Swollen with his triumph, he laughed, then clattered down the steps to the midships, where he was soon surrounded by the hundred and thirty men who had sailed with me.
By nightfall the last of the fleet was nearby; all the top leaders came to join me at my temporary headquarters in Tenedos town. I had already done the most important job, which was to round up every living human soul on the island. No one could be let reach the mainland to inform King Priam what lay on the far side of Tenedos. The Gods, I thought, were united behind Greece.
The following morning I set off on foot for the top of the hills which crowned the centre of the isle, some of the Kings with me for the exercise, glad to be on solid ground. We stood with our cloaks flapping behind us in the wind, looking down across the blue, tranquil water to the Trojan mainland a few leagues away.
We couldn’t miss Troy the city; my first sight of it made my stomach sink. I had thought of it, of course, in the only terms I knew: Mykenai atop the Lion Mountain; the mighty trading seaport of Iolkos; Korinthos commanding both sides of the isthmus; fabulous Athens. But they paled to insignificance. Troy not only towered, it spread as well, like some kind of gigantic stepped ziggurat too far away to discern details.
‘What now?’ I asked Odysseus.
He seemed lost in thought, his grey eyes fixed. But at my question he came back into himself, grinned. ‘My advice is to sail across tonight under cover of darkness, marshal the army at dawn and strike Priam unaware, before he can close his gates. By tomorrow night, sire, you’ll own Troy.’
Nestor squawked, Diomedes and Philoktetes looked horrified. I contented myself with a smile, while Palamedes smirked.
Nestor spoke, saving me the trouble. ‘Odysseus, Odysseus, have you
no
idea of right or wrong at all?’ he demanded. ‘There are laws governing everything, including the conduct of war, and I for one will have no part in a venture wherein the formalities haven’t been observed!
Honour,
Odysseus! Where is honour in your plan? Our names would stink out Olympos! We cannot disregard the law!’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t listen to him, sire! The laws of warfare are unequivocal. We
must
obey them!’
‘Calm down, Nestor, I know the law as well as you do.’ I took Odysseus by the shoulders and shook him gently. ‘Surely you didn’t expect me to listen to such impious advice?’