Authors: Colleen McCullough
After Troilos died Aineas came to life. He shook off his apathy and threw the remainder of the Trojan army in our teeth, everywhere among the soldiers, but careful never to get within a spear-cast of Achilles. A wily one, the Dardanian. He wanted very desperately to live; I wondered what passions drove the man, for he was no coward.
The sun had gone, the storm was gathering fast. So massive was the latent power we could feel stored in the sky that the troops began to mutter loudly of omens. The clouds dropped lower and lower, the lightning flashed closer, we could hear the thunder above the roar of battle. I had never seen such a sky before, nor felt the Sky Father prickle and ripple up and down my backbone. The light had grown dim, had an eerie sulphurous glow, and the clouds were as black as the beard of Hades, curling like smoke from a huge oil fire, lit to vivid blue by the lightning. I heard the Myrmidons behind us saying that Father Zeus was sending us an omen of complete victory, and from the way they behaved I fancied that the Trojans took it as a complete Greek victory too.
There was a scorching flash of white fire right in front of us. The team reared and I had to cover my eyes for fear of being blinded. When the afterdazzle faded I looked at Achilles.
‘Let’s dismount,’ I said. ‘It’s safer on the ground.’
For the first time that day his eyes met mine. Dumbfounded, I stared. It was as if the bolts played around his head; his yellow eyes were alight with joy and he laughed at my fears.
‘See it, Automedon? See it? My great-grandfather prepares to mourn me! He holds me a fit descendant of his seed!’
I gaped.
‘Mourn?
Achilles, what do you mean?’
In answer he gripped both my wrists hard. ‘I’m called. Today I die, Automedon. The Myrmidons are yours until you can send for my son. Father Zeus prepares for my death.’
I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it! Like a man caught in a nightmare I whipped the team onward. When my shock evaporated a little I sought for the best thing to do, and as unobtrusively as possible I began to edge the car nearer and nearer to Ajax and Odysseus, whose men fought side by side.
If Achilles noticed what I was doing he dismissed it as quite irrelevant. I looked up at the sky and prayed, begged the Father to take my life and spare his; but the God only roared his derision and set me shaking. The Trojans made a sudden dash for their walls, we followed pellmell to head them off. Ajax was closer now; I kept edging the chariot up until I could get the message to him that Achilles fancied himself called. If any man could avert it, that man was Ajax.
We were within the shadow of the Western Curtain, too near the Skaian Gate to permit of Priam’s opening it. Achilles, Ajax and Odysseus penned Aineas against the gate in a last ditch stand. Achilles was determined to have Aineas; I could feel it in his silence even as I prayed that he wouldn’t get the chance to come at this most dangerous of all the Trojan leaders left alive.
I heard him give a grunt of content and saw the Dardanian within range, too beset to take a full account of those ranged against him. He was a perfect target. Achilles raised Old Pelion, the muscles in his arm bulging as he gathered power for the cast, his naked armpit covered in fine golden hair. My eyes followed the line of the spear to Aineas in fascination, knowing that life was over for the Dardanian, that the last great threat was no more.
It all seemed to happen in the same instant, though I swear that it wasn’t the chariot made Achilles lose his balance. He went over on his right ankle, even though it looked firmly braced in the stirrup, and his right arm flew even higher as he fought to keep his stance. I heard a thud, saw the arrow stuck almost to its bright blue flights in that naked armpit. Old Pelion fell uncast to the ground as Achilles reared up like some titan, then shrieked out Chiron’s war cry in a voice brazen with triumph, as if he conquered mortality itself. His arm fell and drove the arrow in to its hilt, deeper than shame or death. I held onto the team with both hands, Xanthos plunging in terror, Balios hanging his head, Podargos beating a tattoo with his hooves. But Patrokles wasn’t there to speak for them, to give their grief and horror human words.
All who heard the war cry turned to look; Ajax screamed as if he too had been hit. The blood gushed from that lipless mouth and from both nostrils, cascading over the golden armour in great rivers. Odysseus was right behind Ajax; he gave a shout of rage and futility, his hand outstretched, pointing. Safe near a rock, Paris stood with his bow in his hand, smiling.
It could not have been long that Achilles hung upright, before he toppled over the chariot’s rail into Ajax’s arms and bore him to the ground with a clang of armour that echoed in our hearts and would not fade away. I was beside Ajax as he knelt with his cousin in his arms, as Ajax took off the helmet and stared dumbly into the scarlet, running face. Achilles saw who held him, but the vision of death was much bigger, much closer. He tried vainly to speak, the words drowned; for a moment the farewell was there in his eyes. Then the pupils dilated, the yellow irises were driven away by featureless, transparent black. Three frightful jerks which taxed Ajax’s strength, and it was over. He was dead. Achilles was dead. We looked into the lucent vacant windows of his eyes and saw nothing behind. Ajax put out a huge, clumsy hand to brush the lids down shut, then put the helm on again and strapped it tightly, his tears falling faster and faster, his mouth all awry.
He was dead. Achilles was dead. How could we ever bear it?
Shock must have held both armies immobile; suddenly the Trojans fell on us like hounds licking the blood of men. They were after the body and the armour. Odysseus leaped to his feet, careless that he wept. The Myrmidons were standing silent, the impossible a reality at their feet. Bending, Odysseus picked up Old Pelion and brandished it in their faces.
‘Are you going to let them take him?’ he yelled, spitting. ‘You saw what a cur’s trick it took to kill him! Are you just going to stand there and let them take his body from you? In the name of Achilles himself, stand by him now!’
They shook off their shock and rallied; no Trojan would get near Achilles while one of them lived. Forming in front of us, they took the charge in savage and sullen grief. Odysseus helped the weeping Ajax to his feet, helped him swing the limp and very heavy form into his arms.
‘Carry him back beyond the lines, Ajax. I’ll make sure they don’t break through.’
As if it were an afterthought, he shoved Old Pelion into Ajax’s right hand and pushed him on his way. I had always had my reservations about Odysseus, but he was a king. Sword in his hand, he swung round and planted his feet widely on the earth still steaming with Achilles’s blood. We took the Trojan charge and beat it off, Aineas howling like a jackal when he saw Ajax trudging away. I looked at Odysseus.
‘Ajax is strong, but not strong enough to walk far carrying Achilles. Let me catch him up, put Achilles with me.’
He nodded.
So I turned the team in pursuit of Ajax, who had emerged from the back of our lines and still plodded towards the beach. At which moment, while I was still too far away to help, a chariot flew past me, its driver aiming to head Ajax off: one of Priam’s sons was in it, for he wore the purple insignia of the House of Dardanos on his cuirass. Trying to put some heart into my team, I yelled a warning to Ajax. But he didn’t seem to hear.
The Trojan prince saundered down from his perch, sword in hand, smiling. Which indicated that he didn’t know Ajax, who never faltered as he walked on. He lifted Achilles higher in his arms and spitted the Trojan on Old Pelion, the afterthought Odysseus had placed in his hand.
‘Ajax, lie Achilles in the car,’ I said, drawing level.
‘I’ll carry him home.’
‘It’s too far, you’ll kill yourself.’
‘I’ll carry him!’
‘Then at least,’ I said desperately, ‘let us take the armour off him, put that in the car. It would be more fitting.’
‘And I’d feel his body, not its casing. Yes, we can do that.’
The moment Achilles was freed from that awful weight Ajax walked on, cuddling his cousin, kissing his ruined face, talking to him, crooning.
The army was following us slowly, coming across the plain; I kept the chariot just behind Ajax, his great legs toiling as if he could have walked a hundred leagues holding Achilles.
The God had contained his grief long enough. He let it loose upon our heads, and all the vault of the heavens broke into white bolts of fire. The team shivered and stopped, pinned by fear; even Ajax came to a halt, standing while the thunder cracked and rolled overhead and the lightning played a fantastic lacework in the clouds. The rain began to fall at last, huge heavy drops coming stiffly and sparsely, as if the God was too moved to weep easily. The tempo of the rain increased, we floundered in a sea of mud. The army drew level with us, all conflict abandoned before the might of the Thunderer, and together we brought Achilles in across the Skamander causeway, Ajax leading and the King behind him. In the pouring rain we laid him on a bier, while the Father washed his blood away with sky tears.
I went with Odysseus to the house to find Brise. She was by the doorpost, it seemed expecting us.
‘Achilles is dead,’ said Odysseus.
‘Where is he?’ she asked, voice steady.
‘Before Agamemnon’s house.’ Odysseus still wept.
Brise stroked his arm and smiled. ‘There’s no need to grieve, Odysseus. He will be immortal.’
They had rigged up a canopy over the bier to keep off the rain; Brise ducked under its edge and stood looking down at the ruins of that magnificent man, water and blood matting his bright hair, his face drained and still. I wondered if she saw what I did: that the lipless mouth looked right in death, though it never had in life. Owning it, his was the face of the quintessential warrior.
But what she thought, she did not say, then or ever. With perfect tenderness she leaned over and kissed his eyelids, took his hands and folded them on his chest, tucked and patted at the shift until it suited her idea of rightness.
He was dead. Achilles was dead. How could we ever bear it?
We mourned him for seven full days. On the last evening as the sun was setting we laid his body on the golden death car and ferried him across Skamander to the tomb in the cliff. Brise went with us, for no one had the heart to banish her; she walked at the end of the long cortege with her hands folded and her head bent. Ajax was the chief mourner, held the head of Achilles in the palm of one hand as they carried him into the chamber. He was clad in gold, but not in the golden armour. That Agamemnon had taken into custody.
After the priests had said the words, fitted the golden mask over his face and poured out the libations, we filed slowly out of the tomb he shared with Patrokles, Perithesileia and twelve noble Trojan youths. Strangest of all those many strange events and portents was the atmosphere inside the tomb; sweet, pure, ineffable. The blood of the twelve youths in the golden chalice was still liquid, still richly coloured crimson.
I turned back to make sure Brise was following, to find that she knelt by the death car. Though I had no hope of reaching her, I ran into the tomb, Nestor by my side. We couldn’t speak as she laid the knife down with the last of her strength and sank upon the ground. Yes, that was proper! How could any of us face the light of a day that knew no Achilles? I half bent to pick up the knife, but Nestor stopped me.
‘Come away, Automedon. They want no others here.’
The funeral feast was held the following day, but there were no games. Agamemnon explained.
‘I doubt anyone has the heart to compete. But that isn’t why. The why lies in the fact that Achilles didn’t want to be buried in the armour his mother – a Goddess! – commissioned from Hephaistos Fire. He wanted it awarded as a prize to the best man left alive before Troy. Instead of funeral games.’
I didn’t disbelieve him, exactly, but Achilles hadn’t mentioned this to me. ‘How, sire, can you possibly decide that? By feats of arms? But sometimes they’re not indicative of genuine greatness.’
‘Precisely,’ said the High King. ‘For that reason, I’m going to make it a contest of words. Any man who thinks that he’s the best man left alive before Troy, step out and tell me why.’
Two contenders only stepped out. Ajax and Odysseus. How odd! They represented the two poles of greatness: the warrior and the – what did one call him, the man who worked through mind?
‘Yes, fitting,’ said Agamemnon. ‘Ajax, you brought his body in. Odysseus, you made it possible to bring the body in. Ajax, speak first and tell me why you think you deserve the armour.’
We all sat on chairs to either side of Agamemnon, I with King Nestor and the rest because I led the Myrmidons now. There were no others present.
Ajax seemed to be as troubled as he was wordless; he stood there, the biggest man I have ever seen, without a thing to say. Nor did he look well; there was something wrong with his right side from face to leg. When he had walked forward he had dragged that leg, nor did the right arm move in a natural way. A little stroke, I thought. He’s had a little stroke. Carrying his cousin so far has strained the weakest part of him, his mind. And when finally he did speak, he kept pausing painfully to search for a word.
‘Imperial High King, fellow Kings and Princes… I am the first cousin of Achilles. His father, Peleus, and my father, Telamon, were full brothers. Their father, Aiakos, was a son of Zeus. Ours is a great lineage. Ours is a great name. I claim the armour for myself because I bear that name, come from that line. I can’t let it be awarded to a man who is the bastard of a common thief.’
The row of twenty men stirred, frowned. What was Ajax doing, to slander Odysseus? Not that Odysseus protested; apparently deaf, he looked at the ground.
‘I came to Troy voluntarily, as did Achilles. No oath bound either of us.
I
didn’t have to be unmasked when I feigned madness, but Odysseus did. Only two men in this great host fought Hektor in hand to hand combat – Achilles and I. I need no Diomedes to do my dirty work for me. What use would the armour be to Odysseus? His weak left hand couldn’t hope to cast Old Pelion. His red head would sink beneath the weight of that helmet. If you doubt my right to my cousin’s property, then throw it into the middle of a pack of Trojans, and see which one of the two of us pulls it out!’