The Anger of Achilles Page 24

  Because the roof was undamaged and the rear of the building windowless, the further I went, the darker it got. The last thing I saw clearly in the failing light was the empty handcart with the yoke beside it. I did not wait for my eyes to adjust, however, but hurried onward regardless. So it was that I very nearly killed myself. I barked my shins agonisingly on a sharp edge and stumbled forward, mercifully catching the corner of a wall at my right shoulder. I stopped, confused, reeling but upright. After a few moments my eyes began to clear and I saw that I had stumbled over the treasure chest – which was open now and half empty. It had been left at the top of a steep and narrow set of steps. Had I not caught the wall, I would have tumbled headlong down them. I paused for a few heartbeats longer, trying to kick my recalcitrant mind into motion. I could just about make out what was in the chest – mostly ornaments, statues, bracelets, necklaces. Nothing that tempted me to stop following Briseis. But it was clear that had it been full there would have been no chance to get it down the steps for the chest was wider than they were. Looking up and around, the only other thing I managed to work out was that this room seemed relatively undamaged because it had a strong stone arch at its heart – the twin of the triangular structure leading into the tunnel at the northern postern which led to the lake beneath the wells in the agora. Long before I had begun to work out the details of what was going on, I stepped carefully past the chest and went down the stairs.

  I have no idea how many steps there were. I started to count them at first but I was soon taking too much care not to slip on the treacherous stairway and tumble down the rest. At the bottom of the stairs was a small room – not a cave this time, but something carved from the rock beneath the city. I could see this because there was light coming in from a torch that stood in a sconce a little way down a tunnel which opened off the room on my right and led, straight as an arrow, south beneath the outer walls. Although I had said at the outset such escape tunnels were bound to exist, I was completely taken aback to find myself standing in one. But I was here with a purpose, so I soon started to move forward. The tunnel seemed to have a slight upward incline and I knew the hillside above me sloped gently downwards. Did the tunnel open in one of the derelict farmhouses? I wondered. Or would the opening be hidden in some other, unsuspected, location.

  This aspect of my situation seemed important because I needed to work out what I was going to do when I reached the far end. That would depend on what I found there in terms of surroundings, as well as whether I found Briseis, Glaucus or Glaucus’ helpers from the temple of Anu. I focused on these matters which were close at hand. I did not speculate on what Glaucus’ longer term plan might be, though I assumed he had one and that it probably included taking Briseis somewhere he could enjoy her at some length, especially if she fought him tooth and nail.

  vi

  Events began to move with dizzying rapidity then. As I slowly and silently approached the mouth of the tunnel, the ground began to shake and I discovered that I could have made all the noise I wanted. The air was suddenly filled with the kind of sound Zeus creates in the greatest of his thunderstorms, or Poseidon when he makes the earth quake. I saw rapid movement beyond the tunnel mouth and this gave me the confidence to move more swiftly. As I came into daylight I paused, looking around. The tunnel exit was a smaller version of its triangular entrance, set in a low cliff which fronted a mound on the hillside in the middle of a grove of trees. I found myself surrounded by ancient-looking olives. Their gnarled and twisted trunks were close-packed, their branches almost intertwining. They stood taller than I had ever seen olive trees grow; perhaps five times as tall as Achilles. All in all they concealed the tunnel perfectly.

  In front of me, with their backs to me, utterly unaware of my presence because they were so fiercely focused on looking ahead, were six men dressed in priests’ robes and one dressed all in gold. From the gilded plume on his helmet to the protectors strapped over his sandals he stood gleaming like a flame in the sunlight, in armour fit for the greatest hero. At a rough guess, what he was wearing was probably worth a hundred oxen – maybe more. But I was distracted by its beauty only for an instant, because, standing beside him, her upper arm grasped in a fearsome grip, stood the princess, head low and shoulders bowed – the very personification of helplessness and defeat.

  Beyond Briseis, beyond the grove, on the wide slope of the hillside as it swept down towards the distant river, was a wall of horses, galloping towards us at full speed, manes flying, eyes rolling, mouths foaming. They were yoked in pairs with the rounded ends of wooden shafts rising and falling between their heaving shoulders. Behind them rose the wicker, leather- and bronze- edged, fronts of the chariots they were pulling. And in the chariots, standing tall behind the charioteers, bronze-armoured warriors clutching their shields in their left hands and their sheaves of spears in their right.

  Sarpedon had come in advance of his army of foot soldiers to declare his intention and throw down his heroic challenge.

  In a flash I understood about the rock then. It had not merely replaced the gold in one of the stolen chariots so that Aias’ trackers would not realise the treasure chest was back in the city. Glaucus had placed it in the river to warn of the deep section so that the Prince of Lycia could lead his chariots straight across the river line-abreast and continue the charge up the hill to Lyrnessus. Its presence in the river might even have been a signal to do so. Which meant in turn that Glaucus had been with the stolen chariots and had ridden Pedasos back – but not alone. Unless he was the left-handed throat-cutter, the strongest and steadiest of Achilles horses had carried two men back to the city.

  These thoughts did not distract me. There was too much going on for me to hesitate, watch and wonder. The six men in priests’ robes moved out of the grove, with Glaucus behind them. They were obviously a protective wall in case the nearest Lycian charioteers did not recognise the prince. The six of them were soon further ahead of their gold-armoured leader than planned, however. Briseis, drooping and broken as she was, slowed him down simply by moving as though her legs were as badly damaged as my own. Still with no plan whatsoever in mind, I too hurried out of the protection of the olive grove and froze, caught between surprise and horror. Facing south, with Glaucus and Briseis in front of me and Glaucus’ priestly cohorts in front of them, I was confronted by Sarpedon’s chariots charging up the hill. But then, so suddenly as to beggar belief, another wall of charging horses came thundering in on my right. Achilles, Odysseus and Aias led the Achaean chariots in direct confrontation of Sarpedon, swinging round in a tight arc. The men ahead of Glaucus broke into a run, clearly planning to reach Sarpedon’s lines before they were cut off. Glaucus hesitated. If he wished to keep up with them, he would have to let go of the broken princess who was dragging him back. He seemed to hesitate for a moment – and then she made his mind up for him by reaching across to snatch a dagger out of its sheath at his hip and stabbing it into his side at the waist where his breastplate and backplate did not quite meet. He let go of her, reeled sideways as he closed his hand over the weapon’s handle, and then took off staggering down the hill, leaving the princess suddenly erect and square-shouldered behind. It looked to me as though she was shouting something unpleasant at his retreating back, but the thunder of Xanthus and Balius as they pulled Achilles’ chariot into opposition against Sarpedon’s drowned out anything she said.

  ***

  Then I was standing at her side as the two lines of chariots careered towards each other like a great wave rushing towards a mighty cliff. How they didn’t crash headlong into each other I will never know, but each great wing of combatants came to a stop, horses rearing and plunging, little more than a spear’s cast apart. ‘Prince Sarpedon!’ bellowed Achilles, with more irony than I would ever have given him credit for. ‘Welcome to Lyrnessus. It’s good to see you but I’m afraid we were just leaving. Was there anything in particular you wanted to discuss before we go?’

  As Achilles was speaking, the first of t
wo thousand, five hundred Myrmidon foot-soldiers came streaming onto the battlefield behind him, led by General Peisander. Sarpedon would know as well as I did that six hundred Cephallenians would be following, led by King Eremanthus, and they would be followed in turn by Aias’ two thousand Locrians. The Achaeans and the Lycians might be evenly matched in terms of chariots, but Sarpedon’s foot soldiers were more than a day’s march away while Achilles’ army was here, now and ready for war.

  ‘A heroic gesture, Prince Sarpedon,’ called Odysseus. ‘And you so nearly caught us off-guard. Only the gods know what damage you would have done had you come upon us unawares. But it was not to be. I suggest you return to your army and let us return to Troy. We will meet on a battlefield there soon enough, I am sure, and settle this matter like Heroes.’

  There was a moment of tension, but the continuing arrival of unit after unit of Myrmidons made the outcome inevitable. Sarpedon did not reply to either of the generals. Instead he gestured to his charioteer. His horses’ heads were wrenched round and he led his chariots back towards the river at less than half the speed with which they had approached. And none whatsoever of the heroic panache.

  ‘Did you see the foul Glaucus?’ asked Briseis.

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘And he should have been easy to spot given what he was wearing.’

  We stood, side by side, watching the ignominious retreat. ‘It was almost comical,’ she said after a few moments. ‘His frustration at not being able to get the treasure chest down the last flight of stairs. He would have just hurled it down and hoped for the best had the stairway been wider and had he not coveted the armour so much. Rather than risk damaging it, he decided to take it and wear it.

  ‘He still left a fortune behind,’ I observed.

  ‘Let’s hope we can use it as bait,’ she said pensively.

  ‘Bait?’ I said.

  ‘To catch the throat-cutter and avenge my brothers as well as my husband.’

  ‘Have you any idea who it is?’ I wondered.

  ‘Some,’ she answered. ‘Let’s go back into the city and see what we can find before we all set sail for Troy.

  We turned, and were just about to enter the ancient olive grove when we were overtaken by the thud of hooves and the jingle of tack. A shadow loomed over us. I squinted up and there was Odysseus, fully armed, standing behind Elpenor. ‘I told you to wait in the palace,’ he said to me, but he didn’t sound particularly surprised or angry at my disobedience.

  ‘He came after me,’ said Briseis. ‘To rescue me from Glaucus.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘The princess rescued herself,’ I admitted. ‘She stabbed him in the gap between his breastplate and backplate.’

  ‘You are becoming quite adept at that, Princess,’ said Odysseus. ‘Well, climb up here behind me. We have a good deal to discuss while we ride back to the camp.

  ‘Such as?’ wondered Briseis, mutinously.

  ‘Such as what has really been going on here and who else has been wielding such a deadly knife,’ he said.

  vii

  ‘Very well,’ said Odysseus as we obediently climbed aboard and Elpenor set the horses trotting towards the Achaean camp. ‘Let us go back to the very start.’

  ‘To the siege of Thebe,’ I said.

  ‘No, lad, further back than that. To the birth of Crown Prince Mynes and his twin brother Prince Ephistrophos, on the same night, as it happened, that Hepat gave birth to Thalia. Ephistrophos arrived just a little later than his brother, making Mynes next in succession to the throne. A crucial consideration in his father’s eyes. However, it was giving birth to them that killed King Euenos’ beloved wife. The king never really forgave the boys for causing her death. An upbringing with a distant and resentful father made it easy for them to drift into the arms of Teshub. And Gul-Ses’ belief in the Priest King was, as the princess observed, the absolute opposite of everything the old king stood for. Therefore it was irresistibly appealing to his rejected and discontented offspring.

  ‘But to return to the princes’ earliest days, King Euenos was not a man to put his needs aside just because he no longer had a wife to fulfil them. Although his court was like many traditional Anatolian courts in that it kept its women strictly isolated, Euenos was no King Priam with a harem, keen to father armies of sons. Soon after his wife’s death, he took a single mistress. She was the lovely young wife of Theron, who would in time rise to become captain of the gate. In those days Hepat was slim and beautiful. She was almost permanently in the palace, as wet nurse to the young princes. And when, in time, the king demanded she yield to him, she could no more refuse than Theron could forbid. She was, after all, a slave even if he was a servant who became a soldier. So the years passed. Hepat was wife to the captain - and to the king in all but name - and it was the king’s child she bore in the end: young Timaeus with his father’s golden eyes.

  ‘Theron loved the boy but Euenos only saw him as a potent danger to his legitimate sons’ succession, even though he hated and despised them. What affection Hepat had managed to feel for the king rapidly faded as he disowned Timaeus. Failing affection was eventually replaced by a seething hatred, something which the arrogant king never dreamed could happen for, much like Aias, perhaps, he saw his continuing rape of Hepat as something the woman should be proud of. Not every woman by any means is privileged to be ravished by a king. Not every woman has Princess Briseis’ fortitude. As Timaeus grew towards manhood, he slowly changed everything. Realising the danger the boy presented, Euenos’ rejection of Hepat and his repudiation of Timaeus became ever more brutal. More than that, he began to push the boy and his father into more and more dangerous situations, eventually, as we have seen, appointing Theron captain of the gate – a policy that came to fruition during the siege when the boy was horrifically disfigured and his father’s life left hanging by a thread.’

  ‘But Euenos could not have known anything about that,’ said Briseis, ‘because he had already been struck down by the gods.’

  ‘No,’ said Odysseus. ‘The gods had nothing to do with Euenos’ sickness. It was the honey cakes.’

  ‘Honey cakes?’ I echoed, simply unable to believe what he was telling us. ‘Honey cakes?’

  ‘There is a poison in some sorts of honey,’ Odysseus explained. ‘It is potent but rare. So rare that I don’t believe it even has a name. But I know the symptoms, because I remember Chiron describing them to me when he was my tutor on Mount Pelion and I have seen them full-blown in the king while I have seen them gathering force in Prince Patroclus who also has a dangerously sweet tooth and has been helping himself to the late king’s sweetmeats. The slight slurring of his speech, the slightest drooping of his left eye, the strange sensation in his left arm, the limp in his left leg. I have warned him against the honey cakes, indeed, against all the honey served here – and I am hopeful he will recover fully and may even have done so by the time we return to Troy.’

  ‘The honey cakes!’ I repeated, simply incredulous. ‘But who made the honey cakes?’

  ‘Hepat,’ said Briseis, as though the answer was obvious. Which I suppose it was.

  ‘I assume she had been feeding the king her poisoned cakes for some time, enjoying the lingering revenge she was taking on him for what he had done to her and her family. Watching him slowly lose control of the body that had so brutally misused hers. But when Agamemnon arrived at Thebe, it became obvious that Lyrnessus would be next. The Achaean army’s presence so close-by meant that Timaeus and Theron were effectively doomed. The King’s standing orders meant that the captain of the gate and his nearest companions would be in the most dangerous position of all during a siege - their duty being to defend the one place we would be attacking with all the force at our command. But if the king could be incapacitated or even killed, things might turn out differently. Hepat would have begun to strengthen the dose then, but it still took a little time for the full effect to manifest itself. As it did in Princess Briseis’ presence when he collapsed at the to
p of the watch tower with a mouthful of honey cakes.

  ***

  We arrived in the camp then. It was busier than I had ever seen it. Amidst all the bustle I saw Calix and what remained of his priestly helpers as the wounded from the blood room were loaded aboard under the care of our Achaean physicians. Odysseus dismounted and led us into his command tent just inshore from Thalassa. He called for wine and water, told us to sit down and then continued. ‘Meanwhile, High Priest and mantis Sutekh arrived in Lyrnessus with the other Theban refugees, carrying his secret message that the armies which would soon arrive to besiege the city would come armed with a fortune in gold which the king could earn simply by maintaining his city’s resistance for long enough to allay any suspicions of dishonourable bribery and double-dealing, then surrendering at the earliest reasonable opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind that Sutekh had been promised a fair portion of the gold for himself when the plan fell snugly into place and the city fell equally snugly into our hands.

  ‘Logic dictates that Sutekh would first have tried to pass the message to King Euenos himself. He had probably been ordered to do so because no-one in the Achaean camp had the slightest notion of the true state of affairs here in Lyrnessus. He would have tried to tell the king about the gold and the plan, therefore – and so the chief nurse Hepat would also be bound to know for she and her girls were in constant attendance, and so easily overlooked by self-important men with crucial, if secret, missions.