Gelanor busied himself studying how our “plant and animal friends,” as he had styled them, might help in the war effort. Always knowledgeable about poisons in Greece, he bent his efforts to learn about local ones he could use for arrows and smoke. There were certain types of plants so poisonous that honey made from their blossoms and smoke from their branches was fatal. Of course, the problem in using smoke was that it could waft back and hurt the people directing it. The use of poisons required the utmost care. It was important to construct quivers with lids to protect the archer from poison tips, or perhaps to make a pouch to hold the poison and dip the arrows into it at the last possible moment. The same went for attack animals—bombs of scorpions or wasps that could be lobbed into enemy camps, or mad dogs let loose: these were all weapons of last resort, as they were so hard to control. The only exception to this was a mixture of soils and ground rocks that ignited when the sun heated them. Very useful in smearing on the enemy’s tents or wagons, but that meant one first had to be near enough to do it, and that was unlikely.
“And to think a simple bow is considered to be cheating a bit,” I said to Gelanor. “That seems heroic compared to these things—smoke that clouds the air, scorpions raining from the sky, plague garments.”
“Please! Let us call them ‘the arrows of Apollo.’ I believe that is the polite name for plague.”
“As you like,” I said. “So Apollo’s temples hoard the diseases of war, and Athena’s the weaponry of war?”
“Yes. Each god has his own arsenal. And Ares is somewhere in between—his war is not disciplined like Athena’s but accompanied by panic and fear, such as plague spreads.”
My smile faded. “Oh, Gelanor, I hope we never have to use any of these things.”
“As do I. Still, it is comforting to have them on hand.”
Our men set out eastward on a sun-filled, perfect day. It was a day to go galloping across the fields, had these days been normal. The men slipped away through the east gate, gliding through its complicated, mazelike exit, waving back at us as we stood on the walls, and making their way across the fields, vanishing into the woods.
“I am worried about Aeneas and Creusa in Dardania,” said Hecuba, watching from the walls. “I cannot help wishing that they had remained in Troy.”
“Mother, you know well enough that Aeneas is king of Dardania. He needs to be with his people,” said Hector. His voice was reassuring. Masterful and strong, there was something innately steadying about the way he spoke. “I do not think any Greeks have ventured beyond their beachhead here. But we are sending a party to ascertain this.”
“The Greeks are too quiet,” said Priam suddenly, on Hector’s other side. “I don’t like it.”
Hector laughed, a hearty roar. “That is because you and your old comrades want to get out there and fight.”
Priam turned and looked at him. “No. I am not an old fool, Hector. Do not take me for one. I meant what I said. The Greeks are too quiet. They did not come all this way to sit in idleness before their tents and amuse themselves with prostitutes.”
“Perhaps the battle looked more inviting back in rocky Greece,” said Hector. “The thing one sees in the mind is never the same as the thing one actually beholds.”
“I do not like it,” repeated Priam.
Days passed. The men should have returned. The glorious summer days continued, mocking us by letting us gaze down on the empty, inviting Plain of Troy. The trade fair should open soon, but now it could not. More income for Troy suddenly vanished. And this was much more substantial than the loss from the water rights. The very presence of the Greeks, with no fighting at all, was beginning to take a toll.
After fifteen days, Hector finally said he would send a scouting party to see what had happened. Before they could be equipped, a survivor of the first party crawled out of the woods and collapsed on the field nearest Troy. We saw him lying there, and sent a wagon to rescue him.
Grim-faced, litter-bearers bore him through the streets of Troy to his home. The physicians worked frantically to save his life. He had been beaten and stabbed; one leg was broken and its bone protruded through his ankle. As one doctor left the house, he shook his head. The leg was already turning black with rot. Just as the man lapsed into delirium, Hector questioned him. Tossing and feverish, barely able to form words, he said their party had been ambushed.
“It was as if they knew exactly where we would be,” he whispered. “They were waiting for us.”
“Who? Who?”
“Greeks,” he said. “That was their language, the special Greek they use over there. Not our Greek.” He winced, grabbing at his painful ankle. “They took delight in slaying us. Oeax—they cut him down first. Before Hileus could move, they speared him from behind. They were all over. Everywhere.”
“How many?” asked Hector.
The man’s head lolled.
“Try. Try. We need to know!” said Paris.
“Many. Ten. Twenty. I don’t know!” His voice rose to a scream, then ceased. His mouth fell open.
The physician bent down and put his ear to the man’s chest. “Dead,” he finally said. “So. The massacre was complete.”
Hector was distraught. Somehow the enemy had known of our movements. Now the ventures out to Mount Ida and the springs did not seem so inviting.
“How can we win, if the Greeks know our movements?”
“Perhaps they just stumbled upon our party,” said Troilus.
“No, the survivor said they were waiting, ready for them,” said Deiphobus.
“Perhaps one of their seers told them,” said another man. “That Calchas, for example!”
“No, my father cannot discern things like that!” The thin voice of Hyllus rose from a back corner where he had been standing. “He can only interpret omens, bird flights and entrails and such.”
“They are bottling us up in here,” Hector muttered, when we had gathered in his megaron with his friends. This was not a regular council; no elders were present, and Priam was not included. This was talk only amongst the younger warriors. He did not sit in the chair of honor but paced back and forth, his square jaw set. His normally smooth voice was edged with anger and something else. “Slowly they will strangle us.”
“We can no longer send out unarmed parties,” Deiphobus said. “There must be protection at all times.”
A murmur rose as everyone discussed this. Young Troilus spoke up and said he thought the nearby springhouse, being so close to the Temple of Thymbraean Apollo—which the Greeks were bound to honor as neutral territory—should still be safe, and he intended to continue using it to water his horses. He did not want to place demands on the water supply within the walls when there was such plentiful water just beyond them. Several men lamented the loss of the trade fair, saying that merchants were all cowards and this proved it. They turned tail and ran at the slightest hint of trouble.
“Hint?” said Helenus, brushing his thick hair back from his forehead. “I would say this is much more than a hint. Why, there’s not even anywhere for the ships to beach; the Greeks have taken the entire shoreline.” As usual, he was soft-spoken, but his words carried great thought. He never seemed to speak without having thoroughly weighed his ideas.
“Then they’ll go elsewhere,” lamented Hector. “Farther to the south. And we’ll lose everything.”
“Yes, that could happen, if the war is not over by this time next year,” said Helenus.
It was growing late, and through the open doors of the megaron we could see the light failing. The wives and women joined us; as I have said, I was present at many gatherings where women ordinarily were excluded. Now Andromache entered, followed by her sisters-in-law Laodice and Cassandra, and the wives of the other men. Musicians streamed after them, and torchbearers.
“You have let it get dark around you,” said Andromache, sounding as lighthearted as she could. “Men!” She slid up beside Hector. “Now leave your talk of war, and let us enjoy wine and song.”
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XLV
The wine did not really clear our heads of troubles, but it masked them under a soft haze, blurring around the edges of our cares. Andromache tried gamely to recreate the camaraderie of other gatherings in the time before the coming of the Greeks. But the enemy had penetrated into the very chamber itself.
Paris and I walked slowly and dispiritedly back to our home. Then, thinking of Paris, of my love for him, I slid under the smooth linen sheet, feeling its cool caress under my back, and held out my arms to him.
“Come, my love,” I said. “Let us mock the enemy.”
The sun sent his first probes into our bedroom, but the stout shutters Paris had designed repelled them. Then, as the sun rose higher, he beat down mercilessly on the Plain of Troy, making the withered ground send back heat waves, so that the sea wavered before our eyes when we leaned over the walls and tried to sight the shoreline. It was very still; the usual north wind had dropped away, leaving us held under a heavy hand of air.
Paris and I were trying to make out the Greek camp, but the heat waves, dancing and distorting everything, made us unsure what we were seeing. Just then Priam and Hecuba joined us, leading an elderly blind man by the elbows to the edge of the wall. Priam spoke to the blind man and then stepped back. The man grasped the edge of the parapet and stared out, unseeing, across the plain. Then he raised one thin, flapping-skinned arm. “Hear me, stones!” He ran his other hand along the top of the wall. “Hear me, great wall! Hear me, high towers! I bless you and bind you to protect Troy.”
A rumble of voices from the watching Trojans repeated the words. Then he held his arm out over the wall. “Hear me, soil of the plain! Hear me, the sounding sea! Hear me, you enemy hoards! I place today a binding curse upon you, if you think to harm Troy or touch its people. Your tongues will dry up and cleave to the roof of your mouths, your soil will harden and never let grass spring forth upon it again, your waves will turn to poison.” He clapped his hands loudly. “Thus do I curse the enemy of Troy, and all things which might give them aid.”
A roar of approval filled the heavy air, and Priam embraced the man. They then sought the shade indoors.
Hector strode over to us and shook his head. “They say a blind man has the power to put binding curses on an enemy, if he speaks from the city walls. I, for one, do not believe it, but I would be pleased if it were so.”
“Eh.” Aesacus had come up behind him. “People believe too many of these things. It’s all nonsense.” He was a weedy little man—the sort who usually believed in magic and forces stronger than himself, if only because he could use help. But, surprisingly, Aesacus sneered at such crutches.
Hector was squinting out across the plain. “In any case, I believe it came too late to hobble the Greeks. They have already set out.”
Was that a haze of dust rising from near the ships?
“No,” I murmured, looking where he indicated. But I did see something stirring, although I could not tell what.
“Arm yourselves!” Hector cried to the men on the wall. “Arm! I will call the rest,” he told Paris.
Paris turned to me quickly. “My armor. It is time.”
Must it be? Must he put it on at last? I wanted it to lie, the bronze slowly turning green, the leather stiffening, locked away in its chest forever.
“Yes,” he said. “Come with me. Quickly.”
We hurried toward our home and without looking back Paris mounted the steps inside to the highest room, the one that overlooked all of Troy and its plain. There, far below us, I could now see the army moving toward the city. Paris’s new armor was stored here, and he yanked it out and shook it. It clanked, its metal pieces settling against one another.
“Here, help me,” he barked, quite unlike himself. “Hurry.” He had summoned his attendant, but the boy had not appeared. “I cannot wait.” Trembling, I fastened the buckles and the straps, performing the rites of a war companion. Bit by bit the Paris I knew disappeared behind a wall of bronze and leather.
He was so young. No, you cannot go, I cried inside. I remembered, oh, so long ago, when I was choosing a husband from the suitors, I had ruled out anyone younger. I had said he would defer too much to me, and would know less than I. Now I knew that was false, and his youth was so precious I could not bear to sacrifice it, no matter the reason, before its time. It shone like a star. Now its light was dimmed beneath his helmet.
“Do not go,” I heard myself saying. But I did not think he would hear.
The newly unknown man before me waited a moment before answering. “You of all people should not say that,” was all he said. He bent over and gave me a metallic embrace.
The Greeks were in full attack, marching resolutely toward the walls of Troy. They seemed to fill the whole plain, swarming like insects, and as they marched, their armor, from a distance, made a dry rustling sound like the rubbing of locusts’ legs.
“Man your positions,” said Priam, directing the older men to take their stations by the piles of stones; the younger archers were to mount the towers ready for enemies approaching within bowshot.
The soldiers filed out through the Scaean Gate, under the gaze of the Great Tower of Ilium, bristling with archers. Still the Greeks came on and on. Now they were yelling and charging toward the walls, screaming and bellowing.
“Helen, get back!” Hecuba grabbed my shoulder and tried to pull me away. “We must leave the walls!”
Priam had fallen back, gathering his old councilors around him, shrinking away. “It lies with the young now,” he said, hurrying toward the summit, where he could watch from his rooftop.
The Trojans charged out, rushing from the entrance, but they were badly outnumbered by the locustlike Greeks. I cringed watching them; bravery gives glory, but it cannot prevail over overwhelming odds. I got away from Hecuba and returned to the walls; I could not bear to leave. Down below me I saw the company of Trojans but not Paris amongst them. From the towers the defenders were firing covering arrows to keep the attackers at bay; from far back in the Greek ranks slingers were launching stones over our walls. They arced through the sky and then fell sharply just inside the walls, causing damage that an arrow, with a different path of flight, could not. Trojans groaned and fell where they stood, felled by the flying stones.
A company of Greeks approached the Great Tower and Scaean Gate, but there was something curiously slow about them. The Trojans rallied and sent volleys of arrows toward them, but the Greeks never came close enough to be hit. On the eastern side of the city I could hear cries; the walls were under assault there, too.
Just then a bloodcurdling cry rang out from close at hand, and I heard shrieks from everyone around me. A grinning face appeared over the wall, and a man leapt over. He was quickly subdued, but others swarmed after him.
“The western wall!” one of the guards cried. “They are at the western wall!”
At least ten Greek soldiers clambered over the side of the western wall before being slain by the waiting Trojans. But behind them were hundreds, eagerly finding hand- and footholds on the loose stones of the weakest stretch of the walls of Troy. A roar of excitement welled up from the ground.
I climbed up on a pile of stones and peered down below, from a point of safety. The Trojans had turned to fight the Greeks at the base of the western wall, trying to drive them back. Our defenders from above were flinging stones on the adversaries, while our warriors battled them hand to hand.
Gelanor came running with a covered cart, trundling it through the street. “Here! Here!” he cried. A group of guards surrounded him and they hustled toward the wall. They yanked the cover off to reveal a pile of sand, which they began scooping up with clay pots and dumping over the side of the wall. Heated sand—heated blistering hot, so that it would sting and scald between the chinks of armor. As it hit its victims, howls resounded all the way up to the heavens.
Gradually the Greeks fell back, leaving the western wall. I could make out some of the Trojans now, could see Hector str
iding beside the big oak that grew near the Scaean Gate. With the retreat of the Greeks, the Trojans scattered. I still could not see Paris.
Suddenly I saw a figure running toward the oak, making for Hector. He moved at an astonishing speed, bounding and leaping like an animal, even though fully armored. Almost before Hector could sight him, he was bearing down upon him, brandishing a formidable spear. Hector turned and fell back to gain his footing, the other man almost on top of him. The man threw his spear and missed by a hair’s breadth, rushed to retrieve it and aim again. In that instant Hector dodged and moved and was able to escape the next throw, which went wide. Now the assailant was without a spear, and he grabbed for his sword, advancing on Hector. Hector raised his shield and then, straining at full height, cast his own spear. It whizzed past the man’s helmet, so close it surely must have made a whisper in his ear as it passed. For an instant the man turned to see where it fell so he could capture it, and in that pause Hector escaped, making for the Scaean Gate, hastily opened for him. It clanged shut after he was inside, just as his adversary beat his fists upon it and cried out, “Coward! Coward!” The fists must have been made of metal, they battered the thick wooden doors so. Later I saw that they had actually dented them—a series of depressions in the bronze-sheathed wood showed where the knotted fists had struck.
Hector, eyes bulging, yanked off his helmet. His face was streaming with sweat, his chest heaving. “I see now,” he muttered, “what they say of him is true.”
“Who? Who?” I asked one of the guards surrounding Hector.
“Achilles,” the guard said. “That demon was Achilles.”
“They say he can outrun even a stag,” said Hector. “I had heard it, but thought it was just an expression. Now I know it is not. He is beyond any human warrior I have ever seen.”
“Coward! Coward!” The words were still ringing.
Hector shook his head as if to shut them out. “No man has ever called me that,” he muttered.