David Gibbins - The Mask of Troy

‘Typical archaeologist, riveted on lumps of corroded iron, totally uninterested in the gold.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Between those arrows and the minelayer’s hull.’

Jack looked over and gasped. It was astonishing. The object was circular, perhaps a metre across, buried under the sediment. Around the edges he saw a glint of gold. Beaten gold. He activated the miniature water jet on the Aquapod’s arm and gently sprayed the shape, clearing the sediment from about half of it. It was all gold, shining, uncorroded. He could see a thin layer of darkened wood beneath. ‘It’s a shield,’ he exclaimed, his voice tight with excitement.

‘The one we want?’

‘Look,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘You can see the bands, as you go from the outer rim to the boss. Five layers, just as Homer described it. You can even see the dark rings, where glass niello is still visible.’ He stared at it, his mind reeling. ‘No decoration. Just an awful lot of dents and bashes. It’s odd. It hasn’t been flattened by the shipwreck. It still has the concave shape. It could be battle damage, but this just isn’t a shield you’d take into battle. It’s a display shield, a prestige object. That much is consistent with Homer. Something a king or a hero mounts beside his tent. But a lot of gold, no ornament. Strange. I feel as if this is Troy yet again, Costas. Fabulous find, but more unanswered questions than we started with.’

‘Take a closer look.’ Costas had extended the video arm to within inches of the shield, and was watching his screen. ‘Jack, I’m sure of it. You can see decoration. Only just. Vine leaves. An animal, maybe. It’s all been beaten out of it, really crudely. Check out your screen. I’ll feed it through.’

Jack clicked on his monitor and immediately saw what Costas meant. ‘Incredible,’ he murmured. ‘Look at that. It’s like a ghostly imprint. But why do it? Why?’ He drummed his fingers, speaking slowly as he thought. ‘The Shield of Achilles. Awarded to the victor in the funeral games. Claimed by Agamemnon. Let’s say he takes it to the armourers on Tenedos, those ones churning out the arrowheads, and they crudely hammer out the decoration. Why would he do that?’

‘Pride?’ Costas said. ‘Agamemnon was always having standoffs with Achilles, right? Didn’t he take Achilles’ girl, and Achilles went off in a sulk? All that prestige display stuff you were talking about. Agamemnon acquires Achilles’ shield, but shows who’s supreme by stamping out the ornamentation people associated with strutting Achilles. Agamemnon’s now the boss, the tough guy, no frills.’

‘But still very odd that it was left this crude.’ Jack stared. There was no time to ponder now. ‘I’m going to take it. We don’t leave this exposed on the sea bed.’ Costas rose above to give him room to slide the two forks of the extractor arm beneath the shield. Jack worked the lever until it seemed to be in the right position, then clicked the intercom to confirm with Costas. ‘You’ve gone quiet. You okay? Let me know how this looks from your angle. Over.’

‘Jack.’ Costas’ voice sounded faltering. ‘About those bumps and dents.’

‘What is it?’

‘My camera is angled directly down on the shield. You need to take a look. I think you’ll agree it’s sometimes good to take a step back.’

Jack clicked on his screen again. The image was fuzzy as the feed came through. He suddenly felt the Aquapod beginning to angle up, and quickly focused on the buoyancy control. He had to remember he was not on autopilot. It was exactly why he disliked using submersibles to excavate. He trusted his own hands more than mechanical extensions. He came level again and engaged the motor to drive the arms slowly under the shield, until he was sure it would lift out and not slip off.

‘Well?’ Costas said.

‘Just let me concentrate on this.’ He lifted the shield inch by inch, injecting water into the rear buoyancy tanks to compensate for the weight, raising a cloud of silt as he did so, watching it quickly settle. It was exactly as Lanowski said, a coarse-grained sediment, overlying the grey anaerobic layer that had preserved the wooden backing of the shield. Slowly Jack reversed the Aquapod until the shield was clear of the sea bed, grey sediment now falling away from it in a cascade. He used another lever to slide a metal basket beneath it, lined with plastic cushioning material like bubble wrap. A cover with cushioning would be extended above it, designed to cocoon artefacts for raising to the surface. He slowly depressed the lifting arm through the basket until it was several centimetres beneath, leaving the shield resting on the wrap, then withdrew the arm into the Aquapod. He exhaled forcibly. ‘Would you look at that?’ he murmured.

‘I think it’s about time you did exactly that, Jack,’ Costas said.

‘My screen. Yes.’ Jack saw a grainy video image of the shield from five metres above. The feed was still not working properly. He looked again. Then he saw it. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘ My God.’

‘Remember I told you my uncle took me to see that in the Archaeological Museum of Athens as a kid?’ Costas said. ‘Never thought I’d see it this way.’

‘ So that’s what Agamemnon did,’ Jack whispered in astonishment. He was barely able to register what he was seeing. ‘That’s what he had those smiths on Tenedos do. He must have had the golden mask to show them, the mask he later took back to Mycenae, where Schliemann found it.’ He stared. He was gazing at a face. The entire shield was a face. And it was the face of Agamemnon. The bumps and bashes were where the smiths had made an impression, like a ghostly impression of the mask, not crude at all, but executed with enormous artistry, as bold as any art from antiquity Jack had ever seen. In shadow it would have looked extraordinary, the ultimate extension of one man’s sense of his own power, stamped over the shield of the greatest of the heroes.

‘So let me get this right,’ Costas said. ‘Homer saw this, but he must have seen it earlier, before it was remade.’

Jack was sure of it. As sure as he had ever been. ‘Homer’s story was about the contest of heroes. Nobody in that story saw the shield this way. This shield, as we see it here, was an image from after the fall of the heroes, an image of the terrible face of war, of Agamemnon himself. It was being shipped back to the plain of Troy for Agamemnon’s final assault against the citadel when a seismic storm whipped up the sea and sank this ship, and pushed the galleys of Agamemnon from the beach into the very walls of Troy itself.’

‘I think Maurice might owe James that crate of whisky,’ Costas said.

Jack looked back at the bundles of arrows still visible in the background. Those would have to wait. Costas’ Aquapod was fitted with the video and lights array rather than for finds retrieval. They would have to come back down here as soon as possible. He looked at the shield again. He wished he could touch it, hold it to his chest, grasp a spear, feel the tactile power he had felt holding the Webley on the deck the day before. He gazed at that face with its hooded eyes, staring blindly upwards yet all-seeing, as they had done through all the history that had passed this way, through the age of mankind that had been set in motion during those few days at the death-knell of the Bronze Age. He stared at the iron arrowheads, and in a flash he understood. He understood the temptation. The temptation of power, the temptation to swing the murderous pendulum of anger and retribution. War as a condition of life, without reason, beginning or end. The temptation that had driven Agamemnon to take the tablet of war, to cast away the tablet of peace.

‘Jack. Reality check.’