Lindsay Clarke - The Spoils of Troy

‘I am,’ Nauplius answered, ‘and I am impugning Diomedes of Tiryns and Idomeneus of Crete who conspired with them against my son.’ He paused to fix her with his flinty stare. ‘And I am impugning your husband Odysseus who was the father of these lies.’

‘Then I will hear no more of this,’ Penelope said steadily, ‘for it seems to me that anyone can vilify another man’s name when he is not present to defend himself, but there can be no honour in such slander.’

‘Which is precisely what your husband did to my son,’ Nauplius retorted, ‘and his shade still cries out for justice. Do not turn away from me, Penelope. I have never felt anything other than affection in my heart for you. Yet I confess I have long shared your father’s doubts about the man you chose for your husband. Odysseus was always a plausible rogue, yes, but a rogue nevertheless. And now I know him to be more and worse than a rogue – he is a villain, one who will stoop to any deceit to secure his own ends. Do not turn away, my dear, for as you will soon learn to your bitter cost, you are as much the victim of his duplicity as I have been.’

But Penelope was already on her feet and crossing the room to leave it. She stopped at the door to confront the old man with the cold rebuke of her eyes. ‘You have already said too much.’

‘The truth is often painful, I know,’ he began to answer, ‘but it must be heard if justice is to be done.’

‘You are the guest of my husband’s house,’ Penelope interrupted him, ‘and you are also old, sir. So I will not ask you to leave this place at once. But I advise you to take to your ship at dawn. Otherwise I will not answer for your safety.’

‘Hear me,’ Nauplius beseeched as she turned to open the door. ‘I speak only out of care for you. This war has corrupted all who lead it. Why do you imagine that not one of them has come home in all these years? It is not because they are constantly in the field, I assure you. Far from it! Those errant gentlemen have long been living a life of licence and debauchery out there in Phrygia. From all the many women they have taken to their tents, each has now selected his favourite concubine. And there is more. They mean to make queens of their oriental paramours when they return to Argos. Pledges have been given before the gods. Believe me, my dear, Odysseus is as faithless as the rest.’ He took in the hostile glitter of Penelope’s eyes and refused to be abashed by it. ‘You do well to look for comfort elsewhere. Amphinomus is a handsome fellow.’

Penelope drew in her breath. ‘Now I am sure that you lie,’ she said. ‘May the gods forgive you for it, for I cannot. Let me never see your face on Ithaca again.’

She left the chamber, banging the door behind her. Yet for all her defiance I doubt that she slept that night. Nor can she have known much rest in the days and nights that followed, for secrets and lies are defilers of the heart and once the trust of the heart is breached it knows no peace. So Penelope was often to be heard sighing as she worked her loom by day, or again when she made her offerings to Athena and prayed that the goddess might teach her patience of soul. And often she would walk alone along the cliff, gazing out to sea as she wondered what had happened to her husband beneath the distant walls of Troy.

Dawn, when it finally came, was little more than a ruddy gleam blackened by smoke and made redder by the flames still rising from the burning buildings. Again and again throughout the night the nerves of the Trojan women had been shaken by the noise of roof-beams collapsing and the harsh clatter of falling tiles. Here and there the hoarse gust of a blaze still sent its vivid exhaust of sparks upwards through the smoke, but most of the fires were now under control, all resistance had ended, and only occasional screams rose from men under torment to reveal where their riches were concealed.

The streets stank vilely of blood and excrement. With the trapdoor still hanging open at its belly, the wooden horse looked down on a dense litter of corpses. Already kites and vultures circled. Somewhere, indifferent to everything but the glory of his own existence, a cockerel crowed his clarion to the day.

A few of the women had briefly taken refuge in oblivion, but only Cassandra had truly slept that night, and it would have been wrong to deduce from the subdued sound of their sobbing that the captives were calmer now. Rather, with the coming of the light, they felt more than ever to be the victims of a fate so violent and capricious that it numbed their frightened minds. Yesterday Troy had been intact behind its walls, having withstood all the strength the Argive host could bring against it. Today the city was a ruin and its royal women were waiting like stockyard cattle to be apportioned among foreigners they detested and feared.

Yet the sun seemed content to preside over such outrageous fortune and the sky might have been void of gods for all the notice it took of their imprecations. So these women were far from calm. They huddled together, exiled from the past, afraid of the future, seeking from each other the solace that none had to give, and deprived even of the means to kill themselves.

Polyxena crouched among them, knowing that sooner or later Neoptolemus must come in search of her again. She had been present by the altar of Zeus when that terrifying youth had struck off her father’s head, and she had guessed already that he would seek her out. The sixteen year old girl had huddled behind her sister Laodice in the portico earlier that night, listening to his voice cajoling her to reveal herself. She had cast about for a form of words that might convince him that she had been only the unwitting bait in the trap that had been set for Achilles. But she had seen the torchlight glancing off his sword and knew that words would make no difference. The boy was fanatical in his desire to avenge his father. Her only chance of survival was to conceal herself among the other women in the hope that he might be struck down by the hand of a merciful god before he could identify her. Then, when Agamemnon had called Neoptolemus away, she had begun to wonder whether the fates might prove kindly after all. But as the night wore on there was no evidence of kindness in this stricken city and when daylight broke, her terror returned with greater force.

Polyxena could not prevent her teeth from chattering as she crouched beside her mother who sat nursing Andromache’s head in her lap. Beside them Cassandra whispered prophecies that the Trojans would prove more fortunate than their enemies. They had at least died in defence of their sacred homeland, while thousands of the barbarian invaders had perished far from their homes, and those who made it back to Argos would find a cruel fate waiting for them.

‘Agamemnon will see that he has taken death into his bed,’ Cassandra chanted. ‘Already the lioness couples with the goat. A blade glints in the bath-house. A torrent of blood flows there. I too shall be swept away on that red tide. But the son of Agamemnon shall bring a bloody end to Neoptolemus. He will leave his impious body dead beneath Apollo’s stone. As for that ingenious fiend Odysseus, Blue-haired Poseidon will keep him far from the home while others junket and riot in his hall. The Goddess will seize his heart. Hades will open his dark door to him. Death will crowd his house.’ But none of the women believed the mad girl any more than they could silence her. So they sat together under the portico, watching the sun come up and dreading what the day must bring.