Glyn Iliffe - The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Where are they?’ Omeros asked. ‘Perhaps they didn’t see the signal. By all the gods, they must still be in the ships!’

Diomedes stared out at the land between the walls and the River Scamander, where the only feature was the sacred oak beneath which Achilles had fought and killed Hector. Had that really only happened in the spring, he thought, momentarily distracted. Was it now only the eighth month of the year? And where was the army, now that victory was so close? Had they missed the signal and, believing the occupants of the horse lost, set their sails towards Greece?

‘Agamemnon! Where are you?’ Little Ajax called. ‘The gates are open – what are you waiting for?’

There was desperation in the short, brutal warrior’s voice that made it carry out into the void. It filled Diomedes with the sudden fear he would rouse any nearby Trojans, and quickly he raised the point of his sword to Ajax’s throat.

‘Quiet, damn you!’ he hissed. ‘Are you trying to wake every soldier in Troy?’

In a deft move, Little Ajax twisted away from Diomedes’s blade and brought his own weapon up to meet it with a ringing clash. Then, all around them, the darkness began to shift. Black figures rose up from the ground, first in their scores, then in their hundreds, as if the souls of the dead were rising from the pits of Hades. Diomedes and Little Ajax forgot their quarrel and stepped back as the army of wraiths closed about them from the plain. Slowly, their pale faces and limbs became clearer, and one by one they slipped the black cloths from their shields and breastplates so that the metal and leather shone with a dull lustre in the darkness. Last of all they raised the points of their spears or drew their swords with a metallic slither, forming a wall of bronze about the open gates. The Greek army had arrived, and the sleeping city lay exposed before them.

Two figures approached from the massed ranks, the plumes on their helmets waving gently in the soft night breeze.

‘It worked! It actually worked,’ declared Agamemnon, with muted triumph. ‘Zeus be praised!’

‘And Odysseus, too,’ Diomedes reminded him. ‘His brains have succeeded where the might of Achilles and Great Ajax failed.’

‘We haven’t succeeded yet,’ said Nestor, standing at the King of Men’s side. ‘There’ll be much bloodshed before this battle’s over.’

‘But it’s the last battle,’ said Agamemnon. He turned towards the thousands of waiting soldiers and raised his spear above his head. ‘Troy is ours! Victory is ours! But it shall not be an empty one. I’ll not have the city sacked and its population scattered, so they can return and rebuild it when we’ve gone. I’ll not see the shadow of its towers fall across the Aegean again, to be a thorn in the side of future generations of Greeks. No, it must be destroyed. Put it to the torch. Throw down its walls and gates. Don’t suffer even one stone to remain on another. Destroy its flesh and blood, too. Kill every man, boy and infant you come across. And when you have shown them no mercy, do whatever you like with their women. Those are my only commands; now see that you carry them out to the full.’

His words were met with a shout and the clashing of weapons against shields. He turned on his heel and strode into the city, his blood-red cloak billowing out behind him. As he passed between the gates, a dozen sleepy Trojans ran out of a door in the side of the tower, only to be slaughtered and trampled over by the swarm of invaders following on the heels of the king of Mycenae. The Scaean Gate had fallen. The annihilation of Troy had begun.

Chapter Thirty-eight

I NSIDE THE P ALACE

Aeneas’s eyes flickered open. He lifted his head slowly from the table, where it had been laying in the crook of his arm, and squinted out at the dark, still market square. Sleeping bodies lay here and there amid the wreckage of overturned benches, empty wineskins and broken kraters. Nothing moved and the only noise was the sound of mingled snores drifting up into the night air. And yet something had woken him; some deeper instinct was warning him that things were not as they should be. Having long ago learned to listen to his intuitions, he forced himself to sit up and feel for his sword. There were many who had left their weapons behind, refusing to bring them to a celebration marking the end of the siege, but his hung reassuringly at his side.

He lifted his legs over the bench and got up. Steadying himself against the table, he fought the thumping of the wine inside his head and took a second look around. Everything was quiet, calm, peaceful, as if the war had happened a generation ago and they had merely been commemorating it. Then his gaze fell on the wooden horse, standing tall and menacing in the centre of the square. Here, Aeneas sensed, was the source of his disquiet. It stood up to its hocks in garlands, which the womenfolk had plucked from the meadows around the Scamander. Offerings of food, too, had been piled all around it in honour of Athena and the other gods who had brought victory so unexpectedly to Troy. The horse had not moved; it had not changed; and in the darkness he almost missed the small detail that was to save his life. But something lifted his eyes to the Greek characters inscribed in its flank, and it was then he noticed some of the letters were missing. No, not missing – they had been blacked out. Aeneas blinked and took a few paces towards the giant effigy. And then he saw that the letters were not blacked out, but that a piece of the horse’s side had been removed, revealing a dark interior from which a ladder of knotted rope was dangling.

Aeneas felt his flesh go cold. His eyes widened and his fingers closed tightly around the hilt of his sword. Now he understood and the truth filled him with sudden, overwhelming terror. The horse had contained men – who and how many, he could not guess – and those men would soon be opening the city gates for the rest of the Greek army, which would have sailed into the bay under cover of darkness. In an instant the whole plan was clear before him. Zeus had weighed the Greeks and Trojans in his scales and they had come down in favour of the Greeks.

The sound of raised voices drifted up from the Scaean Gate. He turned to face them, feeling his heart race in his chest. Then he heard a scream and knew there was nothing he could do now to save Troy from its fate. In the brief space of time that followed, he sifted the options that were open to him and understood what he had to do. He looked down at the figures lying around him and kicked one of them awake. The soldier stirred, reluctantly, then grabbed at the foot that was beating against his ribs.

‘What do you think you’re –?’

‘Shut up, man. The Greeks have returned: they’re in the city now. Wake as many warriors as you can and find whatever weapons are to hand. Do you understand?’

The man frowned, rubbing his eyes and cheeks, then gave a nod.

‘Where are you going?’ he called after Aeneas as he ran towards Pergamos.

Aeneas ignored him. He had thought of heading to the palace and warning Priam and Deiphobus, but the Greeks were certain to have sent men to take the citadel gates and guard them. And that left him only one choice, the choice that his heart would have chosen anyway. His father, his wife and his infant son were staying in the home of Antenor, the elder, and his wife Theano, the priestess of Athena. Troy was lost, but Aeneas could still save his family.

Odysseus and Eperitus ran through the archway and into Pergamos.

‘Menelaus, wait!’

‘Go back,’ the Spartan answered. ‘My mind’s made up.’