Glyn Iliffe - The Armour of Achilles

‘Good news, my friend,’ he answered, his handsome face breaking into a confident smile as Odysseus gripped his wrist. ‘This little fight isn’t going to be as dull as I first thought. The gods have given us the chance of some real glory!’

‘What do you mean?’ Odysseus asked. ‘Has the garrison returned since Diomedes and I were here a few days ago?’

‘Lyrnessus won’t be a problem,’ one of the other riders announced, trotting up behind Achilles. Patroclus slid from his mount with an easy motion and stared down his long, pointed nose at Odysseus and Eperitus. ‘The battlements are no higher than two tall men and there’s only one tower, guarding the southern gateway – just as you reported. As for defenders, I didn’t count any more than five men on the walls in total. It’ll be a disappointing way to start the year’s fighting, I’m afraid, after such a long and tiresome winter.’

‘To Hades with Lyrnessus!’ Achilles exclaimed. He draped a tightly muscled arm over Patroclus’s shoulder and leaned his weight against his companion’s tall and sinewy frame. ‘We found something much more interesting than that pile of rubble. We found Aeneas !’

‘Aeneas?’ Eperitus asked, surprised to hear the name of one of Troy’s finest warriors. ‘What’s he doing this far from Troy?’

‘He didn’t give me the chance to ask,’ Achilles said, slipping his arm from Patroclus and pacing the ground before the two Ithacans. ‘We’d almost scouted the full circuit of the walls when we saw half a dozen horsemen coming over the ridge to the north of here. They could hardly have missed ten thousand Greeks waiting on the other side of the hills, so I gave Patroclus and Antilochus here a look and didn’t find them wanting.’

He nodded at the third rider, a long-faced youth with cold, grey eyes who was still growing his first beard. Antilochus was the son of Nestor, one of Agamemnon’s closest advisers, and had arrived at the Greek camp just a few days before, contrary to his father’s wishes. Impressed by the lad’s eagerness to fight, Achilles had persuaded Nestor to let him stay, on the promise that he would shepherd the lad through his first battle.

‘We weren’t going to let them reach the city alive,’ Achilles continued. ‘And that was when I recognized Aeneas – and he recognized me . I dug my heels in and set off after him at a gallop, and even with the head start he had he’d never have outrun Xanthus if he hadn’t ordered his escort against us. By the time we’d fought our way through them Aeneas was safely inside the city walls. Safe for now , at least.’

Odysseus stroked his beard and looked up at the line of hills, in the direction of Lyrnessus.

‘I don’t like it,’ he muttered, as if to himself. ‘Eperitus is right – what business would Aeneas have out here?’

‘Who cares?’ Achilles said dismissively. ‘The point is we have one of their best fighters bottled up in that city, and before the day’s done I’ll send his cowardly soul down to Hades.’

As he was speaking, Diomedes and Little Ajax appeared at Eperitus’s left shoulder. The Argive king was a tall, muscular figure, dressed in armour that befitted his wealth. He removed the gleaming bronze helmet from his head to reveal long auburn hair and a stern but handsome face, the only blemish on which was the faint trace of a white scar running down from the tip of his left ear and into his thick beard. Little Ajax, on the other hand, was a short, spiteful-looking man with a flat nose and pockmarked cheeks. A long brown snake was draped over his shoulders, its triangular head raised and its pink tongue slithering out from its lipless mouth, sending a shiver of disgust through Eperitus. Ajax’s dark eyes frowned up at Achilles from beneath his single eyebrow.

‘What’s the delay?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been waiting all winter to kill some Trojan scum and my spear arm’s getting restless.’

‘The itching of your spear arm is nothing compared to the suffering of Helen,’ Diomedes rebuffed him. ‘If the fall of this city brings her freedom a step closer, then let’s get on with it. Zeus only knows what she’s gone through as a prisoner of Troy, kept from her husband and children and forced to endure the lustful attentions of Paris every night.’

‘ Forced ?’ Ajax scoffed. ‘That trollop wanted Paris between her thighs from the first moment she—’

He fell silent as the point of Diomedes’s dagger pressed against his throat.

‘If you say another word against the queen of Sparta, it’ll be your last,’ he warned.

Ajax met the cold stare of the Argive king with equal menace, but said nothing.

‘We’ve delayed long enough,’ Achilles said, taking Diomedes’s wrist and easing the blade away from Ajax’s neck. ‘The attack will begin immediately – unless Odysseus has any more misgivings?’

Odysseus shook his head.

‘Same plan as before?’ Diomedes asked, sliding his dagger back into his belt.

Achilles nodded, looking over his shoulder at the ridge. ‘The Argives and Ithacans will scale the western walls while my Myrmidons will take the southern gate. Ajax’s Locrians can hang back and shoot any Trojan who dares show his head above the battlements. There’s still the ditch, but the walls behind it are low and we have the ladders. Even if they’re alerted to our presence, nothing can stop Lyrnessus from being ours by midday.’

Without another word he turned and held his hand out to Xanthus. The horse answered his call immediately and soon Achilles, Patroclus and Antilochus were riding to join Peisandros at the head of the Myrmidon line. As Diomedes and Little Ajax returned to their own armies, Odysseus arched his eyebrows and turned to his captain.

‘I don’t like this, Eperitus. The Trojans have outwitted us too many times over the years, and if Aeneas is here then that spells trouble. He’s one of the best commanders they have – Hector wouldn’t send him down here without a very good reason.’

‘We can hardly turn around and get back in the ships now,’ Eperitus answered. ‘We’ll just have to climb the walls and see what’s inside.’

Odysseus smiled back at him. ‘You’re right, of course, and we might as well enjoy ourselves while we’re at it. Give the order.’

Eperitus turned on his heel and looked at the expectant faces of the Ithacan soldiers.

‘Shields ready. Pick up the ladders.’

Similar orders were barked out up and down the Greek lines, followed by a flurry of movement as shields were taken up, ladders lifted and spears readied. Achilles received his spear and shield from two of his men and moved to the head of the Myrmidon army. Raising the spear above his head, he pointed it towards the line of hills. There was a great cheer from the whole Greek assembly and the Myrmidons began to move.

Eperitus instinctively kissed his fingertips and placed them against the image of a white deer on the inside of his shield. He had painted it there to remind him of his daughter, Iphigenia, and though it was grimed and faded where he had repeatedly touched it for luck he felt reassured by its presence. Odysseus discreetly touched the image of Athena painted on the inside of his own shield, then, after a glance at Eperitus, turned to the ranks of Ithacans and waved them forward.

The long lines of warriors advanced with a steady tramp, the Myrmidons, Ithacans and Argives in the lead with the Locrians forming a wide arc behind them. At first the bronze of their helmets and shield bosses shone fiercely in the sunlight, but as they marched slowly up the hillside the dust raised by their thousands of feet shrouded them in a brown cloud that dulled the glimmer of their weaponry. Soon they were topping the crest of the ridge and looking out over a fertile, lightly wooded plain, dominated by a low hill at its centre. On top of the hill was a walled city, its sand-coloured battlements no higher than the scattering of windswept olive trees that surrounded it. A few two-storeyed buildings stood up above the level of the weathered parapets, but the only tower was at the southern end of the fortifications, guarding an arched gateway from which a narrow track wound down to the level of the plain. Here it met the main route from the city of Troy to its southern provinces, but as the ten thousand Greeks filed out across the western edge of the plateau, not a single traveller could be seen up or down the length of the road.