Glyn Iliffe - The Gates Of Troy (Adventures of Odysseus)

‘But he barely looked at her all evening, and the only thing he could talk about was Troy this and Troy that.’

‘That’s natural – Troy is his first love. But when Andromache spoke he listened, and on two occasions he even asked her opinion.’

‘So what?’ said Helen, shrugging her shoulders dismissively. ‘Isn’t that just being polite?’

‘Not for Hector! He’s rarely interested in what others think, and I can’t even remember the last time he asked someone for their opinion. But we shouldn’t mock him; if the Greeks do come, Hector is the best defence we have. He is worth more to Troy than all our allies put together.’

As Paris spoke a horn sounded on one of the towers behind him, followed by a second and then a third. He turned to look in consternation at the city walls, from which the deep, low notes were still reverberating. Several small figures were running along the battlements, and as he watched them more calls followed.

‘What is it?’ asked Helen.

‘They’re sounding the alarm,’ he answered, his voice calm but edged with uncertainty. ‘I used to hear that call every other day when I was on the northern borders, but it hasn’t been sounded here since Heracles attacked – when my father was just a boy.’

He looked over his shoulder at the tall galleys in the bay. The mists were beginning to lift and the dark vessels were clearly visible now. The few men left aboard were pressed to the sides, looking across at the soaring walls of the city as if expecting to see an army drawing near, or to hear the clash of arms ringing out across the empty plains. But nothing had changed beyond the thinning of the clouds above and the appearance of a first few beams of sunlight. They gleamed golden on the parapets and towers of Troy, occasionally flashing off the bronze helmet or spear-point of a soldier.

‘It’s Menelaus,’ Helen said, looking nervously towards the mouth of the bay. Through the haze she could just see where the headland sloped down to reveal the wide north-easterly gulf and the open sea beyond. ‘He must have come for me.’

Paris stroked her cheek and smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s not Menelaus, I promise you. It’s something else, a mistake or some kind of . . .’

‘Some kind of what?’ Helen asked.

But Paris’s attention was focused over her shoulder, forcing her to look back and see for herself what had silenced him.

‘Aphrodite save us,’ she whispered.

Where only a moment before the sea had been empty, but for the mist that crept over its surface, now she could see dark shapes emerging from the wall of swirling grey. At first there were just three or four, moving with calm menace towards the mouth of the bay, but with each nervous breath that filled Helen’s lungs more appeared, and then more until the whole ocean teemed with them. Their broad sails were filled with the warm breeze that a short while before she had been pleased to feel on her face and in her hair. Now she cursed it, for its gentle breath was ushering death and destruction towards her new home. Suddenly the strength left her legs and she fell forward onto her knees in the surf. More horn calls reverberated from the towers and walls of Ilium.

‘Come on, Helen,’ Paris said urgently. The sight of his wife collapsing released him from his shocked stupor, and he leaned forward and lifted her to her feet. ‘Come on, love. We must go.’

‘Why?’ she retorted, trying to push him away. ‘What good will it do? Menelaus has come to take me back, and the walls and armies of Troy won’t stop him.’ She looked in desperation at her husband and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Go back, Paris. Go back to the city and leave me here. If I give myself up to the Greeks they’ll depart in peace and you’ll be safe.’

Before he could stop her, she ran towards the surf-edged waves as if it were her intention to swim out to the Greek fleet. Paris caught her before she was knee-deep in the water, then lifting her into his arms carried her back up the sloping beach towards his chariot. The horses stamped and snorted at his approach, pleased to be in the presence of their master again.

‘You’re my wife now, Helen,’ he said, setting her down in the chariot, ‘and for good or evil we have to face the consequences of what we’ve done. But I’m not letting you go back to him, even if it costs the blood of every man in Troy.’

Overwhelmed with fear, she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in the rough wool of his tunic. Behind them, the crews of the Trojan galleys had abandoned their vessels and were now rowing in dozens of small boats to the shore. Further out, an endless stream of Greek warships was pouring into the mouth of the bay, the motifs on their sails now clearly visible. There were a hundred and fifty of them at least, Paris estimated -eight thousand warriors heading for his home with murderous intent.

From the walls of Troy another horn call erupted, but it was not the long, sonorous warning of the alarm. This time the sound was clear and high, repeated in short bursts, and as it rang out in defiance the gates of Troy swung open and streams of horsemen came flooding out to the attack.

Odysseus and Eperitus stood in the prow of the galley as a warm breeze swept the deck, bellying out the dolphin-motifed sail and pushing them relentlessly towards the shores of Ilium. The sky above was covered by a thin layer of cloud, ploughed into long channels that screened the early morning sun, while all around them the surface of the ocean was covered in a blanket of fine mist. It condensed in their hair and on their eyelashes and made their woollen clothing damp to the touch. Everywhere they looked, packs of black-hulled ships nosed forward through the white fog as if sniffing out their prey.

Eperitus looked over his shoulder at Arceisius and Polites, who sat together on the nearest bench. Arceisius’s eyes stared out nervously from his pale face, making Eperitus recall the look of uncertainty he had seen on the lad’s face when he had killed his first man on Samos. Did his young squire have the stomach for the coming fight, he wondered? Then, reading the look on Eperitus’s face, Polites placed a long, muscular arm reassuringly about Arceisius’s shoulder and began talking to him in his slow, deep voice. Eperitus smiled to himself: the Thessalian was telling him not to worry; whatever lay ahead, he would look after him.

Behind them the deck was crowded with anxious Ithacans, fully armoured in greaves, breastplates and helmets. Most wore their broad leather shields across their backs whilst they sat patiently on the benches, thinking of the battle ahead and the families and homes they had left behind. Their spears lay at their feet and their swords and daggers hung from their belts; for most it would be the first time they had used them in anger, and as they sailed towards the unknown experience of battle, fear and worry gnawed quietly away at their courage.

But many also took heart from the words of their king as the Ithacan soldiery had waited on the beach at Tenedos, ready to board their galleys in the pre-dawn light. Odysseus had stood before them in the full garb of war and spoken of their island homes – of Ithaca, Dulichium, Samos and Zacynthos – knowing full well now, after all his efforts to stop the war, that it was his spoken doom not to see them again for twenty years. He named the hills, woods, harbours and beaches that were so familiar to all of them, evoking images of faraway places that were ever near to their hearts. His voice breaking with passion, he told them they were not merely a body of soldiers – they were a band of countrymen ! The dried chelonion flowers they wore in their belts were there to remind them that they were Ithacans. True, they might only be fishermen, farmers or herdsmen by trade, but they were also friends and neighbours: a common identity and a shared homeland bound them to one another. And though for many this day would be their last – dying in a strange country for a woman only a handful of them had ever seen – the glory they reaped that morning would be theirs forever.