The Song of Troy

‘Poor Helen,’ I said. ‘Deiphobos must have tipped the balance against Troy’s interests.’

‘You’re absolutely right, Diomedes.’

Agamemnon erected a magnificent altar in the assembly square and enthroned the Palladion inside a golden niche. After which he summoned as much of the army as he could fit into the area, and told the story of how Odysseus and I had kidnapped her. She was given her own priest, who offered her the finest victims; the smoke was white as snow and lifted so quickly into the sky that we knew she loved her new home. How she must have hated the cold, dank blackness of her Trojan home! Her sacred snake slithered into his house below her altar without a moment’s hesitation, then stuck his head out to lap at his saucer of milk and swallow his egg. An imposing and happy ceremony.

Odysseus, the rest of the Kings and I followed Agamemnon to his house when the ritual was over, there to feast. None of us ever refused an invitation to dine with the King of Kings; he had by far the best cooks. Cheeses, olives, breads, fruits, roast meats, fish, honeyed sweetmeats, wine.

The mood was lively, the conversation larded with mirth and jests, the wine excellent; then Menelaos called for the harper to sing. Maudlin by this time, we settled down comfortably to listen. The Greek was never born who loved not the songs, the hymns, the lays of his country; we would rather have heard the bard than bedded down with women.

The harper gave us one of the Lays of Herakles, then waited patiently for the slightly hysterical applause to die down. He was a fine poet and a fine musician; Agamemnon had brought him from Aulis ten years before, but he came originally from the North, and was said to be descended from Orpheus himself, the singer of singers.

Someone asked for the Battle Hymn of Tydeus, someone else for the Lament of Danai, and Nestor wanted the Tale of Medea; but to every request he smilingly shook his head. Then he bent the knee to Agamemnon.

‘Sire, if it pleases you, I’ve composed a song about events much closer to us than the deeds of dead Heroes. May I sing my own composition to you?’

Agamemnon inclined that imperial, whitening head. ‘Sing, Alphides of Salmydessos.’

He passed his fingers tenderly across the stiff strings to draw out his beloved lyre in slow melodic pain; the song was sad and yet glorious, a song of Troy and Agamemnon’s army before its walls. He cast us rapt for a very long time, for such a titan of a poem isn’t sung in two or three moments. We sat with our chins on our hands, and not an eye was open or a cheek dry. He ended with the death of Achilles. The rest was too sorrowful. Even now we found it hard to think of Ajax.

‘All gold in death, he who was always gold in life,

His beautiful mask wafting thin and unfluttered,

His breath gone forever, his shade dissolved away.

Heavy his clasped hands sheathed in golden gloves,

All his mortality melted, his glory become mere metal,

Peerless Achilles, his brazen voice struck to silence.

O divine Muse, lift my heart, let me give him life!

Through my words let him be clothed in living gold,

Let his footsteps ring hollow with fear and dread,

Let him stride across the plain before sullen Troy!

Let me show him shake back his long golden plumes,

Remember him gleaming like the splendid sun above,

Ru

With the ribbons on his cuirass nodding the rhythm,

Glorious Achilles who was the lipless son of Peleus.’

We praised the harper Alphides of Salmydessos long and loud through aching hearts; he had given us a taste of immortality, for his song was sure to live far longer than any of us. I think it was that we still breathed, yet were in the song. The load was too heavy to bear.

When the applause finally ended I wanted to be alone with Odysseus; a gathering of men seemed alien to the mood the harper had inspired in us. I looked across at Odysseus, who understood without having to defile the moment with words. He got up, turned towards the door, and gasped audibly. Because a sudden silence had fallen on the room, all our heads turned his way. And we gasped.

At first the likeness was unca

Then I looked more closely and saw that he wasn’t Achilles. This man was as tall and as broad, but he was many years younger. The beard was hardly stiff and the stubble a darker gold, the eyes more amber. And he owned two perfectly formed lips.

How long he had been standing there none of us knew, but from the suffering in his face it must have been long enough to have heard at least the conclusion of the song.

Agamemnon rose and went to him with arm extended. ‘You are Neoptolemos, son of Achilles. Welcome,’ he said.

The young man nodded gravely. ‘Thank you. I came to help, but I set sail before – before I knew my father was dead. I learned it from the harper.’

Odysseus joined them. ‘What better way to learn such awful news?’ he asked.

Sighing, Neoptolemos bowed his head. ‘Yes. The song told it all. Is Paris dead?’

Agamemnon took both his hands. ‘He is.’

‘Who killed him?’

‘Philoktetes, with the arrows of Herakles.’

He tried to be polite, to keep his features impassive. ‘I am sorry, but I don’t know your names. Which is Philoktetes?’

Philoktetes spoke. ‘I am he.’

‘I wasn’t here to avenge him, so I must thank you.’

‘I know, boy. You would rather have done it yourself. But I happened on the rogue by chance – or with the co

I thought, how thin our ranks have grown!

Odysseus, an ecstatic Automedon and I took Neoptolemos to the Myrmidon stockade. It was a longish walk, and news of his arrival had preceded us. All along the way soldiers emptied out of their houses, standing in the bitter sun to cheer him as wholeheartedly as they had used to cheer his father. We discovered that he was like Achilles in more than looks; he acknowledged their wild joy with the same quiet smile and careless wave, and like his father he lived unto himself, he didn’t spread his character lavishly on everyone he came in contact with. As we walked we filled in the gaps in the song, told him how Ajax had died, told him of Antilochos and all the others who were dead. Then we told him about the living.

The Myrmidons were drawn up on parade. Not a single cheer until the boy – he couldn’t have been more than a bare eighteen – had spoken to them. Then they pounded the flats of their swords against their shields until the noise of it drove Odysseus and I away. We strolled to the other end of the beach and our own compound.

‘And so it draws to an end, Diomedes.’

‘If the Gods know the meaning of pity at all, I pray it draws to an end,’ I said.

He blew a wisp of red hair out of his eyes. ‘Ten years… How curious that Kalchas was right about that. I wonder was it a fluke, or if he really did have the Second Sight?’

I shivered. ‘It isn’t politic to doubt priestly powers.’

‘Maybe, maybe. Oh, to shake the dust of Troy from my hair! To sail the open seas again! To wash away the stench of this plain with clean salt water! To go somewhere the air is windless, and the stars shine without competition from ten thousand campfires! To be purified!’

‘I echo all that, Odysseus. Though it’s hard to believe too that it’s almost over.’