The Song of Troy

Herakles rose up out of the grass, a giant of a man in a lion pelt, his club hanging loosely from his right hand. The lion halted, lips drawn back from yellowed teeth. Herakles shook the club and roared a challenge as the lion compressed himself and leaped. But Herakles leaped too, in under the frightful sweep of those claws, thudding against the lion’s black-tufted belly with a force that knocked the beast off balance. The lion reared back on his haunches, one paw up to smite the man down; the club descended. There was a sickening crunch as the weapon came into contact with the maned skull; the paw wavered, the man stepped to one side. Up went the club again, down again, the second sound of impact softer than the first, for the head was already fragmented. No fight at all! The lion lay flat on the worn path, his black mane steaming from the warmth of the blood flowing over it.

While Theseus and Telamon danced out cheering, Herakles drew his knife and cut the beast’s throat. My father and brothers started to run down to the jubilant Greeks, my servant Tissanes sneaking in their wake, while I turned to commence the journey home. Hekabe my wife was in childbed and her life was in danger.

Women were not important. Death in childbirth was common among the nobility, and I had nine other wives and fifty concubines as well as a hundred children. Yet I loved Hekabe as I loved none of the others; she would be my Queen when I ascended the throne. Her child didn’t matter. But what would I do if she died? Yes, Hekabe mattered, for all that she was a Dardanian and had brought her brother Antenor with her to Troy.

When I reached the palace I found that Hekabe was still in labour; since no man could be in the presence of women’s mysteries I spent the rest of the day on my own business, which consisted of those tasks the King was reluctant to deal with.

After it grew dark I began to feel unsettled, for my father had not contacted me, nor were there noises of rejoicing anywhere within that mighty palace complex atop Troy’s hill. No Greek voice, no Trojan voice floated to me. Just silence. Odd.

‘Highness, Highness!’

My servant Tissanes stood there ashen, eyes bulging in terror, trembling uncontrollably.

‘What is it?’ I asked, remembering that he had lingered on the lion track to watch.

He fell to his knees, clasped my ankles. ‘Highness, I dared not move until a short time ago! Then I ran! I have spoken to no one, I have come straight to you!’

‘Get up, man! Get up and tell me!’

‘Highness, the King your father is dead! Your brothers are dead! Everyone is dead!’

A great calm flowed into me. King at last. ‘The Greeks too?’

‘No, sire! The Greeks killed them!’

‘Speak slowly, Tissanes, and tell me what happened.’

‘The man called Herakles was pleased with his kill. He laughed and sang as he flayed the lion, while the ones called Theseus and Telamon went over to the girls and struck off their chains. Once the lion pelt was spread out to dry, Herakles asked the King to escort him to the horse yards. He wanted, he said, to choose his stallion and mare straight away because he was in a hurry to leave.’ Tissanes stopped, licked his lips.

‘Go on.’

‘The King grew very angry, Highness. He denied that he had promised Herakles anything. The lion was sport, he said. Herakles had killed it for sport. Even when Herakles and the two other Greeks grew equally angry, the King would not relent.’

Father, Father! To cheat a God like Poseidon of his due is one thing – the Gods are slow and deliberate in their reprisals. But Herakles and Theseus were not Gods. They were Heroes, and Heroes are far deadlier, far swifter.

‘Theseus was livid, Highness. He spat on the ground at the King’s feet and cursed him for a lying old thief. Prince Tithonos drew his sword, but Herakles stepped between them and turned back to the King. He asked him to capitulate, to make the agreed payment of one stallion and one mare. The King answered that he was not going to be bled by a parcel of common Greek mercenaries out for what they could get, then he noticed that Telamon was standing with his arm about the Princess Hesione. He walked over and struck Telamon across the face. The princess began to weep – the King struck her too. The rest is terrible, Highness.’ My servant used one shaking hand to wipe the sweat from his face.

‘Do your best, Tissanes. Tell me what you saw.’

‘Herakles seemed to grow to the size of an aurochs, Highness. He picked up his club and crushed the King into the ground. Prince Tithonos tried to stab Theseus, and was run through on the spear Theseus still held. Telamon picked up his bow and shot Prince Lampos, then Herakles plucked Prince Klytios and Prince Hiketaon off the ground and squashed their heads together like berries.’

‘And where were you during all this, Tissanes?’

‘Hiding,’ the man said, hanging his head.

‘Well, you are a slave, not a warrior. Continue.’

‘The Greeks seemed to come to their senses… Herakles picked up the lion pelt and said there was no time to find the horses, they would have to leave immediately. Theseus pointed to the Princess Hesione and said in that case she would have to do as their prize. They could give her to Telamon, since he was so smitten with her, and Greek honour would thus be satisfied. They left at once for the Skaian Gate.’

‘Have they gone from our shores?’

‘I asked on my way in, Highness. The Skaian gatekeeper said that the afternoon was still young when Herakles appeared. He did not see Theseus, Telamon or the Princess Hesione. All the Greeks went down the road to Sigios, where their ship lay.’

‘What of the other five girls?’

Tissanes hung his head again. ‘I do not know, Highness. I thought only of reaching you.’

‘Rubbish! You hid until twilight because you were afraid. Find the steward of my father’s house and tell him to search for the girls. There are also the bodies of my father and brothers to bring in. Tell the steward all that you have told me, and command in my name that everything be attended to. Now go, Tissanes.’

All Herakles had asked for were two horses. Two horses! Was there no cure for greed, no point at which prudence dictated generosity? If only Herakles had waited! He could have appealed to the Court in assembly for justice – we had all heard my father make the promise. Herakles would have got his fee.

Temper and greed had won instead. And I was King of Troy.

Hekabe forgotten, I went down to the Great Hall and struck the gong which summoned the Court to an assembly.

Eager to know the result of the encounter with the lion – and fretting because the hour was so late – they came quickly. Now was not the moment to sit upon the throne; I stood to one side of it and stared down at the small sea of curious faces: faces belonging to my half-brothers, my cousins of all degree, the high nobility not related to us save through marriage. There was my brother-in-law Antenor, eyes alert. I beckoned to him to draw near, then rapped my staff upon the red-flagged floor.

‘My lords of Troy, Poseidon’s lion is dead, killed by Herakles the Greek,’ I a

Antenor kept glancing at me sidelong, wondering. As a Dardanian he was no friend to Troy, but he was Hekabe’s full brother, so for her sake I tolerated him.

‘I left the hunt then, but my servant remained. Just now he came home to tell me that the three Greeks murdered our King and my four brothers. They sailed too long ago to pursue them. With them they took the Princess Hesione as a rape.’

It was impossible to continue in the face of the ensuing uproar; I sucked in my breath, debating how much I could safely tell them. No, nothing about King Laomedon’s denial of a solemn promise; he was dead and his memory should be appropriately kingly, unmarred by such a paltry end. Better to say that the Greeks had intended this outrage all along as a reprisal for his policy barring Greek traders from the Euxine Sea.