The Song of Troy

He dipped his head, toyed with the dust. ‘I cost you a suit of precious armour which Hektor will take great pleasure in wearing, hoping to eclipse you in every way. But I have a golden suit which will fit you. It belonged to Minos. Would you take it?’

I stared at him curiously. ‘How did it come to you?’

He was tracing squiggles in the dust; above one he drew a house, above another a horse, above a third a man. ‘Grocery lists. Nestor has grocery-list symbols.’ He frowned and obliterated what he had drawn with his palm. ‘No, symbols are not enough. We need something else – something which can transmit ideas, thoughts owning no shape, the wings inside the mind… Have you heard the tales men whisper about me? That I’m no true son of Laertes? That I was got on his wife, my mother, by Sisyphos?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard them.’

‘They’re true, Achilles. And a good thing at that! Were Laertes my sire, Greece would have been the poorer. I don’t openly acknowledge my paternity because my barons would have me off the Ithakan throne in a wink if I did. But I digress. I only wanted you to understand that the armour was come by dishonestly. Sisyphos stole it from Deukalion of Crete and gave it to my mother as a token of his love. Will you wear something dishonestly got?’

‘Gladly.’

‘I’ll bring it at dawn, then. One thing more.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t say I gave it you. Tell everyone it’s a gift from our Gods – that your mother asked Hephaistos to weld it through the night in his eternal fires so that you could take the field as befits the son of a Goddess.’

‘If you wish it, that’s what I’ll say.’

I slept a little, slumped on my knees against the side of the bier, a restless and haunted sleep. Odysseus woke me just before the first light and took me to his house, where a great linen-shrouded bundle rested on a table. I unwrapped it joylessly, imagining that it would be a good, workmanlike suit – in gold, admittedly, but nothing like the suit Hektor now wore. My father and I had always assumed that was the best outfit Minos owned.

Perhaps it was, but the suit Odysseus gave me was far the better of the two. I rapped its flawless gold with my knuckles to find that it gave off a dull, heavy sound completely unlike the ring of many layers. Curious, I turned the enormously heavy shield over to discover that it wasn’t made like other shields, many-layered and thick. There seemed to be two layers only, an outer plating of gold covering a single layer of a dark grey material which gave off no glitter or reflection in the lamplight.

I had heard of it, but never seen it before save in the head of my spear, Old Pelion: men called it hardened iron. But I had not dreamed it existed in quantities sufficient to make a full suit of armour the size of this one. Every item was made of the same metal, each plated with gold.

‘Daidalos made it three hundred years ago,’ said Odysseus. ‘He’s the only man in history who knew how to harden iron, to turn it in the crucible with sand so that it takes up some of the sand and becomes far harder than bronze. He collected lumps of raw iron until he had enough to cast this suit, then he hammered the gold over it afterwards. If a spear gashes the surface, the gold can be smoothed. See? The figures are cast in the iron, not fashioned in the gold.’

‘It belonged to Minos?’

‘Yes, to that Minos who with his brother Rhadamanthos and your grandfather Aiakos sits in Hades to judge the dead as they congregate about the shores of Acheron.’

‘I can’t thank you enough. When my days are over and I stand before those judges, take the suit back, give it to your son.’

Odysseus laughed. ‘Telemachos? No, he’ll never fill it. Give it to your son.’

‘They’ll want to bury me in it. It’s up to you to see that Neoptolemos gets it. Bury me in a robe.’

‘If you want, Achilles.’

Automedon helped me dress for war while the house women stood against the wall muttering prayers and charms to ward off evil and infuse the armour with power. Whichever way I moved, I flashed as brightly as Helios.

Agamemnon spoke at the assembly of our army’s officers, who stood wooden-faced. Then it was my turn to accept the imperial humble pie, after which Nestor returned Brise to me; there was no sign of Chryse, but I didn’t think she had been sent to Troy. At the end we dispersed to eat: a waste of precious time.

Her head up, Brise walked beside me silently. She looked ill and worn, more upset than when she had walked with me out of the burning ruins of Lyrnessos. Inside the Myrmidon stockade we passed Patrokles on his bier; he had been moved there because of the assembly. She flinched, shuddered.

‘Come away, Brise.’

‘He fought when you would not?’

‘Yes. Hektor killed him.’

Seeking a sign of softness, I looked into her face. She smiled a smile of pure love.

‘Dearest Achilles, you’re so tired! I know how much he meant to you, but you grieve too much.’

‘He died despising me. He threw our friendship away.’

‘Then he didn’t really know you.’

‘I can’t explain to you either.’

‘You don’t need to. Whatever you do, Achilles, is right.’

We marched out across the causeways and formed up on the plain in the damp new sunlight. The air was soft, the breeze like the caress of teased wool before it is spun. They fronted us, rank on rank on rank, as we must have looked to them. Excitement was a fist rammed down my throat, my knuckles when I chanced to see them were white on Old Pelion’s worn dark shaft. I had given Patrokles my armour, but not Old Pelion.

Hektor came thundering in from his right wing in a chariot drawn by three black stallions, swaying a little with the motion of the car, wearing my armour superbly. I noticed that he had added scarlet to the golden plumes of the helmet. He drew up opposite me; we gazed at each other hungrily. The challenge was implicit. Odysseus had won his gamble. Only one of us would leave the field alive, we both knew it.

The silence was peculiar. Neither army emitted a sound, not the snort of a horse nor the rattle of a shield, as we stood waiting for the horns and drums to start. I was finding this new armour very heavy; it would take time to grow used to it, know how best to manoeuvre in it. Hektor would have to wait.

The drums rolled, the horns blared, and the Daughter of Fate tossed her shears into the strip of bare ground between Hektor and me. Even as I shrieked my war cry Automedon was lashing my car forwards, but Hektor swerved aside and was off down his lines before we met. Blocked by a seething mass of infantry, I knew no hope of following, even had I wanted to. My spear rose and fell, dripping the blood of Trojans; I felt nothing beyond the fascination of killing. Not even my vow to Patrokles mattered.

I heard a familiar war cry and saw another chariot forcing its way through the press, Aineas lunging coolly, holding onto his temper as he found himself opposing neatly dodging Myrmidons. I gave my own cry. He heard me and saluted me, jumped down at once for the duel. His first spear-cast I caught on my shield, the vibration jarring me to the marrow, but that magical metal thwarted the lance completely. It fell to earth, its head mangled. Old Pelion flew in a beautiful arc over the heads of the men between us, high and true. Aineas saw the tip coming at his throat, flung up his shield and ducked. My beloved spear passed clean through the hide and metal just above his head, tipped the shield over, and pi