The Song of Troy

I prayed to the dryad who lived in the elm tree, but the water rolled over my head unabated; then the dryad or some other sprite heard me, and my head broke the surface. I gulped air gluttonously, shook Skamander from my eyes and looked about me desperately. The bank which had been almost close enough to touch was gone. I seized fresh hold of the elm, but the dryad deserted me. The last of the bank came away and left the old tree’s mighty roots bare. My own body in all that iron formed the extra load; the mass of leaves and branches tilted over, and the elm took the plunge into the river with scarcely a sound of anguish above the howling of the flood.

I kept hold of the branch, wondering if Skamander would be strong enough to sweep everything downstream. But the elm remained with its head in the water, a dam which held back the debris moving towards our camp and the Myrmidon stockade. Bodies piled up against its bulk like brown blossoms with crimson throats, purple plumes wreathed around the green of its trees, hands floating white and repulsively useless.

I let go the branch and commenced wading to the edge of the river, which was lower since the bank had collapsed, but not low enough. Time and time again the unrelenting flood sucked my feet away from their precarious grip on the slimy river bottom; time and time again my head went under. But I fought back, struggling ever closer to my goal. I actually managed to get my hands on a clump of grass, only to watch it part from the saturated soil. I went under, floundered upright and despaired. The earth from Skamander’s vanished bank trickling dark through my fingers, I raised my arms to the skies and prayed to the Lord of All.

‘Father, Father, let me live long enough to kill Hektor!’

He heard me. He answered me. His awesome head bent down suddenly from the illimitable distances of the heavens; for some few moments he loved me sufficiently to forgive me my sin and my pride, perhaps remembering only that I was the grandson of his son, Aiakos. I felt his presence in all my being and thought I saw the fire-shot shadow of his monstrous hand hover dark over the river. Skamander sighed his submission to the Power which rules Gods as well as men. One moment I was going to die, the next I found the water a trickle around my ankles, had to jump aside as the elm collapsed into the mud.

The opposite, higher bank had crumbled; Skamander dissipated his strength in a thin sheet across the plain, a silver benison the thirsty soil drank in one gulp.

I staggered out of the river bed and sat exhausted on the drowned grass. Above me Phoibos’s chariot stood at a little past its zenith; we had been fighting for half of its journey across the vault. Wondering where the rest of my army was, I came back to reality in the shame of knowing I had lusted to kill so much that I had completely ignored my men. Would I ever learn? Or was my lust to kill a part of the madness I had surely inherited from my mother?

Shouts sounded. The Myrmidons were marching towards me, and in the distance Ajax was re-forming his forces. Greeks everywhere, but not one Trojan. I climbed aboard my car, gri

‘Take me to Ajax, old friend.’

He was standing with a spear in one massive hand, his eyes dreamy. I got down, water still ru

‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

‘I had a wrestling match with the God Skamander.’

‘Well, you won. He’s spent.’

‘How many Trojans survived our ambush?’

‘Not many,’ he said serenely. ‘Between the pair of us we’ve managed to kill fifteen thousand of them. Perhaps as many again got back to Hektor’s army. You did good work, Achilles. You have a thirst for the blood of other men even I ca

‘I’d rather your love than my lust.’

‘Time to get back to Agamemnon,’ he said, not understanding. ‘I brought my car today.’

I rode beside him in his – well, cart is a better word than car, for it needed four wheels – while Teukros travelled in my car with Automedon.

‘Something tells me that Priam has ordered the Skaian Gate opened,’ I said, pointing towards the walls.

Ajax growled. As we drew closer it was too plain that I was right. The Skaian Gate was open and Hektor’s army streamed in ahead of Agamemnon, thwarted by the sheer number of Trojans clustered about the entrance. I glanced sideways at Ajax, showing my teeth.

‘Hades take them, Hektor is in!’ he snarled.

‘Hektor belongs to me, Ajax. You had your chance.’

‘I know it, little cousin.’

We trundled into the midst of Agamemnon’s forces and went to seek him. As usual, standing with Odysseus and Nestor. Frowning.

‘They’re closing the gate,’ I said.

‘Hektor packed them in so tightly we had no hope of turning them away – and no chance to attempt an assault ourselves. Most of them made it inside. Two detachments deliberately elected to remain shut out. Diomedes is hammering them into submission,’ said Agamemnon.

‘What of Hektor himself?’

‘Gone inside, I think. No one’s seen him.’

‘The cur! He knew I wanted him!’

Some others were coming up: Idomeneus, Menelaos, Menestheus and Machaon. Together we watched Diomedes finish off those who had volunteered to stay outside – sensible men, for when they were courting a

‘Fifteen thousand of them lost by Skamander,’ said Ajax.

‘While we lost not a man more than a thousand,’ said Odysseus.

A great sigh came from the resting soldiers behind us, and a shriek of such awful agony from the top of the watchtower that we ceased to laugh.

‘Look!’ Nestor’s bony finger pointed, shaking.

Slowly we turned. Hektor stood leaning on the bronze bosses of the gate, his shield propped against it, two spears in his hand. He wore my golden armour with the alien scarlet among the helmet’s plume, and the bright purple baldric Ajax had given him shimmered with amethysts. I, who had never seen myself in that suit, saw how well it became any man who wore it – and fitted it. I should have known the moment I stood back to look at Patrokles that I had strapped him into his doom.

Hektor picked up his shield and walked a few paces forward. ‘Achilles!’ he called. ‘I have stayed to meet you!’

My eyes met Ajax’s, who nodded. I took my shield and Old Pelion from Automedon, gave him the axe. Hektor was no man to insult with an axe.

My throat tight with a trembling joy, I stepped out of the ranks of the Kings and went to meet him with measured step, like a man going to the sacrifice; I did not raise my spear and nor did he. Three paces from each other we halted, each of us intent on discovering what kind of man the other was, we who had never seen each other closer than a spear-cast. We had to speak before the duel began, and edged so close together that we could have touched. I looked into the steadfast darkness of his eyes and learned that he was much the same kind of man as I. Except that, Achilles, his spirit is untainted. He is the perfect warrior.

I loved him far better than I loved myself, better than Patrokles or Brise or my father, for he was myself in another body; he was the harbinger of death, whether he himself dealt me the killing blow, or whether I lingered on a few days more until some other Trojan cut me down. One of us had to die in the duel, the other soon after, for so it had been decided when the strands of our destinies were interwoven.

‘These many years, Achilles,’ he commenced, then stopped, as if he could not express what he felt in words.

‘Hektor son of Priam, I wish we might have called each other friend. But the blood between us ca

‘Better to be killed by an enemy than a friend,’ he said. ‘How many perished by Skamander?’