The Song of Troy

What was left of Priam’s world disintegrated when Troilos fell to Achilles. Even the death of Achilles failed to pull him from his slough of despond. I knew the gossip in the Citadel – that Aineas had deliberately refrained from sending Troilos help because Priam had insulted him so during the assembly at which he had appointed Troilos the new Heir. As with Andromache, I believed the tale. Aineas was not a man to insult.

Then Aineas demanded to lead a surprise raid on the Greek camp, and Priam, abject, agreed.

Nothing could stop the wagging tongues, but nothing could be done either. Aineas was all we had left. Though Priam hadn’t given in all the way; he appointed that savage boar, Deiphobos, the Heir. An act of defiance which made no impression upon dear Aineas, very sure of himself these days.

I looked long into that dark Dardanian face, for I knew what fires burned beneath his cool exterior; I knew the lengths to which his all-consuming ambition would drive him. Like some slow-moving river of lava Aineas ploughed inexorably onwards, engulfing his enemies one by one.

When Aineas demanded permission to raid the Greek camp, he knew what he was asking the King to do: forsake the laws of the Gods. And only I had any idea of the hugeness of Aineas’s triumph when Priam said yes. He had managed at last to drag Troy down to his level.

On the day of the raid I shut myself in my rooms, my ears stuffed with wadding to deaden the thunder and the screams. I was weaving a length of fine wool in an intricate design and using many colours; by dint of rigid concentration I managed to forget that there was a battle going on. And hah! to Penelope Web Face, wife of a bandy-legged red man with no honour and few scruples. I was willing to bet that she had never woven anything half so fine. Knowing her, she had probably taken to weaving shrouds.

‘Sanctimonious, carping cow!’ I was saying to myself savagely when the hairs on my arms began to prickle, as if someone from the grave was watching me. Was Penelope Web Face dead? I couldn’t be so lucky.

But when I lifted my head it was Paris watching me, hanging onto the door frame, his mouth opening and closing in utter silence. Paris? Paris drenched in blood? Paris with two cubits of an arrow poking out of one eye?

When I pulled the wadding out of my ears the noise rushed in on me like Maenads racing down a mountainside intent on the kill. Paris’s one good eye blazed at me with the light of madness in it while words I couldn’t understand spilled from his mouth.

As I stared my shock faded. I started to laugh, had to drop onto a couch and shriek helplessly. That brought him to his knees! He crawled with his right hand dragging a crimson trail across the white floor behind him, the arrow protruding from his right eye bobbing up and down so ridiculously that I laughed even harder. Reaching my feet, he wrapped his good arm about my legs and bled all over my robe. Revolted, I lashed out with my foot and knocked him sprawling. Then I ran for the door.

I found Helenos and Deiphobos standing together in the great courtyard, both still in their armour. When neither of them noticed my approach I touched Helenos on the arm; not for all the world would I have touched Deiphobos.

‘We lost,’ said Helenos wearily. ‘They were lying in wait for us.’ Tears stood in his eyes. ‘We broke the law! We are accursed.’

I shrugged. ‘What concern is that of mine? I didn’t come for news of your stupid battle – anyone could have told you you’d lose. I came to ask your help.’

‘Anything, Helen,’ said Deiphobos with a leer.

‘Paris is in my rooms – dying, I think.’

Helenos flinched. ‘Paris, dying? Paris?’

I began to walk away. ‘I want him removed,’ I said.

When they joined me, they bent to lift Paris onto a couch.

‘I want him removed, not made comfortable!’

Helenos looked appalled. ‘Helen! You can’t turn him out!’

‘Watch me! What do I owe him except my ruin? He’s ignored me for years! For years he’s permitted me to become the butt of every spiteful, bitch-faced old sow in Troy! Yet when he needs me at last, he thinks to find me the same moonstruck idiot he took away from Amyklai! Well, I’m not! Let him die somewhere else. Let him die in the arms of whoever is his current love!’

Paris had quietened; the one eye left to him goggled at me in stupefied horror. ‘Helen, Helen!’ he moaned.

‘Don’t “Helen” me!’

Helenos stroked his greying curls. ‘What happened, Paris?’

‘The strangest thing, Helenos! A man challenged me to a duel over a distance only I or Teukros could shoot accurately. A big, gold-bearded wild man. He looked like a bush king from Ida. But I didn’t know him, I’d never seen him before! So I took him on – I knew I’d win! But he outshot me. Then he stood and laughed at me, just like Helen!’

I was paying more attention to the arrow than to this pitiful story. Surely I’d seen one like it before? Or heard it described in some song given by the harper at Amyklai? A very long shaft of willow stained crimson with the juice of berries, tipped with white goose feathers spotted in the same crimson dye.

‘The man who shot you was Philoktetes,’ I said. ‘You’re honoured above your deserts, Paris. You carry one of Herakles’s arrows in your head. He gave his bow and arrows to Philoktetes before he died. I heard Philoktetes had died too, of a serpent’s sting, but obviously the rumour was wrong. This is an arrow that once belonged to Herakles.’

Helenos was glaring at me. ‘Shut up, you heartless harpy! Must you vent your spleen on a dying man?’

‘You know, Helenos,’ I said dreamily, ‘you’re worse than your loon of a sister. At least she doesn’t feign sanity. Now will you please remove Paris?’

‘Helenos?’ asked Paris, plucking weakly at his kilt. ‘Take me to Ida mountain, to my dear Oinone. She can heal me – she has the gift from Artemis. Take me to Oinone!’

I pushed between them, afire with rage. ‘I don’t care where you take him! Just get him out of here! Take him to Oinone – hah! Doesn’t he understand he’s a dead man? Pull out the arrow, Helenos, let him die! It’s what he deserves!’

They levered him onto the edge of the couch and sat him up. The stronger of the two, Deiphobos, bent to lift him, but Paris wouldn’t help; craven to the last, he wept in an ecstasy of fear. When Deiphobos finally staggered upright, Paris in his arms, Paris gave him all his weight.

Helenos went behind Deiphobos to assist him. As he reached across, his arm accidently brushed the shaft of the arrow. Paris screamed and panicked, flung his hands out wildly, his body heaving and threshing. Deiphobos lost his balance and the three of them fell in a tangled heap to the floor. I heard a choked off, gurgling grunt. Then Helenos picked himself up and tugged Deiphobos to his feet, and I could see what they had not.

Paris lay half on his back and half on his left side, one leg twisted under the other, his mangled hand outflung. Its fingers were curled into claws, his neck and back were rigidly arched. He must have fallen on his face with Deiphobos on top of him, then Helenos in landing on them both had slewed him around again. The arrow was in two pieces now; the spotted flights of the butt and two cubits of the shaft lay beside him, and from his eye there protruded a finger’s breadth of splintered willow. A thin trickle of dark blood ran to form a pool on the marble tiles.

I must have cried out, for they both turned to look.

Helenos sighed. ‘He’s dead, Deiphobos.’

Deiphobos shook his head dully. ‘Paris? Paris dead?’

They took him away then. All I had to remind me that my husband had ever existed were the marks of his hands on my skirt and the red stains on the pure white floor. I stood for a moment, then walked to the window and looked out of it, unseeing. There I remained until darkness fell, though what I thought about during that day I have never been able to remember.