The War at Troy

THE WAR AT TROY

Lindsay Clarke

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain as part of The War at Troy by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004

Copyright © Lindsay Clarke 2004

Map © Hardlines Ltd.

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Lindsay Clarke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008371067

Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008371050

Version: 2019-09-25

Dedication

For

Sean, Steve, Allen and Charlie

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Phemius Resumes His Task

The Gathering

The Years of the Snake

The Altar at Aulis

The Wrath of Achilles

A Duel in the Rain

An Offer of Peace

The Price of Honour

The Gods at War

Murder at the Shrine

A Horse for Athena

The Phantasm

Glossary of characters

Acknowledgements

Also by Lindsay Clarke

About the Publisher

Map

Phemius Resumes His Task

The tale has already been told of how, in service of Aphrodite and of the impetuous passion of his heart, Prince Paris of Troy voyaged to Sparta more than half a century ago. No voyage before or since that time has ever proved more disastrous in its consequences, for it was there, in breach of all claims of friendship and the laws of hospitality, that Paris won the love of the lady Helen and persuaded her to abandon for his sake both her devoted husband, Menelaus, and her daughter, Hermione. It is my task now to relate what befell all the lands and peoples of both Argos and Troy in the turbulent wake of that fateful voyage.

The scroll on which I write was one of a number which my friend Telemachus brought back for me as a gift when he too made a voyage to Sparta, seeking news of his father Odysseus many years after the fall of Troy. Even as those scrolls lay untouched across the decades since then, I Phemius, bard of Ithaca, knew that one day they were destined to contain my chronicles of Odysseus. For that reason they have always been among my most treasured possessions. The scroll on which I now write will tell as truthfully as I can the tales of triumph and defeat, of glory, suffering and grief, which together make up the tragic history of the war that Lord Odysseus and his comrades fought at Troy.

The Gathering

News of Helen’s flight from Sparta with her Trojan lover Paris travelled across Argos faster than a pestilence.

Sitting by the fire in their various strongholds, men remembered the dreadful oath they had sworn on the bloody joints of Poseidon’s horse, and pondered what they would do when Agamemnon’s heralds came – as come they must – to demand that their pledge be honoured. Menelaus’ own immediate vassals were in no doubt. For them, the loss of Helen festered like a wound. She was their sacred queen, the priestess of their rites, the living heart of Sparta. She was their totem of beauty in an often ugly world, and it was hard for them to believe that such grace had willingly abandoned them. Witchcraft must have been at work, or some malice of the gods. Helen had been abducted by force or spirited away. Menelaus had proved to be a generous and kindly king, and now, in this adversity, he commanded their loyalty. If it would take a war to force the return of their Queen, then let there be war. Was there ever more noble cause for a man to lay down his life than the rescue of the Lady Helen?

Others beyond the Lacadaemonian hills awaited the call with less enthusiasm. Troy was far away across an unpredictable sea, somewhere east of common sense. They had troubles enough without bothering their heads over a younger brother’s faithless wife. And, yes, they might indeed have sworn an oath before Poseidon’s altar, but that had been to protect Menelaus from their envy, not to go chasing after a wanton who no longer wished to share the pleasures of his bed!

If a man failed to look to his wife, what was that to them? It had been folly to invite the Trojans into his house, madness to leave a beauty like Helen alone with them. Against such stupidity the gods themselves were helpless.

Such sentiments were not murmured in the High King’s presence, but his spies caught wind of them, and it wasn’t long before Agamemnon began to suspect that, with only his brother’s interests directly threatened, mounting a force large enough to take on the power of Troy might prove harder than he had guessed.

Some of the difficulties had declared themselves even before the sons of Atreus left Crete. Once apprised of the situation, Deucalion had been fulsome in his sympathies for Menelaus – so much so that his manner drifted perilously close to gloating – but when Agamemnon sounded him out for support in their war against Troy, the Lord of the Labyrinth proved less immediately forthcoming. Yes, he felt in his own heart the gross insult that Troy had given to all Argos, but times were hard. He would have to think carefully before committing the already stretched resources of the House of the Axe to a distant campaign in which there might be much to lose. Since Theseus had reduced his country to a mere vassal-state of Athens, there had been little appetite for war among the barons of Crete. They already knew too much about its costs. At the very least, a council would be required, and though Deucalion would do what he could to sway its deliberations, the Atreides brothers must understand that the power of the Minoan throne was not what it had once been. For the moment, alas, he could promise nothing.

Agamemnon came fuming from the meeting. ‘That old bastard is the rat-king of a rotten country,’ he growled. ‘Small wonder Crete fell so easily into Theseus’ lap! But I’ve had my eyes open while we’ve been here! He may be the true heir of a degenerate father and a depraved mother but he’s a lot less needy than he makes out. With Theseus gone, and only Menestheus to answer to in Athens, Crete is on the rise again. Deucalion has ships, and he knows we need them. But he’s also thinking that if Argos and Troy wear each other out in a long war, then Crete might find scope to command the seas once more.’Agamemnon glared across at his brother. ‘We’ll have to teach him that he may have more to lose by staying out than by coming in.’

Menelaus nodded. ‘But were you watching Idomeneus while we spoke? I’m sure he despises his father. We should talk to him separately.’

‘You think we might set them against one another?’

‘It could do no harm to try. Idomeneus and I are friends. He was among the first who swore to aid me. His father has lived too long, and he’s been restless and ambitious for some time now. I think he might like a war.’

‘I see you’re learning, brother,’ Agamemnon smiled. ‘Hate is a mighty teacher,’

Shortly after his return to Argos, Agamemnon called his principal allies to a council of war in the great hall of the Lion House in Mycenae. Menelaus was there, bitter and gloomy still, having found his empty bedchamber in Sparta too desolate a place to bear. Nestor, king of Pylos, was among the first to arrive, already in his sixties but valiant and eloquent as ever. He was at pains to assure the Atreides brothers that, at this painful hour, they could rely on all he had to give in the way of wise counsel and military support. He was joined in those sympathies by Palamedes, Prince of Euboea, who was authorized to put the resources of his father Nauplius at the High King’s disposal, and by the Argive hero Diomedes, who had always been so infatuated with love for Helen that he took her abduction as a personal slight. Like Menelaus, Diomedes was a devotee of Athena, and after the two men had wept together for a while, he told the bereft King of Sparta that the goddess had assured him in a dream of her special protection for the eighty ships he would commit to the war against Troy.

Others of the High King’s vassals began to arrive through the Lion Gate. Some were openly eager for the venture, others discreetly kept their counsel, preferring to watch which way the wind was blowing. But on the whole, things seemed to be going well when news came of two unexpected setbacks.

Agamemnon had been counting on the warlike temper of Telamon to put fire into any of the princes who might query the wisdom of an assault on Troy. The old warhorse knew the city well. He had sacked it once and grown rich on the pickings. It was a sore blow, therefore, when news came from Salamis that Telamon had collapsed after a rowdy banquet on the night before he was due to cross to the mainland. Though his breathing was heavy and he had lost the power of speech, the old man was still alive. His son Ajax and his stepson Teucer were at his bedside, praying to Apollo the Healer for his full recovery.

The herald they sent in their place promised that the island would fit out six vessels for the venture. But Agamemnon cursed the ill luck that had deprived him of a man whose experience and forceful character was worth far more to him at that moment than a handful of ships.

The news out of Ithaca was still more dispiriting – so much so that the brothers went into private conference with Nestor before breaking it to the assembled warlords. The message came not with a herald but in a small bronze canister tied about a pigeon’s leg. It came with the excuse that storms were blowing round the coast of Ithaca, and went on to tell how Odysseus and Penelope grieved to hear of their Cousin Helen’s defection. They understood why, in his righteous anger, Menelaus might wish to take violent revenge on Troy, but wasn’t it the case that the treachery had been the fault of a single man, not a whole city? Should any act of retaliation not be proportionate therefore? While their own loyalty to the High King was never in question, it was their considered opinion that the Atreides brothers would be wise to wait upon King Priam’s response to their envoys before harnessing their power to a war that might prove long and arduous. Helen had acted rashly, yes, but that was no reason for her husband, who was always assured of their love and deepest sympathy, to do the same.

Agamemnon smacked the paper with his hand. ‘The villain is looking to his own interests as usual. He got what he wanted when he came to Sparta. Now he thinks he can lie back, counting his blessings, and let the rest of us go hang.’

Still raw from the humiliation of his wound, Menelaus had listened touchily to the unwelcome homily out of Ithaca. ‘Do we need him?’ he frowned now. ‘Ithaca’s far to the west and hardly fit for goats to graze on. If our cousin doesn’t want to come, let him rot at home.’

‘It’s not just Ithaca.’ Agamemnon got up and began to pace the chamber. ‘All the Ionian islands look to him. If the Lords of Same, Dulichium, and Zacynthus get to hear he won’t come, why should they stir their stumps? This could cost us a thousand men. And Odysseus isn’t just some bare-arsed sheep-farmer with more balls than brains. He’s a thinker. A strategist. The best strategist we’ve got – with the exception of old Nestor here. Of course we need him!’

Nestor had been dandling Agamemnon’s small daughter Iphigeneia on his knee as he waited for the rant to end. Now he took her fingers from his mouth and lifted his silver head. ‘Odysseus doesn’t actually say that he won’t come,’ he offered quietly. ‘He merely suggests we wait to hear what your envoys report.’

‘We know well enough what they’ll say! If Priam’s feeling strong, it’ll be a defiant jibe about not getting much help from us in the matter of his sister. If he’s not, then expect some appeasing diplomatic pribble-prabble. Either way, it’s what I want to hear. There’s never going to be a better time to take on Troy than this.’

‘And Odysseus knows you think this way?’ Nestor asked, stroking the small girl’s curls where she nestled against him, sucking her thumb, with large eyes following her father’s strides as he paced the floor.

‘Of course he does. He’s no fool. We’ve always shared intelligence on our raids. He knew what I was thinking a long time ago. But that was before he married and settled down and got lazy. I preferred him as a rogue and pirate! So did most of the princes of Argos, if truth were told. None of them much liked the oath he got them all to swear at the wedding but they admired his cunning!’ Agamemnon sat down again, drumming the fingers of both hands on the table. ‘The man has genius! He’s wasted watching sheep on that barren rock. Somehow we’ve got to prise him out of that great bed he boasts of.’

‘Then let me go and talk to him,’ Menelaus said. ‘After all, it was he who set things up so that I could marry Helen in the first place.’

‘But it’s hardly his fault if it went wrong!’Agamemnon scowled. Though Helen’s defection had provided him with just the excuse for war that he had needed, he still felt the sting of humiliation that it brought on the House of Atreus. ‘Odysseus didn’t know you were going to let some Trojan stallion have the run of your house – any more than I did.’

At that point old Nestor looked up from the child whose smiling face had crumpled at the rising voices. He raised a magisterial finger, which silenced both brothers without offending either, then said, ‘Would the sons of Atreus care to hear my thoughts on this matter, or shall Iphigeneia and I leave you to brawl at your leisure?’

‘Speak up,’ Agamemnon said. ‘It’s why I need you here.’

‘Very well. Consider this. We all know that Odysseus is no coward! Something else must be keeping him at home. The last I heard from the island it was rumoured that Penelope was with child again. The letter says nothing of this, but if his wife is coming close to term, Odysseus would surely keep it to himself lest some evil fate cause yet another miscarriage.’

Agamemnon scratched his beard and looked across at the spoiled favourite among his own children, who had slipped down from Nestor’s knee as he was speaking and was now trying to pull the old man away to play with her outside. ‘Not now,’ her father frowned. ‘Be patient or I’ll send you away.’ He looked back up at Nestor. ‘If you’re right, and Penelope does bring the child to term, we could have a hard time winkling him off the island. What do you suggest?’

‘My first thought,’ Nestor answered, ‘is that you say nothing to the other princes about this. Tell them only that the weather over Ithaca is foul and Odysseus saw no need to make the long journey to Mycenae at this time, but is content to wait for further instructions.’ Nestor smiled and gave a suave little shrug. ‘After all, it’s not so far off the truth.’ Holding the little girl gently by the slender stems of her wrists, he clapped her hands as she laughed. ‘Then once the council is over, and they’ve gone back to rally their troops, let Menelaus go to Ithaca, but not alone. He should take someone guileful with him. Someone who can match wits with the wily Ithacan. I’m thinking of Palamedes. He’s a young man still, but he’s clever, and he’s committed to the cause. He may be just the fellow we need.’

As the story now turns to Ithaca, I Phemius, may be forgiven for introducing a personal note, for though I cannot yet have been five years old when Menelaus came to our small island, I still recall the feast that Odysseus held to celebrate the birth of his son. That day my father, the bard Terpis, sang before the gathered people. I remember swelling like a bullfinch in my pride, and thinking that if one could not be a prince, then the next best fate was to be a poet and sing for men and gods. I remember the sunlight through the plane trees, and the thick caress of honey on my tongue. And I tell myself also that there is a picture of Odysseus in my mind, happiest of men that day, wearing vine leaves in his hair and dancing lightly to the throb of the lyre like a breathing statue of a god.

I cannot truthfully say that I remember anything about the arrival of Menelaus and Palamedes. What I know of that fateful encounter I learned much later from the lips of Penelope when she told the story to Telemachus one day. He and I were almost young men by then and had long been friends of the heart. It was a grief to Telemachus that he had no memories of his father, and a greater grief that his mother was already under siege from several suitors. Angered by their manner, he had again demanded to know why his father had abandoned them alone on Ithaca to pursue the madness of the war at Troy. I was sitting beside him as his mother answered, and I think I learned the true tale of what happened when Menelaus and Palamedes came to Ithaca. It is a little different from the tale the people tell, for they attribute to a ruse of madness what was, in fact, a craziness of grief occasioned by an oracle.

That story tells how Odysseus was so unwilling to go to war that he tried to convince Menelaus he had lost his wits. Dressing himself like a peasant, he yoked an ox and an ass to his plough and began to sow his field with salt. Only when Palamedes snatched Telemachus from his mother and threw him in front of the ploughshare did Odysseus act in a way that betrayed his ruse.

The truth is subtler and more painful.

The whole island was so drunk with joy and merriment that day that the ship beating in off the mainland docked unnoticed for a time. As they climbed from the cove through the heat of the afternoon to look for Odysseus in the palace, Menelaus and Palamades heard the sounds of song and laughter drifting down the hill. They caught the hot smell of an ox roasting on the spit and knew that old Nestor had been right in his speculation: the Prince of Ithaca had an heir at last.

The feast itself, however, was more rustic than they would have guessed. Laertes, father of Odysseus and Lord of Ithaca, sat in state on a carved throne that had been carried out of the palace and placed under a vine-thatched awning, from where he stroked his beard and beamed on the happy throng. His plump wife Anticlea sat beside him, nursing a swaddled, week-old infant in her lap as she chatted with the women who gathered about her, cooing at the sleeping babe. But Odysseus and Penelope were indistinguishable from the dancing shepherds and their wives. Only when the music stopped and the line broke up in laughter and applause did Menelaus recognize the short, bandy-legged man in a homespun tunic who stepped forward with his hands spread in welcome.

‘The King of Sparta honours us,’ he cried and the crowd’s gasp became a din of excited chatter, while under the crown of vine-leaves, the eyes of Odysseus glittered with pleasure and defiance.

Penelope came to stand beside him, as graceful in her simple rural dress as she had been in her royal robes at Sparta. Though her thoughts had darkened at the sight of Menelaus, there was no sign of it about her face, which was tanned and glowing. Nor was there anything of Helen’s sultry enchantment about her smile. She might have been a dairymaid had it not been for her unflustered poise in the presence of a king, and the regal lines of her high-boned cheeks.

‘Be welcome in our house, my lords,’ she said. ‘You come at a happy time.’

‘So I see, so I see.’ Menelaus bowed towards Laertes and Anticlea, who dipped their heads in shy acknowledgement. Then he stepped forward to take Penelope warmly in his arms. ‘My dear, I am so very happy for you at last. It was more than time that the gods favoured you.’

‘But they have already blessed me with a loving husband and a good life here on Ithaca,’ she answered. ‘Now we have a son to make our happiness complete.’

Menelaus observed the hint of wariness in her smile but turned away from it to greet her husband. He clapped his arms about the smaller man’s shoulders and squeezed him like a bear. ‘You’re a lucky man, Odysseus.’ And at the unspoken contrast between the evident happiness around him and the bitter condition of his own marriage, a surge of grief and self-pity rose from his chest to his throat. For an instant, with his face pressed against that of his friend, the King of Sparta was blinking back tears.

Odysseus was the first to pull away. ‘Surely you’ll admit that I deserve no less?’ he laughed. ‘Come, you and your companion must wet the baby’s head.’

‘This must be his naming day. How shall we call him?’

‘Telemachus,’ Odysseus answered proudly.

‘Decisive Battle,’ Menelaus smiled. ‘A good name and a good omen!’

With a reassuring glance at Penelope, Odysseus looked over Menelaus’s shoulder at the vaguely familiar figure of a fashionably dressed young man, whose sharp, deep-set eyes were taking in the up-country, sheep-fair feel of the festivities. Menelaus gestured to his companion. ‘You remember Palamedes, son of Nauplius of Euboea? He was with us in Sparta for the wedding.’

Smiling, Palamedes took the proffered hand. ‘We seem to meet on lively occasions, Lord Odysseus. I was one of those you forced to stand barefoot on bloody horse-meat and swear undying loyalty to this fellow here.’

‘I remember it well,’ Odysseus smiled back. ‘I also remember losing money at your game of dice and stones! And now I hear tell you’ve invented a new system of measures and weights on Euboea. Come, take some wine, and tell me about it. Where’s young Sinon gone with the carving-knife? My friends here need meat. Make room at the benches there.’ But neither man had missed the brisk chill of incipient hostility that passed invisibly between them, as though, for a moment, they had stood in each other’s shadow and shut out the sun.

Late that night, Odysseus sat up with Menelaus and Palamedes on a balcony overlooking the cliff where they could hear the sea toiling on both sides of the narrow isthmus. A few merrymakers still sang at the benches under the trees. The baby had been washed and suckled and put down some hours earlier but Odysseus knew that Penelope would still be awake on the bed of olive-wood that he had built for them with his own hands when he first brought her to Ithaca. Weary as he was, he did not expect to see much sleep that night, but right now he was prepared to wait.