31
NARRATED BY
Shortly after the unsuccessful Trojan raid Agamemnon called a council, though Neoptolemos hadn’t yet arrived. A general air of optimism pervaded the beach; all that stopped us were the walls, and perhaps with Odysseus thinking on that subject, we would even conquer them. We laughed and joked among ourselves as Agamemnon dallied with Nestor, amused at something Nestor said to him low-voiced. Then he lifted his sceptre and rapped its staff on the floor.
‘Odysseus, I believe you have news for us.’
‘I do, sire. First of all, I believe I’ve worked out how to breach the Trojan walls, though I’m not ready to speak about it yet. But in other areas, interesting news.’
He looked at Menelaos, then walked across to put his hand on Menelaos’s shoulder, rubbing it. ‘I’ve heard a snippet of Citadel gossip concerning a difference of opinion between Priam, Helenos and Deiphobos. Over a woman. Helen, to be precise. Poor thing! After Paris died she asked to be allowed to dedicate herself to the service of Mother Kubaba, but Deiphobos and Helenos both demanded to marry her. Priam decided in favour of Deiphobos, who then married her forcibly. It set the Court on its ears, but Priam refused to nullify the union. Apparently Helen was caught in the act of escaping to join you, Menelaos.’
Menelaos said something beneath his breath and bowed his head into his hands. While I thought of beautiful, imperious Helen come down to the level of a common house woman.
‘The whole business so disgusted Helenos, the priest-son,’ Odysseus continued, ‘that he elected to go into voluntary exile. I intercepted him outside the city, hoping that his disillusionment was great enough to permit of his telling me about the Oracles of Troy. When I found him he was at the altar dedicated to Thymbraian Apollo, who, he informed me, had instructed him to tell me whatever I wanted to know. I asked for the Oracles of Troy in their entirety – a wearisome affair. Helenos recited thousands! However, I got what I needed.’
‘A great piece of luck,’ said Agamemnon.
Odysseus lifted his lip. ‘Luck, sire,’ he said evenly, ‘is an overrated commodity. It’s not luck leads to success, it’s hard work. Luck is what happens in the moment when the dice land. Hard work is what happens when a prize falls into a man’s hands because he’s worked for it.’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ said the High King, rueing his choice of a phrase. ‘I apologise, Odysseus! Hard work, always hard work! I know it, I admit it. Now what of the Oracles?’
‘As far as we’re concerned, only three of the thousands have any relevance. Luckily none of them presents an insurmountable obstacle. They go something like this: Troy will fall this year if the Greek leaders possess the shoulder blade of Pelops, if Neoptolemos takes the field, and if Troy should lose the Palladion of Pallas Athene.’
I jumped up excitedly. ‘Odysseus, I have the shoulder blade of Pelops! King Pittheus gave it to me after Hippolytos died. The old man was fond of me, and it was his most treasured relic. He said he’d rather I had it than Theseus. I brought it to Troy with me for good – er – luck.’
Odysseus grinned. ‘Isn’t that lucky?’ he asked Agamemnon. ‘Of Neoptolemos we have high hopes, so that’s taken care of. Which leaves the Palladion of Pallas Athene, who luckily is my protectress. My, my!’
‘I’m getting annoyed, Odysseus,’ said the High King.
‘Ah – where was I? The Palladion. Well, we have to have that ancient image. It’s revered above anything else in the city, and its loss would hit Priam hard. As far as I know, the image is located somewhere in the Citadel crypt. A closely guarded secret. But I’m sure I can penetrate the secret. The most difficult part of the exercise will be moving it – they say it’s very bulky and heavy. Diomedes, will you come with me to Troy?’
‘Gladly!’
As there was nothing else of importance to discuss, the council broke up. Menelaos caught Odysseus at the door and took him by the arm.
‘Will you see her?’ he asked wistfully.
‘Yes, probably,’ said Odysseus gently.
‘Tell her I wish she’d succeeded in reaching me.’
‘I will.’ But, as we walked back to his house, he added to me: ‘I will not! Helen is for the Axe, not for her old spot in Menelaos’s bed.’
I began to laugh. ‘Care to bet on it?’ I asked.
‘Will we go up through the conduit?’ was my first question when we settled to work out a plan.
‘You will, but I can’t. I have to be able to gain access to Helen without suspicion. Therefore I can’t look like Odysseus.’
He went from the room but was back in a moment, carrying a short, cruel whip divided into four thongs, each tipped with a ragged bronze knob. I stared at him and it, bewildered, until he turned his back on me and began to strip off his blouse.
‘Flog me, Diomedes.’
I leaped up, horrified. ‘Are you out of your mind? Flog you, of all men? I couldn’t!’
His mouth thinned. ‘Close your eyes, then, and pretend I’m Deiphobos. I have to be flogged – properly.’
I put my arm around his bare shoulders. ‘Ask whatever you like of me, but not that. Flog you – a king! – as if you were a rebellious slave?’
Laughing softly, he laid his cheek on my arm. ‘Oh, what are a few scars more on my scraggy carcase? I must look like a rebellious slave, Diomedes. What better than to see a bloody back on an escaped Greek slave? Use the whip.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
He grew grim. ‘Use it, Diomedes!’
Unwillingly I picked it up; he bent over. I curled the four thongs about my hand, gathered in my courage and brought them down on his skin. Purple welts rose under them; I watched the things swell in fascinated revulsion.
‘Put a little bite into it!’ he said impatiently. ‘You drew no blood!’
I closed my eyes and did as I was told. Ten strokes in all I gave him with that vile implement; each time it fell I drew blood and scarred him for life like any rebellious slave.
Afterwards he kissed me. ‘Don’t grieve so, Diomedes. What use is a fair skin to me?’ He winced. ‘It feels good. Does it look good too?’
I nodded wordlessly.
He dropped his kilt and moved about the room, wrapping a piece of filthy linen around his loins, tousling his hair and darkening it with soot from the fire tripod. I swear his eyes flashed in sheer enjoyment. Then he held out a set of manacles. ‘Chain me, you Argive tyrant!’
I did as I was told a second time, aware that I hurt from the flogging in ways he never would. To Odysseus, it was no more than a means to an end. As I knelt to snap the bronze cuffs about his ankles, he talked.
‘Once I’m within the city I have to get into the Citadel. We’ll travel together in Ajax’s car – it’s strong, stable and quiet – until we reach the grove of trees near the small watchtower at our end of the Western Curtain. From there we’ll go separately. I’ll bluff my way through the little door in the Skaian Gate, and do the same at the Citadel gates – my story will be that I have to see Polydamas urgently. I find his name works best.’
‘But,’ I said, straightening, ‘you’re not really going to see Polydamas.’
‘No, I intend to see Helen. I imagine after this forced marriage she’ll be glad to help me. She’ll certainly know all about the crypt. She may even know whereabouts the Palladion’s shrine is.’ He clanked around a little, practising.
‘While I?’
‘You’ll wait in the trees until half the night is gone. Then ascend through our conduit and kill the guards in the vicinity of the small watchtower. I’ll get the image to the walls somehow. When you hear the nightlark’s song with this variation’ – he whistled it three times – ‘you’ll come down and help me get her through the conduit.’
I dropped Odysseus in the trees without being detected, and settled down then to wait. Limping and staggering, he ran like someone demented towards the Skaian Gate, shouting, screeching, grovelling in the dust, the sorriest specimen of man I had ever seen. He always loved to be someone he wasn’t, but I think he enjoyed the escaped slave identity most.
When the night was half over I found our conduit and crawled slowly up its twisting, stifling length, making no noise. At its top I rested and got used to the moonlight, ears tuned to pick up the few sounds which drifted along the pathway atop the walls. I was close to the minor watchtower Odysseus had made our rendezvous because it was well removed from other guarded points.
Five guards were on duty, awake and alert, but they were all inside – who organised these people, to permit them to sit in comfort while the bastions were neglected? They’d not last long in a Greek camp!
I wore a soft, dark leather kilt and blouse, had a dagger between my teeth and a short sword in my right hand. Edging up to the window of the guardroom, I coughed loudly.
‘See who’s outside, Maios,’ someone said.
Out came Maios, strolling; a good, unconcealed cough isn’t at all alarming, even when heard on top of the most bitterly contested walls in the world. Seeing no one, he tensed – though, being a fool, he didn’t call for reinforcements. Obviously telling himself that he was imagining things, he came on with pike at the ready. I let him pass me before I rose up silently, one hand gagging him, the other using the sword. I lowered him gently onto the path and dragged him into a dark corner.
A few moments later another one emerged, sent to look for Maios. I cut his throat without a sound: two down and three to go. Then before those left inside could grow uneasy, I edged up to the window again and hiccoughed drunkenly. Someone inside heaved an exasperated sigh; another lunged out impatiently. I wrapped my arms about him as if very drunk, and when the bronze slid under his left ribs and up to his heart he didn’t so much as grunt. Holding him upright, I reeled about in a tipsy dance, mimicking a Trojan voice. Which brought a fourth man out. I tossed the dead one at him with a low laugh, and while he fended the fellow off I stuck a cubit of sword blade through him from one side to the other. I got both of them to the ground with fading chinks, as if they had moved off into the darkness. Then I peered over the windowsill.
Only the tower captain remained, muttering angrily to himself as he sat at a table. Clearly in a quandary, he was staring at a trapdoor in the floor. Expecting someone he thought he should be there to greet? I slipped into the room and leaped on him from behind, stopping his cry with my hand. He died as quickly as the rest and joined them in that dark corner between the path and the tower wall. Then I sat down outside to wait, deeming it better that, if the expected visitor did appear, he should see no one in the guardroom.
Not long afterwards Odysseus whistled his variation on the nightlark’s song – how clever he was! Had he not thought to vary the usual trill, a real nightlark was bound to have decided to sing right near the watchtower. As it was, no real nightlark was in the offing; all I had to hope was that no visitor was either, for I couldn’t warn Odysseus.
I opened the trapdoor in the guardroom and shinnied down the side of the ladder to find Odysseus waiting at the bottom.
‘Wait!’ I whispered, and went outside to scout around. But the streets were quiet, lampless and torchless.
‘I have her, Diomedes, but she weighs as much as Ajax!’ said Odysseus when I returned. ‘It’s going to be hard work dragging her up a twenty-five-cubit ladder.’
She – the Palladion – was perched precariously across the back of an ass, so we lugged her into the downstairs chamber after sending the beast scampering off. Awestruck, I stared at her in the lamplight. Oh, she was so old! A crudely recognisable female form carved out of some dark wood too grimed by the passage of aeons to be beautiful, and beautiful she was not. She had tiny, joined, pointed feet, huge thighs, an obscene vulva, a distended belly, two bulbous breasts, arms clamped against her sides, a round head and a pouting mouth. She was also enormously fat. Taller than me, she was heavy. The pointed feet might have enabled her to spin like a child’s top, but she couldn’t stand on them; we had to support her.
‘Odysseus, will she fit inside the conduit?’ I asked.
‘Yes. The bulk of her belly is no bigger than your shoulders and she’s rounder. So’s the conduit.’
Then I had a bright idea. I searched the room for a piece of rope and found it in a box, then looped it under her breasts, tied it, and had enough left over to hold on to. I went up the ladder first dragging her on the rope, while Odysseus put one hand on her huge, globous buttocks and the other inside her vulva, and shoved from underneath.
‘Do you think,’ I gasped when we reached the guardroom, ‘that she’ll ever forgive us the liberties we’ve had to take?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, lying flat on the floor alongside her. ‘She’s the first Athene, who is Pallas, and I belong to her.’
Getting her down the conduit was actually easier; Odysseus had been right. Her roundness bumped along more easily than I could with my wide shoulders and masculine angles. We kept her roped, which proved a second boon once we were on the plain; we dragged her to the grove of trees and Ajax’s four-wheeled car. There, groaning from our final effort, we hoisted her aboard and collapsed. The half moon was westering, which meant we still had sufficient time to get her home.
‘You did it, Odysseus!’ I crowed.
‘I couldn’t have without you, old friend. How many guards did you have to kill?’
‘Five.’ I yawned. ‘I’m tired.’
‘How do you think I feel? At least your back is whole.’
‘Don’t talk about it! Tell me what happened inside the Citadel instead. Did you see Helen?’
‘I duped the gate guards beautifully, so they let me into the city. The sole guard on the Citadel gates was asleep – I just picked up my chains and stepped over him, dainty as you please. I found Helen alone – Deiphobos was off somewhere. She was a little taken aback to find a bloodied, filthy slave prostrating himself at her feet, but then she saw my eyes and recognised me. When I asked to go to the crypt, she was out of her chair in an instant. I think she was expecting Deiphobos. But we escaped, and as soon as we could find a quiet spot she helped me rid myself of my fetters. Then we went to the crypt.’ He chuckled. ‘I have an idea it proved very handy when she was intriguing with Aineas, because she knew it like the back of her hand. Once we were down there she plagued me with questions – how was Menelaos? – how were you? – how was Agamemnon? She couldn’t hear enough.’
‘But the Palladion – how did you manage to move her if your only helper was Helen?’ I asked.
His shoulders shook with laughter. ‘While I said the prayers and asked the Goddess for her consent to the move, Helen vanished. The next thing, she was back with the ass! Then she led me out of the crypt straight into the street below the Citadel wall, where she kissed me – very chastely! – and wished me well.’
‘Poor Helen,’ I said. ‘Deiphobos must have tipped the balance against Troy’s interests.’
‘You’re absolutely right, Diomedes.’
Agamemnon erected a magnificent altar in the assembly square and enthroned the Palladion inside a golden niche. After which he summoned as much of the army as he could fit into the area, and told the story of how Odysseus and I had kidnapped her. She was given her own priest, who offered her the finest victims; the smoke was white as snow and lifted so quickly into the sky that we knew she loved her new home. How she must have hated the cold, dank blackness of her Trojan home! Her sacred snake slithered into his house below her altar without a moment’s hesitation, then stuck his head out to lap at his saucer of milk and swallow his egg. An imposing and happy ceremony.
Odysseus, the rest of the Kings and I followed Agamemnon to his house when the ritual was over, there to feast. None of us ever refused an invitation to dine with the King of Kings; he had by far the best cooks. Cheeses, olives, breads, fruits, roast meats, fish, honeyed sweetmeats, wine.
The mood was lively, the conversation larded with mirth and jests, the wine excellent; then Menelaos called for the harper to sing. Maudlin by this time, we settled down comfortably to listen. The Greek was never born who loved not the songs, the hymns, the lays of his country; we would rather have heard the bard than bedded down with women.
The harper gave us one of the Lays of Herakles, then waited patiently for the slightly hysterical applause to die down. He was a fine poet and a fine musician; Agamemnon had brought him from Aulis ten years before, but he came originally from the North, and was said to be descended from Orpheus himself, the singer of singers.
Someone asked for the Battle Hymn of Tydeus, someone else for the Lament of Danai, and Nestor wanted the Tale of Medea; but to every request he smilingly shook his head. Then he bent the knee to Agamemnon.
‘Sire, if it pleases you, I’ve composed a song about events much closer to us than the deeds of dead Heroes. May I sing my own composition to you?’
Agamemnon inclined that imperial, whitening head. ‘Sing, Alphides of Salmydessos.’
He passed his fingers tenderly across the stiff strings to draw out his beloved lyre in slow melodic pain; the song was sad and yet glorious, a song of Troy and Agamemnon’s army before its walls. He cast us rapt for a very long time, for such a titan of a poem isn’t sung in two or three moments. We sat with our chins on our hands, and not an eye was open or a cheek dry. He ended with the death of Achilles. The rest was too sorrowful. Even now we found it hard to think of Ajax.
‘All gold in death, he who was always gold in life,
His beautiful mask wafting thin and unfluttered,
His breath gone forever, his shade dissolved away.
Heavy his clasped hands sheathed in golden gloves,
All his mortality melted, his glory become mere metal,
Peerless Achilles, his brazen voice struck to silence.
O divine Muse, lift my heart, let me give him life!
Through my words let him be clothed in living gold,
Let his footsteps ring hollow with fear and dread,
Let him stride across the plain before sullen Troy!
Let me show him shake back his long golden plumes,
Remember him gleaming like the splendid sun above,
Running tireless through the dewed grasses of Troy
With the ribbons on his cuirass nodding the rhythm,
Glorious Achilles who was the lipless son of Peleus.’
We praised the harper Alphides of Salmydessos long and loud through aching hearts; he had given us a taste of immortality, for his song was sure to live far longer than any of us. I think it was that we still breathed, yet were in the song. The load was too heavy to bear.
When the applause finally ended I wanted to be alone with Odysseus; a gathering of men seemed alien to the mood the harper had inspired in us. I looked across at Odysseus, who understood without having to defile the moment with words. He got up, turned towards the door, and gasped audibly. Because a sudden silence had fallen on the room, all our heads turned his way. And we gasped.
At first the likeness was uncanny; with the spell of the song still strong on us, it was as if Alphides of Salmydessos had conjured up a ghost to hear his music. I thought, Achilles has come to listen too! But who has given him the blood to allow his shade substance?
Then I looked more closely and saw that he wasn’t Achilles. This man was as tall and as broad, but he was many years younger. The beard was hardly stiff and the stubble a darker gold, the eyes more amber. And he owned two perfectly formed lips.
How long he had been standing there none of us knew, but from the suffering in his face it must have been long enough to have heard at least the conclusion of the song.
Agamemnon rose and went to him with arm extended. ‘You are Neoptolemos, son of Achilles. Welcome,’ he said.
The young man nodded gravely. ‘Thank you. I came to help, but I set sail before – before I knew my father was dead. I learned it from the harper.’
Odysseus joined them. ‘What better way to learn such awful news?’ he asked.
Sighing, Neoptolemos bowed his head. ‘Yes. The song told it all. Is Paris dead?’
Agamemnon took both his hands. ‘He is.’
‘Who killed him?’
‘Philoktetes, with the arrows of Herakles.’
He tried to be polite, to keep his features impassive. ‘I am sorry, but I don’t know your names. Which is Philoktetes?’
Philoktetes spoke. ‘I am he.’
‘I wasn’t here to avenge him, so I must thank you.’
‘I know, boy. You would rather have done it yourself. But I happened on the rogue by chance – or with the connivance of the Gods. Who can tell? And now, since you don’t know us, let me introduce us. Our High King greeted you first. Next was Odysseus. The rest are Nestor, Idomeneus, Menelaos, Diomedes, Automedon, Menestheus, Meriones, Machaon and Eurypylos.’
I thought, how thin our ranks have grown!
Odysseus, an ecstatic Automedon and I took Neoptolemos to the Myrmidon stockade. It was a longish walk, and news of his arrival had preceded us. All along the way soldiers emptied out of their houses, standing in the bitter sun to cheer him as wholeheartedly as they had used to cheer his father. We discovered that he was like Achilles in more than looks; he acknowledged their wild joy with the same quiet smile and careless wave, and like his father he lived unto himself, he didn’t spread his character lavishly on everyone he came in contact with. As we walked we filled in the gaps in the song, told him how Ajax had died, told him of Antilochos and all the others who were dead. Then we told him about the living.
The Myrmidons were drawn up on parade. Not a single cheer until the boy – he couldn’t have been more than a bare eighteen – had spoken to them. Then they pounded the flats of their swords against their shields until the noise of it drove Odysseus and I away. We strolled to the other end of the beach and our own compound.
‘And so it draws to an end, Diomedes.’
‘If the Gods know the meaning of pity at all, I pray it draws to an end,’ I said.
He blew a wisp of red hair out of his eyes. ‘Ten years… How curious that Kalchas was right about that. I wonder was it a fluke, or if he really did have the Second Sight?’
I shivered. ‘It isn’t politic to doubt priestly powers.’
‘Maybe, maybe. Oh, to shake the dust of Troy from my hair! To sail the open seas again! To wash away the stench of this plain with clean salt water! To go somewhere the air is windless, and the stars shine without competition from ten thousand campfires! To be purified!’
‘I echo all that, Odysseus. Though it’s hard to believe too that it’s almost over.’
‘It will finish with a cataclysm to rival Poseidon.’
I stared. ‘You’ve worked out how to do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Before the moment? Diomedes, Diomedes! Not even for you! But it won’t be long until the moment.’
‘Come inside and let me bathe those lash stripes.’
Which made him laugh. ‘They’ll heal,’ he said.
The following evening Neoptolemos came to dinner.
‘I have something in trust for you, Neoptolemos,’ said Odysseus after the meal was over. ‘It’s my gift to you.’
Neoptolemos glanced at me, puzzled. ‘What does he mean?’
I shrugged. ‘How can any man know except Odysseus?’
He came back wheeling a huge tripod, on it spread the golden armour Thetis had begged from Hephaistos Fire. Neoptolemos jumped to his feet stammering something I didn’t understand, then reached out and touched the cuirass delicately, lovingly.
‘I was angry,’ he said, tears in his eyes, ‘when Automedon told me you’d won it in debate with Ajax. But I must ask your pardon. You won it to give it to me?’
Odysseus grinned. ‘You’ll fit it, lad. It should be worn, not hung up on a wall or wasted on a dead man’s relatives. Wear it, Neoptolemos, and may it bring you good luck. However, it will take some getting used to. It weighs about the same as you do.’
We got into a few minor skirmishes during the five days which followed; Neoptolemos got his first taste of Trojans, and licked his lips. He was a warrior, born to it and hungering for it. Only time was his enemy, and that he knew. His eyes told all of us he understood that his was to be a minor role in the closing moments of a great war; that the laurel wreaths would be woven for other brows, brows which had endured the full ten years. Yet in himself he was the deciding factor. He brought hope, fury and renewed enthusiasm; the eyes of the soldiers, Myrmidon or Argive or Aitolian made no difference, followed him with doglike devotion as he rode in his father’s chariot wearing his father’s armour. To them he was Achilles. And all the while I continued to watch Odysseus, avid for the summons to council.
It came half a moon after Neoptolemos arrived, from one of the imperial heralds: the next day, after the midday meal. I knew it was useless to try to pump Odysseus, so after we finished supper together I assumed a completely disinterested air as I listened to him pick a subject up and toss it as lightly and deftly as a tumbler his gilded ball. He took my attitude very well, only collapsing into helpless laughter when, very dignified, I took my leave of him. I could have kicked him, but I still smarted from that whipping more than he did, so I refrained; I made do with a pungent description of his ancestors instead.
They all came to Agamemnon’s early, like hounds on the leash sniffing fresh blood, dressed carefully in their best kilts and jewels, as if they were going to a formal reception in the Lion Room at Mykenai. The imperial chief herald stood at the foot of the Lion Chair calling out the names of those present to an underling whose job it was to commit them to memory for posterity.
‘Imperial Agamemnon, High King of Mykenai, King of Kings;
Idomeneus, High King of Crete;
Mehestheus, High King of Attika;
Nestor, King of Pylos;
Menelaos, King of Lakedaimon;
Diomedes, King of Argos;
Odysseus, King of the Out Islands;
Philoktetes, King of Hestaiotis;
Eurypylos, King of Ormenion;
Thoas, King of Aitolia;
Agapenor, King of Arkadia;
Ajax, son of Oileus, King of Lokris;
Meriones, Prince of Crete, Heir to Crete;
Neoptolemos, Prince of Thessalia, Heir to Thessalia;
Teukros, Prince of Salamis;
Machaon, Surgeon;
Podalieros, Surgeon;
Epeios, Engineer.’
The King of Kings nodded to his heralds to leave, and handed Meriones the Staff of Debate. He then spoke to us in the very stilted language of formal pronouncements.
‘After Priam, King of Troy, did break the sacred covenants of war, I did commission Odysseus, King of Ithaka, to devise a plan to take Troy by stealth and trickery. I am informed that Odysseus, King of Ithaka, is ready to speak. You are all called upon to witness his words. Royal Odysseus, you have the floor.’
Smiling at Meriones, Odysseus got up. ‘Keep the Staff for me.’ Then he took a rolled-up piece of soft pale hide from the table in the centre of the room and walked to a wall we could all see. There he flipped the hide open and pinned it securely to the wall with a little jewelled dagger in each of its four corners.
To the last one we stared at it blankly, wondering if we were the victims of a hoax. Admittedly well done in its way, it was a drawing etched thickly on the hide in black charcoal: a sort of a horse done very large, and to one side of it, a vertical line.
Odysseus looked at us enigmatically. ‘Yes, it is a drawing of a horse. No doubt you’re wondering why Epeios is here with us today. Well, he’s here with us today so that I can ask him some questions and he can give me some answers.’
He turned to Epeios, as bewildered as he was uncomfortable in this exalted company.
‘Epeios, you’re held the finest engineer Greece has produced since Aiakos died. You’re also held to be the finest wood worker. Look at the drawing carefully. Note the line beside the horse. The length of that line is the height of the walls of Troy.’
Mystified, we all looked as intently as Epeios did.
‘First of all, Epeios, I want your opinion on something,’ said the King of the Out Islands. ‘You’ve had ten years in which to observe the walls of Troy. Tell me: is there any battering ram, any siege engine in the world capable of demolishing the Skaian Gate?’
‘No, King Odysseus.’
‘Very well, then! A second question: using what materials, craftsmen and facilities you have right here now, could you build me a huge ship?’
‘Yes, sire. I have shipwrights, carpenters, masons, sawyers and plenty of unskilled labour. And I estimate that there’s enough timber of the right kind within five leagues of here to build you a fleet of such ships.’
‘Excellent! Now the third question: could you build me a wooden horse the size of this animal on the chart? Note the black line again. It is thirty cubits, the height of the Trojan walls. From which you will see that at its ears the horse is thirty-five cubits tall. And – question four – could you build this horse on a wheeled platform capable of holding its weight? And – my fifth question – could you make the horse hollow?’
Epeios began to smile; evidently the project tickled his fancy. ‘Yes, sire, to all your questions.’
‘How long would it take you?’
‘A matter of days only, sire.’
Odysseus unpinned the hide and tossed it to the engineer. ‘Thank you. Take this and go to my house. I’ll see you there.’
We were totally at a loss. Our faces must have been studies in bewilderment, apprehension and suspicion, but as we waited for Epeios to depart Nestor began to chuckle, as if he suddenly saw the most exquisite joke of all his long, long life.
Odysseus flung his arms wide and grew in height until he seemed to tower; he was off now, which meant none of us could have either swayed or stopped him. Gesturing magnificently, he made his voice ring around the rafters.
‘That, my fellow Kings and Princes, is how to take Troy!’
We sat mumchance and stared at him.
‘Yes, Nestor, you’re right. So are you, Agamemnon. First of all, a horse that size will hold within its belly, I estimate, about one hundred men. And if the sortie is silent, nocturnal and unsuspected, one hundred men will be quite sufficient to open the Skaian Gate.’
The queries came thick and fast from every quarter of the room. Doubters yelled, enthusiasts cheered, and pandemonium ruled until Agamemnon climbed off the Lion Chair to take the Staff from Meriones and drum it on the floor.
‘You may ask all your questions, but in a more orderly way – and after me. Odysseus, sit down and pour yourself some wine, then explain this scheme in every little detail.’
The council broke up as darkness was falling; I accompanied Odysseus back to his house. Epeios was waiting patiently, the hide chart open before him; it now contained several more and smaller drawings. I listened idly as the pair of them discussed technical matters – the things Epeios would need, the approximate length of time the task would take – the necessity for absolute secrecy.
‘You may work in the mysterious hollow just behind this house,’ said Odysseus to Epeios. ‘It’s deep, so the horse won’t poke its head above the tops of the trees on the far side. No one will be able to see it from the city watchtowers. The locality has other advantages too. It’s been off limits to all and sundry for so many years that you won’t have any inquisitive sightseers. You’ll use the men who live there as unskilled labourers. Every man you have to import to the hollow will be unable to leave until the job is done. Can you cope, working under those conditions?’
His eyes sparkled. ‘You may rely on me, King Odysseus. No one will know what’s going on.’