The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Of course it wasn’t! He’s a born storyteller and he’s got a level head – that’s why I chose him for the task. And when he judges the time is right, he’ll go up to the walls and set a torch on the parapet for the fleet to see. Once that’s done, he’ll come straight here and give us the signal to climb out.’

‘He’d better not get himself caught,’ Menestheus, the Athenian king, said.

‘He won’t,’ Eperitus answered. He turned to the others, who were fully awake by now and leaning forward on their knees. ‘It’s Agamemnon I’m concerned about. It won’t be easy sailing into the harbour at night and disembarking the army in complete darkness.’

There was a murmur of agreement.

‘My brother’ll be here on time,’ Menelaus assured them, curtly. ‘He may not have liked your plan, Odysseus, but he won’t let us down.’

‘Quiet!’ Eperitus hissed in a whisper. ‘Someone’s coming.’

Silence fell as the warriors listened intently for what Eperitus’s hearing had already picked up. Their eyes were pale orbs in the darkness as they exchanged tense glances. Then they heard it: the sound of voices – one male, one female – approaching the horse.

Eperitus twisted on the bench. Behind him was one of the holes that Epeius had drilled in the wood to keep the horse’s occupants from suffocating. He pressed an eye to the small aperture and looked out on the scene below. The horse had been hauled halfway up the main thoroughfare from the Scaean Gate to Pergamos, and left at a broadening in the road where busy markets must once have been held in times of peace. Since Eperitus had last looked out in the late afternoon, the wide square had been cleared of the tents where hundreds of allied warriors had been bivouacked and a large, circular fire had been built by the wheeled hooves of the great horse, the embers of which still glowed hot and sent trails of smoke up into the night air. Around it were scores of feasting tables and long, low benches, many of which were lying overturned. The remaining tables were piled up with wooden platters – some empty and others still half-filled with staling food – and countless kraters and goblets. The ground in-between was littered with food, broken cups, items of clothing and even a few shoes – not to mention countless sleeping bodies – so that it looked more like the aftermath of a battle than a feast. Picking their way through all this as they walked down from the gates of the citadel were a man and a woman, followed by four female slaves. The man was tall and richly dressed in a pale, knee-length tunic and black double cloak, fastened at his left shoulder by a gleaming brooch. The woman was almost as tall and leaned unsteadily against the man’s arm as they approached the horse. She wore a white chiton and her black hair lay in long, curling fronds across her shoulders.

‘Who is it?’ Sthenelaus hissed.

‘Deiphobus,’ Eperitus answered, glancing cautiously at Menelaus, ‘and Helen.’

The Spartan’s brow furrowed sharply. He leaned across and hauled Epeius away from his eyehole, pressing his face to the opening.

‘I can’t believe it’s over,’ Eperitus heard Helen say. He placed his eye back against the hole to see her standing below the horse and craning her neck to look up at it. ‘It still doesn’t seem possible that in the morning I can leave the city and go riding across the plains if I want to.’

‘Believe it,’ Deiphobus responded, snaking an arm about her waist. ‘And the only escort you’ll need is me at your side.’

‘See how she doesn’t brush his arm away!’ Menelaus hissed.

No-one replied.

‘But –’ Helen raised a hand lazily towards the horse as she slumped drunkenly against Deiphobus. ‘But why just leave? They’ve been here ten years, spreading slaughter and destruction, dying in their thousands, and then they simply decide to go? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It does to me.’

Helen turned to Deiphobus, who was clearly sober.

‘They weren’t as strong as we assumed,’ he explained. ‘It’s just as Apheidas says: the Greeks are a vicious people, but they lack stamina and courage. The years have worn away at their morale and now they’ve had enough. They’ve run off back to their wives and children.’

He draped his arm across her shoulders, but in a move that earned a grunt of approval from Menelaus, she stepped forward from his half-embrace and placed her hands on her hips, looking up at the horse.

‘What about the things Cassandra said?’

Deiphobus shrugged his shoulders indifferently. ‘My sister says a lot of things, and nothing at all of any worth.’

Helen features dropped into a mournful grimace, mimicking Cassandra’s look of permanent woe. ‘But there are men inside the horse,’ she wailed in perfect imitation of her sister-in-law. ‘I’ve seen it!’

Deiphobus gave a derisive snort. Helen flitted around him like a spectre, then stepped forward and laid a hand on the upper arch of one of the horse’s wheels, so that Eperitus was barely able to see her through the narrow aperture.