The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Helenus wasn’t lying,’ Agamemnon retorted. ‘But if you want to assemble your reserve of cowards and cripples, then go ahead. I’m going to the walls.’

Leaving Menelaus fuming with rage behind him, Agamemnon marched over to the gate. Nestor followed him up the wooden steps to the ramparts and together they looked out into the morning sun at their amassed foes. There was a stretch of empty grassland that had been cleansed of the dead during the truce of the previous evening; beyond this, little more than a bowshot from the battlements, stood the ranks of the Trojans and their allies. Thousands upon thousands of infantry waited with their spears and helmets glinting in the sunlight. Before them were dense lines of archers, their bows fitted with arrows and held in readiness, while behind were scores of chariots and row upon row of cavalry.

It was reminiscent of the scene only weeks before, when Hector’s army had laid siege to the Greek camp. Shortly afterwards, they had succeeded in scaling the walls and throwing down the gates before pouring through the Greek tents to threaten the beached galleys. For the first time, Agamemnon wondered at how fruitless the loss of life had been between then and now: thousands of lives expended just to come full circle. The only difference, perhaps, was that the awe-inspiring figures of Hector and Sarpedon had been replaced by Eurypylus and Deiphobus. Agamemnon looked over at the Mysian king standing boldly in the front rank and saw the confidence in his grim face, a confidence justified by his fighting ability. He had brought down many Greek champions in the terrible battles of the preceding days, and none of the surviving kings were able to overcome him. If the oracles were true and not the fantasy that Menelaus claimed them to be, then Neoptolemus would have to be more than a mere shadow of his father to defeat such a warrior. But unless the gods delivered Achilles’s son on to the shores of Ilium before the day was out, it would be too late anyway. For the war would likely be over, and the Greek army slain or taken into captivity.

Then a flash of white on the Aegean caught his eye. He looked westward across the waves and saw the smudge of a sail shining against the blue waters as it steered towards land. For a moment his heart leapt with joy. Then he saw the ship was not heading towards the Greek camp, but north to Troy – the same galley Menelaus had already spoken of. Almost certainly a merchant, as his brother had guessed, chancing the blockade of the city to bring much needed luxuries at extortionate prices. And with every Greek now waiting behind their walls, the daring captain was sure to make his destination and reap a rich reward.

There was a movement on the plain and Agamemnon watched Eurypylus raise his hand and motion towards the camp. With a great shout, the swarm of archers surged forward to within range of the walls. Behind them, the spearmen began to advance and the tramp of their sandalled feet shook the air. Eurypylus’s voice called out a command and hundreds of bows sang out in reply. Agamemnon and Nestor dived down beneath the parapet as arrows whistled overhead, followed by cries of anguish and despair from the men behind the walls.

The battle had begun.

Chapter Twenty-two

THE SHADOW OF ACHILLES

What does it mean?’ Omeros asked, leaning against the bow rail and staring at the thin columns of smoke twisting up from the shores of Ilium.

‘There’s been another battle,’ Diomedes answered.

‘Is it Troy?’ Neoptolemus said, shouldering through the crowd of men gathering at the prow of the galley. ‘Are we too late?’

He seized hold of the bow rail and glared at the dark crust of land, his face filled with concern that the war might be over and his chance of emulating his father gone.

‘Perhaps we are,’ Diomedes said, ‘but not because Troy has fallen. That smoke’s coming from the Greek camp.’

Eperitus put a hand against one of the leather ropes that threaded down from the mast, steadying himself against the roll of the ship. They had sailed through the night, with Odysseus and Sthenelaus navigating their course by the stars as they hurried back to Ilium, and the early morning sun was now rising full in their faces as they forged east across the waves. He shielded his eyes against its glare and tried to make out what the source of the smoke was. Unlike his comrades, to whom the far shore was but a strip of grey cresting the blue of the Aegean, he could see the walls and towers that guarded the Greek camp and the hundreds of black-hulled ships drawn up on the beach behind them. He could see the mounds of burnt wood on the upper reaches of the ridge that hemmed in the camp, from which the dark spires of smoke were rising. And he could see that more columns drifted up from the plain beyond the defences of the Greeks.