The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

For a while after, he struggled between a reluctance to leave his cosy bed and the need to find something for his nagging stomach. His last meal had been a mixture of grain, rye and barley picked from the hay, where they had fallen from the feedbags of the horses as they ate. Then his decision was made for him: two men were approaching the pens where he lay, talking in the harsh accent of the Myrmidons. The beggar’s first instinct was to cover himself in more hay and hope they did not see him, but his common sense told him a man of his heavy build would need more than a few strands of dry grass to hide behind. So he stood, brushed off some of the dung, and stooped between the wooden bars that kept the four horses from escaping.

‘Who in Ares’s name are you?’ one of the Myrmidons snarled. ‘And what’re you doing in with the horses?’

‘Sleeping,’ the beggar replied haughtily, taking his gnarled staff from the fence post where he had left it the night before and leaning his weight upon it. ‘A man’s entitled to sleep, ain’t he – even if he’s gotta lay his head down with beasts!’

The Myrmidons closed on him angrily, only stopping as they caught the stench of manure and wrinkling their noses up at him in disgust. His appearance matched his aroma. His tunic and cloak were so ragged and torn that large patches of grimy brown skin were visible through the rents. His belt was a long piece of rope – wound several times about his waist – and he wore no sandals, leaving his bare feet caked in manure and dust. His face was almost black with dirt, while his hair and beard were matted with filth and stuck all over with pieces of hay and other accumulated vegetation. And though once a thickset man – a farmer or fisherman, possibly, by his physique – his back was now curved and his knees bent outward so that he seemed a hunched, shuffling creature to their eyes.

‘Two of those “beasts”, as you call them, are immortal,’ the first Myrmidon sneered. ‘And if their master had caught you in with them, rather than us, he’d have lopped off your head by now and thrown your corpse into the sea for the fish to feed on.’

‘Immortal, you say? Then surely they’re the horses of Achilles – Balius and Xanthus.’

‘Not any more,’ the second Myrmidon corrected. ‘Achilles is dead and now they belong to his son, Neoptolemus. And unless you want him to find you here then you’d better get on your way.’

The beggar glanced over towards the huts and tents where the Myrmidon army had been camped for ten years, then looked back at the two men and nodded. But as he turned to go he saw the bags of feed hanging from each of their arms and pointed at the pile of small, red apples on top.

‘Will you spare an old man an apple? I can’t remember the last time I had a whole apple just to meself.’

‘Get on with you!’ one of the men shouted, kicking his behind and sending him sprawling into the dry grass.

The beggar watched the Myrmidons walk away laughing, then slowly picked himself up and began shuffling towards the mass of tents that constituted the rest of the Greek camp. Though the army had routed the Trojans and their Mysian allies several days before, the mood in the camp had become sullen again. Until the arrival of Neoptolemus the Greeks had suffered many casualties, and though they had repaid their enemies in great slaughter, the glory of victory had quickly grown stale and lost its appeal. The survivors mourned their fallen comrades, but even more now they longed for the final conquest of Troy that would release them from their oaths and allow them to return home. As the beggar passed between them, he saw the emptiness in their dark-ringed eyes and knew that they were at the last ebb of their strength. The coming of Neoptolemus – who had taken Achilles’s position at the head of the Myrmidons and now lived in his father’s hut – and his defeat of King Eurypylus had stretched their hope a little further, but it would not endure forever. The beggar could sense the war’s end was close now, just as surely as the last days of summer were passing and the autumn was waiting to take its place.

He saw a banner fluttering in the wind ahead of him. It was green with a golden fox leaping across its centre, and though the material was faded and its edges tattered it remained a symbol of pride to the men who followed it into battle. The beggar watched it for a moment, then began shuffling towards it. Men looked up at the sound of his staff and quickly moved out of his way as they caught his stench and saw his filthy clothing. Eventually he found the hut beneath which the banner flickered and snapped. Three men were seated before it in tall chairs draped with rich furs – the sort of pelts, he noted with greedy eyes, that could make a beggar’s life so much warmer and happier. They were clearly warriors of high rank and renown, sitting with their legs thrust out before them and kraters of wine in their laps as they regarded him with a mixture of distaste and cautious interest.