Fall of Kings (23 page)

On midwinter’s day the king’s son Antiphones left his house in the lower town
of Troy and trudged up the icy, nearly-deserted streets toward the city. A
freezing wind was blowing, and even the sheepskin cloak he wore could not keep
the cold from his bones.

Passing through the Scaean Gate, he made his way up the stone stairway to the
south battlements. As he climbed, he remembered the long days of illness after
the palace siege four years before. Knifed nearly to death, he had fought to
recover and to lose some of his prodigious weight by climbing the battlement
steps over and over again. The first time he had tackled the west battlements,
where the great wall was lowest. He had thought that he would pass out from pain
and exhaustion. But over the months his strength had grown, and now, though he
still weighed as much as any two men, he was as strong as any warrior in Troy.

He had no idea why his brother Polites had asked to meet him on the Great
Tower of Ilion. Antiphones had not been up there since he was a child. Priam had
forbidden it. “The roof would collapse under you, boy,” he had said, “and it
would be an engineering nightmare to rebuild.”

On the south wall, above the Scaean Gate, he paused for a moment, then opened
the oak door in the side of the great tower and entered its blackness. There he
waited until his eyes got accustomed to the gloom. The steps crafted on the
inner wall of the tower rose up to his left.

When he finally emerged high on the wooden roof of the tower, the wind hit
him like an ax. The four guards manning the corners of the tower stood braced,
enduring the cold. Polites, his skinny frame enveloped in a heavy cloak and his
thinning hair covered by a sheepskin cap, came hurrying over to him, pushed by
the wind from the north.

“Thank you for meeting me here, Brother,” he said, half his words snatched
away as they left his mouth. “Are you well?”

“Let us leave mutual inquiries about our health to a more appropriate time,”
Antiphones yelled. “What are we doing here?”

“As usual, I am seeking your advice, Brother.” Placing his hand on
Antiphones’ shoulder, he urged him over to the side of the tower overlooking the
lower town and the bay. The wide battlemented wall offered shelter for the lower
part of his body, but still Antiphones scarcely could suck in his breath in the
wind. He cupped his hand over his mouth so that he could breathe.

“Our father has chosen to make a fool of me again,” Polites said close to
Antiphones’ ear. “He summoned me yesterday and told me that he was making me his
strategos
and that I must plan the defense of Troy. I have spent a
sleepless night, Brother.”

Antiphones nodded. “And why are we on the great tower?” he gasped.

“From here we can see all of Troy and its surroundings. We can see where the
invaders will come, and we can plan our defense.”

Antiphones grunted. He grabbed hold of his brother’s skinny arm and dragged
him back to the top of the tower staircase.

“Come with me, Polites!”

Turning his back and making no effort to see if his brother was following
him, he descended into the dark, mercifully windless tower and made his way back
down to the wall. Emerging into the light, he descended the battlement steps.

Calling a gate guard, Antiphones ordered, “Fetch me a chariot!” The man
nodded and raced off toward the palace.

Antiphones walked out through the open Scaean Gate. Only then, looking over
the lower town once more, did he turn to his brother.

“In order to defend the city we must think like the invader,” he told him.
“We cannot think like Agamemnon standing on the great tower. We must go where
he
would go, see what
he
would see.”

Polites nodded, his face downcast. “You are right. I am no good at this. That
is why Father chose me. To make a fool of me. As he did for Hektor’s wedding
games.”

Antiphones shook his head. “Brother, you are not thinking this through. True,
Priam has made fools of us in the past. He made me his captain of horse when I
was so colossally fat, I would have broken the back of one of Poseidon’s
immortal horses. But in this he knows what he is doing. When the Mykene come, he
has to be ready. They could be here on our shores by spring. We might have just
days before we see their ships. He has not chosen you to make a fool of you. He
has chosen you because he thinks you are the right man for this task. You have
to understand this.”

“In spite of the games?” Polites asked.

“
Because
of the games, my friend. The games were important to him. He
wanted Agamemnon and his crew of rabble kings to see how the Trojans could
organize themselves. He believed you could do it. And you did him proud. You got
thousands of men to their correct events on the right days at the right times.
They were all fed and housed. It was a great success. You were too anxious at
the time to see it.”

“There were a few fights,” Polites said, reassured a little by the praise.

“There were more than a
few
fights.” Antiphones laughed. “I witnessed
a score myself. Yet the games were not disrupted, and everyone went home
satisfied. Except King Eioneus”—he shrugged—“and the two men killed in the
chariot races. And that Kretan fistfighter Achilles killed with one blow.”

He laughed and clapped his brother on the back.

“I don’t see it,” Polites said miserably. “Yesterday I met the generals Lucan
and Thyrsites. They were speaking in a language I could not understand.”

Antiphones chuckled. “Soldiers like to speak their own private language.”

A chariot came into sight, clattering through the gateway. Antiphones
dismissed the charioteer and took up the reins. “Come, Polites,” he said. “Let
us take a ride together.”

Polites climbed aboard. Antiphones flicked the reins, and the chariot set off
through the lower town past the rabbit warren of streets and alleyways under the
great walls. Once across the fortification ditch around the lower town,
Antiphones drove the chariot down the gently sloping road and across the
snow-carpeted plain of the Scamander until they reached the river. It was in
full winter spate, and its floodwaters lapped around the chariot wheels before
they reached the wide wooden bridge. Antiphones drew the horses to a halt and
climbed down. Standing at the center of the bridge, they looked back the way
they had come.

“Now what do you see?” the big man asked.

Polites sighed. “I see a great city on a plateau surrounded by walls which
are impregnable.” He glanced at Antiphones, who nodded encouragingly. “I see the
lower town which lies on sloping ground, mostly to the south of the city. This
can be defended, but if the numbers of defenders are too few or the invaders too
many, then it can be taken, street by street, building by building. Taking it
will be very costly to both sides, but it can be done. Father is thinking of
widening the fortification ditch around the town, which will mean pulling down
many buildings. But he fears it will send the wrong message. If the people
believe Agamemnon is definitely coming, they will flee the city in even greater
numbers, and the treasury will suffer.”

Antiphones shrugged. “Agamemnon will come, anyway. What else do you see?”

“All around us, to the east, west, and south, I see a wide plain, ideal for
cavalry warfare. The Trojan Horse would destroy any troops exposed on this
plain. None could stand against them.” As Polites gazed at the city, Antiphones
saw his expression change.

“What is it?” the big man asked.

“The Trojan Horse,” Polites answered. “Thousands of horses. We could not
stable them in the upper city. There would not be enough feed. Nor could we
leave them in the lower town and the barracks there. What if the town fell?”

“Now you are thinking,” Antiphones told him, though the problem had not
occurred to him before. The Trojan Horse was a mobile army, best suited to fast
movement, surprising enemy forces. It would be useless in a siege. Fear touched
his heart then.

Polites was staring intently at the land around the city and down to the Bay
of Troy. “We will need more horsemen,” he said. “Outriders and scouts. Hektor
and his men will have to remain outside the city, constantly moving, then
hitting the enemy where least expected.” Polites’ brow furrowed. “How, then, can
we supply them with food and fresh weapons, arrows and spears?”

“You are going too fast for me,” Antiphones told him. “How can we survive
with our army outside the city?”

“Not all of the army. Only the Trojan Horse. We can still man the walls with
infantry and archers and sally out with our regiments when the occasion permits.
We must have hidden supplies out in the far hills and the woods where the enemy
will not venture,” he continued, warming to his theme. “And we will need a way
to communicate with Hektor so that we can link strategically.”

“You are a wonder, little brother,” Antiphones said admiringly. Polites
blushed at the compliment.

“But,” Antiphones said, sobering a little, “we cannot rely solely on the
Trojan Horse. It is our spear and our shield, but even the strongest shield can
be shattered.”

“Do you believe Agamemnon will bring his own cavalry? Surely not!”

“No, the strength of the Mykene is in their infantry. The Mykene phalanx is
the best in the world, experienced and disciplined. We will not want to be drawn
into any pitched battles with them.”

“But Brother,” Polites argued, “we have the finest infantry. Surely the
Scamandrian and Heraklion regiments and your own Ileans are a match for any
army. They are all doughty warriors.”

Antiphones shook his head. “With the exception of the Eagles, we have no foot
soldiers to compare with the Mykene,” he admitted. “And our infantry is
buttressed by Hittite and Phrygian mercenaries, with their flimsy armor. The
Mykene would cut through them like a scythe through long grass. Only Hektor and
the Horse can defeat the elite warriors of Agamemnon. The Mykene are the finest
fighters, but heavily armored, they are slow to react. Only a cavalry charge
will break their formation and scatter them.”

Polites nodded. “But surely Father’s Eagles would be a match for them.”

“Yes, but there are only three hundred Eagles. The Mykene infantry will
number in the thousands, and most of them will be veterans of a score of wars.
They are deadly, Polites, and they know how to win. They get a lot of practice.”

Antiphones gazed up at the city, his mood bleak. Since his brush with death
he had thanked the gods daily for his continued life and attacked each day with
vigor, determined to wring the last dregs of enjoyment from it. But now, for the
first time in years, blackness threatened to engulf him. What had started as a
mild intellectual exercise, discussing the defenses of Troy with his brother,
had blossomed into black dread for the future. He could see in his mind’s eye
enemy camps on the plain of the Scamander, the river running with blood, the
lower town empty and burned, Mykene troops clamoring at the walls of Troy.

Polites said encouragingly, “We also know how to win, Brother. And the great
walls are impregnable. The city cannot be taken.”

Antiphones turned to him. “If the Mykene reach the walls, Polites, then Troy
cannot stand. There are only two wells in the city. Most of our water comes from
the Scamander and the Simoeis. And how long can we feed all our people? We could
not last the summer. And eventually there would be a traitor. There always is.
Dardanos was not taken by siege, remember. It needed just one traitor, and the
enemy troops merely walked in the gates.”

He fell silent.
I
was the traitor, he thought, the last time Agamemnon
tried to take Troy. Through my arrogance I almost caused the death of the king
and the fall of Troy to a foreign power. Only the courage of the hero Argurios
prevented that. Two Trojans plotted the fall of Troy, and a Mykene saved the
city. How the gods enjoy such elegant irony, he thought.

Antiphones smiled grimly, trying to rouse himself from gloom, cursing his
self-pity. “If only I had remained fat, I could have sat behind the Scaean Gate,
and all the troops in Mykene could never have opened it.”

Polites laughed. “Then we should head for home and a mountain of honey
cakes.”

The big woman trudged through the streets of the lower town, a basket of
honey cakes on her arm. As she walked, many of the older traders called out
greetings. She knew them all: Tobios the jeweler with his henna-dyed hair,
Palicos the cloth merchant, Rasha the spindly meat seller, and more. To them she
was still Big Red, the servant of Aphrodite.

But those days were gone now. She was married to Banokles, a soldier of the
Trojan Horse. She smiled. A general now, no less. Thoughts of her husband warmed
her as she walked through the morning cold.

When young and beautiful, she had dreamed of marrying a rich man, tall and
handsome, and of living in a palace with servants to tend her needs. There would
be perfumed baths and jeweled robes. Her husband’s adoration would shine
brighter than the summer sun, and she would walk through Troy like a queen of
legend. Such were the dreams of the young. The woman of those times had believed
she never would grow old. There never would be a day when men did not desire
her, when one glance from those violet eyes did not capture their hearts.

Yet that day had come, creeping unnoticed through the shadows of her life.
The rich clients had fallen away, and Red had found herself plying her trade
among foreign sailors or common soldiers or among the poorer merchants and
travelers.

Until the night Banokles had come into her life.

Red cut through the alleys toward her small neat house in the Street of
Potters, passing on the way the square where she first had seen the
blond-bearded Mykene soldier. He had been roaring drunk and in the company of
thieves and cutthroats. He had called out, then staggered toward her. “By the
gods,” he had said, “I think you are the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”
Fumbling in the pouch by his side, he had pulled out a silver ring, which he had
thrust into her hand. She had told him she was finished with work for the night,
but it had not concerned him. “That is for your beauty alone,” he had told her.