Fall of Kings (43 page)

Odysseus shrugged, refusing to rise to the bait, though anger was bubbling in
his chest. “With Antiphones dead, I don’t know. Perhaps one of the generals.
Maybe Polites.”

“This is good news,” said the portly Menelaus, repeating his brother
Agamemnon’s words. “Knowing Hektor does not lead the defense, I mean. I think we
must try another attack on the walls.”

“Are you insane, man?” Odysseus roared, jumping to his feet and tipping back
his chair, which crashed to the floor. “By Apollo’s balls, after the carnage
yesterday you would send more men to certain death! How many men did we lose,
three hundred, four?”

“My brother might have a good idea,” Agamemnon put in smoothly as Menelaus
stumbled back under Odysseus’ onslaught.

“Menelaus never had a good idea in his life.” Odysseus sneered. “He follows
you around like a puppy dog, yapping when you tell him to and sometimes pissing
on your feet. This poxy plan is yours, Agamemnon, and I’d like to know why.
Because, unlike your pup here, you’re not a stupid man.”

Agamemnon had gone pale, and his dark eyes were angry.

“I, too, would like to hear why we should commit more of our forces to
certain death,” Menestheos of Athens put in mildly.

Agamemnon took a deep breath. He explained, “Yesterday a group of my warriors
managed to take a part of the wall and hold it for a short while before being
thrown back by the renegade Banokles and his men. If a brave troop of soldiers
could take and hold just a section of the wall, then we could send hundreds up a
ladder behind them. The Trojans would not be able to stop them. But we need the
bravest of fighters, willing to risk their lives for our just cause.”

He looked around the room, and his eyes rested on Achilles.

“I will have nothing to do with this insanity,” the king of Thessaly said. “I
and my Myrmidons will take part in no more suicidal attacks on the walls.”

“So,” Agamemnon said icily, “our champion Achilles fears—”

Achilles rose to his feet and in one swift stride was in front of Agamemnon,
the tip of his sword resting lightly on the Mykene’s throat. It was done so
quickly, so gracefully, that no one had time to move. Odysseus saw Patroklos lay
his hand on his sword hilt, as did Agamemnon’s two Followers. There was a
deathly silence in the
megaron.

Agamemnon, staring unblinking into Achilles’ eyes, continued. “I was going to
say that Achilles fears for the lives of his men. This is understandable and is
the mark of a true captain. The valiant Myrmidons have been vital to our success
so far.”

Achilles paused for a moment, then sheathed his sword. Without taking his
eyes off Agamemnon, he returned to his seat.

“We are all men of honor,” Agamemnon went on. “Achilles is our champion, and
none doubts his countrymen’s bravery. But our attack will go ahead without
Thessaly if it must.”

“And without Ithaka,” Odysseus put in. “My men will not be climbing walls to
certain death. You can have my archers and my bow Akilina to defend your
warriors from the ground; that is all.”

“So be it,” Agamemnon said coldly. “And what is
your
plan for taking
the walls, Tale Spinner? Or are you only here to weave children’s stories about
magic pigs and flying ships?”

Black-bearded Meriones stood up and said angrily, “The king of Ithaka has
proved himself in battle a hundred times. If it were not for him, we would still
be languishing on the other side of the Scamander.”

“Yes, yes,” old Nestor put in impatiently. “We are all warriors here. I had
fought a hundred battles before young Achilles was a gleam in his father’s eye.
What I would know, Agamemnon King, is why you need us all here when you plan to
send one troop of your men up a ladder.”

“The attack will be the same as yesterday’s,” the Battle King replied
patiently. “With all our ladders and as many men as we can muster. The Trojans
must not know where our eye is fixed.”

“And where is it fixed?” the king of Pylos asked.

“Our target is the south wall beside the Great Tower of Ilion. If we can take
and hold that small part of the wall, we will have access to the great tower
through the battlements door. Then we will have two ways in: down the steps at
the south wall or down through the tower, which, as you all know, opens behind
the Scaean Gate. We need get only six men to the gate and the city is ours.”

Odysseus waited a safe distance from the south wall, the great bow Akilina on
his shoulder, as the western troops mustered for the new assault. This was to be
no surprise attack. He could see the sun glinting off the helms of the Trojan
forces lined up along the top of the wall.

Despite his losses, Agamemnon could gather more than thirty thousand warriors
for the assault. The Ithakan king calculated that there could be no more than
five thousand soldiers left inside the walls to defend Troy. That should be
plenty today, he thought. Agamemnon’s latest scheme might work, but that was
unlikely. Each passing day, each failed assault, confirmed Odysseus in his
belief that the only way to take the city was by trickery.

The ladders lay lined up on the ground. They were constructed of oak from the
foothills of Mount Ida and lashed together with strong leather strips. They were
heavy, and each required six men to raise it to the walls.

The command was given, and the attackers picked up their ladders and ran with
them to the base of the wall. Within moments, scores of ladders had been raised
and armored warriors were streaming up them. Odysseus stepped back a few paces,
notched an arrow to the string, and waited, just as the defenders waited. The
Trojans were waiting for each ladder to be charged with warriors before
dislodging it from the wall. Odysseus was waiting for the defenders to lean out
from the battlements to shift the ladders.

A bearded Trojan soldier holding a ladder pole stretched out from the top of
the wall to hook the pole against a ladder and thrust it sideways. Odysseus
could see a tiny patch of white between his helm and the armor at his neck. He
sighted Akilina and loosed. The arrow punched through the man’s throat, and he
slumped over the wall. Odysseus notched another arrow to the string and waited.

The ladder beside the great tower was downed quickly by the defenders, the
warriors falling from it as it crashed to the ground. More soldiers raced to
raise it again and to climb it regardless of the danger to themselves. Agamemnon
had promised honor and a sheep’s weight in gold to the first man to reach the
battlements and live. Odysseus picked off two more defenders at the top of the
ladder. He saw a soldier on the wall spot him and point him out to the Phrygian
archers. Odysseus grinned. He was well out of range of their puny bows.

The attackers were making a fourth attempt to climb the ladder by the tower.
There were seven warriors on it when it was pushed sideways, dislodging the men
clinging to it and those on the next two ladders as it crashed into them. There
was a thin sound of cheering from the top of the walls.

But the attackers did not hesitate. New soldiers leaped forward and raised
the ladders again. Such courage wasted on a doomed venture, Odysseus thought.

Glancing at the top of the wall again, he suddenly realized that the
defenders had fallen back. He frowned. What are they up to now? he wondered.

All along the south wall he saw men come into view bearing huge shallow
dishes of shining metal in cloth-covered hands. Boiling oil, Odysseus wondered,
or scalding water? The dishes were tipped up as one, and their contents showered
down on the invaders below.

Instantly there was a scene of horror as climbing men all along the wall
started screaming and writhing, trying to pull off their armor, and falling from
the ladders. Those who managed to get out of their armor continued shrieking in
torment, their cries hideous to hear.

Odysseus shouldered Akilina and ran toward the walls, shouting at his archers
to carry on shooting at the defenders.

He reached a Mykene warrior who was writhing in agony, trying desperately to
rid himself of his breastplate. Odysseus tore it off him, but that did not help.
The man went on screaming as Odysseus ripped off his tunic.

“What is it, Odysseus? What’s happening to them?” Meriones cried, kneeling at
his side.

The fallen warrior had fainted from the excruciating pain, and Odysseus
pointed at the bright red skin of his chest and shoulders. It looked as if it
were boiling.

“Sand,” he said, “mixed with tiny shavings of metal and heated until it’s
red-hot. It sifts under the armor and burns deeply into the skin. It can never
be removed and will always be a torment to the victim. I have heard of this
weapon used in desert lands. It is a fiendish torture.”

An arrow thudded into the ground beside him, and he and Meriones swiftly
raised their shields above their heads. Then each took an arm of the wounded
soldier, and they started to drag him away from the walls. But another arrow
slammed into the man’s chest, and he died instantly. They let go of him and
turned back to the walls to try to rescue others.

“By Apollo’s balls,” Odysseus muttered, “he’s better off dead.”

Between them, he and Meriones carried several soldiers, all tormented by
unendurable pain, away from the walls. Never had the king felt so helpless in
the face of hideous injury.

They’re
all
better off dead, he thought grimly.

The warm spring turned into a hot, dry summer. The besieged city was parched.

As Andromache walked from the House of Serpents back to Hektor’s palace, she
thought longingly of the cool goblet of water that would greet her when she
arrived. She slipped through the gates of the palace, shedding her bodyguards
with a nod, and stepped into the gardens.

The plants were dying. The tender ones were long dead; the pots and troughs
fashioned from stone and wood were filled only with brown twigs. Even the trees
were drooping from lack of water. In the early evening light, Andromache’s two
boys were running around on the dry cracked earth, playing catch, unaware of the
dead plants and the city’s desperate plight.

“Mama!” Astyanax shouted joyfully, and ran to her with his arms out. She
lifted the boy up onto her hip with a groan. “You’re getting too heavy for me!”
she protested. Dex ran up to her, too, and she ruffled his fair hair, smiling
down into his dark eyes.

He was a thoughtful little boy, still shadowed by grief. Sometimes at night,
when he was afraid to sleep because of nightmares, he would creep into her bed
and whisper to Andromache about his mother, whom he called Sun Woman, and Gray
One and Old Red Man. She had learned that Gray One had been his elderly nurse,
and Old Red Man the Dardanian general Pausanius, both killed in the Mykene
attack on Dardanos. The little boy would chatter about them, mixing them up with
stories of gods and goddesses he had been told. He recited the same tales over
and over, comforting himself with their familiarity. One night recently he had
brought “Mama” into his stories. She recognized herself, and her heart lifted.
He was starting to add his present life here in Troy to his past life with the
dead of Dardanos. He was still heart-scarred, but she believed the boy
eventually would heal.

She put Astyanax down and, taking both boys by the hand, led them into the
palace. She passed through the anteroom and found her handmaids Penthesileia and
Anio talking together in whispering voices. They blushed when she appeared and
made a show of looking busy, polishing the heavy gold jewelry once worn by
Laodike, now left unused in a carved ivory box. Andromache smiled at the two
girls and walked out to the pleasantly shady terrace.

Axa bustled about, bringing the boys sweet cakes and milk. She handed
Andromache a goblet of water, and the princess drank it down gratefully. The
taste was sublime. “I have put a basin of water in your chamber if you want to
wash,” the maid said.

Andromache looked at her sternly. “I’ve told you, Axa, that we cannot waste
water on washing. I do not expect you to wash, or the boys, or your babies.”
Before the fall of the lower town, Axa’s three small children had been moved
into the palace.

“But lady, Prince Polites has asked you to meet him and the generals tonight.
You will want to wash before you change your dress,” the maid said pointedly.

Andromache looked down at her saffron gown, which was stained from her day
working with the sick and wounded in the healing house. “Why would I get
changed?” she asked. “I have nothing clean to wear.”

“I have ordered six white gowns for you,” Axa told her. “The dyemakers cannot
work, but the seamstresses can. And it gives them something to do,” she added
defensively.

“But white cloth is needed for bandages.”

Axa shook her head vigorously. “I asked Zeotos, and he said since there are
few injured these days, he has enough bandages stored away to last for ten
years.”

Andromache laughed. “Then you are right, Axa,” she admitted. “There is no
reason why we shouldn’t have clean white dresses. Order some for yourself and
for Penthesileia and Anio. But you must still pour that water back into the
water barrel for drinking.”

“But I have already perfumed it, lady,” her maid replied stubbornly. “No one
can drink it now.”

“Then give it to the horses. They won’t mind the taste of rose petals.”

“But—”

“Now, Axa. The horses will be grateful.”

Axa fetched the basin, grumbling to herself, then left the apartments.
Andromache walked across the terrace, which overlooked the stables in the Street
of Bright Dancers, and looked down. Eventually she saw the plump figure of her
maid walking from the palace, the water basin cradled in her arms. The woman
paused and looked up. Andromache waved at her. Axa walked on into the stables.