He paused a moment, thinking. “If you should fall, your shade can rest easy. I will avenge you. Proud Achilles will get careless and expose himself. Then I will put an arrow in his throat. I swear it.”
Paris always told a good tale. I wondered what the stories would say about him.
I rode to the left of the line to face the fiercest of the Achaeans. As if all the warriors had been waiting for just that moment, both sides fell back. Achilles stood alone between the lines of sweating and gasping men. A ring of bloody corpses surrounded him. He didn’t use the heavy plate armor favored by some of the Achaeans. He wore only a leather cuirass and bronze greaves, and one of the strange boar’s-tusk helmets their heroes were so proud of. I stepped down from my chariot and acknowledged the shouts of my warriors. As I sprinted forward to close with Achilles, the sandal twisted on my right foot, tripping me. I fell to the ground. The Achaeans laughed and beat their shields with their spears and shouted insults. My Trojans were silent. It was a bad omen. The thong tying the sandal to my foot had parted, which was odd, since the thongs had never been used before.
I stood up, shrugged my armor back into place, and pushed the helmet down on my head. I kicked the useless sandal off my foot. The wind blew for a moment, and I could feel the helmet’s red horsehair plume streaming in the wind, like a standard flying before battle.
Achilles crouched and began to circle to my left, moving towards me with each step. I thought of his weakness and of how I had to draw him into it. I would need to be rid of my spear. Achilles would think me at a disadvantage, since he favored the spear. I launched it at him with all my strength. He ducked, using his shield to brush aside my throw. The spear caromed off and flew harmlessly over his head. The Achaeans cheered. My men shouted encouragement. My shield shifted a little and I had to shake my forearm to settle it back into its proper position. The new straps must be stretching. Perhaps it would have been better to stay with my old armor, but that was nothing I could worry about now. I drew my new sword for the first time.
Achilles stabbed at my head, then shifted and tried to bring the shaft of his spear around to trip me. I blocked and jumped, spoiling the move. I feinted with my sword. He kept an arm’s distance between us, refusing to let me close where my sword could come into play. He attempted several more sallies, even trying to hook my shield with his spear to pull it off my arm. I frustrated each of his attacks.
The sweat dripped from beneath my helmet. Achilles was laboring too. He had already faced a number of men before me, and so I was fresher. Hope rose in me. I could defeat him. I could match his speed. My plan would work.
Suddenly he rushed forward, crashing into me with his shield, hoping to bull me over. I stumbled back, my feet scrabbling to find purchase. The toes of my unshod foot found a crack in the dry earth and I was able to retain my balance. Had I been wearing two sandals I would have fallen, and Achilles would have killed me. Now I knew the gods were with me. My men cheered as I drove Achilles back. I had to rein in my enthusiasm. I had to trick him into exposing his vulnerable side. I delayed my reactions. Just enough to make him think I was tiring.
As he sensed his advantage, he launched a flurry of jabs and thrusts. I was hard pressed to keep him back. He managed to cut my face, but the cheek piece of my helmet prevented it from being more than a long, bleeding scratch. I hardly felt the pain. The contest had been going on for some time, longer than Achilles was used to. I could sense that he was desperate to end it. Now is when I would take him. I waited until he had drawn his spear back. Then I jumped forward, crowding him, and lunged with my sword. I dropped my shield, just enough to expose my throat. He saw the opening and struck instinctively like a snake, swift and deadly. I was already twisting aside, expecting his spear thrust. He had a surprise for me. I had been feigning slowness, but so had he. He was much faster than I thought. I couldn’t twist aside in time. His spear caught me in the arm, slicing though the muscle that lay across the top of my shoulder. I was badly wounded. He smiled as I screamed. But more fool he, if he thought it was a scream of pain. It was my shout of triumph. His side was exposed! I brought my sword around in a powerful slashing blow. It landed squarely on the waist of his leather armor where it thinned to allow more flexibility. A place where my sword would cut through it and open a great wound in his side. The blow that would kill him.
I saw the surprise in his eyes when the blow landed. He jerked sideways. It was too late. I jumped back to avoid his desperate counter-thrust. Achilles stood there, looking at his side. His armor was unscathed. There was no cut, no blood. He gave a great shout, withdrawing several paces to address the Achaean lines.
“I am immortal,” he cried. “Immortal, as the songs say.” The Achaeans began to chant his name.
I stared at my sword. And that’s when I saw it. The blade’s edge was blunt, like a practice sword, so that it wouldn’t cut even bread. I had struck Achilles, perhaps broken a rib, but I had not slain him. How could this be? Who could have... and then I knew. Helen. Seeking her revenge. I raised my shield to look at the straps. The one my fist held, the strap that gave me control of my shield during battle, was nearly parted. It had been cut, then sewn shut with a single thread. Sewn so I would not notice it, but ready to fail at a critical moment. It had been cunningly done. I doubted it would take even a single new blow. And that meant my sandal hadn’t parted by mistake either. Helen, how could you do this to me? After Andromache had given you my armor, you were alone with it while I waited for you in my bed. That was when you laid your deadly trap.
There was no chance to defeat Achilles now. I threw my shield at him and ran. My only hope was to reach the Trojan lines. I heard Achilles’ laughter a moment before I felt the bite of his spear in my back. Achilles may have thrown it, but Helen had placed it in his hand.
The Trojan War was over.
Yes, boatman, every word is true. Helen killed me. She was a clever liar, claiming to have no knowledge of the tools of war, pretending she couldn’t sew. I saw the shield strap and the fine stitches used to disguise the cut. It was work that even Andromache would have been proud of. Consider the way she blunted my sword. She had only an hour after my armor was delivered, and I didn’t even hear the hammering required to fold over the sharp edges of the blade. A woman will go far for vengeance when she has been put aside.
That is my tale. A dishonorable end for the most honorable of the Trojans, betrayed by the woman he loved. That is the story men should tell when mourning stirs the house.
Death of a Good Girl
by Carmen Iarrera
Translated from the Italian by Jason Francis McGimsey
Carmen Iarrera is a freelance journalist who writes for radio and television. She is the author of five thriller novels, two of them in collaboration with Italian art critic Federico Zeri. Her many short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines in Italy, Germany, Spain, Holland, France, the Czech Republic, Japan, and the U.S. Three previous Iarrera stories have been published in EQMM, and in 2011 one of the authors stories was chosen by the BBC for a broadcast in honor of the 80th birthday of John Le Carré.
Melina Sardi’s cadaver lay decomposing on the little living room floor. Her arms sprawled open and her right foot, still wearing a red stiletto, stuck out from under the calf of her left leg. Her open white thighs were left exposed by the pink robe amassed around her hips. Her left foot, naked, looked abandoned. Her glassy eyes stared at a little bronze statue lying beside her. A mass of bleached blond hair extended out in a pool of clotted blood around her. Rosa Belli screamed and ran back down the stairs.