He turned and ran back towards the Greek line, while Odysseus and Eperitus launched themselves at the wall of Trojans.
Chapter Forty-Three
THETIS
Eperitus lay on his side, supporting his head on his fist as he watched the shadows moving across the walls of his hut. Astynome was beside him, her breathing barely audible as she slept. He looked down at her chest as it gently rose and fell; the skin was orange in the firelight and every dimple and line was carefully picked out by the soft, wavering glow. Her face was turned away from him and he spent a few moments admiring her profile – the straight line of her jaw, the small nose and the closed eyes with their long, black lashes. A few strands of dark hair were stuck to the thin film of sweat on her forehead, while the rest of it lay tousled across the rolled-up furs that pillowed her head. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear, half hoping she would wake, but she did not.
It was now seventeen days since Paris had shot Achilles before the Scaean Gate, his hand guided by Apollo. After the battle there were many who claimed to have seen the god standing atop the battlements. None had, of course, but it was beyond doubt that the Olympian archer had finally avenged the death of his son, Tenes, whom Achilles had killed ten years before in the first battle of the war. Tomorrow the period of mourning set by Agamemnon would be over and the great warrior’s body burnt. And it was about time, Eperitus thought. Unlike the divine protection that had preserved and restored Hector’s body during the days of abuse by Achilles, the Phthian prince’s own corpse had been afforded no such blessing. Despite every effort of the Greeks, the process of corruption was well advanced and the white sheet that covered the body could not disguise its foul stench. Only the faithful Myrmidons who guarded their prince could endure the smell, while the rest of the army said the rapid decay had been sent by the gods in revenge for Achilles’s impious treatment of Hector.
Eperitus did not agree with them. Neither did Odysseus. Despite his excesses, Achilles was too great a warrior to earn the loathing of the Olympians. Few men could boast an immortal mother or a full set of divinely made armour, and none could claim to have killed as many famed opponents as Achilles had. Nor would the Trojans have fought with such savagery to claim the body of any other man. With Paris urging them on, they had pursued the Greeks back across the fords of the Scamander and up the slopes beyond it to the plain above. Warriors had died in their hundreds on both sides, giving their lives for possession of a single corpse, devoid of its precious spirit. While Ajax had carried Achilles’s lifeless body across his massive shoulders – oblivious to the deadly hail of arrows and the shouts of the victorious Trojans – Odysseus and Eperitus had fought like trapped lions to protect his retreat, assisted by the strength and size of Polites, the bow of Antiphus and the spear of Eurybates. Finally, as Paris prepared his troops for another attack, Zeus himself intervened in the shape of a sudden storm, darkening the skies with clouds and calling on the winds to drive sheets of rain into the faces of the Trojans as the Greeks slipped away.
Astynome had come to his tent that same night, desperate to know that he had survived. She had treated his wounds then made love to him – tenderly, so as not to reopen his many cuts, but with a strong passion driven by relief at being in his arms again. The fierceness of the fighting and the inescapable closeness of death had given their relationship an urgency that neither had experienced in love before, making Eperitus hate the times when she had to leave him and return to her master in Troy. But until the war was over he knew this was how they would have to live – furtive meetings at night, spending their short time together in his bed until dawn, when she would seek out her friends the farmer and his son, who would take her back to the one place Eperitus could not join her. Not, that was, unless he gave in to her pleading and accepted his father’s offer of a meeting to discuss peace – an offer she had reminded him of on the evening after Achilles’s death and again tonight, as she lay in his arms after making love. And again he had refused.
‘But there’s no other way to end this war,’ she had protested, slapping his chest in frustration and looking even more beautiful in her anger. ‘Troy can never be victorious, not with the Amazon queen dead and what’s left of the Aethiope army in full retreat back south. But neither can the cursed Greeks, now Paris has killed Achilles. It’s a stalemate. Surely if your father can bring about peace then you have a duty to listen to him – a duty to Odysseus, to me, and even to yourself.’
‘I don’t trust Apheidas, for one thing,’ he had replied, ‘and I will not allow him to think I’ve forgiven the things he did, or that my shame at being his son is in any way reduced. The answer’s no, Astynome, now and every other time you ask me.’
‘Then I will ask you no more,’ she had said, brushing the tears from her eyes as she lay down next to him.
But as he listened to her rapid breathing gradually slow down until sleep overtook her, he knew that she was right. There was a growing sense of frustration among the ordinary Greek soldiers, bordering on open rebellion as they began to think that the war would never end and they would not see their homes and families ever again. Achilles’s very presence was worth an army in itself, and now that he had gone down to the halls of Hades, the camp seemed empty and subdued. Whatever men may have thought about the ruthless Phthian and his excessive pride, none would deny that he had been the fighting soul of the army. And now that he was dead the army’s hope had died with him. Despairing soldiers were daring to defy their captains, while some even deserted, preferring to brave the hostile lands about them in a hope of finding a way home than spend any more time under the doomed command of Agamemnon. On one occasion an angry mob of Cretans caught Calchas sneaking away from Agamemnon’s tent and threatened to kill him unless he confessed he had lied about the war ending in the tenth year. The priest had refused and only the arrival of Agamemnon’s own bodyguards saved his life. The King of Men had one of the Cretans strung up as an example to the rest of the camp and a resentful peace had followed.
But it was more than the despair of the Greeks that convinced Eperitus the war would not be won by either side. As he lay staring into the twitching shadows cast by the fire, he could not help but think of the boy soldier he had faced in the battle before the Scaean Gate. Any city that was prepared to arm children with daggers and throw them against seasoned warriors would not give in until every man who could hold a weapon was dead. And as Astynome never ceased to remind him, all the Trojans needed to do was wait behind their god-built walls until the Greeks found a way to break them down, or gave up and sailed home.
He thought of the boy again and was consoled by the knowledge that he had not killed him. Achilles would not have thought twice about hewing that young head from its shoulders in his all-consuming rampage towards glory – the same glory that Eperitus had once hankered after with all his heart. But no more. All he wanted now was to take Astynome back with him to Ithaca and let his name be preserved by their children rather than his deeds on the battlefield. He kissed her on the shoulder and lay down to sleep.
Odysseus was dreaming of Ithaca. He was in the bed he had made for Penelope and himself, with its four thick posts that rose from floor to ceiling and which were inlaid with patterns of gold, silver and ivory. One of the posts was the bole of an old olive tree that had been there before he had extended the palace, and which he had played in as a child. Staring up at the smooth ceiling, he could see the stars that had been painted there, the constellations positioned just as they had been in the month when the bedroom had been finished, forever a spring evening. And beside him he could feel the presence of his wife.