‘Don’t blame Agamemnon or Odysseus, or even the Trojan prisoners. Blame yourself, Ajax! You have insulted the gods too many times. Do you think we have turned a blind eye to your proud insolence? Well, we haven’t. It was Zeus’s will that Achil-les’s armour was given to Odysseus – not for anything Odysseus has done, but to punish you. And if you continue on this course you’re planning, then the vengeance of the gods will be complete.’
‘Then let Zeus strike me down!’
‘No, Ajax. You have lived your life without our help, so let your demise be in the same manner. But I have come to tell you it is not too late. You have your admirers on Olympus, myself among them. Beg our forgiveness and mend your ways and all may yet be well with you. Don’t forget your wife and child . . .’
‘It’s for their sake I have to do this,’ Ajax retorted. ‘I will not have Eurysaces bullied by other children because his father let himself be mocked by lesser men. And if the gods are against me in this, then curse the gods!’
Athena slid down from the rock and faced him.
‘Poor fool,’ she said, and struck him over the forehead with her crook.
When Ajax came to it was with a pounding headache and blurred vision. He looked up and saw the stars were somehow distorted, as if he were viewing them through a glass. He closed his eyes and rubbed at them with his knuckles, until slowly he felt the thickness in his head pass. When he looked at the stars again he could see them clearly and noticed they had barely moved in their stations, telling him he had only blacked out for a short time. He looked around for Athena, but there was no sign of her and he concluded he must have been dreaming. Then, with a sudden resurgence in his appetite for revenge, he slipped Hector’s sword from its scabbard and set off down the slope.
Four guards stood at the entrance to the tent, their ceremonial armour gleaming orange in the light of the nearby fire. A few paces away were a dozen or so slaves, busily preparing food and wine to supply the feast inside the vast pavilion. The noise of it was spilling out through the different entrances, along with the sounds of a lyre, drunken singing and the playful laughter of women.
The guards were chatting idly among themselves and only saw the glimmer of Ajax’s sword when it was too late. The first fell to his knees with the point in his throat, before keeling over without a sound. Another had his neck sliced almost clean through so that his helmeted head hung down over his back. The last two ran into each other in their panic and fell across one of the guy ropes. Ajax finished them quickly, then turned to face three slaves who were running towards him with torches and carving knives. Despite their bravery they were no match for Ajax’s strength and skill and soon all three of them lay dying in pools of their own blood; the others ran off among the tents, thinking only of saving their own miserable lives.
Ajax saw the blood on his sword and grinned to himself. Behind him, the sound of music and singing seemed to grow louder as the revellers remained ignorant of the threat that was but a moment away from bringing murder and destruction into their midst. He edged closer and for some reason was reminded of the time when he had first entered the great hall at Sparta and staked his claim on Helen. There had been a fight on that occasion, too, though a ban on weapons had saved many men their lives.
Suddenly a man came staggering out of the tent, pulling up his tunic and looking for a place to urinate. Ajax recognized him as Peisandros, one of the Myrmidon captains.
‘Ajax,’ he said, focusing drunken eyes on the giant figure before him.
Then his gaze fell to the pile of bodies. A moment later Ajax’s sword was in his heart and his corpse dropped to the ground. Ajax stepped across him and pushed open the large canvas flap.
The scene inside was one he had witnessed many times before. Slaves carried platters of meat and kraters of wine to tables that were already overflowing with food and drink. High-born warriors from every city across Greece sat arm in arm on long benches, singing loudly and tonelessly. Girls in varying states of undress floated here and there like bees, drifting from one lap to another. Every leader in the army was present, along with their captains and favourites, all of them roaring drunk and only sitting because they were too intoxicated to stand. And there, against the west wall of the tent, were Agamemnon and Odysseus, seated next to each other like gods presiding over an Olympian wedding. As Ajax had expected, Odysseus was wearing Achilles’s breastplate and greaves, with the shield and helmet at the side of his heavy wooden chair.
At first no one seemed to notice Ajax, despite his vast size and the sword in his hand dripping gore on the fleece below. Then a half-naked slave girl leapt from the lap of Menelaus and screamed, pointing at the blood-spattered newcomer. With three giant strides, Ajax crossed the floor of the tent and hewed her pretty head from its body. The screaming – along with the music and singing – stopped, only to be followed by a new cacophony of terrified shouts and the crash of overturned chairs and tables as people ran to the door of the tent.
But Ajax was quicker than all of them and, turning, began to lay about himself with Hector’s sword. The first to fall were the slaves, herded before their masters like sheep. The unfortunate bard was among them, holding up his lyre for protection; Ajax’s sword smashed through it with ease and opened up the man’s chest and stomach, spilling his intestines over the luxurious rugs below. Then Sthenelaus, Diomedes’s companion, attacked Ajax with a carving knife and was killed by a thrust through the heart. In his rage, Diomedes picked up a table and charged at Ajax, but the giant warrior knocked it away with a swing of his arm and sliced his obsessively sharpened sword down into Diomedes’s skull. His death shocked the other kings, who turned to the walls of the tent and began to arm themselves with the trophies Agamemnon had taken from the Trojans he had killed. But Ajax was no longer concerned with fighting battles and winning glory: he wanted to avenge himself in the blood of the men who had forsaken him, and he fell on them with the full might of his wrath. Menestheus’s arm was severed as he charged at Ajax with a spear; next Idomeneus fell, his throat opened neatly so that he dropped to the floor and poured a dark mass of blood over the heaped furs and fleeces. Many others followed, and as their bodies piled up, someone slashed open the opposite wall of the tent and sent the remaining slaves to fetch help. Then, from the ranks of the leaders – who were too proud and foolish to flee – Teucer and Little Ajax stepped forward with their hands raised. Ajax was shocked to see them there at first, but as they began to plead with him to come to his senses he realized they had betrayed him and had gone over to Agamemnon. He leapt at them in a fury and plunged his sword into his namesake first, who screamed loudly as his soul was torn from his body. Teucer followed, stabbed through the back as he turned to run. Suddenly, Ajax caught the gleam of a blade as a figure lunged at him from his right. He turned instinctively, recognized the squat, muscular figure of Odysseus, and knocked the sword from his hand before striking his attacker over the head with the pommel of his own weapon.
Now the others rushed at him as one and Ajax demonstrated to them their folly in not awarding Achilles’s armour to him. Limbs and heads were parted from torsos in a blood-drenched rage as Hector’s sword carried out the task it had been created for – to slay the enemies of Troy. Last to fall was Menelaus, who had robbed Ajax of Helen twenty years before – another great injustice that he had not been able to avenge because of the oath Odysseus had tricked the other suitors into swearing. He delivered a wound to Menelaus’s stomach and as he pleaded for mercy, Ajax smiled and asked him who he thought was the greatest of the Greeks now, before sinking the point of his sword into the Spartan king’s throat.