A sound from the shadows at the back of the tent made him turn. In the flickering glow from the hearth, Ajax could see the King of Men standing there with his hands held out like a suppliant pleading for mercy. A soothing smile was on his lips, but his cold blue eyes were full of fear.
‘Ajax, I’ve changed my mind,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘Achilles’s armour was always meant to be yours, your skill here tonight has proved that beyond doubt.’
‘You’ve had your chance to make the right decision, King of Men,’ Ajax sneered. ‘But you chose the wrong man and now I have come to collect what is rightfully mine. Your pleading and grovelling is meaningless. All your allies are dead. Your great expedition is over. And now you will die.’
Agamemnon dropped the shield and made a sudden dart for the entrance. Ajax ran to intercept him but the Mycenaean king was too quick, reaching the gore-spattered canvas flap while Ajax was still on the other side of the hearth. Then, as he tore the flap open, he slipped on the spilled intestines of the dead bard and fell. Squirming on to his back, Agamemnon looked up and saw Ajax towering over him, a vengeful grin on his brutish face as he hacked his sword down through his neck and decapitated him. But Ajax was not satisfied with merely killing the king; reaching down and seizing his jaw he pulled the mouth open and pushed the point of his sword inside. A moment later, the tongue that had awarded the armour of Achilles to Odysseus was in Ajax’s fingers. The king of Salamis held it above his head and laughed joyously, before turning and tossing it into the flames of the hearth. The fire fizzled gratefully.
Ajax’s eyes now fell on Odysseus, who was groaning as he returned to consciousness. Hanging from one of the posts that held the high roof of the tent up was a halter that Agamemnon used to train his horses. Ajax grabbed this and strode over to the king of Ithaca. Unbuckling the bronze breastplate, he lifted the two halves away from Odysseus’s torso then seized the hem of the tunic beneath and tore it open.
‘What are you doing?’ Odysseus grunted, still groggy from the blow to his head. ‘Don’t you realize this is madness?’
Ajax raised the halter over his head then brought it down with terrible force across Odysseus’s exposed back. He cried out in pain. Another blow followed, then another.
‘Stop! This is all madness.’
‘This isn’t madness, Odysseus. This is revenge!’
‘No,’ Odysseus bit back, staring up at his attacker. ‘This is madness. The gods have robbed you of your wits, Ajax. Look about yourself.’
Ajax raised his eyes to the carnage he had wreaked in the tent. Bodies and parts of bodies lay everywhere. The walls glowed red in the flames for a moment, and then faded away like a sea mist in a morning breeze. He looked up and saw that the roof of the tent was gone and he was staring instead at the full moon, drifting over a bank of thin cloud and surrounded by dim stars. His mouth opened a little and then, reluctantly at first, he lowered his gaze again and saw that he was back on the slopes overlooking the bay. The fires still burned below and there, dominating the centre of the camp, was Agamemnon’s tent. Sounds of feasting and music were carried up to him on the night air and he knew at once that the slaughter he had caused there had been but a figment of his disturbed mind. And yet he could still feel the sticky blood in the palm of his hand as it gripped the sword, and still more blood between his fingers. He held up his hands and saw they were covered in gore to his biceps.
‘What have I done?’ he whispered to himself, dropping the sword.
But instead of the clang of metal on hard earth, the heavy weapon fell on something soft. Ajax looked down and saw the sword lying across the bodies of two rams. One lay dead without a mark on its body, while the other had been decapitated and its fleece was drenched in its own blood; the head was nearby with its tongue lying beside it. All around were the bodies of sheep, goats and cattle, their moon-silvered cadavers heaped one upon another, score upon score all across the upper slope, drenching the parched grass with their dark blood. Ajax groaned and slumped to his knees, burying his head in his red hands as warm tears flooded his closed eyelids. A feeling of deep shame settled over him, pressing him down into the soft fleece of one of the butchered rams.
‘Wretched, proud fool. I thought I would teach Agamemnon and the others a lesson, but instead I have been the pupil of the gods. They’ve shown me my true self – an insolent brute and a man without honour.’
He raised his bloodstained face to the glittering firmament above and as his cry of despair rolled down the hillside to the camp below it was answered by the calling of other voices. Looking up, he saw a line of a dozen or so torches heading up the slope. Someone must have heard the terrible slaughter or be wondering why panicked livestock had been driven down among the tents. Quickly, his eyes wide and his breathing heavy, Ajax snatched up Hector’s sword and ran.
Chapter Forty-Six
FATHER AND SON
Ajax’s hut was at the bottom of the slope. The guard stepped aside, shocked by the blood that covered the king’s body, and Ajax pushed past him through the canvas flap. The small hearth inside was a mass of smouldering embers that bathed the hut in a warm glow, and the only sounds were the soft breathing of Tecmessa mingled with the baby-snores of little Eurysaces. He crossed the floor and knelt beside them, sword still in hand.
‘My love,’ he whispered, reaching out and gently touching the locks of thick black hair that hid his wife’s face. She did not stir. ‘And Eurysaces, my boy.’
He looked down at the child and felt the tears swell up inside him again. He thought of the time he had wasted in battle or in counsel with the other army leaders, rather than spending it with his son. He recalled how he had berated Achilles for threatening to return to Phthia, and how he had declared he would rather give Tecmessa and Eurysaces up before he surrendered his honour. What a fool he had been! He had chased after glory and renown and given barely the scraps of morning and evening to his family. Now that chance was gone and in time he would be little more than a faded memory to Eurysaces; indeed, the boy would know more about him from the stories of his deeds and misdeeds than from his own recollections.
He reached out to touch his son’s hair, but stopped himself.
‘What if he wakes and sees you, sword in hand and covered in blood?’ Ajax said to himself. ‘No, leave him be. Leave them both.’
He stood and took a step back. Then he turned and saw his great, sevenfold shield propped against the back of his chair. He fetched it and laid it down gently next to his son.
‘I give this shield to you, Eurysaces,’ he said quietly as his tears fell in heavy drops on to the oxhide. ‘It was made by Tychus of Hyle, a master of his art. I named you after it, little Broad Shield, and now I hope it will always remind you of your father. Look after your mother for me. I leave her in your care now. Goodbye.’
He left the hut to find the guard had now been joined by two others. There were angry voices coming from the slopes above, where torches were moving this way and that.