Achilles tossed the shield aside, but gripped the spear more fiercely as he walked towards Odysseus. Eperitus moved two paces forward, placing himself to the front of his king’s right shoulder, ready to take any blow the warrior might deliver. Though Achilles did not have the bulk of Odysseus or Ajax, Eperitus had never seen such definition in a man’s muscles. The skin was so tightly drawn over his limbs and chest that each small movement of the tissue beneath was visible. The heavy ash spear with its socketed bronze point, which Neoptolemus had struggled even to lift, was carried easily, as if its weight was trifling in the man’s hand. And the intense look in his eyes as he approached was like a lightning bolt from Zeus, awe-inspiring and fearsome to look at. Nevertheless, Odysseus did not flinch as he waited for the younger warrior to come within a spear’s length of him, where he stopped.
Achilles looked for a long moment at the king of Ithaca, and then at Eperitus who stood before him, unarmed but with his fists clenched. Then Achilles’s severe expression was melted by a smile and his face became even more strikingly handsome. He offered Odysseus his hand.
‘Your reputation for cunning is well deserved, Odysseus, son of Laertes,’ he said. ‘I am Achilles, prince of Phthia, son of Peleus, and perhaps you will oblige me with how you knew to find me here on Scyros. But first you can tell me the name of your friend, who thinks his fists can stop the point of my spear.’
‘I can speak for myself. My name is Eperitus, captain of King Odysseus’s guard.’
‘It’s strange that a man should name himself but not his father,’ Achilles replied. ‘But if it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter to me either. I only hope Odysseus appreciates the loyalty of a man who is prepared to step between his king and the wrath of Achilles, which is to invite certain death.’
‘Don’t be so certain of that,’ Eperitus said, offering his hand. Achilles took it with a smile.
‘And by your grey hair and many scars of battle,’ Achilles continued, looking at Odysseus’s other companions, ‘I guess you can only be King Nestor of Pylos, son of Neleus. I’d heard you had dusted off your armour one last time to help the expedition against Troy.’
‘Then you must also know why we’re here,’ Nestor responded, accepting Achilles’s hand.
‘I’m not ignorant, old friend. Nor am I an idiot.’
‘A coward then, perhaps?’ said Ajax.
Achilles met the king of Salamis’s angry gaze and held it.
‘And this great brute must be my cousin Ajax. Even in sleepy Scyros they speak about you with fear in their voices. Some even say you’re the greatest warrior in Greece, though not within my hearing.’
‘Then I shall speak clearly, so that you can be sure to hear me: I am the greatest warrior in Greece.’
A sly smile crossed Achilles’s lips as he locked eyes with Ajax, their gazes struggling against each other like equally matched wrestlers.
‘I have my own claim to that title,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, cousin, we should compare the number of Trojans we slay. That will tell us who is truly the greatest.’
‘That’s a contest I would enjoy,’ Ajax replied, unable to prevent a grin spreading across his bearded face. ‘But first I’d like to know why you were hiding away in a girl’s dress when you were oath-bound to come to Aulis.’
‘I have a wife whose beauty can drive a man insane with lust, and a young son who needs his father to preserve him from the ways of a houseful of women,’ Achilles said, looking across to where Deidameia and Neoptolemus stood beneath the arched entrance to the garden. ‘And even Odysseus wasn’t beyond a bit of trickery to get out of this war for the sake of his family, or so the rumour goes.’
Odysseus shrugged. ‘We can console each other on the shores of Ilium. But do you really expect us to believe a warrior of your reputation would let such things keep you from the temptation of glory, not to mention break the oath that was taken in your name?’
‘No,’ Achilles answered. ‘But I am bound by older oaths than that. Thetis, my mother, foresaw my doom on the day she brought me forth from her womb: that I could live out a long and peaceful life at home in Phthia, or seek death and everlasting glory on the fields before Troy. A year before Helen was married she made me swear never to seek Troy, though she did not tell me why in those days. And now I feel I have honoured my word to her: I have not looked for Troy, but Troy has found me. Now I am bound by the later oath that Patroclus took on my behalf, and though it will mean my death I will come to Troy with you. I choose the path of glory.’
He looked over at the archway again, but this time his family were gone and the gates were shut against him.
Chapter Eighteen
THE WHITE HART
A few days later Eperitus stood with Peisandros, the Myrmidon spearman who had helped save him from execution in Sparta ten years before. They were at the edge of a clearing in the wood that overlooked the Greek camp. At its centre stood a lone plane tree, and welling up from between its roots was a spring of clear water. It was said Artemis would stop there and drink by the light of the full moon while she hunted her prey, and aware of its sacred associations Agamemnon had ordered a circle of twelve marble altars – one for each of the principal gods – to be built around the spring. It was on these white plinths that the kings and princes, along with their priests and attendants, were performing the final sacrifices to the gods before the voyage to Troy.
As the fleet made its preparations in the straits below, ready to sail at first light the next morning, the warm, torpid air of the wood was filled with the sounds of prayer and slaughter. Animal after animal was butchered, flayed and jointed. The stench of blood from the gore-splattered altars mingled with the smell of charred flesh from the fires around the clearing, where the priests were burning the fat-wrapped thighs of the beasts in offering to the mighty Olympians. A thick pall of smoke hung over the treetops like a grey ceiling, blotting out the blue skies above, while in the shadow of the wood hundreds more dull-minded beasts tugged at their leashes or snorted impatiently as they awaited their turn to be sacrificed.
Agamemnon led the relentless procession of death, dressed in a lion’s pelt that hung down to his ankles. The upper jaw of the once mighty animal was worn like a cap, and beneath the shadow of its sharp teeth the king’s face looked pale and hard. In his bloody fist he clutched a silver dagger with which he mechanically sliced open the throats of the animals that were set before him, his lips moving in an unceasing prayer to Zeus. The familiar golden cuirass he had worn since becoming king of Mycenae was gone, replaced by a new breastplate sent by King Cinyras of Cyprus as a gift to the King of Men, as Agamemnon had now taken to calling himself. It was exquisitely worked with numerous bands of gold, blue enamel and tin; three snakes slithered upwards on either side to the neck, their outlines glittering in the light of the sacrificial fires. The other leaders were clustered around the remaining altars, where they were assisted in the various stages of sacrifice by an army of priests and slaves.
‘There’s going to be some feast tonight,’ Peisandros said, grinning as he watched Achilles joint a goat he had slain only moments earlier in dedication to Ares. ‘Just the thing we need to see us off to war.’
Peisandros was a thickset man with a large stomach and a wiry black beard, shot through with grey. Despite his fierce eyes and bushy black eyebrows, he had a carefree cheerfulness that had appealed to Eperitus from their very first meeting a decade ago. Their friendship had been renewed at the gathering of the Myrmidon army in Phthia, shortly after Achilles had sailed from Scyros with Odysseus, Nestor and Ajax, and since then they had spent much time together, training and retraining the troops under their command until they could teach them nothing more.