Pyrrhus closes his eyes and imagines the struggling sweaty backs of men as they bend to the task of hauling this monster across the rutted ground to Troy. They have rollers to help, but even so it takes a long time—the land’s pitted and scarred from ten long years of war. They know they’re getting close when the priests start chanting a hymn of praise to Athena, guardian of cities. Guardian of cities? Is that a joke? Let’s bloody hope she’s not guarding this city. At last, the lurching stops and the men inside the horse’s belly turn to stare at each other, their faces no more than pale blurs in the dim light. Is this it? Are they here? Another hymn to Athena, and then, after three final shouts in honour of the goddess, the men who’ve dragged the horse to the gates of Troy depart.
Their voices, still chanting hymns and prayers, fade into silence. Somebody whispers: “What happens now?” And Odysseus says: “We wait.”
A goatskin filled with diluted wine passes from hand to hand though they daren’t do more than moisten their lips. The buckets are already more than two thirds full and, as Odysseus says, a wooden horse that started pissing might arouse suspicion. It’s hot in here; the place reeks of resin from freshly cut pine logs—and something very odd has started to happen, because he tastes the resin and smells the heat. The inside of his nostrils feels scorched. And he’s not the only one who’s suffering. Machaon’s streaming with sweat—he’s carrying a lot more weight than the younger men, who’re as lean as the feral dogs that even now must be sniffing around the doors of the empty huts, wondering where the people have gone. Pyrrhus tries to imagine the camp deserted: the hall he’d entered for the first time ten days after his father’s death, sitting down in Achilles’s chair, resting his hands on the carved heads of mountain lions, curling his fingertips into their snarling mouths as Achilles must have done, night after night—and feeling all the time like an imposter, a little boy who’d been allowed to stay up late. If he’d looked down, his legs would have been dangling a foot away from the floor.
By tomorrow morning, he may be dead, but there’s no point thinking like that: a man’s fated day will come when it will come and there’s nothing you can do to push that moment further back. He looks from side to side, seeing his own tension reflected on every face. Even Odysseus has started chewing his thumbnail. The Trojans must know by now that the ships have sailed, that the Greek camp is indeed deserted, but perhaps they don’t believe it? Priam’s ruled Troy for fifty years; he’s too old a fox to fall for a trick like this. The horse is a trap, a brilliant trap—yes, but who’s inside it?
Odysseus lifts his head and listens and a second later they all hear it: a murmur of Trojan voices, curious, nervous. What is it? Why is it? Have the Greeks really given up and gone home, leaving behind this remarkable gift? “Remarkably useless,” somebody says. “How can you say it’s useless when you don’t know what it’s for?” “We mightn’t know what it’s for, but we do know one thing: don’t trust the fucking Greeks.” A roar of agreement. “Anyway, how do we know it’s empty? How do we know there isn’t somebody inside?” Voices edging up from suspicion into panic. “Set fire to it.” “Yeah, go on, burn the bugger. You’ll sharp find out if anybody’s inside.” The idea catches on; soon they’re all chanting: “Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!” Pyrrhus looks round and sees fear on every face; no, more than fear—terror. These are brave men, the pick of the Greek army, but the man who tells you he’s not afraid of fire is either a liar or a fool.
BURN IT! BURN IT! BURN IT!
A wooden box crammed full of men—it’ll go up like a funeral pyre larded with pig fat. And what will the Trojans do when they hear screams? Run and fetch buckets of water? Like bloody hell they will; they’ll stand around and laugh. The army will return to find only charred timbers and the bodies of burned men, their raised fists clenched in the pugilistic attitudes of those who die by fire. And above them, on the walls, the Trojans waiting. He’s not a coward, he really isn’t, he got into this bloody horse prepared to die, but he’s buggered if he’s going to die like a pig roasting on a spit. Better to get out now and fight—
He’s halfway to his feet when a spear point appears between the heads of the two men sitting opposite. He sees their faces blank with shock. Instantly, everybody starts shuffling deeper into the belly, as far away from the sides as they can get. Outside, a woman’s screaming at the top of her voice: “It’s a trap, can’t you see it’s a trap?” And then another voice, a man’s, old, but not weak, carrying a lot of authority. It can only be Priam. “Cassandra,” he says. “Go back home now, go home.”
Inside the horse, men turn to stare accusingly at Odysseus, whose plan this is, but he just shrugs and throws up his hands.
Another burst of shouting. The guards have found somebody skulking outside the gates, and now he’s being dragged in front of Priam and forced to his knees. And then, at last, at long last, Sinon starts to speak, his voice wobbly at first, but strengthening as he launches into his tale. Pyrrhus glances across at Odysseus and sees his lips moving in time with Sinon’s words. He’s been coaching him for the past three weeks, the two of them pacing up and down the arena for hours at a stretch, rehearsing the story, trying to anticipate every question the Trojans could possibly ask.
Every detail is as convincing as it can be made; how the Greeks believe the gods have abandoned them—and particularly Athena, whom they have grievously offended. The horse is a votive offering and must be taken immediately to her temple. But it’s not the details that matter. Everything really depends on Odysseus’s reading of Priam’s character. As a small boy, not seven years old, Priam had been captured in a war and held to ransom. Friendless and alone, forced to live his life in a foreign land, he’d turned to the gods for comfort, and in particular to Zeus Xenios, the god who commands kindness to strangers. Under Priam’s rule, Troy has always been willing to take in people whose own countrymen have turned against them. Odysseus’s story is calculated to appeal to Priam, every detail designed to exploit his faith and turn it into weakness. And if the plan doesn’t work, it certainly won’t be Sinon’s fault, because he’s giving it everything he’s got, his voice rising to the skies in a great wail of misery. “Please,” he keeps saying. “Please, please, take pity on me, I daren’t go home, I’ll be killed if I go home.”
“Let him go,” Priam says. And then, presumably speaking directly to Sinon, “Welcome to Troy.”
Not long after, there’s a clattering of ropes lassoing the horse’s neck and it begins to move. Only a few yards on, it shudders to a halt, sticks fast for several agonizing minutes, then lurches forward again. Pyrrhus peers through a gap between the planks—the night air unexpectedly cool on his eyelids—but sees only a stone wall. Though that’s enough to tell him they’re passing through the Scaean gates into Troy. They look at each other, wide-eyed. Silent. Outside, the Trojans, men, women and children, are singing hymns of praise to Athena, guardian of cities, as they dragged the horse inside the gates. There’s a lot of excited chatter among the little boys who are “helping” their fathers haul the ropes.