Meanwhile something peculiar’s happening to Pyrrhus. Perhaps it’s just thirst, or the heat, which is worse now than it’s ever been, but he seems to be seeing the horse from the outside. He sees its head level with the roofs of palaces and temples as it’s pulled slowly through the streets. A strange feeling: to be locked fast in darkness and yet be able to see the wide streets and open squares, the crowds of excited Trojans milling around the horse’s feet. The ground’s black with them. They’re like ants that have found the chrysalis of an insect, big enough to feed their young for weeks, and they’re dragging it back to their hill in triumph, unaware that when the hard, shiny pupa splits open it’ll release death on them all.
At last, the lurching and swaying stops. By now, everybody inside the horse is feeling sick. More prayers, more hymns; the Trojans crowd into the temple of Athena to give the goddess thanks for victory. And then the feasting starts, singing, dancing, drinking, more drinking. The Greek fighters listen and wait. Pyrrhus tries to find room to stretch his legs; he has cramp in his right calf, from dehydration and sitting too long in the same constricted position. They’re in deeper darkness now, with no moon to throw light through the cracks in the horse’s sides—a moonless night was selected for the attack. Now and then a bunch of drunken revellers staggers past and their blazing torches cast tiger stripes over the faces of the men who wait inside. The light glints on helmets and breastplates and the blades of their drawn swords. Still, they wait. Out there, far out in the darkness, the black, beaked ships will be ploughing white furrows through the heaving grey sea as the Greek fleet returns. He imagines the ships entering the bay, their sails furled as the rowers take over, and then the scrape of keels on shingle as they drive hard onto the land.
Gradually, the singing and shouting die away; the last drunks have crawled home or passed out in the gutter. And Priam’s guards? Is it likely they’ll have stayed sober, now the war’s over, now they think they know they’ve won and there’s nobody left to fight?
At last, at a nod from Odysseus, four fighters at the far end draw back bolts and remove two segments of the sides. The cooler night air floods in; Pyrrhus feels his skin tingle as the sweat evaporates. And then, one by one, in a steady stream, men start to climb down the rope ladders and gather in a circle on the ground. There’s a bit of jostling at the front because each man wants the honour of being the first out. Pyrrhus doesn’t care about that; he’s one of the first, that’s enough. As his feet hit the ground, he feels the jolt all the way up his spine. People are stamping their feet, trying to get the circulation back because any minute now they’ll have to run. He grabs a torch from a sconce on the temple wall and in the glare of red light turns and looks back as the last fighters drop heavily to the ground. The horse is shitting men. Once they’re all out, they turn and stare at each other, the same half-waking expression on every face. They’re in. Slowly, the realization floods through him: an unstoppable wave. Now, at this moment, he’s standing where his father never stood, inside the walls of Troy. There’s no fear now. Everything light, everything clear. Over there, in the darkness, are the gates they’ve got to open to let the army in. Pyrrhus tightens his grip on his sword and breaks into a run.
2
An hour later, he’s on the palace steps in the thick of the fighting. Seizing an axe from a dying man, he starts hacking his way through the door. The press of fighters pushing up the steps behind him makes it hard to get a good swing—he shouts at them to get back, to give him room, and four or five blows later there’s a gap just wide enough to get through—and after that it’s easy, everything’s easy. Hurtling down the corridor, he feels his father’s blood pounding through his veins and shouts in triumph.
At the entrance to the throne room there’s a solid wall of Trojan guards, the Greek fighters already grappling with them, but he veers off to the right, searching for the secret passage that leads from Hector’s house—where his widow, Andromache, now lives alone with their son—to Priam’s private apartments. This is the information Odysseus tortured out of his captive prince. A door in the wall, half hidden by a screen, leads into a dimly lit passage shelving steeply downwards—the cold smell of musty, unused places—and then a flight of stairs takes him up into the bright light of the throne room, where Priam stands in front of an altar, motionless, expectant, as if his whole life has been a preparation for this moment. They’re alone. The sounds of Greeks and Trojans battling on the other side of the wall seem to fade away.
In silence, they stare at each other. Priam’s old, shockingly old, and so frail his armour weighs him down. Pyrrhus clears his throat, an odd, apologetic sound in that vast stillness. Time seems to have stopped, and he doesn’t know how to make it start again. He moves closer to the altar steps and announces his name, which you must do before you fight: “I am Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.” Incredibly, unforgivably, Priam smiles and shakes his head. Angry now, Pyrrhus puts one foot on the bottom step and sees Priam brace himself—though when the old man finally throws his spear it fails to penetrate the shield, just hangs there for a moment, quivering, before clattering to the floor. Pyrrhus bursts out laughing, and the sound of his own laughter frees him. He leaps up the steps, grabs a handful of Priam’s hair, drags the head back to expose the scrawny throat and—
And nothing…
For the last hour, he’s been in a state of near-frenzy, feet scarcely touching the ground, strength pouring into him from the sky—but now, when that frenzy is most needed, he feels it draining from his limbs. He raises his arm, but the sword’s heavy, heavy. Sensing weakness, Priam twists out of his grasp and tries to run, but trips and falls headlong down the steps. Pyrrhus is on to him at once, clutching the mane of silver hair, and this is it, this is it, now, now, but the hair’s unexpectedly soft, almost like a woman’s hair, and that tiny, insignificant detail’s enough to throw him. He slashes at the old man’s throat, misses—stupid, stupid—he’s like a ten-year-old boy trying to stick his first pig, hacking away, cut after cut and not one of them deep enough to kill. With his white hair and pale skin, Priam looked as if he hadn’t a drop of blood in him; oh, but he has, gallons and gallons of it, he’s slipping and slithering across the floor. At last, he gets a grip on the old bugger, kneels on his bony chest and, even then, he can’t do it. He groans in despair, “Achilles! Father!” And, incredibly, Priam turns to him and smiles again. “Achilles’s son?” he says. “You? You’re nothing like him.”
A red mist of rage gives Pyrrhus the strength to strike again. Straight into the neck this time, no mistake. Priam’s hot blood pumps over his clenched fist. That’s it. Over. He lets the body slip to the floor. Somewhere, quite close, a woman’s screaming. Bewildered, he looks around and sees a group of women, some with babies in their arms, crouched on the far side of the altar. Drunk with triumph and relief, he runs towards them, arms spread wide, and shouts “BOO!” into their faces—and laughs as they cower away.
But one girl stands up and stares back at him—goggle-eyed, face like a frog. How dare she look at him? For a moment, he’s tempted to strike her, but pulls back in time. There’s no glory to be gained by killing a woman, and anyway, he’s tired, more tired than he’s ever been in his life. His right arm dangles from his shoulder, as lifeless as a spade. Priam’s blood tightens on his skin, stinking, that fishy, ferrous smell. He stands for a moment, looking down at the body, and then on impulse kicks it in the side. No burial for Priam, he decides. No honour, no funeral rites, no dignity in death. He’ll do exactly what his father did to Hector: strap the old man’s spindly ankles to his chariot axle and drag him back to the camp. But first, he needs to get away from all the screaming and sobbing, and so, blindly, he stumbles through a door on his right.