He killed my brothers.
We women are peculiar creatures. We tend not to love those who murder our families.
But there’s another dimension to this and from my point of view a much less comfortable one. The night Priam came to the Greek camp, to ask Achilles to give him Hector’s body, I hid in his cart as it trundled to the gate, aware all the time of Achilles walking beside it. I could have stayed in the cart, I could have gone all the way to Troy, but then I’d have been facing the sack of another city, a second enslavement. There were good reasons to abandon my attempt to escape, but when Achilles asked why I’d come back I said, simply: I don’t know. And he just nodded. Because the extraordinary thing is that he’d known all along what I was doing—and he’d done nothing to stop me. I came back. He’d been prepared to let me go. So, when we met again, it was no longer, in any simple sense, a relationship between owner and slave. Some of the ties that bind people together are deeper than love. Though if you wanted to be cynical you could say that right from the start I’d been determined to survive and that I knew my chances were better in the Greek camp, under Achilles’s protection, than they would ever have been in Troy.
Where did all this thinking get me? Nowhere. Still lying in a narrow bed listening to the wind, aware of the cradle that was just beginning to rock. In my early days in the camp I’d sometimes prayed for things to change. I didn’t pray for that now. There was no need; the growing baby would bring change enough and, good or bad, there’d be no hope of stopping it. You might as well have tried to hold back the tide.
30
The wind blew at gale force all night. At noon, as each group of men entered the arena, they were faced with visible signs of storm damage. The statue of Artemis, which from its position in the circle was the most exposed of all the gods, had toppled over in the night, forcing the fighters to climb over it, or—out of some confused sense of respect—to go the long way round. Its fall was not entirely unexpected: for months now, it had been leaning away from the wind, rather like the warped trees on the headland. Nevertheless, in the sallow light, its fall appeared ominous; I saw more than one man make the sign against the evil eye as he shuffled past.
I was on my way to Lord Nestor’s hall, hoping to watch the assembly from his veranda. By the time I arrived, Nestor had already left. I saw him making his way through the crowd, leaning heavily on his two older sons, taking his arms from their shoulders only long enough to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. Hecamede greeted me at the door. As I stepped over the threshold, I smelled burnt sugar and sweet cinnamon. There were so many trays lined up on the long tables in the hall, I thought she must have been baking all morning. Not long afterwards, Cassandra arrived, attended by Ritsa, I was glad to see—though I didn’t like the way Cassandra treated her. I sensed that a complex relationship had grown up between them. Ritsa had witnessed the worst moments of Cassandra’s madness, had helped and supported her through them, and this made her somebody Cassandra depended on, but also resented—and even feared. Ritsa knew too much, had seen too much. When I saw how roughly Cassandra ordered her about, how contemptuous she sometimes seemed, it made me frightened for Ritsa—and it certainly didn’t improve my opinion of Cassandra. I noticed she took sweetmeats from Hecamede’s tray with barely a word of acknowledgement, and I reacted by thanking Hecamede so effusively she took a step back in surprise.
After a few minutes’ stilted conversation, we carried our plates onto the veranda. The arena was filling up fast. Whenever one of the kings entered, there were ragged cheers from his followers, rising to a roar as he took his seat. Eventually all were present, and every eye turned towards Agamemnon’s empty chair. He arrived last at every assembly, his entrance always formal, always dramatic, preceded by heralds and accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets. Leaning over the rail, I could see how old and ill he looked, though his dress was splendid, his manner imperious, and I doubt if many people saw beyond that. You’ve got to remember I’d seen Agamemnon at very close quarters. Too close. Sometimes, at night, I still felt his sweating bulk on top of me.
Ritsa touched my arm. “Are you all right?” I put my hand over hers, but didn’t speak.
I watched the greetings. Odysseus and Diomedes walked across the arena to meet Agamemnon, who then, in a rare moment of grace, heaved himself to his feet and went to speak to Nestor. What was conspicuously absent was any greeting between the two brothers. Menelaus, whether deliberately or not, was always looking the other way. Pyrrhus was sitting directly opposite Agamemnon, too far away for easy contact, but it would have been natural for Agamemnon to acknowledge him in some way—he’d presented him with first prize in the chariot race only two days before—but I saw no sign of it. Little Ajax was nibbling his beard—a bit scraggy at the best of times—and glancing nervously from side to side. He’d raped Cassandra in the temple of Athena, and here he was, tethered like a goat selected for sacrifice. He greeted nobody—and it was striking how few people greeted him.
At last, Agamemnon stood up and cleared his throat, gazing around the assembly with his sombre, heavy-lidded eyes. “By now,” he said, “we should all be home.” With those few words he caught the attention of every man there. “Even you, Idomeneus, given a fair wind, should have been at home with your dear wife and children. Even Odysseus would have reached faraway Ithaca by now. Yet, here we still are, prevented from leaving by the will of the gods. And we don’t even know what it is we’ve done to offend.”
Really? I thought.
“But it’s in the nature of the gods that punishment often precedes knowledge of the offence. So, I have asked Calchas, a renowned seer who has often in times past guided our counsels, to speak to us again today. To all of you, I would simply say: listen carefully. Ponder his words.”
Calchas, in full priestly regalia with the scarlet bands of Apollo fluttering from his staff, emerged from between two rows of huts. Immediately the buzz that had followed Agamemnon’s speech subsided. He was a familiar figure in the arena, not much liked, perhaps, sometimes sniggered at—but nevertheless, as a seer, respected. Many of those present would remember that when the camp had been visited by plague, he’d spoken out against Agamemnon, saying it was his disrespectful treatment of a priest that had provoked Apollo’s anger and caused him to send his plague arrows flying into the camp, killing beasts and men alike. Agamemnon had hated Calchas for it, but he’d been right, hadn’t he? As soon as Agamemnon sent the priest’s daughter back to her father, there hadn’t been a single new case of the plague—and there were some miraculous cures of men already infected. He’d stood up to Agamemnon then, he’d told the truth. So, they were prepared to listen to him now.
But Calchas didn’t ask them to listen.
“Look,” he said, “look at the statues of the gods.”
All over the assembly, heads turned.
“They’ve been here for ten years—as long as any of you. One of the first things Lord Agamemnon did after the ships disembarked was to order the clearing of a space where the gods might be honoured; these statues were carved and raised and ever since then all debates in the army and between the various kings have taken place under their gaze. We’ve all grown used to their presence. Perhaps you walk across the arena and never look at them. Two days ago, the boxing tournament was held here, and before that, the wrestling, but how many of you bothered to look up at the gods? How many of you noticed how faded and decayed their statues have become? Last night, the statue of Artemis blew over in the gale. Many of you will have stepped over it to get to your places in the assembly. It’s a shock, isn’t it? That gap in the circle—and yet the base of her statue must have been rotting for years.”