Calchas nodded to Pyrrhus, who glanced over his shoulder at the men standing behind him, but then stepped forward. The lad who’d been stroking Ebony’s neck to steady him led him closer and, seeing Pyrrhus, the horse neighed a greeting. The crowd hushed, Pyrrhus drew his sword—and then turned to face Agamemnon and the other kings.
“Yesterday, Calchas said in front of all of you that I have to sacrifice my horse Ebony at the foot of Priam’s funeral pyre.” A pause, during which he looked round at the circle of familiar faces. “I’ve thought long and hard, and, in all honesty, I don’t believe the gods require this of me.”
A sharp intake of breath. All around us, men were turning to stare at each other—their expressions ranging from surprise to shock and even horror. Pyrrhus raised his arms and waited for silence before he spoke again.
“So, I’m going to make another more personal sacrifice.”
He raised his sword, pulled his thick plait forward and hacked it off, as close to the scalp as he could get. This might seem an inconsequential sacrifice, but to the men watching it was no trivial matter. Greek fighters were—are—immensely proud of their long, flowing hair. It’s almost as if they think their strength resides in it. A man will throw a lock of hair onto his father’s or his brother’s funeral pyre, but it’s rare to cut off the entire length. Achilles did it for Patroclus—I can’t, for the moment, think of anybody else. The hacking took no more than a few seconds, then Pyrrhus turned, threw his plait onto the logs at Priam’s feet and, before anybody had time to react, seized a torch from one of the guards and lit the pyre. Immediately, men with more torches scrambled up the heap of logs setting fire to the kindling in as many different places as possible. Sometimes, however well larded with fat, a pyre will fail to light—it happened at Patroclus’s funeral—but there was no danger of that today. Bone dry after the long drought, the logs blazed instantly. A fierce wind blowing straight off the sea fanned the flames, sending a column of black smoke and sparks whirling into the upper air. One or two of the men near the top of the pyre nearly got caught by the flames and had to leap to safety.
As soon as Hecuba saw the pyre begin to burn, she raised her voice in lamentation, a wordless ululation of grief. The vast crowd of men around us stayed silent. Pyrrhus and Calchas were still staring at each other. I was aware of Pyrrhus’s drawn sword, of the ranks of helmeted Myrmidons massing behind him, fanning out on either side, so that he stood in a semicircle bristling with spears. Calchas glanced uneasily at Agamemnon, who shook his head slightly and waved at him to step back. At that moment, two of the sea eagles who nest on the headland flew over the pyre.
Pyrrhus pointed to the sky. “Look!” he said. “Zeus has accepted the sacrifice.”
It suited the Myrmidons to believe it. I doubt if anybody else did, but seeing the Myrmidons solidly behind their leader, obviously prepared to fight—and armed—nobody felt like arguing.
The pyre would burn all night. Normally, the sons, grandsons, brothers and nephews of the dead would keep watch beside it, but there was nobody left to do that for Priam. Perhaps Helenus might creep up to the headland after dark and perform this last service for his father—or perhaps not. He might be too frightened—or ashamed.
The gathering had started to break up. One or two of the men walking past our cart were inclined to complain. “Calchas said sacrifice the horse. Nobody said anything about hair.” “If it was one of us, we’d have had to do it.” A rumble of agreement. “Yeah, well, that’s it, though, isn’t it? One rule for them—another for us. Always the bloody same.” The grumbling wasn’t loud, but it was persistent. Pyrrhus wasn’t in the clear, not yet. In the end, either the wind would change—or it would not.
I don’t think Hecuba heard a word of it. She’d gone on staring at the blazing pyre, the wind lifting her white hair until it whirled round her head like flames. I was still holding on to her tunic, but even so was taken by surprise when she fell. I staggered, but caught her easily enough—she was no weight at all—and lowered her to the bench.
“That went well,” I said, gently, when she’d revived a little. “They gave him every honour.” She nodded and seemed to take some consolation from it, but Cassandra said, sharply, “He should have sacrificed the horse. Calchas made it perfectly clear.” It wasn’t enough for her that her father’s body had been cremated with all the honour due to a great king. She’d have thrown Pyrrhus onto the fire if she could, used his body fat to feed the flames. I was reminded of Achilles, who’d sacrificed twelve Trojan youths, the pride and hope of their families, on Patroclus’s funeral pyre. They were alike in their insatiable desire for revenge. Once, only a few days after the fall of Troy, with Achilles’s lament repeating endlessly inside my head, I’d thought: We need a new song. And we did. We do. But a song isn’t new merely because a woman’s voice is singing it.
Wanting to get Hecuba back home and into bed as soon as possible, I looked around for our driver. At last I saw him, striding up the hill towards us. When he saw Hecuba, he looked concerned. “Don’t worry, love,” he said to me. “We’ll have her back home in no time. Just let this lot get clear first.” He waited for a bunch of stragglers to walk past, then we lurched forward, Hecuba all the time twisting round to look back at the fire.
A little further along, I saw Andromache walking alone. She must have got left behind when Pyrrhus and the Myrmidons marched off. When I called her name, she looked round. “Why don’t you come with us?” I said. “There’s plenty of room.” She agreed, and I helped her into the cart. Cassandra greeted her sister-in-law rather coolly, I thought; Hecuba was more welcoming and reached out to clasp Andromache’s hands. And so, jerking and swaying, we passed through the stables, where I noticed Ebony’s sacrificial garlands lying torn and trampled in the dirt.
Andromache and I got down outside the women’s hut, and together we watched the cart trundle through the gates.
35
Later that afternoon, it began to rain. That’s an understatement. The ground was too parched to absorb the sudden deluge: puddles grew out of nowhere; every hill became a river. Huge grey columns of rain swept across the camp, driven by a wind that blew with undiminished ferocity straight off the sea. I wondered if Calchas was beginning to feel nervous, but then I thought: No, he doesn’t need to be. He could always blame Pyrrhus for not having obeyed the will of the gods. Despite the downpour, I still went for a walk, though before I’d gone a few yards, my hair was plastered flat against my skull. Blinking water from my eyes, I almost bumped into Machaon, who waved cheerily as he splodged past. “What did I tell you?” he shouted over his shoulder, pointing both hands at the sky. “WEATHER!”
A deep uneasiness spread through the camp that evening as men grappled with the fact that the gale was still blowing, and that their situation had been made worse by the added misery of lashing rain. Alcimus came home briefly, but then left again immediately. He had to take a work party up to the headland, where they were struggling to keep the pyre alight. Holding my mantle over my head, I splashed across to the hall because food and wine would need to be sent up to them, and I didn’t trust anybody else to organize it. On the way back, I called in on the girls and found them listless, bored and fractious. I decided that wasn’t my problem, and went for another walk instead.