‘You may ask all your questions, but in a more orderly way – and after me. Odysseus, sit down and pour yourself some wine, then explain this scheme in every little detail.’

The council broke up as darkness was falling; I accompanied Odysseus back to his house. Epeios was waiting patiently, the hide chart open before him; it now contained several more and smaller drawings. I listened idly as the pair of them discussed technical matters – the things Epeios would need, the approximate length of time the task would take – the necessity for absolute secrecy.

‘You may work in the mysterious hollow just behind this house,’ said Odysseus to Epeios. ‘It’s deep, so the horse won’t poke its head above the tops of the trees on the far side. No one will be able to see it from the city watchtowers. The locality has other advantages too. It’s been off limits to all and sundry for so many years that you won’t have any inquisitive sightseers. You’ll use the men who live there as unskilled labourers. Every man you have to import to the hollow will be unable to leave until the job is done. Can you cope, working under those conditions?’

His eyes sparkled. ‘You may rely on me, King Odysseus. No one will know what’s going on.’

32

NARRATED BY

Priam

Boreas the North Wind came howling down from the frozen wastes of Skythia, dyeing the trees amber and yellow; summer was gone in the tenth year and still Agamemnon remained, a mangy dog guarding the stinking bone of Troy.

Everything was gone. Just before Hektor died I ordered the last of the golden nails withdrawn from doors, floors, shutters, hinges, and threw them into the melting pot. The treasury was bare; all the votive offerings in the temples had been cannibalised to make ingots; rich and poor alike groaned under taxes; yet I still didn’t have enough to buy what Troy needed to fight on – mercenaries, arms, war engines. For ten years I had seen no income from Hellespont tolls. Agamemnon collected them from all the Greek ships streaming into the Euxine Sea, from which he had barred ships of other nations. We ate well because our southern and northeastern gates remained open and the peasants were able to continue farming, but what we missed were the items of food our location made impossible to grow. Only a very few of the fabled horses of Laomedon were left to graze the southern plain; I had been forced to sell almost all of them. How true it is that the wheel turns full circle. What Laomedon and I had denied to the Greeks now belonged to the Greeks, for I learned later that King Diomedes of Argos was the chief buyer of those horses. Pride, pride… It goeth before a fall.

They lit great fires in my chamber to warm my flesh, but there was no fire on earth could thaw out the despair settled like a sucking creature around my heart. Fifty sons had I sired, fifty beautiful lads. Most of them were dead now. The War God had culled the best of them for himself, left me the dross to console my old age. I was eighty-three, and looked as if I would outlive the last of them. To see Deiphobos strutting, a mockery of the Heir, made me weep rivers. Hektor, Hektor! My wife Hekabe was crazed, howled like an ancient bitch dog deprived of sustenance; her preferred companion was Kassandra, even more demented. Though Kassandra’s beauty had grown in time with her madness. Her black hair bore two great ribbons of white, her face had fined down to sharpest bones, her eyes were so big and brilliant that they looked like jet-dark sapphires.

Sometimes I would force myself to make the journey down to the Skaian watchtower to see the innumerable wisps of smoke rising from the beach, the ships drawn up rank on rank along the strand. The Greeks made no assault; we hung on the brink of an abyss while they accorded us no sop of comfort, for we did not know what they intended. They simply went about their mysterious business. The remnants of Troy’s army were concentrated on the Western Curtain; it was here that Agamemnon must attack, as attack he must.

Each night I lay sleepless; each morning found me wide awake. Yet I was not defeated. While a spirit still dwelled inside my withering carcase I wouldn’t let Troy go. If I had to sell every person within its walls, I would hold Troy in Agamemnon’s teeth.

But on the third day of Boreas’s Breath I lay with my face turned to the window as the dawn crept up over Ida, grey light streaked with the misty glow of tears. Weeping for Hektor.

I heard a faint shout, shuddered and forced myself out of bed. It sounded as if it was coming from the Western Curtain. Go there, Priam, see what the matter is. I summoned my car.

The noise was growing louder and louder as more and more voices joined in, but it was too far away to learn whether the racket was caused by fear or grief. Deiphobos joined me, rubbing sleep from his eyes and pouting sourly.

‘Are we being attacked, Father?’

‘How should I know? I’m going to the walls to find out.’

The head groom came with my chariot, my driver stumbled from his quarters half stuporous; I drove off, leaving the Heir to follow or not, as he chose.

The whole city around the Skaian Gate and the Western Curtain seethed with people; men ran in all directions gesticulating and calling, but no one seemed to be buckling on armour. Instead they were leaping about, screaming to everyone to go up and see.

A soldier assisted me to climb the stairs of the Skaian watchtower; I emerged into the guardroom quietly. The captain was standing clad in a loincloth, tears running down his face, while his second-in-command sat in a chair, laughing insanely.

‘What is the meaning of this, captain?’ I demanded.

Too possessed by whatever affected him to realise what he was doing, the captain grasped me painfully by the arm and propelled me out onto the roadway. There he turned me in the direction of the Greek camp and pointed one shaking finger at it.

‘Look your fill, sire! Apollo has heard our prayers!’

I screwed up my eyes (which were quite good for my age) and peered through the growing light. I looked, and I looked. How to take it in? How to believe it? The Greek smoke holes were cold, no scent of burning wood lingered on the air; not a single tiny figure moved; and a swathe of shingle bathed by the rising sun glittered in it. The only sign that ships had ever rested there was the series of long, deep scores running down into the water of the lagoon. The ships were gone! The soldiers were gone! Nothing of an army eighty thousand strong remained save a small city of grey houses. Agamemnon had sailed in the night.

I shrieked. I stood there and carolled my uncontained joy, then my limbs lost their power and I fell to the cobbles. I laughed and I wept, I rolled on the hard stones as if they were thistledown, I babbled my thanks to Apollo, I giggled and flapped my arms. The captain hoisted me to my feet; I took him in my embrace and kissed him, promising him I do not remember what.

Deiphobos came running with face transfigured, picked me up bodily and whirled me round in a crazy dance, while the guards stood in a ring and clapped the time.

No Grecian monster lurked on the beach. Troy was free!

No news ever travelled so fast. The whole city was awake by now, and all of it crowded onto the walls to cheer, sing, dance. As the light spread and the shadows began to lift from the plain we could see more clearly: Agamemnon had indeed sailed away, away, awaaaaay! Oh, dear Lord of Light, thank you! Thank you!

Alert now, the captain still stood protectively beside me. Suddenly stiff with apprehension, he plucked at my sleeve. Then Deiphobos noticed and came closer.

‘What is it?’ I asked, my spirits sinking.

‘Sire, there’s something out there on the plain. I’ve seen it since dawn, but the light’s beginning to strike it now, and it isn’t the grove of trees beside Simois. It’s a huge object. See?’