CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LUCKY FOOL
In Troy, high on the Great Tower of Ilion, Polydorus watched the battle unfold with a mixture of pride and deep aching jealousy. His hand itched to hold a sword, to wield it in defense of his king and his city. He watched his fellow soldiers far below chasing the enemy and longed to be among them.
After his heroic part in the palace siege four years before, in which he had aided Argurios, Helikaon, and Dios in the defense of the stairs, the young Eagle had been promoted quickly, first to Priam’s bodyguard and then, to his initial dismay, to the position of personal aide to the king.
“I do not want this!” he had stormed to his wife, Casilla. “It is not fitting for a soldier!”
“Hush,” she had said. “You will wake the babies. It is a great honor, my husband. King Priam has chosen you himself. That means he trusts you. Perhaps he likes you. You are very likable, Polydorus.” Then she had smiled and tried to put her arms around his neck.
But he had pulled away, not to be placated.
“I will be no more than a body servant, bringing him cups of wine, helping him get dressed.” He hushed his voice. “I am a warrior, Casilla. I have fought for Troy since I was fifteen. This is… this is…” He lowered his voice again. “This is an insult,” he whispered, as if someone might be listening in their small neat house hard by the western wall.
But as time had passed, Polydorus had become used to his role. True, he had to help the old king with his food and lead him, soused in wine, to his bedchamber each night. But the young soldier was often privy to the secrets of the city as he sat in on discussions between Priam and his generals and counselors, and the king on many occasions had sought his quiet, thoughtful views on dealings with foreign kings and the progress of the war.
And in the two years he had grown to care for the old man.
Now he turned to look at him. The king, dressed in thick woolen robes and a sheepskin cloak against the biting wind on the tower, was clutching the battlement wall with his bony hands and gazing avidly at the battle far below. His watery eyes were failing, and he often barked a question to Polydorus about how the fighting was going. The young man saw the pride on his face and the tears in his eyes as Hektor and the Trojan Horse galloped into sight upon the plain.
“Hektor, my son,” he whispered. “Agamemnon and his lickspittle kings will flee like the rats they are now that you’re back. They will be fighting each other to get back to their ships now, my boy.”
Polydorus had fought in Thraki years earlier, but his experience on the battlefield was limited. Yet he knew Agamemnon could field many times the number of warriors Priam could. Hektor’s surprise attack had won the day, he thought as he watched the enemy soldiers streaming back toward the pass. But what of tomorrow?
He glanced past the king to Prince Polites, who also was swathed in sheepskin, his red-rimmed eyes watching the battle anxiously. As if he felt the Eagle’s gaze, Polites turned and gave him a rueful smile. Polydorus knew that Polites shared his opinion: The war was not over, not by a long way.
To his father, Polites said nervously, “The battle was already going our way when the Trojan Horse arrived. Antiphones would have won the day eventually, Father, although with far more casualties.”
Priam spit on the floor at his feet. “Pah! Antiphones is a fat fool. And you are an idiot. You know nothing of war. You should be down there fighting, not up here watching from a safe distance.”
Polites flushed. “I am not a warrior, Father. You chose me as your chancellor, to look after your treasury. I serve the city in my own way.”
Priam turned on him venomously. “And how is the treasury, Polites? How well are you looking after it for me? Is it overflowing?”
Stung by the words, Polites said heatedly, “You know very well, Father, we have to pay for this war. Your mercenaries down there have to be paid for, and if they think we are losing, they will demand even more of our wealth. We need more tin and copper to make bronze armor and weapons, yet we have to go farther afield, and our desperation puts the prices up. Now we badly need tin, and the Xanthos is our only hope.”
Strangely, that seemed to cheer the king. “The Xanthos, yes,” he said with pleasure. “I trust Aeneas will be here soon or he’ll miss the fighting altogether. I was looking forward to seeing Agamemnon’s ships in flames.”
Polydorus turned to look down at the battlefield again. The enemy forces were retreating to the earthwork they had built to protect the pass. Some seemed to be fleeing blindly, others retreating in good order. Mykene, he thought, or Achilles and his Myrmidons, his elite guard. They would not show their backs to their enemy. He suddenly felt a moment of kinship with the disciplined soldiers, enemy or not. He remembered the Mykene hero Argurios holding the stairs, mighty in his courage and dying with his love Laodike after saving Troy for her sake. Polydorus cherished that day as the best of his young life.
“My lord, perhaps we should return to the palace,” he suggested. “It will be getting dark soon, and the fighting will be over. Even my young eyes cannot see what is happening so far away and in failing light.”
The king sniffed. “Then I must find myself an aide with better eyesight,” he said, but he allowed himself to be helped back to the stairwell.
As they descended the gloomy tower steps cautiously, Polydorus heard the old king repeating to himself, “My Hektor is back, and the rats will flee to their holes.”
For two days there was little movement from the armies of Agamemnon. Driven back behind the reinforced earthwork that protected the landward side of the pass, the western forces showed no heart for a renewed attack.
The Trojans, who had put every soldier who could stand up into battle for days on end, took the precious time to honor their dead, treat the wounded, and sleep. Hektor was tireless, laying defense plans with his generals, touring the House of Serpents and the barracks hospital to encourage his wounded and dying men, and walking the field of battle where the Trojan army lay in wait for Agamemnon’s next attack.
Kalliades could see the gray sheen of exhaustion on his features when they met on the plain of the Scamander on the third day.
“You need rest, Hektor,” the old general Lucan told him, as if he heard Kalliades’ thoughts. “Troy needs all your strength for the coming battles.”
Hektor said nothing, and Lucan went on: “And we are too close to the enemy lines. A well-placed arrow could find you and end all our hopes.”
Hektor and Lucan, with Banokles and Kalliades, stood a mere hundred paces from the enemy earthwork, now bristling with sharpened stakes to deter an attack by riders. The massive earthwork formed a semicircle, protecting the head of the narrow pass. On the cliffs above the pass and on the white walls of King’s Joy the Trojans could see the glint of armor as enemy warriors watched and waited.
“What are you, his mother?” Banokles asked irritably. He made no secret of the fact that he disliked the old general, and Kalliades thought the feeling was mutual.
Lucan smiled thinly, and his eyes were cold. “If you had ever met Hekabe the queen, Mykene, you would not ask such a foolish question.”
Hektor was staring up at the cliffs, and he appeared not to hear. Then he said, his voice distant, “I will not die from an arrow wound, General.”
“Did his soothsayer tell King Priam the manner of your death?” Lucan asked, his tone skeptical.
Hektor visibly shook off his reverie and clapped the general on the shoulder. “No, old friend, but Agamemnon would ensure an archer who killed me would suffer a cruel and lingering death. He has other plans for me. He would see me shamed and laid low in public by Achilles or another champion.”