Achilles paused for a moment, then sheathed his sword. Without taking his eyes off Agamemnon, he returned to his seat.
“We are all men of honor,” Agamemnon went on. “Achilles is our champion, and none doubts his countrymen’s bravery. But our attack will go ahead without Thessaly if it must.”
“And without Ithaka,” Odysseus put in. “My men will not be climbing walls to certain death. You can have my archers and my bow Akilina to defend your warriors from the ground; that is all.”
“So be it,” Agamemnon said coldly. “And what is your plan for taking the walls, Tale Spinner? Or are you only here to weave children’s stories about magic pigs and flying ships?”
Black-bearded Meriones stood up and said angrily, “The king of Ithaka has proved himself in battle a hundred times. If it were not for him, we would still be languishing on the other side of the Scamander.”
“Yes, yes,” old Nestor put in impatiently. “We are all warriors here. I had fought a hundred battles before young Achilles was a gleam in his father’s eye. What I would know, Agamemnon King, is why you need us all here when you plan to send one troop of your men up a ladder.”
“The attack will be the same as yesterday’s,” the Battle King replied patiently. “With all our ladders and as many men as we can muster. The Trojans must not know where our eye is fixed.”
“And where is it fixed?” the king of Pylos asked.
“Our target is the south wall beside the Great Tower of Ilion. If we can take and hold that small part of the wall, we will have access to the great tower through the battlements door. Then we will have two ways in: down the steps at the south wall or down through the tower, which, as you all know, opens behind the Scaean Gate. We need get only six men to the gate and the city is ours.”
Odysseus waited a safe distance from the south wall, the great bow Akilina on his shoulder, as the western troops mustered for the new assault. This was to be no surprise attack. He could see the sun glinting off the helms of the Trojan forces lined up along the top of the wall.
Despite his losses, Agamemnon could gather more than thirty thousand warriors for the assault. The Ithakan king calculated that there could be no more than five thousand soldiers left inside the walls to defend Troy. That should be plenty today, he thought. Agamemnon’s latest scheme might work, but that was unlikely. Each passing day, each failed assault, confirmed Odysseus in his belief that the only way to take the city was by trickery.
The ladders lay lined up on the ground. They were constructed of oak from the foothills of Mount Ida and lashed together with strong leather strips. They were heavy, and each required six men to raise it to the walls.
The command was given, and the attackers picked up their ladders and ran with them to the base of the wall. Within moments, scores of ladders had been raised and armored warriors were streaming up them. Odysseus stepped back a few paces, notched an arrow to the string, and waited, just as the defenders waited. The Trojans were waiting for each ladder to be charged with warriors before dislodging it from the wall. Odysseus was waiting for the defenders to lean out from the battlements to shift the ladders.
A bearded Trojan soldier holding a ladder pole stretched out from the top of the wall to hook the pole against a ladder and thrust it sideways. Odysseus could see a tiny patch of white between his helm and the armor at his neck. He sighted Akilina and loosed. The arrow punched through the man’s throat, and he slumped over the wall. Odysseus notched another arrow to the string and waited.
The ladder beside the great tower was downed quickly by the defenders, the warriors falling from it as it crashed to the ground. More soldiers raced to raise it again and to climb it regardless of the danger to themselves. Agamemnon had promised honor and a sheep’s weight in gold to the first man to reach the battlements and live. Odysseus picked off two more defenders at the top of the ladder. He saw a soldier on the wall spot him and point him out to the Phrygian archers. Odysseus grinned. He was well out of range of their puny bows.
The attackers were making a fourth attempt to climb the ladder by the tower. There were seven warriors on it when it was pushed sideways, dislodging the men clinging to it and those on the next two ladders as it crashed into them. There was a thin sound of cheering from the top of the walls.
But the attackers did not hesitate. New soldiers leaped forward and raised the ladders again. Such courage wasted on a doomed venture, Odysseus thought.
Glancing at the top of the wall again, he suddenly realized that the defenders had fallen back. He frowned. What are they up to now? he wondered.
All along the south wall he saw men come into view bearing huge shallow dishes of shining metal in cloth-covered hands. Boiling oil, Odysseus wondered, or scalding water? The dishes were tipped up as one, and their contents showered down on the invaders below.
Instantly there was a scene of horror as climbing men all along the wall started screaming and writhing, trying to pull off their armor, and falling from the ladders. Those who managed to get out of their armor continued shrieking in torment, their cries hideous to hear.
Odysseus shouldered Akilina and ran toward the walls, shouting at his archers to carry on shooting at the defenders.
He reached a Mykene warrior who was writhing in agony, trying desperately to rid himself of his breastplate. Odysseus tore it off him, but that did not help. The man went on screaming as Odysseus ripped off his tunic.
“What is it, Odysseus? What’s happening to them?” Meriones cried, kneeling at his side.
The fallen warrior had fainted from the excruciating pain, and Odysseus pointed at the bright red skin of his chest and shoulders. It looked as if it were boiling.
“Sand,” he said, “mixed with tiny shavings of metal and heated until it’s red-hot. It sifts under the armor and burns deeply into the skin. It can never be removed and will always be a torment to the victim. I have heard of this weapon used in desert lands. It is a fiendish torture.”
An arrow thudded into the ground beside him, and he and Meriones swiftly raised their shields above their heads. Then each took an arm of the wounded soldier, and they started to drag him away from the walls. But another arrow slammed into the man’s chest, and he died instantly. They let go of him and turned back to the walls to try to rescue others.
“By Apollo’s balls,” Odysseus muttered, “he’s better off dead.”
Between them, he and Meriones carried several soldiers, all tormented by unendurable pain, away from the walls. Never had the king felt so helpless in the face of hideous injury.
They’re all better off dead, he thought grimly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WITH SHAFT AND BOW
The warm spring turned into a hot, dry summer. The besieged city was parched.
As Andromache walked from the House of Serpents back to Hektor’s palace, she thought longingly of the cool goblet of water that would greet her when she arrived. She slipped through the gates of the palace, shedding her bodyguards with a nod, and stepped into the gardens.
The plants were dying. The tender ones were long dead; the pots and troughs fashioned from stone and wood were filled only with brown twigs. Even the trees were drooping from lack of water. In the early evening light, Andromache’s two boys were running around on the dry cracked earth, playing catch, unaware of the dead plants and the city’s desperate plight.
“Mama!” Astyanax shouted joyfully, and ran to her with his arms out. She lifted the boy up onto her hip with a groan. “You’re getting too heavy for me!” she protested. Dex ran up to her, too, and she ruffled his fair hair, smiling down into his dark eyes.