Idomeneos scowled. Smiling, Odysseus walked from the company of the kings for the last time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE TROJAN HORSE
The horse was swimming. Skorpios knew the beasts could swim. Indeed, he had seen many swimming for their lives in the Hellespont after the battle of Carpea. But he had never sat astride a swimming horse. It was very peaceful. The sea was blue, although above them the sky was as black as pitch, and the moon hung on the horizon like a hole in the heavens. It was bigger than Skorpios had ever seen it, and his mount was floating toward it along a path of silver moonlight.
Looking about curiously, he saw that there were fish all around him. They were very big and were flashing past close to his legs. He wondered nervously if fish had teeth. He was answered when one swam up to him and nibbled his knee. It did not hurt, but it tickled him. He kicked out, and it darted away.
He noticed that Mestares was riding alongside him. His handsome face was corpse gray, and one arm appeared to be missing.
“The sea is red,” said the warrior.
Skorpios was surprised to see that it was red.
“Go back, Skorpios. Go back while you can,” said Mestares, smiling at him kindly.
Skorpios realized his leg was hurting now from the fish bite. And there was a pain in his side. He had been riding for too long. He was very tired. He turned his mount and headed away from the moon as Mestares had ordered, but it was dark that way, and he felt very much alone.
When he awoke, he did not want to move. He was lying on the ground with his back against something warm. He opened his eyes and saw his comrades sleeping around him. He realized it was full daylight and, with a groan, sat up.
Then he remembered. They had come in the night, an army of Mykene soldiers, hundreds of them. Caught by surprise, the Trojan horsemen had leaped quickly to defend themselves, and the battle had been vicious. But there had been too many of the enemy, and the Trojans had been unprepared. Skorpios had been gashed in the knee by a lance but had managed to kill the wielder, slicing his sword into the man’s inner thigh. He thought he had killed four or five of the enemy soldiers before he turned to see the pommel of a sword crashing toward his head.
His head still ached because of the noise of horses screaming. There was a pain in his side as well as in his knee, and one eye was gummy with blood. Moaning, he rolled over and got to his knees, then vomited on the ground. He looked around. It was still and silent in the woodland glade. Everywhere there were dead men and horses. He had been lying with his back to a bay stallion. It seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He could not see a wound. He thought it was Mestares’ mount, Warlord. Then he recalled his dream. He saw Mestares’ body lying close by, a broken sword through his belly, his open eyes full of dust.
Skorpios stood, clutching his side. He pulled aside his bloody shirt to look at the wound. A sword had gone cleanly through the flesh, and he could see the neat shape of the blade on his white skin. It was bleeding, but not much. He could not remember being wounded in the side. He checked his leg. It was a nasty gash and had bled heavily. But most of the blood on him seemed to have come from his head. He felt a clot of blood above his right ear. He tried to remember what his friend Olganos once had told him about bandaging wounds. Some had to be bandaged heavily, some left free to drain. He could not remember which was which.
His throat was parched, and he started looking for a water skin. It was only then that he realized that all the Trojan bodies, including his own, had been stripped of armor. They thought me dead, he said to himself.
He frowned. Looking around, he started to count the bodies of his comrades. There were not enough. Some got away, he thought, and his heart lifted.
Staggering around among the corpses of friends and foes, at last he found his own belongings, including a half-full water skin. He threw his head back and drank deeply. The taste was like nectar, and he felt strength flooding back into his body. The pain in his head receded a little.
Skorpios found bandages and wound one around his leg, sloshing some water onto the wound first. He looked at his side again and decided it would be impossible to bandage. He delved into other men’s bags until he had gathered some food. He found a full water skin. His best find was an unbroken sword hidden under the body of a Mykene soldier. He thrust it into the scabbard still hanging from his waist and instantly felt stronger. He picked up a bronze knife. It was blunt, but he took it anyway.
Then, with a last look at his dead comrades, he set out for the north, limping on his injured knee.
He had been traveling for some time, and his strength was failing, when he saw a stray horse cropping dry grass under a tree. It was trailing its reins and still had a lion-skin shabrack over its back. He whistled to it, and, well trained, it trotted over to him. From the decorative plaiting of the reins Skorpios thought it was a Mykene mount.
With effort he climbed onto its back, then turned again in the direction of Troy. He would meet the enemy soon, and when he did, he would kill as many of them as he could before he died.
He felt no fear.
“Great Zeus, I’m hungry!” Banokles complained. “My belly thinks my throat’s been sliced.”
“You’ve said that every day since we got here,” Kalliades pointed out.
“Well, it’s been true every day since we got here.”
They stood on the south wall of Troy, gazing down on the enemy armies. The ashes from Hektor’s funeral pyre still were floating by on the breeze. The massive pyre had burned all night, fueled by wood brought by Trojans from all parts of the city. Kalliades had seen young men carrying costly furniture to chop up for firewood and old men bearing armfuls of twigs from dead plants. Everyone wanted to play his part, however small, in the death rites for their hero.
Scented branches of cedar and fragrant herbs had been placed on top of the pyre, followed by Hektor’s body in a richly embroidered robe of gold, his dead hands clasped around his sword hilt, a gold ring in his mouth for the ferryman.
As the huge pyre blazed, Kalliades saw King Priam being helped out onto the balcony of the palace to watch. He was too far away to see the old man’s face, but Kalliades felt a stab of pity for him. Hektor had been the king’s favorite son, and, Kalliades believed, Priam loved him as much as he was capable of loving anyone. Now all his sons were dead except Polites. Priam had the boy Astyanax close by his side on the balcony. The child had cried out in excitement and clapped his hands as the crackling flames had climbed high into the night sky.
After the funeral rites, back on the walls the familiar lethargy had returned. The duel and the death of Hektor had angered the men, and the coming of rain had refreshed them. For two days they had walked with pride. Like Hektor, they were warriors of Troy and would fight to the last for the city. But quickly the lack of food and the long uneventful days had taken their toll, and they had lapsed into idleness and boredom again.
Kalliades was watching a dust cloud in the far distance. The dry earth had sucked all the rain into it, and the ground was as dusty now as it had been before the storm.
Boros the Rhodian was standing alongside Kalliades and Banokles. “Can you see what that is?” Kalliades asked the flaxen-haired lad. “Your eyes are younger than mine.”
“I’m not sure, sir,” the soldier admitted. “Is it a cow?”