He looks around and speaks loudly so that all of the captains can hear. “Eat well, my friends. Nestor! Have your sons, Antilochos and Thrasymedes, also Meges the son of Phyleus, Meriones and Thoas, Lycoedes the son of Creon, and Melanippus too, carry the word of the feast to the very front of the fighting, so that no Achaean warrior goes without meat and wine for his midday meal this day! I will dress myself for battle and go off with Hockenberry, the son of Duane, to prepare myself for the coming war with the gods.”
Achilles turns and walks into the tent where he had been dressing when I arrived, beckoning now for me to follow him.
Waiting for Achilles to get dressed for war reminds me of the times I waited for my wife, Susan, to get dressed when we were late for a dinner party somewhere. There’s nothing to do to hurry up the process—all one can do is wait.
But I keep checking my chronometer, thinking of the little robot I left up there—Mahnmut was its name—and wondering if the gods have killed it, him, it, yet. But he told me to return and meet him by the caldera lake in an hour and I still have more than thirty minutes left.
But how can I return to Olympos without the Hades Helmet to hide me? I’d been impulsive in giving the leather cowl to the little robot, and now I may pay for that impulsiveness at any moment if the gods look down and spy me here. But I tell myself that Aphrodite will be able to see me anyway if I return to Olympos, Hades Helmet or no Hades Helmet, so I’ll just have to QT in there fast, get Mahnmut, and QT out. What’s important now is what’s happening here and in Ilium.
What’s happening here is that Achilles is getting dressed.
I notice that Achilles is grinding his teeth as he dresses for war—or rather, as his servants, slaves, and stewards help him dress for war. No knight chavaliex from the Middle Ages ever handled his weapons and armor with greater care and ceremony than does Achilles, son of Peleus, this day.
First, Achilles wraps his legs with finely formed greaves—shin guards that make me remember my days as a catcher in Little League—although these greaves aren’t made of molded plastic, but are wonderfully worked in bronze with silver ankle-clasps.
Then Achilles straps the breastplate around his broad chest and slings his sword over his shoulder. The sword is also made of bronze, is polished brighter than a mirror, is razor sharp, and has a silver-studded hilt. I might lift that sword if I crouched and used both hands. Perhaps.
Then he hoists his huge, round shield, made of two layers of bronze and two layers of tin—a rare metal at this time—separated by a layer of gold. This shield is a polished and gleaming work of art so famous that its design had Homer devote a full book of the Iliad to it; the shield has also been the subject of many stand-alone poems, including my favorite by Robert Graves. And, surprisingly, it doesn’t disappoint when seen in person. Suffice it to say that the shield design includes concentric circles of images which summarize the essence of thought in much of this ancient Greek world, beginning with the River Ocean on the outer rim and moving through amazing images of the City at Peace and the City at War near the center, culminating in beautiful renderings of the Earth, sea, sun, moon and stars in the bull’s-eye center. The shield is so brightly polished that even in the shade of this tent, it gleams like a heliograph mirror.
Finally Achilles lifts his rugged helmet and sets it in place over his brows. Legend has it that the fire god Hephaestus personally drove in the horsehair crest—not only Trojans wear high-crested war helmets in this war, but also the Achaeans—and it’s true that the tall golden plumes along the ridge of the helmet shimmer like flames when Achilles walks.
Fully armed now except for his spear, Achilles tests himself in his gear like an NFL lineman making sure his shoulder pads are set. The man-killer spins on his heels to see that his greaves are tightly fitted and his breastplate tight, but not so tight that he cannot turn and twist and dodge and thrust with ease. Then he runs a few paces, making sure that everything from his high-laced sandals to his helmet stays in place. Finally, Achilles lifts his shield, raises his hand over his shoulder, and pulls free his sword, all in a single movement so fluid that it looks as if he’s been doing it since birth.
He resheaths the sword and says, “I’m ready, Hockenberry.”
The captains follow us as I lead Achilles back to the beach where I left the Orphu shell. The guards have not gone near the huge crab-thing—which is still floating thanks to my levitation harnesses, a fact not lost on the gathering crowd of soldiers. I’ve decided to give a little magic show here, impressing Odysseus, Diomedes, and the other captains while earning a little more respect. Besides, I know that these other Achaeans, not blinded by fury as Achilles is, can’t be very enthusiastic about going up against the immortal gods they’ve worshiped and sacrificed to and obeyed since they were old enough to think. Theoretically, anything I can do now to reinforce Achilles’ dominion over his new army should be helpful to both of us.
“Grasp my forearm, son of Peleus,” I say softly. When Achilles does so, I twist the medallion with my free hand and we blink out.
Helen had said to meet them in the foyer of the baby Scamandrius’ nursery in Hector’s home. I’ve been there, so there is no problem visualizing it and we QT into an empty room. We are a few minutes early—the changing of the guards on the walls of Ilium won’t happen for four or five minutes yet. There’s a window in this foyer, and we can both see that we’re in the center of Ilium. The street traffic—oxcarts, horses and their clanking livery, marketplace shouts, the shuffle of hundreds and hundreds of pedestrians on cobblestones—comes through the open window as a reassuring background noise.
Achilles doesn’t seem to be nonplussed by quantum teleportation. I realize that the young man’s life has been full of divine magic. He was raised and educated by a centaur, for God’s sake. Now—knowing that he’s in the belly of the belly of the enemy beast in Ilium—he only sets his hand on the hilt of his sword, not drawing it, and looks at me as if to ask, “What next?”
The “what next” is a man crying out in terrible pain from the room next door, the nursery. I recognize the voice of the shouting man as Hector, although I have never heard him moan and cry like this. Women are also weeping and lamenting. Hector shouts again, as if in mortal pain.
I have no urge to go into that nursery, but Achilles acts for me, striding ahead, his hand still tight on the hilt of the half-drawn sword. I follow.
My Trojan women are all here—Helen, Hecuba, Laodice, Theano, and Andromache—but they don’t even turn as Achilles and I enter the nursery. Hector is here, in dusty, bloody battle gear, but he doesn’t even look up at his archenemy as Achilles stops and stares at what everyone’s horrified attention is focused on.
The baby’s hand-carved cradle is tipped over. Blood is splattered across the cradle wood, the marble floor, and the mosquito netting. The body of little Scamandrius, also lovingly known as Astyanax, not quite one year old, lies on the floor—hacked to pieces. The baby’s head is missing. The arms and legs have been lopped off. One pudgy little hand remains attached, but the other has been severed at the wrist. The baby’s royal swaddling clothes, with Hector’s family crest so delicately embroidered on the breast, is sodden with blood. Nearby lies the body of the wet nurse I’d seen on the battlements and sleeping here peacefully just one night ago. It looks as if she’s been mauled by some huge jungle cat, her dead arms still extended toward the overturned cradle as if she died attempting to protect the infant.