These allies include different groups: the “Trojans” not from Troy itself—the Dardanians and others from smaller cities and outlying areas far beyond Ilium, including the Trojan-loyal fighters from under Mount Ida and from as far north as Lykia. Also present now are the Adresteians and other fighters from places many leagues east of Troy, as well as the Pelasgians from Larisa in the south.
From Europe have come the Thracians, Paionians, and Kikones. From the south shores of the Black Sea have come the Halizones—dwellers near the River Halys and related to the Chalybes metalworkers of ancient legend. One can hear campfire songs and curses in the city from the Paphlagoes and Enetoi, a people from farther north along the Black Sea who may be the great-great-ancestors of the future Venetians. From north-central Asia Minor have come the shaggy Mysians—Ennomos and Nastes are two Mysian men I’ve spent time with and who will, according to Homer, be cut down by Achilles in the river battle to come—a slaughter so terrible that not only will the Scamander run red for months, but the river will be dammed up by the corpses of all the men Achilles will massacre there, including the unclaimed bodies of Nastes and Ennomos.
Also here, recognizable by their wild hair, by their oddly shaped bronze gear, and by their smell, are the Phrygians, Maionians, Karians, and Lykians.
This city is full and wonderfully alive and raucous all but two or three of its twenty-four hours each day. This is the finest and grandest and most beautiful city in the world—in this era or my era or any era in the history of all humankind.
I am thinking this as I lie naked next to Helen of Troy in her bed, the linens smelling of sex and of us, the breeze cool through billowing curtains. Somewhere thunder rumbles as a storm approaches. Helen stirs and whispers my name—“Hock-en-bear-eeee . . .”
I came into the city in late afternoon after QTing down from the hospital of the gods on Olympos, knowing that the Muse was looking for me to kill me, and that if she did not find me today, Aphrodite would when the goddess got out of her healing tank.
I had thought to blend in with the soldiers watching the last of this long day’s battles—somewhere out there in the late-afternoon sun and dust, Diomedes was still slaughtering Trojans—but when I saw Hector walking back to the city with only a few of his usual retinue, I morphed into one of the men I knew—Dolon, a spearman and trusted scout, soon to be killed by Odysseus and Diomedes—and followed Hector. The noble warrior came in through the Scaean Gates—Ilium’s main gates, made of sturdy oak planks as tall as ten men the size of Ajax—and he was immediately besieged by the wives and daughters of Troy asking about their husbands and sons and brothers and lovers.
I watched Hector’s tall red Trojan crest move through the mob of women, his head and shoulders swimming above the sea of beseeching faces, and saw him when he finally stopped to address the growing mob. “Pray to the gods, you women of Troy,” was all he said before turning on his heel and marching toward Priam’s palace. Some of his soldiers crossed tall spears and covered his retreat, holding back the wailing mass of Trojan women. I stayed with the last four of his guard and silently accompanied Hector into Priam’s magnificent palace, built wide, as Homer said, and gleaming with porches and colonnades of polished marble.
We stepped back against the wall—evening shadows already creeping into the courtyards and sleeping chambers here—and stood guard as Hector met briefly with his mother.
“No wine, Mother,” he said, waving away the cup she had ordered a servant to bring. “Not now. I’m too tired. The wine would sap what little strength and nerve I have left for the killing to come this evening. Also, I’m covered with blood and dirt and all the filth of battle—I’d be ashamed to lift a cup to Zeus with such dirty hands.”
“My son,” said Hector’s mother, a woman I had seen act with warmth and a good heart over the years, “why have you left the fighting if not to pray to the gods?”
“It’s you who have to pray,” said Hector, his helmet next to him on the couch. The warrior was indeed filthy—face grimed with layers of dirt and blood turned to a reddish mud by his sweat—and he sat as only the deeply exhausted can sit, forearms on his knees, head bent, voice dulled. “Go to Athena’s shrine, gather the most noble of Ilium’s noblest women, and take the largest, most beautiful robe you can find in Priam’s palace. Spread it across the knees of Athena’s gold statue and promise to sacrifice twelve yearling heifers in her temple if only she will pity Troy. Ask the grim goddess to spare our city and our Trojan wives and helpless children from the terror of Diomedes.”
“Has it come to that?” whispered Hector’s mother, leaning closer and taking one of her son’s bloody hands in hers. “Has it finally come to that?”
“Yes,” said Hector and struggled to his feet and lifted his helmet and left the hall.
With the three other spearmen, I followed the exhausted hero as he walked six city blocks to the residence of Paris and Helen, a large compound with its cluster of regal terraces and residential towers and private courtyards.
Hector brushed past guards and servants, pounded up steps, and flung open the door to Paris and Helen’s private quarters. I half expected to see Paris in bed with his stolen consort—Homer had sung that the horny couple had gone straight to bed hours earlier when Paris had been whisked from his showdown with Menelaus—but instead, Paris looked up from fondling his armor and battle gear as Helen sat nearby, directing female servants in their embroidery.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hector snarled at the smaller man. “Sitting here like a woman, like a mewling infant, playing with your armor while the real men of Ilium die by the hundred, while the enemy surges around the citadel and fills our ears with his foreign battle cries? Get up, you goddamn deserter. Get up before Troy is burned to cinders around your cowardly ass!”
Instead of leaping to his feet in indignation, the royal Paris just smiled. “Ah, Hector, I deserve your curses. Nothing you say is unjust.”
“Then get off your butt and into that armor,” Hector said brusquely, but the fury in his tone had suddenly died away, either robbed of force by fatigue or by Paris’s calm refusal to defend himself.
“I will,” said Paris, “but first hear me out. Let me tell you something.”
Hector remained silent, swaying slightly on his sandaled feet. He was carrying his crested helmet under his left arm and had an extra-long throwing spear, borrowed from the sergeant of our small guard, gripped in his right hand. Now Hector used the butt of that spear to steady himself.
“I’m not keeping to my chambers for so long just out of anger or outrage,” said Paris, gesturing toward Helen and her servants as if they were part of the furniture. “But out of grief.”
“Grief?” repeated Hector. He sounded contemptuous.
“Grief,” Paris said again. “Grief at my own cowardice today—although it was the gods who carried me away from battle with Menelaus, not my own will—and grief at the fate of our city.”
“That fate isn’t written in stone,” snapped Hector. “We can stop Diomedes and his battle-maddened minions. Put on your armor. Come back to the battle with me. There’s another hour of daylight left. We can kill many Greeks in the bloody light of the setting sun and more in the cool twilight.”
Paris smiled at this and stood. “You’re right. Battle now strikes even me—the world’s greatest lover, not its greatest fighter—as the better way. Fate and victory shift, you know, Hector—now this way, now that way—like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.”