18
Ilium
This city—Ilium, Troy, Priam’s City, Pergamus—is most beautiful at night.
The walls, each more than a hundred feet high, are lit with torches, illuminated by braziers on the ramparts, and backlit by the hundreds of fires of the Trojan army camping on the plain below. Troy is a city of tall towers, and most of these are lighted late into the night, windows warm with light, courtyards glowing, terraces and balconies warmed by candles and firepits and more torches. The streets of Ilium are broad and carefully paved—I once tried to slide my knifeblade between the stones and couldn’t—and most are lighted by open doorways, torches set into wall sconces, and by the cooking campfires of the thousands upon thousands of non-Trojan soldiers and their families living here now, allies to Ilium all.
Even the shadows in Ilium are alive. Young men and women of the lower classes make love in the dark alleys and on shadowy terraces. Well-fed dogs and eternally clever cats slip from shadow to shadow, narrow alley to courtyard, loping along the edges of the broad thoroughfares where fruit and vegetables, fish and meat have fallen from the day’s market carts and are theirs for the eating, and then slink back to narrow alleys’ gloom and darkness under the viaducts.
The residents of Ilium have no fear of starvation or deadly thirst. At the first alarm of the Achaeans’ approach—many weeks before the dark ships arrived more than nine years ago—hundreds of cattle and thousands of sheep were herded into the city, emptying farm fields for 400 square miles around the city. More such cattle drives happen regularly, and most of the beef gets to the city despite the Greeks’ halfhearted efforts to interdict. Vegetables and fruits flow easily into Ilium, delivered by the same shrewd farmers and traders who sell food to the Achaeans.
Troy was built where it was so many centuries ago largely because of the huge aquifer under it—the city has four giant wells that always run fresh and deep—but to be on the safe side, Priam long ago ordered a tributary of the River Simois to the north of Ilium diverted and run through easily defended canals and underground viaducts into the city proper. The Greeks have more trouble finding fresh water than do the technically besieged residents of Ilium.
The population of Ilium—easily the greatest city on Earth at this time—has more than doubled since the war began. First into the city for protection came the farmers and goatherders and fishermen and other peripatetic former denizens of the plains of Ilium. Following them came the armies of the allies of Troy—not only the fighting men, but often their wives and children and elders and dogs and cattle.
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.