‘I’ll give you two days ration of wine.’
‘No.’
‘Three days.’
‘Not for a whole week. Beside, you drew the western parapet a fortnight ago, whereas I haven’t even seen her for a month.’
Odysseus opened his eyes again and saw two soldiers walking up the main thoroughfare from the lower city. They wore the same armour and plumed helmets he had seen on the men who had just thrown him into the gutter – members of the elite guard that defended Pergamos – and as they approached a desperate idea struck him. He looked around at the empty street, then sat on his haunches with his back to the wall and held his hands out before him.
‘A bit of food, my lords?’
The nearest paused as he noticed the beggar for the first time, then reached into a satchel beneath his cloak.
‘Here,’ he said, passing him a piece of bread. ‘The gods have smiled on me today, so why not you?’
Odysseus took the bread, noting the dagger in the man’s belt.
‘And what good fortune’s worth three days wine ration to your friend?’ he asked.
The man grinned.
‘I drew the evening watch for the western wall, of course.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me, sir, I’m new to the city. Where I come from the soldiers’d rather be drinking wine and throwing dice than be out on duty.’
He no longer made any effort to disguise his accent, but instead employed his most calming tone, hoping to lull the minds of the two soldiers. He instinctively calculated how he would take the dagger and kill them both. Then, after hiding the bodies and swapping his beggars outfit for one of their uniforms, he could try and bluff his way through the gates.
‘Surely you’ve heard about Helen of Troy?’
Odysseus hesitated and gave a slight nod.
‘Every evening at sunset she walks along the western parapet, looking towards Greece,’ said the other soldier. ‘Pining for the children she left behind, or so they say.’
‘And I’ll be guarding the same stretch of wall,’ declared the first, glancing triumphantly at his friend. ‘Whatever people say or think about that woman, she’s a beauty beyond the measure of mortal minds. There’s something of the gods in her, or I’m a Greek.’
‘And can she be seen from the lower city, my lord?’
‘Go to where the outer wall meets the western wall of Pergamos and you’ll see her. If you ask me, I think she makes sure she can be seen: to remind us of what we’re fighting for – something much greater than mere wealth or power.’
‘He’s loved her since the first day he saw her,’ the other soldier explained to Odysseus. ‘If you go there, you’ll understand why.’
‘But don’t get too close,’ added the first. ‘If she catches a whiff of your perfume, old man, she’ll be back inside faster than a rabbit in its hole.’
The men laughed and walked up to the gate, rapping loudly on the panels and calling for entry. Before the doors could be opened, Odysseus was back on his feet and walking as quick as his feigned stoop would allow. He passed the tower with its row of idols and followed the curve of the walls beyond. The thought of Helen had filled his fertile mind with the germ of an idea, an idea that had saved the lives of the two Trojans. It powered him along until he saw the crenellated lip of the city wall rising to meet the battlements of Pergamos ahead of him. Already the light was fading on the streets, as the sun slid towards the ocean and was lost behind the two-storeyed houses and the high fortifications. Then the walls of the citadel bent sharply to the north-west and converged in a dark triangle with the defences of the lower city. Here Odysseus sat down with his back to a small house, looking up at the dark, saw-toothed outline of the ramparts where he hoped to see Helen.
As the clear sky slowly began to turn to a darker blue, Odysseus noticed others gathering around him. Three women in black were the first, their lined and ageing faces stern and silent as they stood together by the corner of the small house. They were followed by the angry stumping of a crutch on the cobbled street as another beggar – his left leg missing below the knee and his right eye an empty pit – entered the sombre triangle. A young mother was next, holding a small infant in the folds of her widow’s robes, and behind her were three Mysian warriors, their young eyes fixed hopefully on the parapet above. A few more arrived, until at last a score of people were waiting in the shade, all of them, in one way or another, victims of Helen’s beauty. Then, as one, the small crowd fell still and stared up at the walls. Odysseus followed their collective gaze and felt his own heart suddenly beating faster. Helen had come.
It was as if a final beam of the sun’s radiance had alighted on the grey stone of the battlements. She wore no black to symbolise the mourning in her heart, but was instead dressed in a white chiton and robe that blushed pink in the dying daylight. Her sad and lovely face, chin raised, stared out at the sunset beyond the city walls, pained by memories of things that had passed. Like a goddess among mortals, she seemed aloof to the dark, shuffling figures below. And that was how it should be, Odysseus thought: she was too beautiful, too perfect, to be soiled with the misery and torment of a sinful universe. Its filth could not stick to her nor weigh her down, and though the widows, the maimed and the awestruck looked up at her in demanding silence, even they must surely know she was not of their world.
And yet she had offered herself to Odysseus when he had been a young suitor in Sparta twenty years before, promising to marry him if he would help her escape the claustrophobic life of her father’s court. By then he had already fallen in love with Penelope, but the memory of Helen’s submission gave him the courage to stand and shuffle forward. Ignoring the shocked whispers of the onlookers, he raised his face to the battlements and called out in the Trojan tongue.
‘What is it you look for in the setting sun, my lady?’
Helen turned to face him and the whisperers on either side fell quiet. Her blue eyes fixed momentarily on the ragged, filthy creature that had dared call out to her, then with the slightest narrowing of disgust turned back to the horizon.
‘Perhaps a winged horse to carry you away from this prison? Or maybe your own death, so your spirit can follow Paris’s and share with him in the forgetfulness of Hades?’
‘How dare you!’ Helen replied, seizing the edge of the wall and staring down at him. ‘How dare you foul my husband’s name with your rank breath?’
‘He ain’t your husband no more,’ cackled one of the widows.
The others joined her laughter, suddenly released from the spell of Helen’s beauty and delighting in her discomfort. One of the Mysians ordered them to be silent, while on the battlements the sound of sandals on the stonework announced the hurried arrival of a guard. Odysseus immediately recognised one of the soldiers he had spoken to by the gate to Pergamos.
‘My breath may indeed be rank, mistress,’ he continued, ‘but it can barely make worse the name of a wife-stealer and family breaker. Such a man deserved to die!’