‘I hand-picked my servants for their beauty and sexual charm, and there isn’t a soldier alive who could resist their advances. You’ve seen them, Odysseus, you know I’m right.’
Odysseus recalled the girls who had undressed him and washed him clean, and even though their faces had been screwed up into expressions of severe disapproval there could be no denying their beauty.
‘So what are we waiting for?’
‘No harm in being certain,’ Helen replied.
After she had waited a short while longer – long enough to be sure the guards’ regular tours of the battlements had been disrupted – she moved to the steps as swiftly as her long chiton would allow and ascended. Odysseus followed. His Trojan tunic hugged his knees and restricted his movement on the steps, but it was soft, warm and clean and a thousand times better than the beggar’s rags he had thrown onto the hearth in Helen’s house. Soon he was beside her on the wide walkway, looking beyond the parapet to the pale line of the Simöeis, lit by the sliver of moon above. The meandering ribbon of grey was interrupted in places where the banks were higher, or where clumps of trees or shrubs rose up from the river’s edge.
‘The walls are easier to climb here,’ Helen said. ‘The rock that Pergamos was built on rises up from the plain and makes the drop shorter. More importantly, when you make your escape you can’t risk leaving a rope tied around the battlements. If the guards find it they’ll be alerted to your presence and will raise the alarm, and as soon as they realise the Palladium has gone they’ll send out cavalry patrols to block your escape across the fords of the Scamander.’
Odysseus had not thought that far ahead, but did not admit as much to Helen.
‘So are you suggesting we jump?’
Helen pointed to an alcove in the walls. A deeper darkness indicated a gap in the floor and from the smell that drifted up from it Odysseus guessed it was a latrine.
‘There’s a rock shelf a short way below that hole. It isn’t pleasant, but you can drop down to it without too much danger and nobody will even realise you were here. Until morning, that is.’
Odysseus grimaced slightly and nodded. Then he gave the torch to Helen and, with a glance either side of him along the empty walkways, began to unwind the rope tied around his waist.
‘I told Diomedes to look out for a light waved five times, left to right, from the battlements.’
As he looped one end of the rope about his back and shoulders and tossed the other to the rocks below, Helen leaned over the ramparts and, stretching as low as she could reach, swung the torch in a wide arc five times. After several long, nervous moments they heard a hissed warning from below, followed by a tug on the rope. Odysseus quickly braced himself against Diomedes’s weight and before long the Argive king was clambering through a gap in the crenellated walls.
‘You smell a lot better,’ he greeted Odysseus. ‘Where’d you get the clothes from?’
Then he noticed Helen and nearly fell back through the gap by which he had just arrived.
‘My lady,’ he said, recovering with a low bow. ‘But how –?’
‘Odysseus can tell you later,’ Helen said. ‘Have you brought weapons?’
Diomedes, who had loved Helen ever since he had been among her suitors at Sparta in their youth, could barely take his eyes from her as he pulled aside his cloak and revealed the two blades tucked into his belt. He drew one and handed it to Odysseus.
‘You’re here to help us?’
‘Of course she is,’ Odysseus answered.
Diomedes turned to him. ‘Then if we can persuade her to leave with us now, we could put an end to the war!’
‘Odysseus and I have already discussed that,’ Helen explained, with a slightly embarrassed glance at the king of Ithaca, ‘but I refused to leave without Pleisthenes.’
‘There are other complications, too,’ Odysseus added, ‘but Helen is ready to shorten the war by at least helping us steal the Palladium.’
‘Then let’s find this temple of Athena,’ Diomedes said, turning back to Helen, ‘so you won’t have to wait any longer than necessary, my lady.’
Diomedes moved to the top of the steps, but Odysseus placed an arresting hand on his upper arm.
‘There’s something we have to do first. Eperitus is being held prisoner here in the citadel. We release him first and then we take the effigy.’
Diomedes looked at him with surprise, then seeing the determination in his friend’s eyes gave a silent nod.
‘Good,’ Odysseus said.
He wound the rope around his waist again, took the torch and led the way back down the steps, entering the dark streets once more. They had not gone far when they saw two figures silhouetted against the end of a short thoroughfare. Odysseus and Diomedes raised their swords, ready to defend themselves.
‘Don’t be concerned,’ Helen said, stepping out ahead of them and lowering their blades. ‘I sent one of my maids to fetch a servant girl from Apheidas’s house. I’ve heard it said she’s befriended the Greek prisoner, so if the rumours are true and the prisoner is Eperitus then she’ll help you find him.’
‘And if she refuses?’
‘Then you will have to kill her,’ Helen replied.
The two figures entered the circle of light cast by the torch. Odysseus’s gaze widened at the sight of Astynome, who stared back at him with equal surprise.
‘Odysseus!’
She moved towards him with a smile, then stopped as she remembered the circumstances under which they had last met. Her eyes fell to the ground.
‘Is he still alive?’ the king asked.
‘Yes,’ Astynome answered, her happiness unmistakeable. ‘He was badly wounded in the battle, but I’ve nursed him back to health. He has remarkable powers of recovery.’
‘And have you spoken with him? About the temple of Thymbrean Apollo – your betrayal?’
Astynome’s gaze fell again. ‘A little. I believe he has forgiven me.’
‘Then I forgive you, too,’ Odysseus said.
He stepped forward and folded her into his chest, holding her gently despite the immense power in his arms.
‘Astynome will be your guide now,’ Helen announced, looking from the girl to Diomedes and finally to Odysseus, ‘but I must return to the palace before I’m missed. Perhaps we will meet again, Odysseus, at the war’s end, when the flames of destruction are blowing through this fair city. And if we do, I pray you will remember my kindness to you this evening – and make sure Menelaus knows of it. I fear how he will react when he sees me again, after all that’s passed between us. But until then, may the gods go with you.’
She took the torch from his hand and retreated back up the narrow street, closely followed by her maid. Odysseus and Diomedes watched her until she disappeared behind the corner of a large house, then turned to look at Astynome.
‘Eperitus is locked in a storeroom in his father’s house,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I can show you the way, but two of Apheidas’s men have been posted at the door to make sure he doesn’t escape.’
Diomedes gave her a dark grin.
‘Oh, I think we can deal with them.’
Eperitus’s arms were numb from lack of movement and he could no longer feel any sensation at all in his buttocks. The hard chair had done for them a long time ago. His senses, too, had been suffocated by the constant darkness, the cool, stagnant air and the smell of barley from the sacks piled in the corner. Time had passed at such a crawl in this unconscious void that he felt a day or more at least had elapsed since his father’s ultimatum, though by the fact Apheidas had not yet come to hear his decision must mean that it was not even the morning of the next day. Indeed, if he were left there any longer – with nothing more than the faint glow of a torch lining the bottom of the door and the occasional mutterings of the guards outside – he was certain he would go insane.