A fiery silver arrow shot from the prow of the leading ship. High in the sky it flew, then down, down, down into the bright green sea. SHHOOOOH!
‘That’s for King Priam!’ shouted Philoctetes, the greatest archer in Greece. ‘When the fleet gets to Troy, we’ll burn his palace to the ground.’
‘HOORAY!’ went the sailors. Philoctetes fired again. ‘This one’s for Hector, Priam’s eldest son. He may be the Trojan hero, but our hero Achilles will smash his head to pieces!’
‘HOORAY!’ went the sailors.
‘And this one’s for Paris, Priam’s youngest son. He stole our Queen Helen, but I’ll steal his life away with an arrow deep into his heart!’
By now the sailors were going mad. ‘HOORAY!’
Then Philoctetes fired another burning arrow. ‘And this one’s for AAAARGH!’
‘Who’s Aaaargh?’ asked Big Ajax.
‘I shot an arrow through my foot. Odysseus jogged me!’ screamed Philoctetes.
‘Oh dear, I am sorry,’ said Odysseus, who was fed up with Philoctetes showing off. ‘It was an accident. I tripped over the anchor. Quick – let me pull out the arrow before it burns your foot off.’
All that night, Philoctetes lay in his bed moaning. And all the next day, he kept on moaning.
‘When’s he going to stop?’ asked Big Ajax. ‘He’s getting on my nerves, and you know what happens when something gets on my nerves – things get broken.’
Two days later, the moans were getting worse, and Ajax had started breaking things.
‘Phew, what’s that smell?’ asked Diomedes.
‘It’s the foot,’ said Odysseus. ‘It’s going bad.’
‘It smells like the inside of a dustbin,’ muttered Menelaus, and he was putting it politely.
In the end it just got too bad to bear. General Agamemnon lifted his huge, leopard-skin head-dress and scratched his head.
‘Odysseus,’ he said, ‘do something about it. That foot’s beginning to attract flies.’
So Odysseus had a quick think, came up with a bright idea, and went on deck. There lay Philoctetes, bluebottles buzzing round his bright green foot. Odysseus knelt down beside him, trying not to breathe through his nose.
‘See that island over there?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Philoctetes snapped. ‘I’m not blind. What about it?’ Odysseus was not his favourite person.
‘Well, it’s a pity we’re not landing there, that’s all. It’s called Limnos and it’s jam-packed full of beautiful priestesses whose only pleasure in life is curing the illnesses of passing sailors. I bet they’d do a lovely job on your foot.’
‘Stop the boat!’ yelled Philoctetes.
‘Sorry, can’t,’ said Odysseus casually. ‘We’ve got to get to Troy as soon as possible.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to get there without me,’ said Philoctetes and, grabbing his silver bow and arrows, he hobbled across the deck, dived into the water and swam to the shore.
Odysseus looked happy, and Philoctetes looked around the island. There was not a priestess in sight. All he could see were black rocks and white bird droppings.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ he yelled.
‘Sorry!’ Odysseus yelled back from the boat. ‘My mistake. Apparently you’re on Lemnos, not Limnos. Limnos is somewhere totally different. Look, I tell you what. We’ll come and pick you up when we’ve beaten the Trojans.’
‘It shouldn’t take long,’ shouted Agamemnon. ‘They’re just a bunch of savages.’
‘No!’ cried Philoctetes. ‘NOOOOOO!’
But it was too late. The boats slowly disappeared over the horizon and he was alone. Tricked by Odysseus. Alone with his rotting foot, and his pain, and no promise of their return.
And so the boats sailed on towards Troy. For days and nights they sailed through calm seas, a calm given to them because of the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter. Finally, one morning, as the sun came up in the east, the Greeks spied the great city of Troy – the city they had come to destroy. It shone in the morning light like a jewel dropped in the middle of the large grassy plain which surrounded it. Spires and turrets and minarets sparkled and glowed; they were the colour of birds’ eggs, pale pinks and blues and greens.
At first the Greeks sighed in amazement. But then they noticed that the whole city was fringed by a massive, grey wall, thirty metres high and thirty metres thick, without a single gap in it.
It was a beautiful city, one that no man would want to destroy – and with a wall like that, perhaps no man could.
All at once there was a deafening crunch as a thousand boats hit the shore and were heaved up past the high-water mark. Exhausted after their long journey, the men fell on to the sand. They had arrived at last.
There was a long silence.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Diomedes, scratching a pimple on his nose.
‘I’m going to send a messenger telling them to surrender,’ said Agamemnon.
‘Good idea,’ replied Diomedes. ‘As long as it’s not me. Anyone barmy enough to go in there will come out with a knife in his back.’
‘In that case,’ said Ajax, ‘send Odysseus.’
Odysseus thought about refusing, but everyone agreed that he was the only person who had the cunning to get in and back out again alive – so he didn’t bother.
Agamemnon gave his order, ‘Odysseus – go to King Priam and tell him we want Helen back. If we can have her, we’ll go in peace. If not, we’ll burn his city to the ground.’
‘Some message,’ murmured Diomedes.
‘And, by the way, tell him we want a thousand chests of gold to repay us for all the trouble he’s caused.’
Oh no, thought Odysseus, wondering which bit of his back the knife would go in.
An hour later, Odysseus found himself staring into old Priam’s eyes. ‘Why do you want Helen?’ Priam was saying. ‘She came of her own free will.’
‘Free will!’ replied Odysseus. ‘I heard that your son Paris tied her up, put a bag over her head and carried her off on his shoulder.’
‘Is that true?’ asked Priam, turning to Helen. But Helen was gazing out of the window at the huge Greek army that was now camped across the plain.
‘Sorry – what?’ she said, chewing on a toffee. ‘I wasn’t listening.’
She’s got fatter in the face, thought Odysseus.
‘No, it’s absolutely not true,’ interrupted the incredibly bronzed man standing next to her. ‘She came here because we are deeply in love with each other.’
Odysseus stared at him. It was Paris. The cause of all the trouble. He had curly, golden hair that came down to his shoulders, and the back of his shirt collar was turned up.
‘She’s the darlingest, most wonderful girl in the world and I would rather die than give her up.’
‘It’s not you dying that I’m worried about, Paris,’ snapped Odysseus. ‘I’m worried about your father dying, about your mother dying, about your brother Hector dying, and about hundreds of innocent men and women in Troy slaughtered for no reason. And I’m worried about me. I don’t fancy dying just because you’ve got a crush on a chubby fifteen-year-old, especially when she’s someone else’s wife.’
Priam looked at Paris. For a moment, Odysseus thought he might be winning the argument. But then there was a loud laugh from across the room and there stood Hector, the great Trojan hero. He was bare to the waist and incredibly muscly. He was covered all over in tattoos, with a sweat band round his head and a bandolier full of throwing knives across his chest. He laughed long and loud and then ambled over to Odysseus.
‘Come on, Odysseus,’ he said. ‘Your generals don’t care about Helen. They want our money and our city and our trade, and above all, they want to fight. No, you go and tell Agamemnon that we won’t surrender. If we gave you Helen back today, you’d still find an excuse to wipe us out tomorrow.’
Priam agreed. Paris agreed. Helen had another chocolate. Odysseus knew that this was an argument he wouldn’t win.
So it was war.
Hector walked back with Odysseus towards the city gates. He was a proud man and an honest one.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you the city you want to burn to the ground.’
And what Odysseus saw made him sad, because Troy was indeed a beautiful city. They walked down a wide street lined with date palms, where crowds of laughing children stood watching a troupe of snake charmers. The street led into the city square, with strange and beautiful fountains spraying gentle mists of water over passers-by, while old people in white hats and coats played a game of bowls.
But then they turned a corner, and before him Odysseus saw something even more strange and beautiful than all the rest.
Completely surrounded by soldiers dressed in blue leather armour with scarlet sashes, was a dome-shaped building. It was white and shiny and completely round, and at its centre was a tiny door.
‘It’s the church of the White Goddess,’ said Hector, as Odysseus stood still, looking on in wonder. ‘Enter.’
He walked up to the building, the guards parted and he opened the tiny ivory door. Inside there was flute music. Lights flickered and strange-smelling smoke filled the air. And there in the very centre, on an ivory pedestal, sat a little white figure, a metre high. It was a woman with a fat belly and a grin on her face.
‘It’s the Goddess,’ whispered Hector. ‘She protects the city.’
‘She winked at me,’ said Odysseus.
‘No, she’s made of stone,’ said Hector. ‘It must have been a trick of the light.’
‘Possibly,’ said Odysseus, as he walked away. ‘But there’s only one way to protect this city, and that’s to stop this war.’
‘And how can we do that?’ asked Hector.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ replied Odysseus.
‘What?’ Even in Troy men knew that when Odysseus had an idea, it was worth listening to.
‘A duel. Hand-to-hand single combat. Paris fights Menelaus. Lover against husband. If Paris wins, he keeps Helen and we Greeks promise never to bother Troy again. But if Menelaus wins, we get Helen and the gold. That way, only one person gets killed and the city is saved.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ answered Hector, and as he walked back through the city, past the men, the women, and the children playing, all of them at peace, he dared to smile with hope.
Next morning, the two great armies faced each other. Out of the Trojan line stepped Paris. He looked so stylish, as he glided forward, with a piece of gold round his neck, one round his wrist, one round his ankle and a helmet in the crook of his arm, forged entirely of gold,
Out of the Greek line stepped Menelaus. He was short and squat and sweaty and hairy. He stared at the young man who’d stolen his wife and his lips curled in contempt.
A horn sounded. Menelaus immediately drew his sword, let out a throaty growl and rushed at Paris.
It wasn’t a pretty fight. Menelaus just hacked and hacked at Paris, who backed away and kicked and spat. Then in a moment, they were in close, scratching and clawing and biting each other.
Suddenly, Menelaus brought his knee up hard. Paris jack-knifed and fell to the ground. With a roar of fury, Menelaus grabbed him by his helmet and began to whirl him through the air. Faster and faster he went, his feet and legs flying round and round, and as the strap bit into his neck, Paris turned crimson, then purple, then green, then deathly white.
The Greek army started cheering with delight. They thought it was all over, when suddenly – SNAP – his helmet strap broke and Paris went shooting up into the air. Higher and higher he went, and then down, down, down, down, he fell, until with a crunch he landed fifty metres behind the Trojan lines.
He groaned, picked himself up, and staggered away from the fight and back into Troy. Not believing their eyes, Priam and Hector rushed after him and found him in Helen ’s bedroom. His face was buried in her neck and he was sobbing wildly. He knew if he went back out there, he would die.
‘Get back out and fight!’ yelled Hector.
‘Ooooh, hooooh, oooooo,’ went Paris.
‘I don’t think he’s at all well,’ said Helen, popping a fig in her mouth. ‘Can‘t we send them a sick note?’
Hector and Priam thought for a moment, knowing what it would mean if Paris refused to fight now. A moment later they sprinted back to the front of the Trojan lines.
‘A miracle, a miracle!’ shouted Priam. ‘As my son, Paris, was flying through the air, the White Goddess, disguised as a vulture, swooped down from the sky, picked him up in her beak and flew off with him to her sanctuary on the island of Syphos. We tried to catch him, but we didn’t have a chance. She said she’d bring him back in about a fortnight.’
‘RUBBISH!’ yelled Achilles.
‘It’s a fix!!!’ screamed big Ajax. ‘Let‘s get the lying Trojan scum!’ And immediately the whole Greek line charged the Trojans in a wave of fury. The Trojans turned and fled back into the city.
CRASH! The huge gates slammed shut just as the Greeks reached the walls. But that didn’t stop them. The Greeks shouted and swore and banged the doors with their fists. And no one shouted and swore louder than Achilles, the Greek hero.
‘Get back!’ called Agamemnon, sensing danger, and he and Odysseus and Diomedes tried to pull the men away. But they were consumed with fury. They had just seen fair victory snatched out of their fingers, and now they weren’t in a mood for walking away. They clawed at the stones with their bleeding hands, trying to tear the walls down. They wanted to win and go home.
But suddenly their cries of fury turned to screams of pain, as high up on the battlements the Trojans began shooting volleys of arrows and spears down on their attackers. And then screams of pain turned to wails of agony as – WHOOSH! – huge vats of boiling oil came cascading down the walls.
‘Retreat! Retreat!’ screamed Agamemnon. And retreat they did, carrying their wounded and their dead with them, leaving a trail of blood patterned on the plain behind them.
The war had really begun. Now there was no turning back.
The last to return to camp was Achilles. There were tears in his eyes and a young, blond-haired boy in his arms. ‘They don’t fight fair,’ he yelled. ‘Look what they’ve done to Patroclus. They’ve burnt his leg – really badly.’
‘It’s only a scald,’ said Odysseus. ‘I’ll get the doctor to look at it later.’
‘No, thank you very much!’ snapped Achilles. ‘I’ll look after him myself, thank you. He is my best friend, you know.’ And he carried Patroclus back to his tent.
A difficult man he was, this great fighter.
‘We’ll never beat the Trojans with a frontal assault,’ said Agamemnon, when all the Princes gathered late that night. ‘We’ll have to starve them out.’
‘That’ll take years,’ answered Odysseus.
‘Not if we plan it properly, it won’t. I’ll put such a ring of soldiers round Troy that nothing can possibly get through. In three months Priam will come out crawling.’
So the siege began, and for two and a half months the ring stood solid. Not an ant got in or out of Troy without being spotted. It looked as though the Greeks would indeed win – even Helen got thin.
But then boredom began to set in. A ship arrived from Greece and half the army broke ranks to see if they’d got any letters. Then a shipment of booze arrived and the whole camp was legless for three days. There were fights, desertions, and every time the ring of troops was broken, Hector’s commandos sneaked out into the countryside and brought back food.
So, a whole year went by and the Trojans still hadn’t surrendered. Then two years, three, four, five. Occasionally there were skirmishes; sometimes the Trojans sneaked out and murdered a few Greek guards; sometimes the Greeks rode out into the surrounding countryside and pillaged a small town.
Six years went by, then seven, then eight, nine. Boys who had joined up were now young men. Young men were growing older. One oldish soldier grew very old and died. Time, time, time passed, and the long, dull war dragged on…
Until one day, at the beginning of the tenth year, Achilles burst into Odysseus’ tent.
‘That man!’ he stormed. ‘I knew he was a fool, but I didn’t realise he was a thief.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think? AGAMEMNON!’
‘Oh no,’ sighed Odysseus wearily. ‘What’s happened this time?’
‘Well,’ spat Achilles, ‘you know that brilliant attack Patroclus and I worked out?’
‘What!’ said Odysseus. ‘You mean last week, when you set fire to that little village and killed everyone in it?’
‘Yes, that’s the one,’ replied Achilles, proudly. ‘And you know the valuable trophies I heroically rescued?’
‘The church candlesticks and the black and white cow?’
‘Yes,’ said Achilles. ‘AND the rather attractive slave girl with the turned-up nose.’
‘Oh no!’ said Odysseus.
‘Oh yes!’ answered Achilles. ‘Agamemnon has stolen them!’
‘Let’s go and take a look,’ said Odysseus. And muttered under his breath, ‘Boys, boys.’
Agamemnon’s tent was made of gold lamé covered with paintings of little stick men killing each other. Odysseus announced himself and the flap lifted. There was Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks, tucking in his tunic and straightening his hair.
‘What’s the fuss?’ he snapped.
Achilles pushed past Odysseus. ‘Where’s our slave girl?’ he yelled. Achilles was the greatest fighter in Greece – had been since the day a sword was first placed in his hand – but sometimes he could behave just like a baby.
‘What slave girl?’ asked Agamemnon innocently. At which moment a head popped out from behind the flap of the tent. It looked very much like a slave girl.
‘Her! Her! Her! Her!’ screamed Achilles, jumping up and down in fury.
‘Oh, that slave girl,’ said Agamemnon. ‘Well, you see, as your commanding officer, I have to check each item personally and then decide to whom it’s allocated.’
‘You’re a thief!’ yelled Achilles.
‘No, I’m not!’ screamed Agamemnon.
‘And a liar!’ bellowed Achilles.
‘I am NOT a liar!’ bawled Agamemnon.
‘Yes, you are,’ shouted Patroclus over the pair of them.
‘You keep out of this,’ hissed Agamemnon. But it was too late. By now the whole army was gathered, staring open-mouthed as their two great heroes, leader and fighter, squared up to each other, like children in a playground.
‘Don’t you speak to my friend Patroclus like that!’ yelled Achilles.
‘I’ll speak to him how I like,’ sneered Agamemnon. ‘I am his commanding officer.’
‘You?’ spat Achilles, jutting out his face, full of scorn. ‘You couldn’t command a basket full of kittens. I’m sick of being commanded by you. Thanks for ten years of nothing. I resign. Here and now, I resign.’
And with that he threw down his sword, threw down his helmet, and stormed back towards his tent.
‘So do I,’ said Patroclus. ‘I resign too.’ And he slammed his dagger down on the ground and flounced after Achilles.
At first no one watching could believe it. It was as though a huge oak tree, the tree that was their army, had been split right down the middle.
Within seconds the word had spread round the camp. The army’s hero, Achilles, the man who could shatter a rock with his bare hands, wouldn’t fight any more and had set up camp on the other side of the beach. A few soldiers, fighters, young men, stomped across the sand to join him straight away. But then more followed, older men, who knew the Greeks couldn’t win without Achilles. And then more, even more, until the army was split into two halves, one half on either side of the great beach.
‘Do what you like!’ yelled Agamemnon. ‘I don’t need you!!!’
And as he said it, a crash of thunder broke through the heavens, as if someone from up above was laughing. And a vulture flew overhead, with a small, crying animal between its teeth.
‘I don’t need you, or any of your friends,’ Agamemnon hollered again.
But Odysseus just shook his head. ‘I think you do, Agamemnon,’ he muttered. ‘I think you do. Unless Achilles is with us, the walls of Troy will never fall.’
And he looked towards the black and gold tent where Achilles lived, and he was filled with regret that the anger of Achilles had ever begun.