THE WAR
Cursing, I sped up, but I knew that he would reach the Argive camp before I could catch him. I passed the chariot wrecks and corpses of horses, yet the old king always stayed just so far in front of me. How was it that he, who could barely sit upon his throne without quivering and looking about to topple over, now strode into the camp of his enemies, head held high, shoulders thrown back?
I tugged my leopard skin about me, then shrugged. How could I, a woman armed like a man and wrapped in this unusual pelt, expect anonymity were I to enter the Argive camp? The thought hit me as ridiculous, and I spared a moment to scan the wreckage left behind. A ragged tract of fabric, dark in the ill-light, maybe black or brown or blue, shivered in the light breeze. A shattered chariot held down one of its corners. The blanket or cloak or saddle cloth gestured at me, and I knelt down to shift the wood and release the mantle. Once done, I pulled it about my body the way the sun wraps itself in harsh, thick clouds during a storm.
I stood to follow Priam and his mysterious stretcher. Perhaps he entered the enemy camp to relieve himself of life, to substitute his own death for all of ours. I hoped not. Priam was still Priam, king of Ilium, and I doubted his people would fare well without him. Who would rule after him? That idiot Paris? His decisions had already doomed them well enough. I shuddered to think of what more problems that one could foist upon Ilium. He had shown a great talent for it thus far.
Past the field of battle, Priam led me across the little stream that trickled into the bay, splitting the landscape between Ilium and Argive camp from north to south. The river had shrunk since last I’d seen it, but its waters felt cool to my weary feet as I trod from one bank to the other. Our path angled north once we crossed the little river, north to the camp of the enemy.
The walls of the Argive camp jutted from the earth in a weak mockery of Ilium’s shining ones. I had not yet been this close to the camp, and I peered over the embankment and into the pit that surrounded the camp proper. The trench snaked around their camp, bristling with broken spears, bits of shipwreck, and anything that might injure a falling man or horse. Guards manned the entrance to the camp, but they looked anything but watchful. And why should they be? My comrades had crossed the gap only once, I’d heard tell, and recently, when great Hector led his men almost up to Agamemnon’s sleeping tent. Only Hector could lead such an attack. No other man at Ilium was brave enough or confident or daring.
And now there was no Hector. I had done my best earlier that day but failed. Hector had been a better fighter than I. Once more, I scoffed at mother’s claims that some god had fathered me. There was no more god’s blood in my veins than in any beggar or thief on the street. But Hector had flown like the son of a god and had fought like one of the gods himself.
I lurked around the camp, seeing no sign of old Priam. Mayhaps he had straggled through the main gateway at the heels of the Argive’s own corpse-men. I eyed the wooden walls, trying to make out as much as I could of their make in the darkness. Taller than a man, by nearly double, but only one or two layers of wood thick, the walls seemed to me more pretense than defense.
The enemy camp was vast, much larger than I had anticipated, having seen them from atop the walls of Ilium. It stretched on and on into the night, the glow of campfires and torches beyond the walls casting yellow light upwards to the stars. At last, I reached another gate. I reasoned that the main gate would be too obvious, but a lesser gate might be easier to penetrate. Apparently, the guards on either side of the makeshift gateway agreed—with my dark cloak, helmet, and height, I looked enough like the Argive warriors that they simply nodded me through. It would not be honorable to use this opportunity to slay Achilles and the Argive leaders, but I was sorely tempted as I slunk into the camp.
Tents hung from and pressed up against the sides of ships, long since beached and made decidedly un-seaworthy with big openings carved into the hulls and boards pried off and used elsewhere in the busy place. Narrow, crooked lanes led between the unplanned and scattered living spaces. I followed one dusty path towards the heart of the camp. Soldiers were everywhere, cooking over small fires, honing weapons, fixing armor, and chasing women and young boys through the sandy streets. Noise and the smell of sweat hit me in equal measure, and I wasn’t sure which appalled me more. The Argives were a lusty lot, and voices were raised in song all around the camp. Some even sparred with one another in friendly bouts, kicking up sand as they circled and pounced on one another. I shook my head. How could anyone still want to fight? Hadn’t they been here for almost ten years? Was this war that slowly killed Ilium not enough? I was sick of everything, and I had only just arrived in this hellish place.
The curlicue roads twisted between beached ship and hut and tent, and I could make out no pattern to the layout. Perhaps the men were divided by clan, by town across the sea. Was there any rule to this community? I knew that Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, kings of the west, had brought together this massive force and kept them together by some power of their own, but maintaining peace and law in a group so large—much greater a number than a small town or even an average sized city. There must be laws, must be guardians, must be punishment.
But so far, these men seemed lawless to the extreme, especially considering Achilles’ desecration of Hector’s corpse. Men like that were hardly men. Clearly, no laws governed warriors like him. Men like Achilles thought they were gods or part-god or some other nonsense. Despite my mother’s claims about me and Hippolyta, I knew better. Achilles was just as much flesh and blood as any other man here. Judging from the smell, they all sweat and bled and pissed the same.
I rounded a harsh bend around a series of patched and stained tents. The smell of manure and livestock hit me. A large pen of goats and pigs stretched to my left, and I instantly thrust myself down any other pathway at random. The sand churned beneath the feet of the animals into a poisonous, malodorous melange that even my strong stomach refused to handle. My eyes stung as I rushed in the opposite direction, still trying to make my way towards the center of camp. I hoped from there I could find the quarters of Achilles and his men, where I assumed Priam had headed. As I ducked out of the way of a number of men strung out across the road, drunk as maenads and laughing boisterously at some joke one or other of them had made. Though it was dark, still I leaned my head down, hoping to conceal my features in the shadows of my helmet. No other women went armed like me and my women, and it would not be hard to guess my identity were I captured. But the Argives were drunk and idiotic and inattentive. They might be worthy fighters on the battlefield, but in camp or at home, they devolved into silly creatures, as most men did. Still, I wanted the attention of a wine-muddled Argive man as much as a pitched battle right now. I had to find Priam.
The king of Ilium walked unguarded and possibly unarmed in the camp of his enemies. Only I knew where he’d gone—probably Hecuba had spent many nights alone since this war started and hadn’t even noticed her husband was missing. After all, he may have still had other wives besides Hecuba. Perhaps she thought of him visiting one of them. Although how any man could desire a woman—or a man—after seeing Hector’s body so, that I would never understand.
Finally, the king! I caught sight of Priam ahead of me, laboring against the weight of the stretcher that dragged behind him. Try as he might, he could barely weave through the throngs of soldiers and hangers-on, and I saw him stumble and slip one knee onto the sand. I considered pushing aside a fat man leading a pig but shrank back. No, I thought, nothing to draw attention to myself.
Ahead, Priam moaned but managed to rise. Grabbing ahold of the ropes attached to the front of the stretcher, he heaved and continued on his way. I strode along behind him. With no reason to make myself more suspicious, I thought to blend in with the other warriors in the camp.
Priam staggered his way through the enemy camp, and I followed. Inexorable was his path. To what foreign king did he mean to barter? And would he barter riches or himself?
But I knew, deep within my darkened heart, exactly where he was headed. I knew without a doubt to whom he hoped to negotiate. For all the Argives and their riches, mostly stolen from the Troad coast and nearby islands, there was only one treasure worth anything to old King Priam.
The body of Hector.
Priam meant to entreat the monster, Achilles.
Priam meant to parley with the worst of our enemies.
I gasped, the feelings of hatred and rage stabbing me deep in the gut like a rusty blade. I had planned to protect Priam, to make sure he survived his journey into the heart of his enemies’ camp, but against Achilles—even I could not promise to remain clear-headed. Already, the fog of war, the cloud of anger, began to build behind my eyes, tinting the world red and fiery. I clenched my fingers, only to find them already on the hilt of the dagger at my belt.
To kill Achilles.
That was why I had been brought to Ilium.
I would kill Achilles. Tonight.