Ilium Read online

  Riding in the carriole, Daeman smiled. He had no idea why Ada had invited him to this birthday celebration after all these years—or whose Twenty they were celebrating—but he was confident that he would seduce the young woman before he faxed back to his real world of parties and long visits and casual affairs with more worldly women.

  The voynix trotted effortlessly, pulling the carriole with only the gravel-hiss underped and the soft humming of ancient gyroscopes in the carriage body. Shadows crept across the valley, but the narrow lane went up over a ridge, caught the last bit of the sun—bisected as it was on the next ridge west—and then descended into a wider valley where fields of some low crop stretched out on either side. The tending servitors flitted above the field, Daeman thought, like so many levitating croquet balls.

  The road turned south—left to Daeman—crossed a river on a wooden covered bridge and then switchbacked up a steeper hill and entered an older forest. Daeman vaguely remembered hunting for butterflies in that ancient forest ten years ago, later on the day he had seen young Ada nude in the mirror. He remembered his excitement at collecting a rare breed of mourning cloak near a waterfall, the memory mingling with the excitement at seeing the girl’s pale flesh and black hair. He remembered now the look Ada’s reflection had given him when the pale face looked up from her ablutions—disinterested, neither pleased nor angry, immodest but not brazen, vaguely clinical—looking at twenty-seven-year-old Daeman frozen by lust in the hallway much the way Daeman himself had studied his captured mourning cloak.

  The carriole was nearing Ardis Hall. It was dark under the ancient oaks and elms and ash trees nearing the top of the hill, but yellow lanterns had been set along the roadway and lines of colored lanterns could be glimpsed in the primeval forest, perhaps outlining trails.

  The voynix padded out of the woods and a twilight view opened up: Ardis Hall glowing on its hilltop; white gravel paths and roads winding away from it in every direction; the long, grassy sward extending down from the manor house for more than a quarter mile before the greenway was blocked by another forest; the river beyond, still glowing, reflecting the dying light in the sky; and through a gap in the hills to the southwest, glimpses of more forested hills—black, devoid of lights—and then more hills beyond that, until the black ridges blended with dark clouds on the horizon.

  Daeman shivered. He hadn’t remembered until that minute that Ada’s home was somewhere near the dinosaur forests on whatever continent this was. He remembered being terrified during his previous visit, although Virginia and Vanessa and all the rest had assured him that no dangerous dinosaurs were within five hundred miles—all the rest being reassuring, that is, except for fifteen-year-old Ada, who had merely looked at him with that calculating, mildly amused look he soon learned was her habitual expression. It had taken butterflies to get him outdoors for a walk then. It would take more now. Even though he knew it was perfectly safe with the servitors and voynix around, Daeman had no urge at all to be eaten by an extinct reptile and to wake up in the firmary with the memory of that indignity.

  The giant elm on the downhill side of Ardis Hall had been festooned with scores of lanterns; torches lined the circular drive and the white-gravel paths from the house to the yard. Sentinel voynix stood along the driveway hedges and at the edge of the dark woods. Daeman saw that a long table had been set out near the elm tree—torches flickering in the evening breeze all around the festive setting—and that a few guests were already gathering there for dinner. Daeman also noted with his usual hint of pleased snobbery that most of the men here were still dressing in off-white robes, burnooses, and earth-tone evening oversuits, a style that had gone out of fashion months ago in the more important social circles Daeman inhabited.

  The voynix padded up the circular drive to the front doors of Ardis Hall, stopped in the shaft of yellow light from those doors, and set the carriole tongues down so gently that Daeman did not even feel a bump. The servitor flitted around to fetch his bag while Daeman stepped down, glad to feel his feet on the ground, still feeling a bit lightheaded from the day’s faxing.

  Ada swept out the door and down the stairs to greet him. Daeman stopped in his tracks and smiled stupidly. Ada was not only more beautiful than he remembered; she was more beautiful than he could have imagined.

  3

  The Plains of Ilium

  The Greek commanders are gathered outside Agamemnon’s tent, there is a crowd of interested onlookers, and the brawl between Agamemnon and Achilles is already picking up steam.

  I should mention that by this time I have morphed into the form of Bias—not the Pylian captain of that name in Nestor’s ranks, but the captain serving Menestheus. This poor Athenian is ill with typhoid during this period and, though he will survive to fight in Book 13, he rarely leaves his tent, which is far down the coast. As a captain, Bias has enough rank that the spearmen and curious bystanders give way for him, allowing me access to the center circle. But no one will expect Bias to speak during the coming debate.

  I’ve missed most of the drama where Calchas, Thestor’s son and the “clearest of all the seers,” has told the Achaeans the real reason for Apollo’s wrath. Another captain standing there whispers to me that Calchas had requested immunity before speaking—demanding that Achilles protect him if the assembled crowd and kings disliked what he had to say. Achilles has agreed. Calchas told the group what they half suspected: that Chryse, the priest of Apollo, had begged for the return of his captured daughter, and Agamemnon’s refusal had infuriated the god.

  Agamemnon had been angry at the Calchas’ interpretation. “He shit square goat turds,” whispered the captain with a wine-scented laugh. This captain, unless I am mistaken, is named Orus and will be killed by Hector in a few weeks when the Trojan hero begins massacring Achaeans by the gross.

  Orus tells me that Agamemnon agreed just minutes ago to give back the slave girl, Chryseis—“I rank her higher and like her better than Clytaemnestra, my own wife,” Atreus’ son, Agamemnon, had shouted—but then the king had demanded recompense in the form of an equally beautiful captive girl. According to Orus, who is three sheets to the wind, Achilles had shouted—“Wait a minute, Agamemnon, you most grasping man alive”—pointed out that the Argives, still another name for the Achaeans, the Danaans, the damned Greeks with so many names, were in no position to hand over more booty to their leader now. Someday, should the tide of battle turn back their direction, promised the man-killer Achilles, Agamemnon would get his girl. In the meantime, he told Agamemnon to give Chryseis back to her father and to shut up.

  “At that point Lord Agamemnon, Atreus’ son, began shitting whole goats,” laughs Orus, speaking loudly enough that several captains turn to frown at us.

  I nod and look at the inner circles. Agamemnon, as always, is in the center of things. Atreus’ son looks every inch the supreme commander—tall, beard rolled in classic curls, a demigod’s brow and piercing eyes, muscles oiled, dressed in the finest gear and garb. Directly opposite him in the open bull’s-eye of the circle stands Achilles. Stronger, younger, even more beautiful than Agamemnon, Achilles almost defies description. When I first saw him at the Catalogue of the Ships more than nine years ago, I thought that Achilles had to be the most godlike human walking among these many godlike men, so imposing was the man’s physical and command presence. Since then I’ve realized that for all his beauty and power, Achilles is relatively stupid—a sort of infinitely more handsome Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  Around this inner circle are the heroes I spent decades teaching about in my other life. They do not disappoint when encountered in the flesh. Near Agamemnon, but obviously not siding with him in the argument now raging, is Odysseus—a full head shorter than Agamemnon, but broader in the chest and shoulders, moving among the Greek lords like a ram among sheep, his intelligence and craftiness visible in his eyes and etched into the lines on his weathered face. I’ve never spoken to Odysseus, but I look forward to doing so before this war ends and he leaves on his
travels.

  On Agamemnon’s right is his younger brother Menelaus, Helen’s husband. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve overheard one of the Achaeans gripe that if Menelaus had been a better lover—“had a bigger cock” was the way Diomedes crudely put it to a friend within my earshot three years ago—then Helen wouldn’t have run off with Paris to Ilium and the heroes of the Greek isles wouldn’t have wasted the past nine years on this accursed siege. On Agamemnon’s left is Orestes—not Agamemnon’s son, left at home and spoiled, who will someday avenge his father’s murder and earn his own play, but only a loyal spear-carrier of the same name who will be slaughtered by Hector during the next big Trojan offensive.

  Standing behind King Agamemnon is Eurybates, Agamemnon’s herald—not to be confused with the Eurybates who is Odysseus’ herald. Next to Eurybates stands Ptolemaeus’ son, Eurymedon, a handsome boy, who is Agamemnon’s charioteer—not to be confused with the far-less-handsome Eurymedon who is Nestor’s charioteer. (Sometimes here I admit I’d exchange all these glorious patronymics for a few simple last names.)

  Also in Agamemnon’s half of the circle tonight are Big Ajax and Little Ajax, commanders of the troops from Salamis and Locris. These two will never be confused, except by name, since Big Ajax looks like a white NFL linebacker and Little Ajax looks like a pickpocket. Euryalus, third in command of the Argolis fighters, is standing next to his boss, Sthenelus, a man who has such a terrible lisp that he can’t pronounce his own name. Agamemnon’s friend and the ultimate commander of the Argolis fighters, plain-speaking Diomedes, is also here, not happy tonight, glowering at the ground, his arms folded. Old Nestor—“the clear speaker of Pylos”—stands near the halfway point of the inner circle and looks even less happy than Diomedes as Agamemnon and Achilles raise the level of their anger and abuse toward one other.

  If things go according to Homer’s telling, Nestor will make his big speech in just a few minutes, trying in vain to shame both Agamemnon and the furious Achilles into reconciling before their anger serves the Trojans’ aims, and I confess that I want to hear Nestor’s speech even if just for his reference to the ancient war against the centaurs. Centaurs have always interested me and Homer has Nestor speak of them and the war against them in a matter-of-fact tone; centaurs are one of only two mythical beasts mentioned in the Iliad, the other being the chimera. I look forward to his mention of the centaurs, but in the meantime, I stay out of Nestor’s sight, since the identity I’m morphing—Bias—is one of the old man’s subordinates, and I don’t want to be pulled into conversation. No worry of that now—Nestor and everyone else’s attention is focused on the exchange of harsh words and spittle between Agamemnon and Achilles.

  Standing near Nestor and obviously allying themselves with neither leader are Menesthius (who will be killed by Paris in a few weeks if things proceed according to Homer), Eumelus (leader of the Thessalians from Pherae), Polyxinus (co-commander of the Epeans), Polyxinus’ friend Thalpius, Thoas (commander of the Aetolians), Leonteus and Polypoetes in their distinctive Argissan garb, also Machaon and his brother Podalirius with their various Thessalian lieutenants standing behind them, Odysseus’ dear friend Leucus (fated to be killed in a few days by Antiphus), and others I’ve come to know well over the years, not just by sight but by the sound of their voices, as well as by their distinctive modes of fighting and bragging and making offerings to the gods. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, the ancient Greeks assembled here do nothing in a half-assed way—everything is performed to the full extent of their abilities, every effort running what one twentieth-century scholar called “the full risk of failure.”

  Opposite Agamemnon and standing to the right of Achilles is Patroclus—the man-killer’s closest friend, whose death by Hector’s hand is fated to set off the true Wrath of Achilles and the greatest slaughter in the history of warfare—as well as Tlepolemus, the mythic hero Herakles’ beautiful son who fled his home after killing his father’s uncle and who will soon die by Sarpedon’s hand. Between Tlepolemus and Patroclus stands old Phoenix (Achilles’ dear friend and former tutor) whispering to the son of Diocles, Orsilochus, who will be killed by Aeneas soon enough. To the raging Achilles’ left is Idomeneus, a far closer friend of the man-killer’s than I had suspected from the poem.

  There are more heroes in the inner circle, of course, as well as countless more in the mob behind me, but you get the idea. No one goes nameless, either in Homer’s epic poem or in the day-to-day reality here on the plains of Ilium. Every man carries his father’s name, his history, his lands and wives and children and chattel with him at all times, in all encounters both martial and rhetorical. It’s enough to wear a simple scholar out.

  “All right, godlike Achilles, you cheater at dice, you cheater at war, you cheater with women—now you are trying to cheat me!” Agamemnon is shouting. “Oh no you don’t! You’re not going to get past me that way. You have the slave girl Briseis, as beautiful as any we’ve taken, as beautiful as my Chryseis. You just want to cling to your prize while I end up empty-handed! Forget it! I’d rather hand over command of the army to Ajax here . . . or Idomeneus . . . or crafty Odysseus there . . . or to you, Achilles . . . you . . . rather than be cheated so.”

  “Do it then,” sneers Achilles. “It’s time we had a real leader here.”

  Agamemnon’s face grows purple. “Fine. Haul a black ship down to the sea and fill it with men to row and sacrifices for the gods . . . take Chryseis if you dare . . . but you will have to perform the sacrifices, Achilles, O killer of men. But know that I’ll take a prize as recompense—and that prize will be your lovely Briseis.”

  Achilles’s handsome face is contorted with rage. “Shameless! You’re armored in shamelessness and shrewd in greed, you dog-faced coward!”

  Agamemnon takes a step forward, drops his scepter, and puts a hand on his sword.

  Achilles matches him step for step and grips the hilt of his own sword. “The Trojans have never done us any harm, Agamemnon, but you have! It wasn’t the Trojan spearmen who brought us to this shore, but your own greed—we’re fighting for you, you colossal heap of shame. We followed you here to win your honor back from the Trojans, yours and your brother Menelaus’, a man who can’t even keep his wife in the bedroom . . .”

  Here Menelaus steps forward and grips his sword. Captains and their men are gravitating to one hero or the other now, so the circle is already broken, turning into three camps—those who will fight for Agamemnon, those who will fight for Achilles, and those, near Odysseus and Nestor, who look disgusted enough to kill both of them.

  “My men and I are leaving,” shouts Achilles. “Back to Phthia. Better to drown in an empty ship heading home in defeat than to stay here and be disgraced, filling Agamemnon’s goblet and piling up Agamemnon’s plunder.”

  “Good, go!” shouts Agamemnon. “By all means, desert. I’d never beg you to stay and fight on my account. You’re a great soldier, Achilles, but what of it? That’s a gift of the gods and has nothing to do with you. You love battle and blood and slaughtering your enemies, so take your fawning Myrmidons and go!” Agamemnon spits.

  Achilles actually vibrates with anger. It is obvious that he is torn between the urge to turn on his heel, take his men, and leave Ilium forever, and the overwhelming desire to unsheath his sword and gut Agamemnon like a sacrificial sheep.

  “But know this, Achilles,” Agamemnon goes on, his shout dropping to a terrible whisper that can be heard by all the hundreds of men assembled here, “whether you leave or stay, I will give up my Chryseis because the god, Apollo, insists—but I will have your Briseis in her stead, and every man here will know how much greater man is Agamemnon than the surly boy Achilles!”

  Here Achilles loses all control and goes for his sword in earnest. And here the Iliad would have ended—with the death of Agamemnon or the death of Achilles, or of both—and the Achaeans would have sailed home and Hector would have enjoyed his old age and Ilium would have remained standing for a thousand years and per
haps rivaled Rome in its glory, but at this second the goddess Athena appears behind Achilles.

  I see her. Achilles reels around, face contorted, and obviously also sees her. No one else can. I don’t understand this stealth-cloaking technology, but it works when I use it and it works for the gods.

  No, I realize immediately, this is more than stealth. The gods have frozen time again. It is their favorite way of talking to their pet humans without others eavesdropping, but I’ve seen it only a handful of times. Agamemnon’s mouth is open—I can see spittle frozen in midair—but no sound is heard, no movement of jaw or muscles, no blinking of those dark eyes. So it is with every man in the circle: frozen, rapt or bemused, frozen. Overhead, a sea bird hangs motionless in mid-flight. Waves curl but do not break on the shore. The air is as thick as syrup and all of us here are frozen like insects in amber. The only movement in this halted universe comes from Pallas Athena, from Achilles and—even if shown only by my leaning forward to hear better—from me.

  Achilles’ hand is still on the hilt of his sword—half drawn from its beautifully tooled scabbard—but Athena has grabbed him by his long hair and physically turned him toward her, and he does not dare draw the sword now. To do so would be to challenge the goddess herself.

  But Achilles’ eyes are blazing—more mad than sane—as he shouts into the thickened, syrupy silence that accompanies these time-freezes, “Why! Damn, damn, why now! Why come to me now, Goddess, Daughter of Zeus? Did you come to witness my humiliation by Agamemnon?”

  “Yield!” says Athena.

  If you’ve never seen a god or goddess, all I can do is tell you that they are larger than life—literally, since Athena must be seven feet tall—and more beautiful and striking than any mortal. I presume their nanotechnology and recombinant DNA labs made them that way. Athena combines qualities of feminine beauty, divine command, and sheer power that I didn’t even know could exist before I found myself returned to existence in the shadow of Olympos.