1
Inside the horse’s gut: heat, darkness, sweat, fear. They’re crammed in, packed as tight as olives in a jar. He hates this contact with other bodies. Always has. Even clean, sweet-smelling human flesh makes him want to puke—and these men stink. It might be better if they kept still, but they don’t. Each man shifts from side to side, trying to ease his shoulders into a little more space, all intertwined and wriggling like worms in a horse’s shite.
Redworm.
The word sends him spiralling down; down, down, into the past, all the way back to his grandfather’s house. As a boy—which is what some seem to think he still is—he used to go down to the stables every morning, running along the path between the tall hedges, breath curdling the air, every bare twig glinting in the reddish light. Turning the bend, he would see poor old Rufus standing by the gate of the first paddock—leaning on it, more like. He’d learnt to ride on Rufus; nearly everybody did, because Rufus was a quite exceptionally steady horse. The joke was, if you started to fall off, he’d stretch out a hoof and shove you back on. All his memories of learning to ride were happy, so he gave Rufus a good scratch, all the places he couldn’t reach himself, then breathed into his nostrils, their breaths mingling to produce a snuffly, warm sound. The sound of safety.
God, he’d loved that horse—more than his mother, more even than his nurse, who, anyway, had been taken away from him as soon as he was seven. Rufus. Even the name had formed a bond: Rufus; Pyrrhus. Both names mean “red”—and there they were, the two of them, spectacularly red-haired, though admittedly in Rufus’s case the colour was more chestnut than auburn. When he was a young horse, his coat used to gleam like the first conkers in autumn, but of course he was older now. And ill. As long ago as last winter, a groom had said, “He’s looking a bit ribby.” And every month since then, he’d lost weight; pelvic bones jutting out, sharp points to his shoulders—he was starting to look skeletal. Not even the lush grass of summer had put fat on his bones. One day, seeing a groom shovelling up a pile of loose droppings, Pyrrhus had asked, “Why’s it like that?”
“Redworm,” the man said. “Poor old sod’s riddled with ’em.”
Redworm.
And that one word delivers him back to hell.
——————
At first, they’re allowed rush lamps, though with the stern warning that these would have to be extinguished the minute the horse began to move. Frail, flickering lights, but yet without them the pelt of darkness and fear would have suffocated him. Oh, yes, fear. He’d deny it if he could, but it’s here, unmistakably, in the dryness of his mouth and the loosening of his bowels. He tries to pray, but no god hears, and so he shuts his eyes and thinks: Father. The word feels awkward, like a new sword before your fingers grow accustomed to the hilt. Had he ever seen his father? If he had, he’d have been a baby at the time, too young to remember the most important meeting of his life. He tries Achilles instead—and it’s actually easier, more comfortable, to use the name that any man in the army can.
He gazes along the row of men opposite, seeing each face lit from below, tiny flames dancing in their eyes. These men fought beside his father. There’s Odysseus: dark, lean, ferret-like, the architect of this whole enterprise. He designed the horse, supervised its construction, captured and tortured a Trojan prince to get details of the city’s defences—and finally concocted the story that’s supposed to get them through the gates. If this fails, every leading fighter in the Greek army will die in a single night. How do you carry a responsibility like that? And yet Odysseus doesn’t seem at all concerned. Without meaning to, Pyrrhus catches his eye and Odysseus smiles. Oh, yes, he smiles, he seems friendly, but what’s he really thinking? Is he wishing Achilles were here, instead of that useless little runt, his son? Well, if he is, he’s right, Achilles should be here. He wouldn’t have been afraid.
Looking further along the row, he sees Alcimus and Automedon sitting side by side: once Achilles’s chief aides, now his. Only it’s not quite like that. They’re in control, have been from the moment he arrived—propping up an inexperienced commander, glossing over his mistakes, always trying to make him look good in the eyes of the men. Well, today, tonight rather, all that’s going to change. After tonight, he’ll look into the eyes of men who fought beside Achilles and see nothing but respect, respect for what he achieved at Troy. Oh, of course he won’t brag about it, probably won’t even mention it. No, because he won’t have to, everybody will know; they always do. He sees these men looking at him sometimes, doubting him. Well, not after tonight…Tonight, he’ll—
Oh my god, he needs a shit. He sits up straighter, trying to ignore the griping in his gut. When they’d climbed into the horse, there’d been a lot of joking about where to put the latrine buckets. “The arse end,” Odysseus said. “Where else?” This produced a burst of laughter at the expense of those who were sitting at the back. Nobody has used the buckets yet and he desperately doesn’t want to be the first. They’ll all be holding their noses and making wafting movements in the air. It’s just not fair, it’s not fair. He should be thinking about important things, the war ending tonight in a blaze of glory—for him. He’s trained for this for years—ever since he was old enough to lift a sword. Before that even, five, six years old, he’d been fighting with sharpened sticks, he was never not fighting, pummelling his nurse whenever she tried to calm him down. And now it’s all happening, it’s actually happening at last, and all he can think is: Suppose I shit myself?
The griping seems to be easing off a bit. Perhaps it’ll be all right.
It’s gone very quiet outside. For days, there’s been the noise of ships being loaded, men singing, drums beating, bullroarers roaring, priests chanting—all of it as loud as possible because the Trojans were meant to hear. They’ve got to believe the Greeks are really going. Nothing must be left inside the huts, because the first thing they’ll do is send reconnaissance parties down to the beach to check that the camp has actually been abandoned. It’s not enough to move men and weapons. Women, horses, furniture, cattle—everything has to go.
Inside the horse, now, there’s a growing murmur of uneasiness. They don’t like this silence; it feels as if they’ve been abandoned. Twisting round on the bench, Pyrrhus squints through a gap between two planks, but can’t see a bloody thing. “What the fuck’s going on?” somebody asks. “Don’t worry,” Odysseus says, “they’ll be back.” And indeed only a few minutes later, they hear footsteps coming towards them up the beach, followed by a shout: “You all right in there?” A rumble of response. Then, what seems like hours later, though it’s probably only minutes, the horse jerks forward. Immediately, Odysseus holds up his hand and, one by one, the lights go out.
Pyrrhus closes his eyes and imagines the struggling sweaty backs of men as they bend to the task of hauling this monster across the rutted ground to Troy. They have rollers to help, but even so it takes a long time—the land’s pitted and scarred from ten long years of war. They know they’re getting close when the priests start chanting a hymn of praise to Athena, guardian of cities. Guardian of cities? Is that a joke? Let’s bloody hope she’s not guarding this city. At last, the lurching stops and the men inside the horse’s belly turn to stare at each other, their faces no more than pale blurs in the dim light. Is this it? Are they here? Another hymn to Athena, and then, after three final shouts in honour of the goddess, the men who’ve dragged the horse to the gates of Troy depart.
Their voices, still chanting hymns and prayers, fade into silence. Somebody whispers: “What happens now?” And Odysseus says: “We wait.”
——————
A goatskin filled with diluted wine passes from hand to hand though they daren’t do more than moisten their lips. The buckets are already more than two thirds full and, as Odysseus says, a wooden horse that started pissing might arouse suspicion. It’s hot in here; the place reeks of resin from freshly cut pine logs—and something very odd has started to happen, because he tastes the resin and smells the heat. The inside of his nostrils feels scorched. And he’s not the only one who’s suffering. Machaon’s streaming with sweat—he’s carrying a lot more weight than the younger men, who’re as lean as the feral dogs that even now must be sniffing around the doors of the empty huts, wondering where the people have gone. Pyrrhus tries to imagine the camp deserted: the hall he’d entered for the first time ten days after his father’s death, sitting down in Achilles’s chair, resting his hands on the carved heads of mountain lions, curling his fingertips into their snarling mouths as Achilles must have done, night after night—and feeling all the time like an imposter, a little boy who’d been allowed to stay up late. If he’d looked down, his legs would have been dangling a foot away from the floor.
By tomorrow morning, he may be dead, but there’s no point thinking like that: a man’s fated day will come when it will come and there’s nothing you can do to push that moment further back. He looks from side to side, seeing his own tension reflected on every face. Even Odysseus has started chewing his thumbnail. The Trojans must know by now that the ships have sailed, that the Greek camp is indeed deserted, but perhaps they don’t believe it? Priam’s ruled Troy for fifty years; he’s too old a fox to fall for a trick like this. The horse is a trap, a brilliant trap—yes, but who’s inside it?
Odysseus lifts his head and listens and a second later they all hear it: a murmur of Trojan voices, curious, nervous. What is it? Why is it? Have the Greeks really given up and gone home, leaving behind this remarkable gift? “Remarkably useless,” somebody says. “How can you say it’s useless when you don’t know what it’s for?” “We mightn’t know what it’s for, but we do know one thing: don’t trust the fucking Greeks.” A roar of agreement. “Anyway, how do we know it’s empty? How do we know there isn’t somebody inside?” Voices edging up from suspicion into panic. “Set fire to it.” “Yeah, go on, burn the bugger. You’ll sharp find out if anybody’s inside.” The idea catches on; soon they’re all chanting: “Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!” Pyrrhus looks round and sees fear on every face; no, more than fear—terror. These are brave men, the pick of the Greek army, but the man who tells you he’s not afraid of fire is either a liar or a fool.
BURN IT! BURN IT! BURN IT!
A wooden box crammed full of men—it’ll go up like a funeral pyre larded with pig fat. And what will the Trojans do when they hear screams? Run and fetch buckets of water? Like bloody hell they will; they’ll stand around and laugh. The army will return to find only charred timbers and the bodies of burned men, their raised fists clenched in the pugilistic attitudes of those who die by fire. And above them, on the walls, the Trojans waiting. He’s not a coward, he really isn’t, he got into this bloody horse prepared to die, but he’s buggered if he’s going to die like a pig roasting on a spit. Better to get out now and fight—
He’s halfway to his feet when a spear point appears between the heads of the two men sitting opposite. He sees their faces blank with shock. Instantly, everybody starts shuffling deeper into the belly, as far away from the sides as they can get. Outside, a woman’s screaming at the top of her voice: “It’s a trap, can’t you see it’s a trap?” And then another voice, a man’s, old, but not weak, carrying a lot of authority. It can only be Priam. “Cassandra,” he says. “Go back home now, go home.”
Inside the horse, men turn to stare accusingly at Odysseus, whose plan this is, but he just shrugs and throws up his hands.
Another burst of shouting. The guards have found somebody skulking outside the gates, and now he’s being dragged in front of Priam and forced to his knees. And then, at last, at long last, Sinon starts to speak, his voice wobbly at first, but strengthening as he launches into his tale. Pyrrhus glances across at Odysseus and sees his lips moving in time with Sinon’s words. He’s been coaching him for the past three weeks, the two of them pacing up and down the arena for hours at a stretch, rehearsing the story, trying to anticipate every question the Trojans could possibly ask.
Every detail is as convincing as it can be made; how the Greeks believe the gods have abandoned them—and particularly Athena, whom they have grievously offended. The horse is a votive offering and must be taken immediately to her temple. But it’s not the details that matter. Everything really depends on Odysseus’s reading of Priam’s character. As a small boy, not seven years old, Priam had been captured in a war and held to ransom. Friendless and alone, forced to live his life in a foreign land, he’d turned to the gods for comfort, and in particular to Zeus Xenios, the god who commands kindness to strangers. Under Priam’s rule, Troy has always been willing to take in people whose own countrymen have turned against them. Odysseus’s story is calculated to appeal to Priam, every detail designed to exploit his faith and turn it into weakness. And if the plan doesn’t work, it certainly won’t be Sinon’s fault, because he’s giving it everything he’s got, his voice rising to the skies in a great wail of misery. “Please,” he keeps saying. “Please, please, take pity on me, I daren’t go home, I’ll be killed if I go home.”
“Let him go,” Priam says. And then, presumably speaking directly to Sinon, “Welcome to Troy.”
——————
Not long after, there’s a clattering of ropes lassoing the horse’s neck and it begins to move. Only a few yards on, it shudders to a halt, sticks fast for several agonizing minutes, then lurches forward again. Pyrrhus peers through a gap between the planks—the night air unexpectedly cool on his eyelids—but sees only a stone wall. Though that’s enough to tell him they’re passing through the Scaean gates into Troy. They look at each other, wide-eyed. Silent. Outside, the Trojans, men, women and children, are singing hymns of praise to Athena, guardian of cities, as they dragged the horse inside the gates. There’s a lot of excited chatter among the little boys who are “helping” their fathers haul the ropes.
Meanwhile something peculiar’s happening to Pyrrhus. Perhaps it’s just thirst, or the heat, which is worse now than it’s ever been, but he seems to be seeing the horse from the outside. He sees its head level with the roofs of palaces and temples as it’s pulled slowly through the streets. A strange feeling: to be locked fast in darkness and yet be able to see the wide streets and open squares, the crowds of excited Trojans milling around the horse’s feet. The ground’s black with them. They’re like ants that have found the chrysalis of an insect, big enough to feed their young for weeks, and they’re dragging it back to their hill in triumph, unaware that when the hard, shiny pupa splits open it’ll release death on them all.
At last, the lurching and swaying stops. By now, everybody inside the horse is feeling sick. More prayers, more hymns; the Trojans crowd into the temple of Athena to give the goddess thanks for victory. And then the feasting starts, singing, dancing, drinking, more drinking. The Greek fighters listen and wait. Pyrrhus tries to find room to stretch his legs; he has cramp in his right calf, from dehydration and sitting too long in the same constricted position. They’re in deeper darkness now, with no moon to throw light through the cracks in the horse’s sides—a moonless night was selected for the attack. Now and then a bunch of drunken revellers staggers past and their blazing torches cast tiger stripes over the faces of the men who wait inside. The light glints on helmets and breastplates and the blades of their drawn swords. Still, they wait. Out there, far out in the darkness, the black, beaked ships will be ploughing white furrows through the heaving grey sea as the Greek fleet returns. He imagines the ships entering the bay, their sails furled as the rowers take over, and then the scrape of keels on shingle as they drive hard onto the land.
Gradually, the singing and shouting die away; the last drunks have crawled home or passed out in the gutter. And Priam’s guards? Is it likely they’ll have stayed sober, now the war’s over, now they think they know they’ve won and there’s nobody left to fight?
At last, at a nod from Odysseus, four fighters at the far end draw back bolts and remove two segments of the sides. The cooler night air floods in; Pyrrhus feels his skin tingle as the sweat evaporates. And then, one by one, in a steady stream, men start to climb down the rope ladders and gather in a circle on the ground. There’s a bit of jostling at the front because each man wants the honour of being the first out. Pyrrhus doesn’t care about that; he’s one of the first, that’s enough. As his feet hit the ground, he feels the jolt all the way up his spine. People are stamping their feet, trying to get the circulation back because any minute now they’ll have to run. He grabs a torch from a sconce on the temple wall and in the glare of red light turns and looks back as the last fighters drop heavily to the ground. The horse is shitting men. Once they’re all out, they turn and stare at each other, the same half-waking expression on every face. They’re in. Slowly, the realization floods through him: an unstoppable wave. Now, at this moment, he’s standing where his father never stood, inside the walls of Troy. There’s no fear now. Everything light, everything clear. Over there, in the darkness, are the gates they’ve got to open to let the army in. Pyrrhus tightens his grip on his sword and breaks into a run.
2
An hour later, he’s on the palace steps in the thick of the fighting. Seizing an axe from a dying man, he starts hacking his way through the door. The press of fighters pushing up the steps behind him makes it hard to get a good swing—he shouts at them to get back, to give him room, and four or five blows later there’s a gap just wide enough to get through—and after that it’s easy, everything’s easy. Hurtling down the corridor, he feels his father’s blood pounding through his veins and shouts in triumph.
At the entrance to the throne room there’s a solid wall of Trojan guards, the Greek fighters already grappling with them, but he veers off to the right, searching for the secret passage that leads from Hector’s house—where his widow, Andromache, now lives alone with their son—to Priam’s private apartments. This is the information Odysseus tortured out of his captive prince. A door in the wall, half hidden by a screen, leads into a dimly lit passage shelving steeply downwards—the cold smell of musty, unused places—and then a flight of stairs takes him up into the bright light of the throne room, where Priam stands in front of an altar, motionless, expectant, as if his whole life has been a preparation for this moment. They’re alone. The sounds of Greeks and Trojans battling on the other side of the wall seem to fade away.
In silence, they stare at each other. Priam’s old, shockingly old, and so frail his armour weighs him down. Pyrrhus clears his throat, an odd, apologetic sound in that vast stillness. Time seems to have stopped, and he doesn’t know how to make it start again. He moves closer to the altar steps and announces his name, which you must do before you fight: “I am Pyrrhus, son of Achilles.” Incredibly, unforgivably, Priam smiles and shakes his head. Angry now, Pyrrhus puts one foot on the bottom step and sees Priam brace himself—though when the old man finally throws his spear it fails to penetrate the shield, just hangs there for a moment, quivering, before clattering to the floor. Pyrrhus bursts out laughing, and the sound of his own laughter frees him. He leaps up the steps, grabs a handful of Priam’s hair, drags the head back to expose the scrawny throat and—
And nothing…
For the last hour, he’s been in a state of near-frenzy, feet scarcely touching the ground, strength pouring into him from the sky—but now, when that frenzy is most needed, he feels it draining from his limbs. He raises his arm, but the sword’s heavy, heavy. Sensing weakness, Priam twists out of his grasp and tries to run, but trips and falls headlong down the steps. Pyrrhus is on to him at once, clutching the mane of silver hair, and this is it, this is it, now, now, but the hair’s unexpectedly soft, almost like a woman’s hair, and that tiny, insignificant detail’s enough to throw him. He slashes at the old man’s throat, misses—stupid, stupid—he’s like a ten-year-old boy trying to stick his first pig, hacking away, cut after cut and not one of them deep enough to kill. With his white hair and pale skin, Priam looked as if he hadn’t a drop of blood in him; oh, but he has, gallons and gallons of it, he’s slipping and slithering across the floor. At last, he gets a grip on the old bugger, kneels on his bony chest and, even then, he can’t do it. He groans in despair, “Achilles! Father!” And, incredibly, Priam turns to him and smiles again. “Achilles’s son?” he says. “You? You’re nothing like him.”
A red mist of rage gives Pyrrhus the strength to strike again. Straight into the neck this time, no mistake. Priam’s hot blood pumps over his clenched fist. That’s it. Over. He lets the body slip to the floor. Somewhere, quite close, a woman’s screaming. Bewildered, he looks around and sees a group of women, some with babies in their arms, crouched on the far side of the altar. Drunk with triumph and relief, he runs towards them, arms spread wide, and shouts “BOO!” into their faces—and laughs as they cower away. ...
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