Ignoring his lies, the captain of the guard marched Odysseus through the night and brought him before Agamemnon's throne. Agamemnon wearily lifted his head and in his face Odysseus saw festering pride and dull pugnacity, the spoils of a decade's martial failure. The king wavered, and in a harsh croak said, ``I brought you here by stratagem,47.1 and now I question whether I was wise to do so. You are known for cunning but not for loyalty.
``There is some wickedness afoot tonight. The fires have been burning and the men drinking for what seems like forever and though I have been told that Hector himself has been seen walking the white plain there is no discipline, the orders I issue are lost, or ignored, or come back to me distorted, and mutiny builds and disperses with the regularity of the tides. And when I most need you, wise counselor, you are nowhere to be found, though I hear you have been seen slipping into Troy. Your integrity is in question.''
Odysseus replied, ``The only question is who has been telling these lies and trying to turn you against me. I have, as you say, been within Ilium's walls. Be patient and I will tell you the story.''
The moon was high when I made for the Trojan palace in my beggar's rags, leaving behind the soldiers I had gulled. Going incautiously around a corner, I nearly walked into a Trojan warrior. I lowered my eyes, clutched my rags around me, and clucked like an old man with scattered wits in the hopes of being ignored, but the Trojan told me to stop.
``Why are you wandering through Priam's city so late at night? The Greeks give us enough to do without worrying about good-for-nothings like you who can't or won't bear arms. Where did you come from and what are you doing?''
``Have mercy, sir,'' I whined, remembering his face against the chance of meeting him someday on the battlefield. ``I am nobody, and surely no Trojan hero, but for all that I am not altogether useless. Wretch that I am, I pass unnoticed everywhere--I have been looking for hand-outs in the Greek camp but came away with more than a dish of beans and a loaf of bread. I learned that Odysseus, famous for intelligence, plans to slip within Troy's walls this very night and slay Helen, thereby bringing an end to the war. For all I know, he is already here.''
He cuffed me and said, ``Most likely you are lying in hopes of another hand-out, and even if you are not here is a blow for being weak, and another for being in my way. In any event, I have heard of Odysseus and think little of him--let him try his wit on me and see where it gets him. But tell me what you learned about Odysseus and his plans. Be forthright, and I may reward you.''
``Thank you, my lord!" I cried. ``I was lingering by Agamemnon's tent, eating my supper and hoping for more, when I heard Odysseus and Agamemnon talking. I pressed my ear to the tent and this is what I heard."
``This account of your humiliations shows only that you have no pride in your rank and will use any tactic that comes to hand," said Agamemnon. ``And more than that, you take pleasure in weaving the truth into your falsehoods--though I do not doubt that you are lying in your heart I expect you are using the truth to do it. The war has been interminable but tonight it hangs by a thread and you could be the one to cut it. I cannot decide if the usefulness of your lying tongue justifies the risk of letting you live."
Odysseus said, ``A king rules his warriors by sufferance. Were he to execute the most popular of his generals, a man who had been a source of endless grief and perplexity to the enemy, and preserved countless Greek lives with his foresight, that king would, at best, be deserted by his army, leaving him monarch of a silent beach and empty, flapping tents. More likely we would meet to divide the old king's treasures and decide how most piously to inter his royal bones. I tell you this for loyalty's sake--I would not see you dethroned, or killed, when these evil fates are so easily avoided.''
``Do you presume to threaten me?'' asked Agamemnon.
``Like any good counselor, I outline probable futures,'' said Odysseus. ``But let me finish my story--it will be useful to you, if you only listen."
The Trojan thought carefully, ideas rolling across his face like weather. He said, ``Your tale has the ring of truth. Come with me--in the morning you will tell the generals your story. Be open and sincere and all will go well for you."
``There is nothing I would like more than that the Trojan generals hear and believe me!" I cried, ``But now there is no time. I would have told you earlier had you not frightened me, but the Greeks are mustering to attack even as we stand here speaking. They plan to overrun the southern-most tower before night ends.''
``Only now you tell me?''
``Beat me if you must, but do it after the battle! If you go now you can surprise them!'' He shoved me aside and ran off. I called after him, ``I still want a reward!''
He did not look back. I sighed and went on, veteran of too many deceptions to take much satisfaction from this one. Soon more soldiers trampled past, ignoring me. When I got to the palace all the guards were gone and I walked through its gate unchallenged.
As I mounted the stairs a woman's wavering voice called out, ``Beggar, you are bold to seek alms from Priam so late at night. Either that, or you are, in fact, a Greek. But in that case, shouldn't you either be in chains or in armor and not these rags? Have we fallen so far in your esteem that you cannot be bothered to dress before attacking us?''
It was Cassandra the prophetess, sitting cross-legged in a window, her head tilted to one side, watching me like a small bird poised to fly away. I said, ``Tonight there is no Greek and no Trojan. I am just a man who wants this interminable war to end by any means at all."
``Such eloquence from a ragged, masterless man. If I didn't know better I'd think you were none other than Odysseus Laertides, Prince of Ithaca, silver-tongued, deep-minded, woman-slayer and often-cursed."
``Much do I admire Odysseus, that famous Greek, but I cannot say that I am him. I have, however, had news of him. He was badly used by Agamemnon, the fool, and has turned his back on the Greek camp. Listen, seeress, to what happened in Agamemnon's tent."
Agamemnon rubbed his sunken eyes and said, ``If the Trojans soldiers have gone where you say, I can use that. But, I do not believe you, and will not till I see for myself. Meanwhile, your insolence rankles, so for now you are confined to your tent.''
``Noone has done more for you than me," said Odysseus. ``I have risked my life for you a dozen times, though you have brought me and all the Greeks only failure and grief. The only ones with little reason to hate you are the Trojans."
Agamemnon waved him away and Odysseus was marched off to his tent, outside of which ten Spartans stood guard, leaning glumly on their spears and peering nervously into the firelight and shadows.
News of the arrest spread quickly. The Ithacans gravitated to Odysseus's tent, looking darkly at the guards. Then Achilles arrived and the Spartans lowered their spears and eyes as he brushed past them.
Within he found Odysseus whetting a dagger. Odysseus said, ``Welcome, Achilles, once the best of the Achaeans, now another contemptible obstacle to Agamemnon's vanity."
``What happened? I heard you two had had words. Has the son of Atreus been pounding his god-like chest again?"
``He had me dragged into his tent and fulminated about some sort of hallucinated treachery. He has heard, correctly, that I have lately been in Troy. Of treachery I know nothing--I would have taken him into Troy with me if I thought Trojans could be killed by bluster. I told him he owed his best men respect, for his kingdom rests in our hands, and he nearly had an apoplexy, swearing that I should not usurp him and that we were as nothing compared to him. It would be funny but here I am, a prisoner. Really, I'm surprised our ships weren't burned years ago."
Achilles said, ``Intolerable. I will talk to him and if he won't listen he can go and fight by himself. Much joy may Hector bring him."
Achilles went out and addressed the throng of men who had gathered around Odysseus's tent. ``Apparently, Agamemnon thinks the men of his army are of low quality. Who are we, less than kings, to question him? His deserts are greatest, so henceforth let him have everything for himself--every spear thrust, every sword cut and every swift-flying arrow. And when he comes back to camp pierced through a hundred times let him compose an ode to his own bravery. Follow me and listen while I tell him so." He led the Ithacans and the other Achaeans away to Agamemnon's tent, Odysseus's guards trailing uncertainly behind them.
Odysseus put on a suit of rags, slipped his dagger into his shirt and headed out into the no-man's land between the camp and the city. Outside the camp it was silent but for the sighing wind, and the walls of Troy were negative space, a blotting out of stars.
In that dead space where the earth bore nothing but stones and arrows a hatefully precise voice called out to Odysseus. He turned and there was Palamedes, smiling nastily. Odysseus said, ``Have you tired of whispering poison in the king's ear and decided to join the battle? I commend your newfound bravery but suggest you make your sally during the day, when you may find actual Trojans to fight. I am surprised at your mistake, given your reputation as a prodigious intellect. Still, I will happily tell the other men, who as it is have no respect for you, about your very near approach to courage."
``Painful words from a renegade and a prisoner," sneered Palamedes. ``Were you not slinking off to sell yourself to Troy my sense of honor would be outraged. Is the poverty of Ithaca so galling that you will turn your coat for a sack of gold? Or did they offer you a turn with Helen, to whom one man is as good as another?"
``Every man assumes others have a soul like his own, and yours is a merchant's,"47.2 replied Odysseus. ``If I have ever offered to turn against the Greeks it was a ruse to let me get closer to Helen--unlike Agamemnon, I do not have years and armies to waste. Come closer, and I will tell you how it happened."
Cassandra said merrily, ``Never has there been a reed straighter than Odysseus! I commend you for your plainspoken, simple honesty. Still, I am moved to wonder why you chose to throw yourself on Troy's mercy while armed, or is that not the hilt of a dagger protruding from your sleeve?"
``Beggar that I am, I can offer neither cities nor horses--my blade is the only gift I have to give, though it is little enough. My best hope is that Helen, my cousin-in-law, the childhood friend of my wife, will welcome me to her city. After all, I am deep in the counsels of the Greeks and if I come over then Priam will know all the depths of Agamemnon's mind."
``As for your offering, it is fated that a gift of Odysseus will be Troy's undoing."
``But my service is not so much a gift as payment for sanctuary from an oppressive king. Also, my goal is Trojan citizenship--if I am a Trojan, then all I have is Troy's, and all Troy has is mine, so how could I make any gift at all? The safety of Troy, which I hope will be my haven and my refuge, is my only desire," I said.
Cassandra said, ``If you come in good faith you may well win Helen over. But think--even if you do all you say, you will be famous for treachery."
``This too I have foreseen," I said. ``I will give counsel such that by the time I have been in Troy a week the Greeks will be routed. Agamemnon's vanity has overwhelmed his judgment and even now Achilles is on the verge of open revolt. The army is in disarray and the men will desert--it will be assumed that I saw the way the wind was blowing and left a step ahead of the others, and my reputation will remain lily white."
``Does your lily white reputation have anything to do with the blood stains on your hands?''
``Ah, those are from an ugly, brutal contretemps outside the city walls between Odysseus and another Greek of less account. Here is how it happened."
Having sidled close to him, Odysseus knocked Palamedes' spear aside, whipped out his dagger and lunged. Palamedes, not taken altogether by surprise, sprang back and ran but Odysseus tackled him and they rolled and struggled on the ground. Though Palamedes was Odysseus's equal for intelligence he was neither as young nor as strong and soon got the worst of it, Odysseus straddling him and driving his dagger up through his chin.
He wiped the dagger on the corpse's tunic and, seeing that he was near enough to the Greek campfires that he had a shadow, hefted the body and bore it off toward Troy. He dug a shallow grave with his hands, deposited the corpse and sprinkled it with a handful of dust, hoping that the shade would accept this hasty rite and go down to Hades without haunting him.
As he turned to go, the darkness disgorged armed men, Achaean warriors, so close that he did try to run. Their leader, Ajax, said, ``So it is Odysseus. Shouldn't you be in camp awaiting the king's dread pleasure?"
Odysseus replied, ``I might ask you the same question--why the arms and the haste? Shouldn't you be in your tents? The night is no time for honest men to be on the battlefield."
``We have been told of a weakness in Troy's defences and are going to look. But, I think you had better account for yourself, now," said Ajax, drawing himself up.
``Easy, Ajax. Tonight I crept into Troy to ply Helen with honeyed words and persuade her return with me, and failing that to kidnap her, and failing that to cut her throat and dispose of our reason for being here. I have told many artful lies tonight, surpassing even my own high standards, and seen much strangeness. Listen and I will tell you what happened."
Cassandra laughed and said, ``It is fortunate you come in friendship, because Hector sleeps not fifty feet away. He has only killed eleven men today and likes to make an even dozen. Go and speak with Helen, then, though I think you will not like it."
I found Helen's door, incised with Aphrodite's spiral seashell. Within Helen was at her loom weaving a circular cloth of many colors. She said, ``Odysseus, husband of my cousin, welcome back to Troy. What business brings you here on a moonless night?"
``Helen, daughter of Zeus who ordains fate and dispenses justice, I am here to end the war. Come back to Menelaus, who is more steadfast than Paris, though not as fair, and let us all go home. Will you not come?"
Helen said, ``My place is here at my loom."
``You may well live out your life at your loom, but the war ends tonight."
Helen was a queen and half a god and I had expected her to face death with equanimity but I was not prepared for laughter. Nor was it the laughter of bravado--she sounded genuinely amused, even affectionate. She reached out with her lovely white hand, torch bright, and took my dagger. ``A fine gift. Let it have its victim," she said, and drew the blade lightly across her left wrist, the dagger passing through her radiant skin without leaving a mark. I could not seem to look away from her wrist, the tendons rising and falling under the skin as she flexed her fingers. ``There are many Helens in the night--I must not be the real one."47.3
Turning back to her weaving, she said, ``My father visited me once, and granted me a boon for being pretty. I have always been happiest with other women, gathering water, carding wool and weaving--men and their egotism bore me--so I said that I wanted to stay here at my loom, world without end, and so I will. I thank you, though, for the end you tried to bring me--perhaps there will come a day when I tire even of this and wish you back with your mortal intent. As it is, I will take what you have brought me and use it, as I stay here, in my place, blinding bright and never moving."
My eyes were drawn to her weaving, a long cloth looping back on itself like a wheel but with a half twist in the middle. Images were woven into both sides--a man in a pylos47.4 standing before a wrathful king and then debating with a priestess, a beggar with sly eyes directing a Trojan warrior's gaze, the same beggar, now with a murderous expression, pulling a dagger from his robes while a beautiful woman, larger than the rest of the figures, smiled and placidly worked her loom.
The cloth showed Odysseus blundering through long corridors and into blind alleys, high walls, locked doors, culverts, and dead ends until finally he burst out onto the street behind the palace. It was deserted, shocking in its stillness. He tried to remember the way he had taken out of the palace for the next time but could only think of Helen's smile, her stillness and her inexorable weaving.
He fled the city and made for the Greek camp. Looking back over his shoulder, he nearly walked into Hector, strongest of the Trojans, who had widowed a city's worth of Greek women, though few of them knew it yet.
``Careful, father," said Hector, smiling, his broad teeth white in the starlight. ``Though you won't find much else out here to bump into unless you head back toward the walls."
Reflexively, Odysseus reached for his sword, back in camp, and then his dagger, still with Helen.
``Now why would a gentleman of Ilium be reaching for his arms? Ah, but I think I know you, my friend. You are Odysseus, Lord of Ithaca, renowned for wit."
``Cassandra told me you were sleeping," he said.
``Did she? And sometimes she'd be right. But now I am out walking. From here both Troy and the camp, blurs of light and shadow in the otherwise unmarred night, seem to have a significance, some meaning beyond distance and night and cities. Sometimes I nearly know this meaning but I can never quite put it into words. I have several times sworn to give up looking but again and again I find myself out here walking. You are famous for intelligence--what do you think?"
``I wonder how long you have been out here tonight."
``Why, forever, of course. This night has neither beginning nor end and I have been here since the dawn of the world except there never was a dawn."
Figures approached, waving spears and shouting in Greek. Tranquilly, Hector said, ``I was enjoying our talk--a shame for it to be interrupted. Good night to you, Odysseus, and I look forward to our next conversation. Take this--the night is dangerous," and he tossed his enemy a dagger as he walked off into the dark.
The Greek patrol surrounded Odysseus. Their captain, a brave, ineloquent man, prone sometimes to act without thinking, demanded that Odysseus explain himself. Wearily, Odysseus pled with him, asking to be taken to the king to convey important news. The great-hearted captain mastered himself long enough to listen and Odysseus said, ``Here is my story."47.5
Ajax laughed and said, ``If your sword-arm were as nimble as your tongue Hector himself would tremble. Go home, woman-killer--we brave but ineloquent men have fighting to do."
When they left, Odysseus went to the Trojan wall and crept through a sewer tunnel he knew. As he pulled himself up onto the street inside the city a casual, unseen voice said, ``What cheer, Antenor? Do you have the wine?"
``It is not Antenor, but Ericles," said Odysseus, ``and I could use a draught of that wine myself."
``Well then, you'll have to wait till Antenor gets back, won't you?" came the irritated reply. ``And why should I give you my wine? And what are you doing here in the dead of night?"
``Trying to win a reputation for courage by spying on the Greeks," Odysseus answered. ``I have been among them tonight, passing for one of them. When I was a boy I spent summers with my grandfather in Athens, so I can do the accent. I learned that they are divided--their king is a fatuous tyrant and his heroes turn away from him."
``Is Achilles giving up and sailing home?"
``Not quite so good as that, but not so bad either. The king has alienated Odysseus, the deepest counselor of the Greeks. Listen and I will tell you what happened...47.6