The Song of Troy Read Free

short, was wild and unruly above a brow which overhung his orbits like an awning. His only clothing was a huge lion pelt flung over his left shoulder and under his right arm, the head a hood on his back with frightful jaws open on mighty fangs.
    He turned and caught me staring. Overwhelmed, I found and looked into his wide still eyes – eyes which had seen everything, endured everything, experienced every degradation the Gods could mete out to a man. Eyes which blazed with intelligence. I felt myself mentally backed up against the house behind me, my spirit a naked scrawn, my mind his for the taking.
    But I marshalled my sinking courage and drew myself upright proudly; mine was a great title, mine a gold-embossed chariot, mine a pair of white horses finer than any he had ever seen. Mine, this mightiest city in the world.
    He moved through the racket and bustle of the marketplace as if it did not exist, came straight up to me with two of his companions close behind, then put out a hand the size of a ham to stroke the black muzzles of my white horses gently.
    ‘You are from the palace, perhaps of the King’s house?’ he asked in a very deep voice, though it lacked imperiousness.
    ‘I am Podarkes called Priam, son and Heir of Laomedon, King of Troy,’ I answered.
    ‘I am Herakles,’ he said.
    I stared at him with mouth agape. Herakles! Herakles was in Troy! I licked my lips. ‘Lord, you honour us. Will you consent to being a guest in my father’s house?’
    His smile was surprisingly sweet. ‘I thank you, Prince Priam. Does your invitation include all my men? They are of noble Greek houses, they will not shame your court or me.’
    ‘Of course, Lord Herakles.’
    He nodded to the two men behind him, a signal that they should step out of his shadow. ‘May I present my friends? This is Theseus, High King of Attika, and this is Telamon son of Aiakos, King of Salamis.’
    I swallowed. All the world knew of Herakles and Theseus; the bards sang their deeds incessantly. Aiakos, father of the stripling Telamon, had rebuilt our western wall. How many other famous names were there in that little band of Greeks?
    Such was the power in that single word Herakles that even my miserly father was moved to put himself out, give the famous Greek a royal welcome. So that afternoon a feast was laid out in the Great Hall, with unlimited food and wine off gold plate, and harpers, dancers and tumblers to provide entertainment. If I had been awed, so too was my father; every Greek in the party of Herakles was a king in his own right. Why, therefore, I wondered, were they content to follow a man who laid no claim to any throne? Who had mucked out stables? Who had been gnawed, bitten and chewed by every kind of creature from gnat to lion?
    I sat at the high table with Herakles on my left and the lad Telamon on my right; my father sat between Herakles and Theseus. Though the imminence of Hesione’s sacrificial death overshadowed our hospitality, it was so well concealed that I told myself our Greek guests had noticed nothing. Talk flowed smoothly, for they were cultivated men, properly educated in everything from mental arithmetic to the words of the poets they, like us, committed to memory. Only what kind of man was a Greek underneath that?
    There was little contact between the nations of Greece and the nations of Asia Minor, which included Troy. Nor, as a rule, did we of Asia Minor care for Greeks. They were notoriously devious people famed for their insatiable curiosity, so much we knew; but these men must have been outstanding even among their own Greek kind, for the Greeks chose their Kings for reasons other than blood.
    My father in particular did not care for Greeks. Of late years he had formulated treaties with the various kingdoms of Asia Minor giving them most of the trade between the Euxine and the Aegaean Seas, which meant that he had severely restricted the number of Greek trading vessels allowed to pass through the Hellespont.