Chapter Text
Twenty years. The oracle’s voice still echoed in Odysseus’ ears. Only ten years had gone by, ten were still to come. Unless the siege failed—which he did not consider possible—that meant he would have to spend ten years out on sea. He had kept Penelope and Telemachus out of his mind for as long as he could, but all his doubts and hates came washing over him now. None of the men around him would have to wait another ten years to see their family, why would he?
Odysseus leaned forward, careful to keep the wood from squeaking. There was no way Telemachus would recognize him. Odysseus had told Penelope to remarry once a beard grew on Telemachus’ jaw, but now he doubted he would be back by then. Would she wait that long? Would she wait longer?
A clap on his bronze-clad back dragged him back to reality. “They’re speaking,” Menelaus said, his helmet covering his face and muffling his voice.
Odysseus nodded silently and leaned back to hear the voices. They were too far to make out from inside the Wooden Horse, but he recognized Priam’s tone anyway. He was cut off by a different male voice, shrill and frantic, one Odysseus did not know.
The atmosphere inside the Horse tensed. The air stood still and no one breathed. The soldiers exchanged glances, all asking themselves the same thing. Could he know?
Odysseus was confident that his plan would work. The Wooden Horse was foolproof, but he could understand the anxiety. Ever since Patroclus’ death by Hector, the heroes Greece relied on started dropping like flies. First Achilles by Paris, then Ajax Telamon by his own hand. Locrian Ajax, though alive and waiting with the rest of the fleet in Argos, had become prouder with every battle. He was just as unreliable as Neoptolemus. They were left with the Atrides and Diomedes.
Odysseus turned his attention back to the voices. The male voice had been replaced by a female voice, just as frantic. This one he could make out. He recognized it as the Trojan princess, from the failed attempts to work out a peace treaty ten years ago. “They’re inside!” she called. “It’s a trick.” There was a long silence. To Odysseus, it felt like hours. And yet he could have waited longer to hear the crackling of fire getting nearer. He lifted his feet off the ground to avoid the heat as she held it to the belly of the beast, feet away from the hidden trapdoor.
Some soldiers put their hands on their weapons. Odysseus did not. You could not fight fire with a sword. The entire plan depended on that fact.
“She’s crazy,” Menelaus whispered. The soldiers were packed together tight enough that Odysseus could hear.
The next voice was sweet as honey and made all heads turn to Menelaus. “Don’t be irrational, Cassandra. You can’t burn a sacrifice to Athena.”
Menelaus put a hand on his sheath, his eyes fogged with madness and bloodlust. Before Odysseus could stop him, he had pulled out the sword and the Horse echoed with a high-pitched metallic ringing.
Helen stopped speaking. Fuck. Odysseus yanked the sword out of Menelaus’ hand and glared at him. She had heard. “Besides, there’s no one there.” There was a teasing in her voice. Odysseus looked between the slits of the wooden planks they had used to build the Horse. The planks had come from ships they no longer needed, ships that would have been boarded by soldiers now dead. Odysseus himself had given away one of his ships.
Sparkling blue eyes stared right back at him.
She smiled. Her voice lowered and changed. “Even if there was someone in there, it’s not enough to take over an entire city.” Penelope. She was imitating Penelope’s voice. Odysseus clenched his jaw and turned away. Now he had to stop himself from pulling a sword. He could not bear it. He dared to glance back one last time—no one was paying close enough attention to Helen to notice the change in her voice.
“I’m going to kill her,” Menelaus hissed. A fire glowed in his eyes that Odysseus had previously only seen in Agamemnon. “I’m going to fucking kill her.” His voice was becoming increasingly louder. Odysseus turned to him, gnashing his teeth to keep Penelope’s voice out of his mind, and grabbed Menelaus by the jaw, mouthing threats at him. The Spartan king nodded and went quiet.
Odysseus went back to looking out of the cracks in the wood. “Yeah,” Sinon jumped in, “and there’s no one on the shore. You can go check.” He looked at Helen, slightly confused, but kept up his image.
They had left him with the Horse outside the gates as a messenger. It was his task to act distraught over being left back, explain the role of the Horse—a gift, a peace treaty—and convince them it was something different than what it truly was. A threat. Their doom.
“Aeneas, take your men and scour the shore. If you find anyone, we’ll burn it. Deiphobus, get up on the wall and hold watch for now.” Steps, followed by orders. They were leaving.
Odysseus breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were safe. Priam was on the verge of persuasion and there was no one on the shore. If Deiphobus saw the ships heading to Argos from the watchtowers, it would look like they were returning to the mainland.
Aeneas and his men took their time searching the beach, but they came back with the news Odysseus had expected. “It’s empty.” Cassandra fell to her knees and cried. The other man yelled at the top of his lungs unintelligibly and footsteps followed. He was sprinting directly to the Gates, to the beach. Two younger boys, his sons probably, shouted after him before following their father.
Priam acted as though nothing had happened. He sighed deeply. The line between relief and distress was blurred. “Drink, dance,” he said. “Celebrate like there is no tomorrow.”
***
Many of the soldiers had already dozed off by the time Sinon banged against the belly of the beast in the pattern they had agreed upon. Neoptolemus jumped up and pulled a latch. The hidden door fell open easily.
Menelaus was the first to slip out, patting Sinon on the shoulder as he snuck past him. Grinning widely, Neoptolemus followed. Odysseus attended to him, sighing to himself. As if looking after Achilles for ten years was not enough, he now had to keep a younger version of him in check too. He joined Menelaus at the Gate and helped him open it, while Neoptolemus ran up the towers of the wall, surprisingly following the plan.
Unable to leave him unsupervised for too long, Odysseus too climbed the stairs to the top of the defensive wall, leaving Menelaus to wait for his brother on his own. Two guards lay dead, throats slit, and Neoptolemus was leaning against the stone fence, staring at the plains before him. The beach, the ocean. The sails of the fleet waiting in Argos. He had been at Troy for ten years and never had he seen what he was seeing now—this is what Hector had been defending all these years. His home. This was what he had sworn to protect. Odysseus felt a pinch in his heart.
“Where is the fire?” the boy asked.
Odysseus shook his head. “Everywhere,” he answered and picked up the torch closest to him. He lit it on a fire inside the tower and brought it back outside, shielding it from the wind. Neoptolemus, ever the fatherless, critterlike nuisance of a goblin he was, snatched it off him and smiled at the flame as he held it above his head.
Odysseus looked to the next tower. Neoptolemus had killed the vigil guards quickly, but others were still getting rid of them. Some more soldiers from the Horse started popping out of each tower, Trojan guards slain, torches aflame.
His eyes stayed on the horizon, until Agamemnon and his men finally noticed the signal Odysseus and the others were sending. At a tantalisingly slow pace, the ships were returning to Troy.
Waiting for Neoptolemus to catch up with him, Odysseus returned down the stairs. He could not leave the kid alone for a moment, especially not with a flame. They waited at the open Gate, alert, should a patrol pass them by. The wine and celebrations had however done their job, just as Odysseus had anticipated—the streets were silent. No one breathed a word. That was until Agamemnon arrived, his men in tow.
“Everything gone to plan?” he asked, wrapping an arm around Menelaus’ shoulders—the closest thing to an embrace they could afford with the limited time they had.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “We just need orders,” he followed up, but was gone before he could receive any. He was headed straight to the palace, Deiphobus’ palace, sword drawn.
Agamemnon let him leave and assigned tasks to each of the generals. He pointed to Odysseus. “Take care of Hector’s son. I’ll take care of the fire, and if I don’t meet you in the palace, I’ll be right here.”
His heart clenched. Of course he had known that he would be assigned this task, it was all planned, but now it seemed all too real. Nevertheless, he did not protest, giving Neoptolemus a gentle nudge. He supposed this was his payback for advocating so vehemently for Iphigenia’s sacrifice.
Odysseus pulled him back by the wrist when they were standing in the palace courtyard. “Neoptolemus.” He was still facing the main palace’s gates, so Odysseus could see his bright red head of hair, just like his father’s. “Pyrrhus, listen to me.” Menelaus was already inside—they did not have long before the alarm would be sounded.
He turned around. “What?”
“I’ll leave you to enter the main palace alone. Priam is yours. But listen: stay away from the temples, don’t kill the women or the children and don’t burn anything. No fires, you hear me?”
“I wasn’t going to.” He pulled away and sprinted off. Before the door had even closed behind him, a loud alarm bell rang.
Fuck. Deiphobus’ palace was still silent and there was no way that the alarm was in reaction to Neoptolemus. This was a god’s doing. Odysseus headed straight to Andromache’s chambers. He had been in the palace twice before—once for the peace negotiations and a second time he had snuck in disguised as a beggar, bloody and all. He knew where her chambers were and he also knew that she kept her son close, not in the nursery.
He passed the throne room on his way and peeked in. Neoptolemus would be fine. Though self-taught, he was feral, quick and persevering. His unconventional fighting tactics were unpredictable and gave him an unlikely advantage.
The door to Andromache’s room was locked, but all Odysseus had to do to open it was heave it open with the blade of his sword acting as a lever. She stood at the foot of her bed, awkwardly holding a sword in both hands. “Stay away.” Her voice trembled. “Don’t come any closer.”
Odysseus sighed. “Put the sword down.” He approached her calmly, his own weapon drawn. She did not make any sudden moves but stepped away when he got too close. Odysseus raised both his hands. “I won’t touch you. Give me the sword.”
“They said you had surrendered.”
“Yes, well”—he took the sword out of her hand—“they were lying.” His hand hovered behind her back as he escorted her out of the room. Bright red flashed past him. Odysseus whistled and it was not long before Neoptolemus was standing in front of him, a scowl on his face.
“I lost track of him because of you.”
“Take her to Agamemnon,” Odysseus said, handing Andromache over. “Respectfully.” He looked outside. Hungry flames engulfed the building, roaring loudly. “Why is the palace burning?”
Neoptolemus shrugged. “Must’ve slipped,” he lisped. He grabbed Andromache by her arm and walked off.
Fuck’s sake. Odysseus muttered under his breath as he reentered the room. There was no trace of the boy, but he had noticed Hector’s armour inside—great spoils. The room was dim but he could still make out silhouettes. A bed, a crib, a chest. Armour and a training puppet in the corner. Apart from the urn on the pedestal, it was as if Hector had never died.
Odysseus knelt beside the pile of armour and picked up Hector’s giant shield. He ran his fingers along the top of the shield where the topmost layer of paint had been scratched off with use. When Achilles had killed him, Hector had been wearing the armour he had stripped off Patroclus—Achilles’ own armour. There had been no spoils. But this …
He dropped the shield for now and picked up a weirdly-shaped but familiar greave, small and curved. Achilles’ ankle guard. If only Hector had been wearing that to the duel, Achilles could have worn it to the following battles. If only Hector had been wearing it, Achilles might have been alive. Odysseus sighed. If only.
An increasingly loud wail tore through the silence. Eyes widening, Odysseus dropped the ankle guard and jumped to his feet, spinning, sword drawn. But it was not a battle cry. It was a baby’s scream. Odysseus checked the crib first—empty—before looking around the room, searching for the source, searching for the baby. The fire had grown by now; it hauntingly illuminated the room. The sound led him to Hector’s large urn, which threw a shadow on Odysseus as he approached it.
He hesitated, looking to the door and clenching his fists, before finally grabbing the lid and pushing it out of the way. Surely enough—there he was. Astyanax. The saviour of the city, sitting in the ashes of his father. Odysseus reached in and took him out. As he gently placed him over his shoulder, he imagined Andromache in her final moments. Andromache, realising her cause was lost, scrambling to put the little time she had in an attempt to save her child from the same fire that had consumed his father’s pyre.
His throat and chest tightened. With one hand, he held Astyanax, like he had always held Telemachus, and with the other he filled Hector’s shields with anything he could find. Weapons, jewellery, gold. Once the shield had begun to overflow, he put the baby on top of the spoils and carried him out like that, on his father’s shield. A bassinet. A coffin.
He left the palace and climbed up the palace walls from the courtyard. Astyanax had not stopped crying, so Odysseus lifted the helmet off his face in hopes that would calm him, but it did not. The wailing continued.
Every step up to the walls was like a step closer to Odysseus’ own death sentence. His throat and chest tightened like a noose. He put the shield down when he reached the top of the wall. Thick black smoke rose beyond him from either side, in the palace and the city. The fire moved quickly, burning any building in its way. Blood stained the floor. There was movement now that people had awoken—some were fighting, others running to temples, their only hope at survival. A voice nagged at Odysseus’ mind. You did this.
He picked up the boy and looked between him and the ground below. He could not hear the screams anymore. They were drowned out by the screams of his people and by the crackling of fire. It was all happening so fast.
“Don’t be a wimp, just let go.” Odysseus jumped at Neoptolemus’ voice, almost dropping the boy. Part of him wished he had. “You’re really not as tough as you try to seem, you know.”
“You’re just as good at creeping as your father, you know.” Neoptolemus did not respond, but Odysseus could feel his sharp eyes on him. Odysseus knew of course the rage that always came with discussing Neoptolemus’ absent father with him. He wondered if Telemachus too felt like his father had betrayed him, like he had cast him aside. He suppressed the thought. “Did you catch whoever it was you were chasing?”
“No, they got away. A god was protecting him, I swear.”
“Right.” Odysseus stared the baby in the eyes. He could do this. All he had to do was relax his hands and let go. It was getting hot and his hands were getting clammy too. Any longer and he would just slip out of his hands. Any longer and I’ll start seeing Telemachus in his place.
“Why are you killing him anyway? Can’t we just enslave him? Didn’t you say ‘no children’?”
“This isn’t any child, this is Hector’s child. Just like you followed your father’s footsteps, he will follow his. In fact, you’d probably be the first person he kills.”
“Move over, then. Give him to me.”
“No, I have to do this.”
“We both know you won’t. Go away.” He snatched the baby out of Odysseus’ hand and shoved him out of the way, holding Astyanax as far away from himself as possible, as if disgusted by him. As if the child were the one stained.
Odysseus closed his eyes and turned away as Neoptolemus whispered a prayer above the boy’s head. When Odysseus opened his eyes, Astyanax was gone and Neoptolemus was patting off his hands. “Let’s go,” he said simply and headed down the stairs. Odysseus picked up the shield and followed him.
“Wait,” Odysseus said once they reached the bottom of the wall. He left the palace’s courtyard and fell to his knees where Astyanax had fallen. The screams had stopped. His body was limp and already blue, his limbs twisted in places they should not be. Gently, as though not to wake him, Odysseus picked him up and placed him back on the shield, which he carried outside the city, Neoptolemus following closely behind.
Agamemnon stood at the Gate. “You killed him?” he asked, his eyes avoiding the small corpse.
Neoptolemus looked over Odysseus’ shoulder back into the city. “Yeah. He threw him off the wall.”
Odysseus looked Agamemnon straight in the eyes. “Don’t… Don’t speak.”
“Good spoils,” was all he said. They were all silent for a moment. “We’re almost done with the first part of the siege,” he followed up. “Killed everyone important, captured their women. They say Aeneas got away with one of our ships though.” Odysseus nodded. He had already figured that the man Neoptolemus had been chasing was Aphrodite’s son. “Some are looting, but most of our men are back, I have no idea where Ajax is though…”
“Where are the concubines?
“Now you care about the concubines all of a sudden?” Agamemnon grinned.
Odysseus stared back with a blank face. “I want to speak with Andromache.”
“Oh.” Agamemnon scratched the back of his head. “The men are setting up camp on shore. Ask one of them.” Odysseus nodded. As he was heading off, he heard Neoptolemus inhale deeply and announce that he was going to go to the temple and pray.