Ilium

32 Achilles’ Tent

I have to kill Patroclus.

That realization comes to me like a whisper in the night as I lie here in the Myrmidon encampment, in Achilles’ tent, wrapped in the shell of Phoenix’ old body.

I have to kill Patroclus.

I’ve never killed anyone. Jesus Christ, I protested the Vietnam War as a college student, couldn’t put the family dog to sleep—had to have my wife take her to the vet—and considered myself a pacifist for most of my academic life. I’ve never hit another man, for Christ’s sake.

I have to kill Patroclus.

It’s the only way. I trusted that rhetoric would do it—old Phoenix’s revised rhetoric—that rhetoric would persuade the man-killer Achilles into meeting with Hector, into ending this war, into burying the hatchet.

Yeah, right in my forehead.

Achilles’ decision to leave—to return to a long life of pleasure but little glory—is deeply shocking to this scholic, to any student of the Iliad, but it makes sense. Honor is still more important than life to Achilles, but after Agamemnon’s insults, he sees no honor in killing Hector and then being killed in turn. Odysseus—that ultimate rhetorician—was eloquent in his explanation and evocation of how the living Achaeans and countless generations after would honor Achilles’ memory, but it’s not their honor that Achilles cares about. Only his sense of honor counts here, and there will be no honor now for him in killing Agamemnon’s enemies and dying for Agamemnon’s and Menelaus’ objectives. Only Achilles’ honor counts, and he’d rather sail for home in a few hours and live the life of a lesser mortal, forsaking his chance to be part of this band of brothers twenty centuries before Prince Hal and Agincourt, than compromise any more honor here on the bloody plains of Ilium.

I see that now. Why didn’t I see it before? If Odysseus could not convince Achilles to fight—Odysseus of the crafty ways and silver tongue—why did I think I’d succeed? I was a fool. Homer made me a fool, but I was still a fool.

I have to kill Patroclus .

Not long after Odysseus and Big Ajax left, just after the torches and tripod fires were extinguished in the main room of Achilles’ tent, I heard slave girls being escorted in for the pleasure of Achilles and Patroclus. I’d never seen either of these slave girls, but I knew their names—Homer leaves no one nameless in the Iliad. Achilles’ girl (I couldn’t have used that word while teaching at Indiana University in my other life or the Political Correctness Police would have had my job, but here it doesn’t seem appropriate to call these giggling sex toys “women”) was named Diomede, Phorbas’ daughter from the isle of Lesbos—although she was no lesbian. Patroclus’ main squeeze was named Iphis. I almost laughed out loud as I caught a glimpse of them through the folds in the tent door—Achilles, who is tall and blond and statuesque and chiseled with muscle, preferred the tiny, stocky, brunette and large-breasted Diomede; Patroclus, who is much shorter than Achilles and dark-haired, had opted for the tall, blonde, thin, small-busted Iphis. For half an hour or so, I could hear the women’s laughter, the men’s rough conversation, and then the moans and cries from all four in Achilles’ sleeping chamber. Obviously the hero and his pal had no qualms about having sex in the same room with each other, even commenting on it while it was occurring, which makes me think more of Bloomington, Indiana, male Realtors or lodge brothers having a weekend in the big city than it does of the noble warriors of this heroic age. Barbaric.

Then the girls left—giggling again—and there was silence except for muttered exchanges between the guards outside the tent and the crackle of brazier flames keeping those guards warm. That and monstrous snoring from Achilles’ sleeping chamber. I hadn’t heard Patroclus leave, so either he or the golden hero sounded like he had a deviated septum.

Now I lie here and consider my options. No, first I morph out of Phoenix’s old form—damn the consequences!—and lie here as Thomas Hockenberry and consider my options.

I have my hand on the QT medallion. I can jump to Helen’s sleeping chambers again—I know for a fact that Paris is out beyond the trench here, miles from the city, waiting for dawn to join Hector in the final slaughter of Greeks and the burning of the Achaean ships. Helen might be happy to see me. Or she might have no further use or amusement from the night-visitor named Hockenberry—how strange that someone here other than another scholic knows my name!—and she might call her guards. No problem with that; I can always QT away in an instant.

To what destination?

I can give up this mad plan to change the course of the Iliad, abandon my goal—formed on the night that Agamemnon and Achilles first quarreled—of defying the immortal gods, QT to Olympos, apologize to the Muse and to Aphrodite when they decant her, ask Zeus for a personal audience, and beg for a pardon.

Uh-huh. What are the odds that they’d forgive and forget, Hockenbush? You stole the Hades Helmet, the QT medallion, and all your scholic gear and used them for your own purposes. You fled from the Muse. Worst of all, you hijacked a flying chariot and tried to kill Aphrodite in her healing tank.

My best hope after apologizing would be that Zeus or Aphrodite or the Muse would kill me quickly, rather than turn me inside out or cast me down into the murky pit of Tartarus, where I’d probably be eaten alive by Kronos and the other barbarous Titans banished there by Zeus.

No, I’ve buttered my bread and now I have to lie in it. Or however that phrase goes. In for a penny, in for a pound. No guts, no glory. Better safe than sorry. But while I’m struggling for a cliché, any cliché, a profound realization settles over me in a profoundly unprofessorial but absolutely convincing phrasing—

If I don’t think of something soon, I am well and truly fucked.

I can go reason with Odysseus.

Odysseus is the sane one here, the civilized man, the wise tactician. Odysseus may be the answer tonight. I’ll have a better chance convincing Odysseus that an end to this war with the Trojans and common cause against the all-too-human gods is an option. To tell you the truth, I always enjoyed teaching the Odyssey to my students more than the Iliad ; Fitzgerald’s sensibilities in the Odyssey are so much more humane than the rough bellicosity of Mandelbaum’s and Lattimore’s and Fagles’s and even Pope’s Iliad. I was mistaken to think that I could find the fulcrum of events by coming here with the embassy to Achilles. No, Achilles isn’t the man to approach this night—what’s left of this night—but Odysseus, son of Laertes, a man who might understand a scholar’s pleas and the compelling logic of peace.

I actually rise and touch the QT medallion, ready to go find Odysseus and make my plea. There’s only one little problem that keeps me from QTing in search of Odysseus: if Homer was telling the truth, I know what’s happening elsewhere while I’ve been lying in this tent and brooding. Agamemnon and Menelaus can’t sleep for their own brooding on the course of events, and some time around now, or perhaps in the last hour or so, the older and more royal brother calls for Nestor and asks for ideas that might stave off the massacre that seems so imminent. Nestor recommends a war counsel with Diomedes, Odysseus, Little Ajax, and some of the other Achaean captains. Once these leaders are gathered, Nestor suggests that the boldest among them should sneak behind Trojan lines and divine Hector’s intentions—will the Trojans and their allies try to burn the ships in a few hours’ time? Or is it possible that Hector has had enough blood and victory for now, and will lead his hordes back into the city to celebrate before opening further hostilities?

Diomedes and Odysseus are chosen to go find out, and since the two have come to this counsel from sleep, without their own weapons, they’re given gear by the guards, including a bull’s-hide helmet for Diomedes and a famous Mycaenaean boar’s-tusk helmet for Odysseus. With the skin of a lion that Diomedes has thrown across his shoulders and Odysseus’ black-leather helmet studded around with white teeth, the two warriors are terrifying to look upon.

Should I QT to that conference and observe it?

There’s no reason. Diomedes and Odysseus may already have left on their commando raid. Or Homer might have been lying or mistaken about this action, just as he was with Phoenix’s speech. Besides, it won’t help with my problem right now. I’m not a scholic anymore, just a man trying to find away to survive and end this war—or at least turn it against the gods.

Although there’s another part of tonight’s action elsewhere that comes to mind and chills my blood. When Diomedes and Odysseus venture out, they discover Dolon—the spearman whose body I borrowed just two nights ago when I followed Hector into his meeting with Helen and Paris—who’s been sent behind Achaean lines to spy for Hector. Dolon’s carrying a reflex bow and wearing a cap made of weasel skin and he’s sneaking carefully through the field of newly fallen dead in the dark, hunting for a way across the trench and past the Greek guards on the line, but sharp-eyed Odysseus sees him coming in the darkness and he and Diomedes lie among the corpses, surprise Dolon, and disarm him.

The Trojan begs for his life. Odysseus will tell him—if he hasn’t already—that “Death is the last thing you have to worry about”—and then calmly, quietly pumps the young spearman for specific information about the disposition of Hector’s Trojans and their allies.

Dolon tells all—the location of the Carians and Paeonians and Leleges and Cauconians, the sleeping areas of the crack Pelesgians and the stolid, faithful Lycians and the cock-strutting Mysians, the whereabouts of the camp of the famed Phrygian horsemen and the Maeonian charioteers—he tells everything and begs for his life. He even suggests that they tie him up and keep him prisoner until they see for themselves that his information is correct.

Odysseus will smile, or perhaps he already has, and will pat the shaking, terrified Dolon on the shoulder—I remember the muscled balance of Dolon’s body from when I was morphed as the boy—and then the son of Laertes and Diomedes will strip the young man’s cap and bow and wolf pelt—Odysseus softly telling the terrified boy that they’re disarming him before bringing him to camp as a prisoner—and then Diomedes will hack Dolon’s head off with one savage blow of his sword. Dolon’s head will still be shrieking for mercy as it bounces across the sand.

And Odysseus will hold up the boy’s spear and bow and weasel cap and wolf-pelt, and will offer them to Pallas Athena, crying—“Rejoice in these, Goddess. They’re yours! Now guide us to the Thracian camp so that we can kill more men and steal their horses! Those spoils, too, will be yours.”

Barbarians. I’m among barbarians. Even the gods here are barbarians. One thing is sure—I won’t be going to talk to Odysseus tonight.

But why does Patroclus have to die?

Because I was right the first time—Achilles is the key, the fulcrum through which I can shift the fates of everyone, gods and men alike.

I don’t think that Achilles will leave in a few hours when Dawn stretches forth her rosy fingertips. Uh-uh. I think Achilles will stay and observe, just as he does in Homer’s tale, taking pleasure in further misfortune for the Greeks. “I think now that the Achaeans will come crawl at my knees,” Achilles will say after the next bad day, when all the great captains—Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes, and Odysseus—are hurt. And this is after last night’s embassy to Achilles, where they’ve already groveled to get him back. Achilles will take pleasure in the defeat of his fellow Argives and Achaeans, and it’s only Hector’s murder of his friend Patroclus, snoring now in the next room, that will bring the man-killer back to the battlefield.

So Patroclus has to die to turn the direction of events now.

I stand and take inventory of the things I’m wearing and carrying. A short sword, yes, to blend in with the troops, but I’ve never used the damned thing and know it doesn’t even have an edge. The Muse gave it to me as a prop, not a weapon. For real defense these past nine years, I’ve been equipped with the lightweight layer of impact armor—enough to stop a sword thrust or errant spear or arrow, we were told in the scholics barracks, although I have never had to test it—and the 50,000-volt taser tucked into the end of the shotgun mike baton we all carry. That weapon was designed only to stun an aggressor long enough for us to escape to a QT portal. Other hardware includes the lenses that enhance my vision, filters that boost my hearing, the stolen, cowl-like Hades Helmet furled around my shoulders, the QT medallion on its chain around my neck, and the morphing bracelet on my wrist.

Suddenly a plan—or at least part of a plan—begins to form in my tired mind.

I act before I can lose my nerve. Pulling up the Hades Helmet, disappearing from mortal and divine sight, feeling like Frodo or Bilbo or the gollum slipping on the ring that binds them all, I tiptoe from the sleeping annex where they laid out Phoenix’s cushion to Achilles’ bedchamber.

Achilles and Patroclus are sleeping together naked, the slave girls long gone, Patroclus’ arm flung across the man-killer’s shoulders.

This sight in the dim light stops me in my tracks. Achilles is gay? That means that stupid gay- and lesbian-obsessed junior professor in the department was right—his ranting papers correct—all that politically correct babble true!

I shake this out of my head. It means nothing except that I’m three thousand years away from Twenty-first Century Indiana and that I don’t know what I’m seeing. These two men have just fornicated with slave girls for two hours and fell asleep where they lay. And besides, who cares about the secret love life of Achilles?

I trigger the morphing band and bring up the scan I’d made two days earlier in the hall of the gods on Olympos. I don’t know if this will work—the other scholics used to laugh at the idea.

Probability waves shift through quantum layers I can’t perceive. The air seems to quiver, stand still, then quiver again. I slip the soft Hades Helmet off my head and become visible.

Visible as Pallas Athena, Tritogenia, Third Born of the Gods, Daughter of Zeus, defender of the Achaeans. Nine feet tall, radiating my own divine light, I step closer to the bed as both Achilles and Patroclus awake with a start.

I can feel the instability in every atom in this morphed form. The morphing bracelet was not designed for us to take the form of gods, but although my shape hums like a hardstruck harp, I use the short time this quantum substitution will give me. I work to ignore the sensation not only of suddenly having breasts and a vagina—I’ve never morphed into the form of a woman before—but also ignore the sensation of being a goddess.

The form is unstable. I know in my heart that I haven’t assumed the powers of Athena, just borrowed her quantum shell for these few seconds. Feeling as if there’s going to be some nuclear reaction, a morphing meltdown, if I don’t shed the quantum waveform of Athena quickly, I speak fast.

“Achilles! Wake! On your feet!”

“Goddess!” cries the fleet-footed man-killer, rolling from the cushions to the floor. “What brings you here in the middle of the night, Child of Zeus?”

Rubbing his eyes, Patroclus also struggles to his feet. Both men are naked, their bodies more sculpted and beautiful than the finest Greek statues, their uncircumcised penises dangling against their muscled and tanned thighs.

“BE QUIET!” I bellow. Athena’s voice comes out amplified, superhuman. I know that I’m waking the others in Achilles’ tent and probably alarming the guards outside. I have less than a minute. As if to prove my point, Athena’s golden arm quivers, shifts to Professor Thomas Hockenberry’s pale and hairy forearm, and then morphs back to Athena’s. I see that Achilles’ eyes are downcast and that he hasn’t noticed. Patroclus stares wide-eyed, confused.

“Goddess, if I have offended you . . .” begins Achilles, raising his eyes but keeping his head bowed.

“SILENCE!!” I bellow. “CAN AN ANT CRAWLING IN THE DIRT OFFEND A MAN? CAN THE LOWEST AND UGLIEST FISH IN THE SEA OFFEND THE SAILOR WHOSE THOUGHTS ARE ON OTHER THINGS?”

“An ant?” repeats Achilles, his handsome, sculpted face showing a rebuked child’s confusion.

“YOU’RE ALL LESS THAN ANTS TO THE GODS,” I roar, taking a step closer so that Athena’s radiance flickers over them like radioactive light. “YOU’VE AMUSED US WITH YOUR DEATHS, ACHILLES . . . SON OF PELEUS AND IDIOT CHILD OF THETIS.”

“Idiot child,” repeats Achilles, red rising to his high cheekbones. “Goddess, how have I . . .”

“SILENCE, COWARD!” I’ve amplified Athena’s voice until they could hear this insult in Agamemnon’s camp almost a mile down the beach. “WE CARE NOTHING FOR YOU. NOTHING FOR ANY OF YOU. YOUR DEATHS AMUSE US . . . BUT YOUR COWARDICE DOES NOT, SWIFT-RUNNING ACHILLES!” I sneer these last few words, turning the poet’s honorific into a demeaning insult.

Achilles balls his fists and takes a half step forward, as if approaching a foe. “Goddess, Pallas Athena, Defender of Achaeans, I have always offered you the finest sacrifices . . .”

“A COWARD’S SACRIFICE MEANS NOTHING TO US ON OLYMPOS,” I roar. I feel the probability wave that is the real goddess Athena approaching critical collapse. I have only seconds in this half-morphed form.

“WE’LL TAKE AND BURN OUR OWN SACRIFICE FROM THIS MOMENT ON,” I say and Athena’s arm extends toward Patroclus, the baton hidden under my forearm, my finger on the activator. “IF YOU WANT YOUR BOYFRIEND’S CORPSE, FIGHT YOUR WAY TO THE HALLS OF OLYMPOS TO GET IT, COWARD ACHILLES!”

I taser Patroclus in the center of his tanned, hairless chest, the near-invisible electrodes and invisible wires carrying 50,000 volts into him.

Patroclus seizes his chest as if struck by a lightning bolt, cries out, twitches and writhes as if in the throes of an epileptic fit, pisses himself, and collapses.

Before Achilles can react—the swift-footed warrior stands there naked with his hands balled into fists and his eyes bugging out, too shocked to move—I have Athena take two steps forward, grab the collapsed and apparently dead Patroclus by his hair, and drag him roughly across the floor.

Achilles unfreezes, snarls, and pulls his sword from its scabbard on the chair.

Still dragging the limp Patroclus by his hair, Athena’s form quivering out of quantum morph stability now and as static-lashed as a bad TV picture, I touch the medallion at my throat and quantum teleport Patroclus and me the hell out of Achilles’ tent.