‘If all is as you said, Argurios, then the guilty men will be harshly dealt with.’
But they had not been. After that Argurios had rarely been invited into the king’s presence. Indeed, when Agamemnon last visited the Cave of Wings Argurios was not one of the twelve, though Kolanos was.
Pushing aside such thoughts Argurios entered the lower town of Troy, seeking the Street of Ambassadors. He soon became lost, and was loth to ask directions. He paused by a well and sat down in the shade of a wall on which the figure of Artemis the Huntress had been incised. It was a fine work. Her image had been captured in full run, her bow bent, as if chasing a quarry.
‘I want you to go to Troy,’ Agamemnon King had said, on their final meeting.
‘I am at your command, my king. What would you have me do there?’
‘Study their defences. You may explain your findings to Erekos the ambassador.
He will send me your reports.’
‘With respect, my king, he can already describe the fortifications. What purpose is served by my travelling there?’
‘My purpose,’ said Agamemnon. ‘And you know as well as I that fortifications alone are not the key to strength. Men win or lose wars. Study the soldiers.
Look to their disciplines and their weaknesses. Troy is the richest city on the Great Green. It has enormous wealth, and even greater influence. No venture across the sea can succeed if Troy is against it. Therefore Troy must fall to the Mykene.’
‘We are to attack Troy?’
‘Not immediately. It may not even be necessary. We now have friends within the royal family. One of those friends may soon be king. Then there will be no need to storm the city. However, as my father taught me, it is always wise to have more than one plan. You will travel with Glaukos. He is related to Erekos the ambassador. He can also read and write – a skill I believe you have not mastered.’
‘No, lord.’
‘He may be useful to you.’
‘The boy lacks heart. I would not trust him in a hard fight.’
‘You will not be in hard fights, Argurios.’
‘Might I ask the result of your investigations into the massacre?’
Agamemnon had waved his hand. ‘Exaggerated stories. A few people were killed to emphasize the futility of opposing Mykene rule. There is a ship leaving later today. The captain will be expecting you.’
The memory of that last conversation hung on him like a shroud. Agamemnon had been more than cool towards him. There was an underlying feeling of hostility emanating from the king.
Rising from his seat, Argurios continued to walk through the city, becoming ever more lost in the maze of streets. Finally he was forced to seek help from a street seller.
Following the man’s directions, he found himself in front of a large but anonymous house in the lower town, tucked under the west wall of the city. There was an armed man outside the gate. He wore no armour – Argurios was later to
discover that the wearing of a breastplate and helmet was a privilege given in the city only to soldiers of Troy – but his demeanour told Argurios that he was a Mykene warrior. Tall, grim, with grey eyes, the soldier looked at the visitor but said nothing.
‘I am Argurios, Follower to Agamemnon. I seek audience with Erekos.’
‘He is in Miletos, sir,’ the guard told him. ‘He is due back in the next few days. He has gone to meet the king.’
‘Agamemnon is in Miletos?’ The news surprised Argurios. Miletos was a large port city, between Lykia and Troy. The Penelope had sailed that coastline. It was infuriating to have been so close to his king without knowing it. He could have informed him of the events at Bad Luck Bay.
The guard gave him directions to a house where visitors could find a bed and food. Argurios took his few belongings with him, and was offered a small room, with a tiny window overlooking distant hills. The bed was rickety, the room musty. Argurios did not care. It would be used only for sleep.
Every morning for the next six days he walked to the ambassador’s house to seek news of his arrival. On discovering that Erekos had still not returned he would patrol the city, examining its defences as Agamemnon had ordered.
He soon discovered that Troy was not a single city. Its burgeoning wealth meant it was growing fast, spreading out over the hills and plain. At the highest point was the walled palace of the king. This had been the original citadel, and contained many ancient buildings, now used as treasuries, or offices for the king’s counsellors. There were two gates, one leading through to the women’s quarters, the second opening onto the courtyard before the huge double doors of the king’s megaron.
Extending out in a wide circle round the palace was the Upper City, containing the homes of the rich: merchants, princes and noblemen. Here there were great palaces and houses boasting statues and flowering trees, and gardens of extraordinary beauty. There were several large areas where craftsmen and artisans produced goods for the wealthy: jewellers, clothes makers, armourers, potters and bronzesmiths. There were dining halls and meeting places, a gymnasium and a theatre. The Upper City was defended by huge walls, and cunningly placed towers.
Outside these walls was the continuously growing Lower Town. This was largely indefensible. There were no walls, merely a series of wide ditches, some still under construction. Any large force could march unopposed through the streets, but there would be little plunder. Here there were few palaces. Mostly the area contained the homes of the poorer inhabitants: servants and lesser craftspeople, workers in the dye trade, or the fishing industry. The air was, in places, noxious with the stench of lime ash and cattle urine, used by cloth dyers, and fermented fish guts, processed for soups and broths.
But here was not where any battle for the city would be won or lost. The sack of Troy, Argurios knew, would come only when an enemy breached the Great Gates, or scaled the mighty walls.
The East Gate would be a nightmare to storm. The walls doubled back on themselves in a dog-leg, ensuring that invaders would be crammed together and assaulted by archers, peltasts, and spear throwers. Even heavy rocks thrown from such a height would crush an armoured man. And the gates themselves were thick, and reinforced with bronze. They would not burn easily.
However, the physical defences were not Argurios’ main concern. His skills, as Agamemnon knew, lay in the study of soldiers and their qualities and weaknesses. Wars were won and lost on four vital elements: morale, discipline, organization, and courage. Flaws in any one and defeat was assured. So he had studied the soldiers on the walls, their alertness and their demeanour. Were they careless or slack? Were their officers decisive and disciplined? Were they confident of their strength, or merely arrogant? These were the questions Agamemnon sought answers to. So Argurios sat in taverns and eating houses, listening to the conversations of soldiers, and watched them as they marched, or patrolled the walls. He chatted to traders at their stalls, and to old men sitting round wells talking of their days in the army.
The Trojan troops, he discovered, were highly disciplined and well trained. In conversations he found out that Priam regularly sent troops in support of the Hittites in their wars, and even hired out horsemen, foot soldiers and charioteers to neighbouring kingdoms, in order that the men would gain combat experience. While Troy itself had suffered no wars in more than two generations, its soldiers were battle-hardened men. It had been difficult to gauge the exact number of fighting men Troy could call upon, but Argurios believed it to be no fewer than 10,000, including the 1,000 warriors of the Trojan Horse riding with Hektor against the Egypteians.
On first analysis it seemed Troy was unassailable, but Argurios knew that no fortress was ever unconquerable. How then to breach its defences? How many men would be needed?
For overwhelming force to destroy a besieged enemy the normal calculation was a factor of five. The Trojans had 10,000 men, therefore the minimum force to gather would be 50,000 warriors. That in itself precluded any Mykene invasion, for Agamemnon could not muster more than 15,000 fighting men if he conscripted every warrior in Mykene. And even if 50,000 could be gathered, a second logistical problem would arise. How to feed such an army? They would need to raid surrounding territories, and this would inflame the populations, causing uprisings and disaffection. The problem was a thorny one, but Argurios was determined to return to his king with a positive plan.
Then on the seventh day he learned that Erekos the ambassador had returned from Miletos.
