Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers - Donald Cotton [50]
‘Diomede!’ called Troilus, approaching at a gallop. ‘You and I are going to settle this Cressida business, once and for all!’
With a muttered apology to me for the delay, Achilles turned to face him, smiling like a scimitar. ‘Wrong hero, I’m afraid, my little cadet! Diomede is dead – so perhaps Achilles can oblige you?’
For a moment Troilus looked a bit like a very young terrier who’s stumbled on a tiger, sleeping it off in a fox-hole. But only for a moment. He was made of good stuff, that boy!
‘My brother Hector’s murderer? Well, it seems you feared to face Paris’ – loyal to the last, you see? – ‘but I thank Zeus for setting you before me! Now, go to seek your friend Patroclus...’
And he flew at the sneering muscle-man like a falcon on a good day.
Well, a falcon he may have been – but Achilles was an eagle, make no mistake about that! And it seemed to me there could be only one end to this ill-advised encounter, as they whirled and pirouetted about the plain, swapping insults and carving the occasional slice out of each other. Troilus was game, all right, but he wasn’t an Odysseus by any means, and that was the sort of solid oak article the situation called for. He was also inexperienced at this sort of thing, while Achilles was the best the Greeks had to offer. Even Hector hadn’t found him a walk-over, if you remember? No – I had grown fond of Troilus, and I didn’t think I could bear to watch.
And pretty soon I couldn’t anyway – because a backhand swipe by Achilles caught me across what was left of my ruined face. And that was the end of my surviving eye!
I was thinking as I lay there, bleeding in the dust, that, while wishing Troilus all the luck in the world, I would rather Achilles finished him off as quickly as convenient; so that he could turn his attention to me, and end the matter as promised. Life had not had my best interests at heart for some time, I considered; and the sooner I was out of it, the better.
One does think like that, at times. A passing mood, of course.
And before long I heard what could only be a death-cry – a thoroughly unpleasant gargling noise; then the crashing collapse of an armoured body, sounding like a felled tree, screaming to ruin in the sudden silence; and I braced myself for my coming quietus.
‘Come on, little Cyclops,’ said my friend Troilus. ‘You can get up now – it’s all over!’ And he took my shattered head in his arms, bless him!
‘Forgive me, Troilus,’ I said, once I could speak again, ‘but what happened? Please don’t think I haven’t every confidence in you, but how in Hades did you bring that off?’
‘Achilles caught his heel in the brambles – stumbled, and that was it. I had him.’ His heel? Wouldn’t you know? Those oracles can tell us a thing or two, can’t they, if we’ll only listen!
‘And now,’ said Troilus, ‘let me help you back home, where you can be looked after properly.’
Well, of course, that was the last thing I wanted; and I was about to explain that current medical thinking would incline to the suggestion that I rest where I damn’ well was for a bit, when the most appalling racket I ever heard erupted in the far distance, as Odysseus and his men started operations.
And soon there was no place like home – or nothing to speak of, anyway. Armageddon just wasn’t it in, for nations furiously raging!
And so we sat there, the two of us, alone in the darkness; while Troy, and all the sane sophistication it stood for, disappeared amongst what are laughingly called the myths of antiquity.
Ironic, isn’t it? Your man in Scamander, with the greatest scoop of his life being enacted before him, unable to see a blind –
forgive me – thing!
So I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much about it, after all.
But as far as ear-witnessing is concerned, I could do that all right
– and soon began to wish I couldn’t: the