I WAS INSIDE TROY — THE WAR THAT DESTROYED A CITY ( A first-person historical-mythic novel narrated by Theron )

Hello, friends. My name is Theron, and the first time I saw Troy, I was standing ankle-deep in dust with a torn sandal and a mule that had decided it hated me.

That is not how legends usually begin, but it is how mine did.

I had heard stories about Troy since I was a boy. Merchants described its walls as if the gods themselves had stacked the stones. Sailors spoke of its wealth, its horses, its bronze, its markets, its princes, and the ships that came and went through the waters nearby. Every storyteller made the city larger. Every cup of wine added another tower.

So when I finally reached the plain below it, I expected disappointment.

Instead, I stopped walking.

The city rose ahead of me on a low hill above the plain, its walls catching the morning light in long bands of pale gold and gray. From a distance they did not look impossibly tall. They looked worse than that.

They looked permanent.

Fields stretched below them. Wheat moved in the wind like water. Shepherds drove goats along dirt tracks. Carts creaked toward the gates carrying jars, timber, sacks of grain, dyed cloth, baskets of figs, and people from places I could not name by their clothes alone.

The air smelled of dry earth, animals, smoke, and crushed herbs.

I stood there longer than necessary.

A merchant behind me clicked his tongue.

“If you plan to worship the wall,” he said, “move aside so the rest of us can enter the city.”

I stepped out of the road.

My name was Theron of Chios. I was twenty-seven years old, though at the time I believed that made me experienced. My father sold oil, wine, and dyed wool. I had inherited his habit of travel but not his patience for bargaining. I preferred listening to people, asking questions, and writing things down on wax tablets until someone told me I was being rude.

I had come to Troy to trade small quantities of oil and cloth and to remain for perhaps three weeks.

That was the plan.

Travel has always enjoyed humiliating plans.

The closer I came to the city, the more details appeared.

The main gate was wider than I expected. Guards stood beneath heavy timbers with bronze-tipped spears. The stonework around them leaned inward slightly, giving the entrance a strength I could feel even before I touched it.

People passed through in both directions.

A woman carrying onions argued with a guard about a fee.

Two boys chased each other between carts until an older man shouted at them.

A donkey brayed loudly enough to interrupt everyone.

No one looked like a legend.

That comforted me.

When my turn came, a guard looked at my goods.

“Oil?”

“Yes.”

“Wine?”

“Some.”

“Weapons?”

“One knife.”

He looked at the knife on my belt.

“That won’t save you from much.”

“It usually saves cheese.”

He stared at me.

Then he laughed and waved me through.

I stepped inside Troy.

The city was louder than the plain.

The first thing I heard was metal.

Hammer on bronze.

The sound came from a workshop near the road. Sparks flashed in the dim interior while a broad-shouldered smith leaned over a glowing piece of metal.

Then came voices.

Sellers calling prices.

Women bargaining.

Children shouting.

Animals protesting.

Somewhere nearby, bread was baking.

I smelled it before I saw the oven.

The street climbed gradually toward the higher part of the city. Houses stood close together in some places and opened into courtyards in others. Their lower walls were stone, their upper portions mud brick and timber. Jars stood near doorways. Laundry hung in shaded corners. Small shrines occupied niches where people paused briefly before continuing with their day.

I realized almost immediately that the Troy I had imagined had been empty.

My Troy had consisted of walls, towers, princes, and armies.

The real Troy had bakers.

It had children with dirty knees.

It had old men sitting on stools outside workshops.

It had women shouting from upper windows.

It had dogs sleeping in the middle of roads as though they owned them.

That first hour changed everything.

I bought a round loaf of bread from a woman near the market.

It was warm enough to burn my fingers.

She watched me tear off a piece.

“First day?” she asked.

“Is it obvious?”

“You keep looking up.”

I looked up again.

She smiled.

“Everyone does.”

The market opened before me in a crowded square.

Bronze tools.

Wool.

Leather.

Fish laid over wet reeds.

Jars of oil.

Baskets of onions and beans.

Dried figs.

Cheese.

Bright cloth.

Small carved figures of gods.

I could hear at least five languages within a short walk.

A man from the islands argued with an Anatolian trader. A woman wearing jewelry unlike anything I had seen sold beads of colored stone. A pair of sailors drank wine much too early in the day.

I felt exactly what I had hoped to feel.

Curiosity.

Troy was not a story anymore.

It was a place.

By afternoon I found a room in the house of a widow named Myrine, who rented space to merchants. My room contained a low bed, a stool, one shelf, and a window so small I could cover it with my hand.

“It gets sun in the morning,” Myrine said proudly.

“It gets part of the sun.”

“You want the whole sun, sleep outside.”

I paid her.

From the roof of her house, I could see the upper city.

The citadel rose above the lower streets. Larger buildings stood within stronger walls. Beyond everything stretched the plain and, farther away, the road toward the sea.

Smoke climbed from a hundred cooking fires.

A bell sounded somewhere.

Birds circled above the walls.

I took out my wax tablet.

My first line was simple.

Troy is not what I expected.

I erased it.

Then I wrote something better.

I came to Troy expecting legends.

What I found was a city full of ordinary people.