Chapter 16 - The Funeral of Hector
Years passed until I stopped trusting numbers.
Was it the eighth year?
The ninth?
The tenth?
People argued about it.
Children born after the first Achaean landing were now old enough to carry water for soldiers.
Some had never seen the plain without enemy fires.
The original reason for the war had become almost abstract.
Helen still lived in Troy.
Menelaus still wanted her returned.
Agamemnon still commanded.
But ordinary people no longer woke thinking about Sparta.
We thought about flour.
Wood.
Water.
Medicine.
Whether a brother had returned from guard duty.
Whether a roof would survive winter.
Whether tomorrow’s bread would be smaller than today’s.
The city had changed physically.
Walls bore repairs.
Streets were patched.
Empty houses appeared where families had died or left.
Workshops had new owners.
Children took over tasks once done by fathers.
Sira’s bakery still operated, but her hair had turned almost entirely gray.
Makon the potter no longer avoided me because he had finally repaid his debt.
I considered this proof civilization could survive anything.
Myrine moved more slowly.
Dymas walked with a cane after an injury near the gate.
Ione and I had married without ceremony worthy of a poem.
We stood before family and friends, made promises, ate too much bread, drank not enough wine, and went home.
It was the happiest day of the siege.
Perhaps of my life.
We had no child.
Not yet.
Ione wanted one.
I was afraid.
“How can we bring a child into this?” I asked.
She looked around our small room.
“People have been bringing children into worse since people began.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It is not meant to be.”
She always won arguments by refusing to make them pleasant.
Then, one morning, the impossible happened.
The Greek camp was quiet.
Too quiet.
A guard noticed first.
No smoke from breakfast fires.
No movement among tents.
No horns.
No patrols.
By midday, the walls were crowded.
I climbed despite Dymas telling me not to.
Below us, the Achaean camp appeared abandoned.
Ships were gone.
The shoreline that had been lined with black hulls for years stood almost empty.
Tents remained.
Broken equipment.
Ash.
Tracks.
But the army—gone.
No one trusted it.
Not at first.
Scouts were sent cautiously.
Hours passed.
They returned.
“The Greeks have sailed.”
People began crying.
Some laughed.
Some screamed.
Someone shouted that the gods had saved Troy.
Another shouted Hector’s name.
The gates did not immediately open fully.
Priam’s advisers argued.
Soldiers searched.
Then came the report of something left behind.
A structure.
Large.
Wooden.
By late afternoon, word spread through every street.
A horse.
The Greeks had left a gigantic wooden horse outside Troy.
Myrine stared at me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is a terrible answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
Ione was not celebrating.
Neither was Dymas.
Too many years had taught us suspicion.
But outside our house, Troy was already changing.
People opened stored jars of wine.
Musicians appeared.
Someone hung cloth across a street.
Children ran shouting:
“They’re gone! They’re gone!”
For the first time in almost ten years, nobody could see the Achaeans on the plain.
That afternoon, people ventured farther onto the abandoned ground. Some searched for useful metal. Others looked for missing relatives whose bodies had never been recovered. Children collected strange objects until adults shouted at them to stop touching weapons.
I walked near one of the old Greek cooking areas. A cracked cup lay beside a fire pit. Someone had scratched simple lines into it. Perhaps a name. Perhaps a game.
I picked it up.
For years, I had imagined the Greeks as a single thing. An army. An enemy. The cup reminded me that individual men had sat there eating, complaining, missing home, fearing us.
I put it back.
Dymas watched me.
'What?' I asked.
'Nothing.'
'That was a meaningful nothing.'
He smiled faintly. It was an old joke from another life.
On our way back, we passed graves. Too many to count. Some marked. Most not. Troy had survived, but the plain itself had become a cemetery shared by both sides.
When we reentered the city, people were preparing celebration. Garlands appeared. Wine jars were opened. Someone began practicing music.
I should have felt free.
Instead, I felt watched.
May you like
Not by Greeks.
By the empty horizon.
