Chapter 2 - Inside the Walls
On my second morning in Troy, I woke before sunrise because Myrine owned a rooster with religious ambitions.
It began shouting into the darkness as though personally responsible for the arrival of dawn.
I lay on the bed and considered killing it.
Then I remembered I was a guest.
By sunrise, the city was already moving.
I climbed to the roof with a cup of watered wine and watched smoke rise from courtyards. Doors opened. Women swept dust from thresholds into streets that were themselves made of dust. Men led animals toward the market. Children were sent on errands and immediately became distracted.
From above, Troy looked less like a single city than several cities pressed together.
The lower settlement spread wide across the slope, crowded with houses, workshops, storage areas, animal pens, and narrow streets. Above it stood the fortified citadel, where the palace complex, temples, important storerooms, and houses of powerful families occupied the higher ground.
The division was visible.
So was the dependence.
The high city needed the low city to eat.
The low city needed the high city to protect it.
By midmorning I had arranged for a local guide.
His name was Dymas.
He was perhaps forty, though the sun had written enough lines across his face to make him look older. He had once worked with traders near the docks and spoke several tongues badly but confidently.
“You want to see Troy?” he asked.
“That is why I came.”
“No. You came to sell oil.”
“I can do both.”
He shrugged.
“Then walk.”
We began near the main gate.
Dymas slapped the stone wall with his palm.
“Everyone asks about this first.”
“Because it is enormous.”
“Because visitors are easy to impress.”
I ran my fingers over the stone.
Blocks fitted together in broad courses. The wall did not rise straight but leaned inward slightly as it climbed. Towers guarded key approaches.
“How old?” I asked.
Dymas shrugged again.
“Older than your questions.”
I wrote that down.
He noticed.
“You write everything?”
“Only the useful things.”
“Then your tablet must stay empty.”
I liked him immediately.
We walked through streets I had not seen the day before.
Some were wide enough for carts to pass.
Others forced people sideways when animals came through.
Open drains carried waste water downhill. Large jars sat inside storerooms. In one courtyard, women ground grain between heavy stones. In another, a potter turned wet clay with practiced hands.
Everywhere I looked, someone was making something.
Bread.
Cloth.
Shoes.
Weapons.
Rope.
Pots.
Wine.
Stories.
Dymas led me toward the upper city.
The road steepened.
The houses changed.
Courtyards became larger.
Doors were heavier.
The number of guards increased.
We passed a group of young men training with spears in an open space.
Their shields flashed in the sun.
I stopped.
Dymas did not.
“Come.”
“Are they soldiers?”
“What do you think?”
“I think they look very serious.”
“They look serious because old men are watching.”
One of the trainees lost his footing and nearly fell.
An older instructor shouted something I was glad not to understand.
Dymas smiled.
“See?”
Farther up, we reached a point where I could see over part of the wall.
The plain spread below.
From there, Troy’s location made sense.
Roads converged across the landscape.
Beyond the fields lay routes toward the coast and the narrow waters connecting larger seas.
Trade moved through this region.
So did armies.
“Beautiful,” I said.
Dymas leaned against the wall.
“You visitors always say that.”
“You disagree?”
“No. I have simply seen it every day.”
I thought about that.
People become blind to their own wonders.
Perhaps that is necessary.
No one could live normally if they remained astonished by everything around them.
We entered a courtyard near the upper district where officials moved between buildings.
I saw scribes with tablets.
Messengers.
Servants carrying jars.
Men in better clothing than mine.
This was not the private heart of the palace, but it was close enough for me to feel the difference.
Power had a sound.
Less shouting.
More waiting.
People lowered their voices here.
At midday, Dymas took me to a shaded place overlooking the lower city.
We ate bread, goat cheese, olives, and onions.
I asked him whether Troy was safe.
“Safe from what?”
“Enemies.”
He laughed so suddenly I nearly dropped my food.
“Every city has enemies.”
“These walls look difficult to take.”
“That is why they exist.”
“Has anyone tried?”
“Many people try many things.”
He said it as though war were weather.
Unpleasant.
Expected.
Temporary.
Below us, the market continued.
Children chased one another between stalls.
A woman yelled at her husband.
A dog stole something and ran.
The city seemed too alive to imagine under attack.
That afternoon Dymas left me near Myrine’s house.
“Well?” he asked.
“I understand Troy better.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You know where things are. That is not the same.”
Then he walked away.
I hated when people said intelligent things immediately before leaving.
That evening I climbed the roof again.
The walls glowed red beneath sunset.
From outside, Troy had looked like a fortress.
From inside, it felt like a crowded town that happened to be wearing armor.
I wrote that down.
For years afterward, whenever I remembered Troy, that was the image that returned first.
Not soldiers.
Not kings.
May you like
A city wearing armor.
And none of us yet knew how badly we were going to need it.
