Troy: A Brand of Fire

  *

  At the Scaean Gate the road turned sharply west, so it ran with the wall of Troy hard on the right hand side. From beyond the entrance itself an arm of the battlement extended to flank the road on the other side, so the chariots rolled through a canyon of stone with a parapet on each flank. Then they turned hard again, this time to the right, and passed between the bronze-bound cedar weights of the gates.

  Inside, the road was made of smoothly fitted ashlar stones, similar to the walls. On the left was the long front of the stables, set back from the road so wagons had room to park when they brought straw in or night soil out. On the right were houses, and side streets that curved off between them, and all were filled with people. Some were cheering, waving their arms in the air and shouting out names. None of those names were Greek, Nestor noticed at once. The crowds called for Hector and he raised an arm in salute, at which they went crazy with excitement. They shouted for Aeneas and when he acknowledged them they roared as though cheering themselves. But not one of them yelled the name of Menelaus or Menestheus, not that Nestor heard, and none named him either.

  Of course, Achaea and Troy had not been on good terms, during this past two years or so. There was no real reason for the citizens to cry in support of Greek kings. But there wasn’t a reason for them not to, either, because the presence of three lords of Achaea here on the streets of Troy should mean there was a chance of better relations ahead. This universal obliviousness was… odd. His senses, already prickling, tingled anew.

  He wished he’d been able to bring Odysseus. He’d invited the young Ithacan, but Penelope was with child at last and near to her time, and Odysseus hadn’t wanted to leave her alone. Nestor couldn’t blame him for that. But the other man’s insight and dry wit would have been invaluable here, when something was niggling at the back of Nestor’s mind and he couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was.

  He wasn’t going to ask Thersites. Not until he was sure of the man, and certainly not now, in the midst of a crowd.

  They drove along the High Street of Troy, through the throng that cheered only for its own and not for the visiting kings, towards the higher wall of the Pergamos, dead ahead.