‘Pandrasus’ brother? And his sons? Far better than I’d hoped,” Brutus said, IG
noting how the youngest of the sons sat close to his father, and how Antigonus kept a hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if trying to offer him both comfort and protection.
‘The youngest boy,” Brutus said. “What do you know of him?”
‘His name is Melanthus,” Assaracus replied. “Antigonus’ youngest son, and most dearly beloved because of that.”
‘Is he a father before he is a general?” Brutus asked.
Assaracus hesitated before replying. “Aye, I think so. If you’d asked me that fifteen years ago, I would have said he was the general first, but as his family has grown, so Antigonus has grown more devoted to them.”
‘Would he put them before his people? His city? His brother ?”
‘Brutus, be careful what you scheme,” Membricus said, his brow furrowing as he realized what Brutus considered.
‘I only do what I must,” Brutus said, rising and walking toward Antigonus and his sons.
‘Antigonus!” he said as Antigonus and his sons stood, wary-eyed. “Have my men treated you well?
Do you have need for anything I might provide?”
‘What do you want of us?” Antigonus said. His posture was tall and erect, his manner dignified. He’d moved very slightly, placing himself between Brutus and his sons.
Brutus nodded at Antigonus to acknowledge his words, but spent some moments studying the three sons. All were tall, handsome young men, and all three very obviously well nourished both with food and with love.
And all three, all still very young men, were in various stages of terror, which they could not quite hide behind their cloaks of assumed bravado and defiance.
They were too proud, Brutus realized. Too well nourished by their father and their society in the belief of their own nobility and invulnerability. This day’s debacle must have come as a considerable shock to them.
Brutus’ face remained impassive, but inwardly he regarded the three boys with not a little contempt: they were soft and callow youths, ill-served by their father’s love—by the gods, had he not seized his heritage by the time he was fifteen? He had not wasted his youth sniveling about his father’s skirts!
Antigonus had made a critical error in allowing these boy-women to ride with Pandrasus’ army. Now, both Antigonus and his sons—and Pandrasus, come to that—were going to have to pay the price of that error.
Brutus’ eyes flickered back to Antigonus, whose stance had stiffened noticeably in that time Brutus had spent studying his sons.
‘What do I want?” Brutus said. “I want to offer you your lives.”
‘For what payment?” Antigonus said. “I am no traitor to my king and my city like Assaracus here.” He
looked like he wanted to spit, but then thought better of it.
‘If I had not been so reviled throughout my life for the blood of my mother, III then I might not have turned traitor,” Assaracus said, not overly perturbed by Antigonus’ scorn.
Antigonus gave Assaracus one more particularly baleful glare, then addressed Brutus once more.
‘I say again, what payment do you demand for our lives?”
‘Only that, in the dead of the night that is to come, you approach the gates of Mesopotama and call out to the sentries. You shall tell them that you, and the companions who shall be with you, are fellow Dorians who escaped the slaughter in this gorge and who have now only just managed to make their way safely back to the city. You shall ask for entry, and, I have no doubt, you shall be granted it. Pandrasus will be glad to see his brother once more.”
‘No,” Antigonus said. “There is nothing you can do to make me agree.”
‘No?” Brutus whispered, and then, in a move so fast that neither Antigonus nor his sons could thwart him, he seized Melanthus by the black curls of his head and dragged him away from his father and brothers and to the ground at Brutus’ feet.
Antigonus and his two remaining sons started forward, their faces appalled and angry all in one, but a score of Brutus’ soldiers moved to halt them.
‘Father!” Melanthus cried out in a pitifully—and shamefully, to Brutus’ mind—terrified voice. Brutus tightened his already painful grip in the boy’s hair, and twisted his head so cruelly that Melanthus could barely move.
Antigonus drew in a deep, horrified breath, his eyes riveted on his youngest son.
‘Father!” Melanthus cried out again, his voice now shrill with his terror. ” Father!”
Antigonus groaned at the intensity of his son’s plea, and dragged his eyes back to Brutus.
‘Will you do as I ask?” Brutus said, very calm, his own gaze steady on Antigonus.
‘I…”
Brutus’ hand drew out the sword at his hip, placing the blade hard against Melanthus’ throat.
The boy squealed and tried to twist away, succeeding only in opening a shallow cut across his throat.
His entire body trembled, jerked, and then, horribly, he voided himself, the front of his tunic staining warm and wet.
‘Melanthus!” Antigonus cried, his eyes starting from his head.
‘You will do as I say,” Brutus said, and in one single appalling movement, jerked Melanthus’ head far back with one hand and with the other sliced the razor-sharp blade hard across the boy’s throat.
Bright blood fountained across the gap between Melanthus and his father.
Antigonus started forward with a horrified cry, but the Trojan soldiers grabbed him, as Melanthus’
two brothers, and held them firm as Brutus let go of Melanthus’ head.
The boy grabbed at his throat, his staring eyes desperate on his father, his mouth in a surprised “O,”
then collapsed to the ground. He curled up into a fetal position, his hands frantically scrabbling at his throat, his eyes desperate, terrified. Then, as the blood continued to spurt with the strength of his heart’s beat, his body fell slowly still.
Brutus, hefting the bloodied sword in his hand, looked to Antigonus. “You will do as I say, or I will take one of your other sons—you may choose which one this time—and if you make me kill all three, then I will, and I will lay their blood- and urine-soaked bodies in the dirt before Mesopotama’s gates so that their mother may see them, and may know that you moved not to save them from the terror of their deaths.”
At his feet Melanthus gave one soft, wet sigh, and died.
‘Is that what you want?” said Brutus softly.
He had not once glanced at Melanthus dying.
CbAPGGR FOURGeejMHE THREE SENTRIES ON DUTY ATOP MESOPO-
tama’s gates had watched the straggling group of twenty-five or thirty limping, bloodied men approach the gate for some minutes before one of them threw out the verbal challenge.
‘Hold! Name yourselves, and your business!”
The group, some ten paces from the gates, came to a stumbling halt, the stragglers at the back taking the opportunity to catch up with the main group.
One of the men stepped forward so that the sentries could see his face clearly. “I am Antigonus, brother of Pandrasus, escaped finally from the nightmare of the gorge. Can you not see me, and know my face?”
Several paces behind Antigonus, Brutus dug the blade of his dagger a little deeper against the neck of Peleus, Antigonus’ eldest son. “Be careful what you say!” Brutus hissed at Antigonus. “And remember, that should you betray me once we gain the city, you also betray the life of your sons!”
Antigonus’ back stiffened, but he gave no other sign that he’d heard Brutus.
‘General!” the sentry called back, the relief in his voice obvious to all who heard it. “General! We thought you dead!”
Antigonus made a depreciatory movement with his hand, earning another hiss from Brutus. “And I thought myself dead, too, but I, with these my comrades”—he indicated the group behind him—”managed to fight our way clear. We hid in the forests for the day, and have only finally found our way back here at this dark hour.”
‘And the Trojan warriors?” the sentry asked.
‘Gone, we think,” Antigonus replied. “We saw no sign of them in the gorge as we made our way back to the city.”
‘Wait, Lord,” called the sentry, “and we shall open the gates for you.”
THE SENTRIES, UNSUSPECTING, UNBOLTED THE INNER gates, leaving them standing open, then drew back one of the two massive cypress and bronze-bound outer gates, allowing the small group of men through.
But when the two sentries who held the door made to close it, five or six of the stragglers at the rear of the group suddenly lunged at them, planting silent daggers in the sentries’ throats, and the men slid to the ground making no more noise than a whispered sigh.
Several of the Trojans pushed the gate to, but did not bolt it.
Others pulled Antigonus and his two sons back toward the gate, keeping knives at their throats as they gagged them with linens torn from the men’s own tunics.