Chapter 196: The Noose

The Greeks did not attack.

Day one after the beach landing. Lysander stood on the northern wall at dawn, waiting for ladders. None came. Day two. He stood again. The Greek camp was busy — but not with assault preparations. With construction.

Timber and earth. A palisade rising on the flat ground between the beach and Troy’s northern wall. Close enough to see the men working. Far enough to be out of bowshot. They dug a ditch first. Then drove logs side by side, lashing them, packing mud between. Behind the palisade, archer platforms. Behind the platforms, supply roads. Behind the roads, barracks.

Agamemnon was not storming the city. He was sealing it. The fleet blocked the harbour entrance. The palisade blocked the land. No ships in. No trade out. No food.

"He is building a wall around our wall," Hector said.

"Yes."

"The fleet blocks the strait. The palisade blocks the north. We are sealed."

"Six months of grain at full ration. Eight at reduced. They are already cutting the aqueducts from the hills — the cisterns will run dry in two months."

Hector’s jaw tightened. Three days of waiting had been worse than the battle. Battle was action. Waiting was rot.

"Start rationing," Hector said. "One and a half measures per person."

Arsini implemented the rationing that evening.

She had prepared three schedules weeks ago — full rations, reduced, siege. She handed the siege schedule to the distribution team in the central square of the lower town. The numbers were the numbers.

The distribution points opened at dusk. Each family received their allotment — grain weighed on bronze scales, oil measured in clay cups. The women who came to collect said nothing. They looked at the amounts. They looked at their children. They took their share and walked home.

Arsini stood at the central square and watched. She counted the families. Thirteen hundred families inside the walls now — the original residents plus four thousand refugees from the settlement that had been evacuated inside before the Greeks landed. The settlement outside the walls was empty. Everything that breathed was behind stone.

Helen was beside her, marking the portions on a tablet. Her handwriting was steady. Her count was accurate.

"The oil allocation for the lower town," Helen said. "The cooking fires for the patrol — should they get extra?"

"The patrol eats first. If the wall falls, the grain does not matter."

Helen nodded and made the note. Her stylus moved smoothly. She did not pause. She counted and she wrote and she was useful, and being useful was the thing that kept her hands steady.

Arsini glanced at her. Helen’s face was calm. She had learned to function inside fear the way a fish functions inside water — not by fighting it, but by swimming through it.

Arsini looked away. She had her own fear to swim through. The numbers on her tablet were a countdown. Every measure of grain she handed out was a measure she would not have tomorrow. Every cup of oil was a cup closer to empty. The arithmetic was simple. The arithmetic was merciless.

Paris stood on the eastern wall as the sun set.

The Greek camp stretched along the northern beach below — tents, cookfires, the sound of fifty thousand men who were not fighting. They were eating. Sharpening weapons. Playing dice. The sound of an army at rest carried across the water.

Antenor was beside him, his bow across his knees. The old hunter had not spoken all day. He watched the camp the way he watched a forest — looking for movement, for pattern, for the thing that was about to happen before it happened.

"They are not attacking," Paris said.

"Not today."

"Tomorrow."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Agamemnon does not need to attack. He needs to wait. We starve. He eats. Time is his weapon, not spears."

Paris looked at his bow. The wood was warm. His calluses were hard. He had stopped training weeks ago because Antenor had told him he was ready, and Antenor did not say things he did not mean.

But readiness was not the same as certainty. He could hit a moving target at two hundred paces. He could hit a stationary target at three hundred. Sometimes. What he could not do was know whether the first man he killed would be the last, or whether the killing would go on and on until his arms gave out and his arrows were gone.

"Antenor."

"What."

"Were you afraid before your first battle."

Antenor was quiet for a moment. He was a man who considered questions before answering them.

"Yes," he said. "Every time. Fear does not go away. You stop noticing it. That is different."

"How do you stop noticing."

"You shoot. The bow takes the fear. The arrow takes the fear. By the time you have loosed ten, you are not afraid anymore. You are working."

Paris nodded. He nocked an arrow. He did not draw. He held it at his side, ready, the way a man holds a tool he knows how to use.

Tomorrow, or the day after, the Greeks would bring ladders to the wall. Men would climb. Men would reach the top. And Paris would shoot them.

He was ready.

He did not feel ready. But he was.

In the Greek camp, Agamemnon studied the walls.

He stood at the edge of the palisade, his hands behind his back, looking at the stone that stood between him and the strait. The walls were massive. Cyclopean masonry, fitted without mortar. The towers rose at intervals, and on the parapet, the defenders were visible — small shapes against the sky, spears catching the light.

Odysseus was beside him. Diomedes behind them, arms crossed.

"The gaps," Odysseus said. "The spaces between the defenders. Twenty paces apart. I have been watching them for three days. They do not close them. They leave them."

"Intentionally," Diomedes said.

"Intentionally. The defenders are pulled back from the parapet. Three paces. They are not standing at the edge. They are standing behind it. Inviting men to climb over."

"A trap."

"Must be. The question is what kind."

Agamemnon listened. He did not look at his kings. He looked at the walls. At the gaps. At the defenders standing three paces back from the edge, waiting.

"The spy confirmed the defensive layout," Agamemnon said. "The gaps are designed to funnel attackers into a space where they are surrounded. Two defenders, one from each side. The attacker cannot defend both."

Odysseus looked at him. "The spy told you this."

"The spy told me the layout. The kill zone is my deduction. The gaps are too regular to be weakness. They are architecture."

"Then we do not attack the gaps," Diomedes said.

"We attack the gaps with numbers they cannot handle. Two defenders per gap. If we send five men into each gap simultaneously, two defenders cannot kill five before the third reaches the parapet. The kill zone works against a trickle. It does not work against a flood."

Odysseus was quiet. He looked at the wall.

"And the oil," Odysseus said.

"The cauldrons are on the parapet. They cannot keep them hot continuously. The oil supply is limited. If we send waves — not one assault, but three, four, five, with rest between — we exhaust the oil. When the cauldrons are empty, the wall is just a wall."

"How many waves."

"As many as it takes. We have fifty thousand men. They have five thousand. We can afford to send waves. They cannot afford to receive them."

Agamemnon turned from the wall.

"Not today. Not tomorrow. Let them ration. Let them count their grain. Let them watch their cisterns drop. Every day they grow weaker. Every day we grow stronger. The camp is built. The blockade is set. The noose is around their neck."

He smiled.

"We tighten it slowly. And when they are thin enough, hungry enough, weak enough — then we attack. Not before."

Far below the walls of Troy, far below the stone and the bronze and the war, Miros and Deia reached the city.

The seventh door opened. The blue light came. It rose from the walls like breath, like living stone waking from a sleep that had lasted longer than the walls above.

Miros stepped through. His left hand held his sword. His right arm was bound to his chest. Behind him, Deia. Behind her, the twins — Dexion with his spear, Echion with his axe.

They stood on the ledge and looked down.

The city spread below them. Terraced levels carved from black rock. Buildings. Streets. A pool at the lowest level, glowing with blue light, fish moving in its shallows.

Deia opened her tablet.

She began to write.

Author’s Note:

To everyone reading this: thank you very much for everything.

We’ve reached the siege. The walls are built, the fleet is here, and the real test begins now. Your time and your patience are what keep this story going. Let’s see how long the walls hold.