A new life for Paris

Sleeping dogs


”He’s not much to look at. He’s been living from hand to mouth among the soldiers now for more than two years. He’s sucked so many dicks his teeth are damaged. At least half the Spartan army has had a taste of his buttocks, I’m sure. He’s constantly sore, constantly suffering from fungus and other diseases which make ye scratch like the blazes, and he’s developed a limp. I think the boy’s knees are pretty worn from bending down on all those sharp rocks. He lives on whatever leftovers the soldiers throw him, and he’s sick most of the time, because he has no decent clothes or lodging. You’ll find him in The Palace” the guardsman tells him with a lopsided smile, gesturing in a general west direction.
The carpenter goes ashore. He walks across the dunes of sand until he enters the camp of Spartans. There’s talk of unrest – they want to know why they aren’t taking the journey across the waters to their homes in Sparta. Why do they linger? The city of Troy has been taken.
The carpenter walks until he reaches The Palace. It’s nothing more but planks fastened together with strands of rope against a stone wall. A piece of driftwood marks the entrance. Someone has engraved the words ‘The Palace’. Whether it’s meant ironically or not, the carpenter cannot tell. The Palace is no bigger than that a frail framed man, or perhaps a boy can make his way inside if he crawls on hands and knees. The carpenter cocks his head downwards, and to his surprise, there really is someone in there. But all the man can see, is a pair of sandy, dirty feet. He kneels, wanting to take a peek inside. He catches a glimpse of a sleeping young man. His body is clad in a shapeless grey linen coat reaching him to his knees. He’s beautiful, yet his legs are filled with bruises and scars. It dawns on him that for being one who lives through torture and rape every day, having such a recluse must indeed be a palace in its own right. A place to hide away, to find a moment’s privacy in a society which clearly has made him a public whore. This is his shelter from their rough, greedy hands as well as from rain, sand and wind. He rests on a worn tatty someone in their mercy probably decided to give him.
The carpenter rises as he hears grumbling and mumbling voices behind him. He had been quite unaware of bystanders gathering around him. Big men, like bulls, clad in armour and waistcloths, with bulging muscles, their thighs as thick as the trunks of grown oak trees. They at least a head taller than him.
“A rumour has it” the carpenter began, “that there’s still a prince of Troy around”. He swallows, attempting to cover up his anxiety with a laugh.
“Who wants to know?!” a Spartan with a chest three shields wide, asks testily. He folds his arms over his chest and measures the far lesser built carpenter up and down.
“Just...just I. I heard a rumour—“
“—you heard wrong. There is no prince in this camp.”
“Good Sir, I assure you that the description I’ve been given—“
“—is most likely wrong. Now, what I see standing before me here, is a lowlife who’s lost his way, and he was about to wake a sleeping dog which has earned its rest. And what do we say about sleeping dogs?!” He glanced about at his fellow soldiers. They clearly shared his sentiments, nodding their heads silently. The carpenter could hear unsheathing of swords.
“We, uh, let sleeping dogs lie?!”
“Precisely” the enormous bulk of a man grinned. The dog that was asleep stirs inside The Palace. The carpenter decides it time to go, and he withdraws from the circle of tense bystanders.
Escaping the camp of the brutes, he returns to the camp of the craftsmen, where the men are less well-equipped in terms of size of muscles and height. Craftsmanship is their strength. They have no place on the battlefield, as their job is to maintain battle equipment, the ships and every other construction requiring more brain activity than sheer force.
After some time, the sun sets, and he takes a moment to contemplate the events of the day as he smokes away on his pipe whilst looking at the sun melting into the Aegean sea. Somewhere, beyond those waters, lay his homeland of Sparta.
He’s awaken from his daydreams as a small party calls on him. He turns, finding himself face to face with King Agamemnon and his band of waiters. The carpenter kneels in respect.
“Report to me, carpenter. What did you find out? Is the wretch alive?!”
“I found someone resembling him very much, Sir” the carpenter nods, “I believe that, from your description, it’s the prince.”
The king falls into thoughtfulness, his darkened eyes travel along the horizon. “Amazing...” he mutters to himself. He turns his face towards the soldiers’ camps in watches as hundreds of campfires flare up along the ever darkening beach.
“There, Sire” the carpenter points towards the cliffs, “at the foot of those cliffs there’s a small hut put together by pieces of driftwood. They call it The Palace, Sire. That’s where he hides. I caught him dozing off, Sire.”
“Very good.
“Thank you, Sire”. Feeling proud to have been of service to the king himself, the carpenter bows deeply. But the king does not go away. He lingers, gazing towards the cliffs as if he imagines he can see all the way over the vast stretch that is the Trojan beach at the Aegean sea. Somewhere out there is Paris. The one man king Agamemnon still after two years cannot shake from his head. For some reason he does not want to reveal to himself, his hunger burns for one last lay between the Trojan prince’s thighs. There had been such pleasure in tormenting him, but then King Agamemnon’s brother, Menelaus, grew tired with him and threw him to the soldiers. Both brothers assumed Paris would meet his fate there. But something, call it intuition, like a haunting dream which had come to Agamemnon for the past two years, made him doubt that Paris was dead.