Now, my business is to cart the deadfrom both sides of the Scamander River.No easy task going through the bustle; spearheadswhizzing my ears – but me, Balthus, I deliver.My allegiance is to the shades, though I favourbraggadocious Aias (see, I was born behind the wallsnow burning), and I like that cadaver-maker,son of Thetis, the only man out there with balls.But I hate those snooty black horses in armour,plumed kingly, stamping fetlocks in the war horde –those belly-up bastards adored like a good rumourcircling the battlefield, half-happy, half-boredwith the attention showered on them, even by the dying:‘Bless, O gods, let winged Pegasus take me home,’cried one pathetic brute as his soul came flyingoff a bronze dagger that halved his helmet and dome.I hate especially those so-called immortals,dropping tears over cut-down Patroklos,tossing long manes, but never lifting a morselof his to the funeral pyre. Man, I cussunder the heft of Achaeans’ and Trojans’ weightI take to the heap; I cuss the carrion kitesand cuss the baying mongrels in wait;I cuss the long ten years of useless fight.Yet I harness on, unnoticeable through ranks,last witness of the city’s defeat by a wooden giant,watching long boats set off on the defiantAegean, with loot and women, for distantislands, not one ever saying ‘Thanks.’