The Song of Achilles Read online

  The men gathered eagerly. They knew what her presence meant—Agamemnon was giving us permission for camp followers, for spear-wives and bed slaves. Until now, the women had simply been forced in the fields and left. In your own tent was a much more convenient arrangement.

  Agamemnon mounted the dais, and I saw his eyes slide over the girl, a slight smile on his lips. He was known—all the house of Atreus was—for his appetites. I do not know what came over me then. But I seized Achilles’ arm and spoke into his ear.

  “Take her.”

  He turned to me, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “Take her as your prize. Before Agamemnon does. Please.”

  He hesitated, but only a second.

  “Men of Greece.” He stepped forward, still in the day’s armor, still smeared with blood. “Great King of Mycenae.”

  Agamemnon turned to face him, frowning. “Pelides?”

  “I would have this girl as my war-prize.”

  At the back of the dais Odysseus raised an eyebrow. The men around us murmured. His request was unusual, but not unreasonable; in any other army, first choice would have been his anyway. Irritation flashed in Agamemnon’s eyes. I saw the thoughts turn across his face: he did not like Achilles, yet it was not worth it, here, already, to be churlish. She was beautiful, but there would be other girls.

  “I grant your wish, Prince of Phthia. She is yours.”

  The crowd shouted its approval—they liked their commanders generous, their heroes bold and lusty.

  Her eyes had followed the exchange with bright intelligence. When she understood that she was to come with us, I saw her swallow, her gaze darting over Achilles.

  “I will leave my men here, for the rest of my belongings. The girl will come with me now.”

  Appreciative laughter and whistles from the men. The girl trembled all over, very slightly, like a rabbit checked by a hawk overhead. “Come,” Achilles commanded. We turned to go. Head down, she followed.

  BACK IN OUR CAMP, Achilles drew his knife, and her head jerked a little with fear. He was still bloody from the day’s battle; it had been her village he had plundered.

  “Let me,” I said. He handed me the knife and backed away, almost embarrassed.

  “I am going to free you,” I said.

  Up close I saw how dark her eyes were, brown as richest earth, and large in her almond-shaped face. Her gaze flickered from the blade to me. I thought of frightened dogs I had seen, backed small and sharp into corners.

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “We will not hurt you. I am going to free you.”

  She looked at us in horror. The gods knew what she thought I was saying. She was an Anatolian farm-girl, with no reason to have ever heard Greek before. I stepped forward to put a hand her arm, to reassure. She flinched as if expecting a blow. I saw the fear in her eyes, of rape and worse.

  I could not bear it. There was only one thing I could think of. I turned to Achilles and seized the front of his tunic. I kissed him.

  When I let go again, she was staring at us. Staring and staring.

  I gestured to her bonds and back to the knife. “All right?”

  She hesitated a moment. Then slowly offered her hands.

  ACHILLES LEFT TO SPEAK to Phoinix about procuring another tent. I took her to the grass-sided hill and had her sit while I made a compress for her bruised face. Gingerly, eyes downcast, she took it. I pointed to her leg—it was torn open, a long cut along her shin.

  “May I see?” I asked, gesturing. She made no response, but reluctantly let me take her leg, dress the wound, and tie it closed with bandages. She followed every movement of my hands and never met my gaze.

  After, I took her to her new-pitched tent. She seemed startled by it, almost afraid to enter. I threw open the flap and gestured— food, blankets, an ewer of water, and some clean cast-off clothes. Hesitating, she stepped inside, and I left her there, eyes wide, staring at it all.

  THE NEXT DAY Achilles went raiding again. I trailed around the camp, collecting driftwood, cooling my feet in the surf. All the time I was aware of the new tent in the camp’s corner. We had seen nothing of her yet; the flap was shut tight as Troy. A dozen times I almost went to call through the fabric.

  At last, at midday, I saw her in the doorway. She was watching me, half-hidden behind the folds. When she saw that I had noticed her, she turned quickly and went to leave.

  “Wait!” I said.

  She froze. The tunic she wore—one of mine—hung past her knees and made her look very young. How old was she? I did not even know.

  I walked up to her. “Hello.” She stared at me with those wide eyes. Her hair had been drawn back, revealing the delicate bones of her cheeks. She was very pretty.

  “Did you sleep well?” I do not know why I kept talking to her. I thought it might comfort her. I had once heard Chiron say that you talked to babies to soothe them.

  “Patroclus,” I said, pointing at myself. Her eyes flickered to me, then away.

  “Pa-tro-clus.” I repeated slowly. She did not answer, did not move; her fingers clutched the cloth of the tent flap. I felt ashamed then. I was frightening her.

  “I will leave you,” I said. I inclined my head and made to go.

  She spoke something, so low I could not hear it. I stopped.

  “What?”

  “Briseis,” she repeated. She was pointing to herself.

  “Briseis?” I said. She nodded, shyly.

  That was the beginning.

  IT TURNED OUT that she did know a little Greek. A few words that her father had picked up and taught her when he heard the army was coming. Mercy was one. Yes and please and what do you want? A father, teaching his daughter how to be a slave.

  During the days, the camp was nearly empty but for us. We would sit on the beach and halt through sentences with each other. I grew to understand her expressions first, the thoughtful quiet of her eyes, the flickering smiles she would hide behind her hand. We could not talk of much, in those early days, but I did not mind. There was a peace in sitting beside her, the waves rolling companionably over our feet. Almost, it reminded me of my mother, but Briseis’ eyes were bright with observation as hers had never been.

  Sometimes in the afternoons we would walk together around the camp, pointing to each thing she did not know the name of yet. Words piled on each other so quickly that soon we needed elaborate pantomimes. Cook dinner, have a bad dream. Even when my sketches were clumsy, Briseis understood and translated it into a series of gestures so precise that I could smell the meat cooking. I laughed often at her ingenuity, and she would grant me her secret smile.

  THE RAIDING CONTINUED. Every day Agamemnon would climb the dais amidst the day’s plunder and say, “No news.” No news meant no soldiers, no signals, no sounds from the city. It sat stubbornly on the horizon and made us wait.

  The men consoled themselves in other ways. After Briseis there was a girl or two on the dais nearly every day. They were all farm girls with callused hands and burnt noses, used to hard work in the sun. Agamemnon took his share, and the other kings as well. You saw them everywhere now, weaving between tents, slopping buckets of water onto their long wrinkled dresses—what they had happened to be wearing the day they were taken. They served fruit and cheese and olives, carved meat, and filled wine-cups. They polished armor, wedging the carapaces between their legs as they sat on the sand. Some of them even wove, spinning threads from tangled clots of sheepswool, animals we had stolen in our raids.

  At night they served in other ways, and I cringed at the cries that reached even our corner of the camp. I tried not to think of their burnt villages and dead fathers, but it was difficult to banish. The raids were stamped on every one of the girls’ faces, large smears of grief that kept their eyes as wobbling and sloppy as the buckets that swung into their legs. And bruises too, from fists or elbows, and sometimes perfect circles—spear butts, to the forehead or temple.

  I could barely watch these girls as they stumbled into camp to
be parceled off. I sent Achilles out to ask for them, to seek as many as he could, and the men teased him about his voraciousness, his endless priapism. “Didn’t even know you liked girls,” Diomedes joked.

  Each new girl went first to Briseis, who would speak comfort to her in soft Anatolian. She would be allowed to bathe and be given new clothes, and then would join the others in the tent. We put up a new one, larger, to fit them all: eight, ten, eleven girls. Mostly it was Phoinix and I who spoke to them; Achilles stayed away. He knew that they had seen him killing their brothers and lovers and fathers. Some things could not be forgiven.

  Slowly, they grew less frightened. They spun, and talked in their own language, sharing the words they picked up from us— helpful words, like cheese, or water, or wool. They were not as quick as Briseis was, but they patched together enough that they could speak to us.

  It was Briseis’ idea for me to spend a few hours with them each day, teaching them. But the lessons were more difficult than I thought: the girls were wary, their eyes darting to each other; they were not sure what to make of my sudden appearance in their lives. It was Briseis again who eased their fears and let our lessons grow more elaborate, stepping in with a word of explanation or a clarifying gesture. Her Greek was quite good now, and more and more I simply deferred to her. She was a better teacher than I, and funnier too. Her mimes brought us all to laughter: a sleepy-eyed lizard, two dogs fighting. It was easy to stay with them long and late, until I heard the creaking of the chariot, and the distant banging of bronze, and returned to greet my Achilles.

  It was easy, in those moments, to forget that the war had not yet really begun.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  AS TRIUMPHANT AS THE RAIDS WERE, THEY WERE ONLY raids. The men who died were farmers, tradesmen, from the vast network of villages that supported the mighty city—not soldiers. In councils Agamemnon’s jaw grew increasingly tight, and the men were restive: where was the fight we were promised?

  Close, Odysseus said. He pointed out the steady flood of refugees into Troy. The city must be near to bursting now. Hungry families would be spilling into the palace, makeshift tents would clog the city’s streets. It was only a matter of time, he told us.

  As if conjured by his prophecy, a flag of parley flew above Troy’s walls the very next morning. The soldier on watch raced down the beach to tell Agamemnon: King Priam was willing to receive an embassy.

  The camp was afire with the news. One way or another now, something would happen. They would return Helen, or we would get to fight for her properly, in the field.

  The council of kings sent Menelaus and Odysseus, the obvious choices. The two men left at first light on their high- stepping horses, brushed to a shine and jingling with ornament. We watched them cross the grass of Troy’s wide plain, then vanish into the blur of the dark gray walls.

  Achilles and I waited in our tents, wondering. Would they see Helen? Paris could hardly dare to keep her from her husband, and he could hardly dare to show her either. Menelaus had gone conspicuously unarmed; perhaps he did not trust himself.

  “Do you know why she chose him?” Achilles asked me.

  “Menelaus? No.” I remembered the king’s face in Tyndareus’ hall, glowing with health and good humor. He had been handsome, but not the handsomest man there. He had been powerful, but there were many men with more wealth and greater deeds to their name. “He brought a generous gift. And her sister was already married to his brother, maybe that was part of it.”

  Achilles considered this, arm folded behind his head. “Do you think she went with Paris willingly?”

  “I think if she did, she will not admit it to Menelaus.”

  “Mmm.” He tapped a finger against his chest, thinking. “She must have been willing, though. Menelaus’ palace is like a fortress. If she had struggled or cried out, someone would have heard. She knew he must come after her, for his honor if nothing else. And that Agamemnon would seize this opportunity and invoke the oath.”

  “I would not have known that.”

  “You are not married to Menelaus.”

  “So you think she did it on purpose? To cause the war?” This shocked me.

  “Maybe. She used to be known as the most beautiful woman in our kingdoms. Now they say she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.” He put on his best singer’s falsetto. “A thousand ships have sailed for her.”

  A thousand was the number Agamemnon’s bards had started using; one thousand, one hundred and eighty-six didn’t fit well in a line of verse.

  “Maybe she really fell in love with Paris.”

  “Maybe she was bored. After ten years shut up in Sparta, I’d want to leave too.”

  “Maybe Aphrodite made her.”

  “Maybe they’ll bring her back with them.”

  We considered this.

  “I think Agamemnon would attack anyway.”

  “I think so too. They never even mention her anymore.”

  “Except in speeches to the men.”

  We were silent a moment.

  “So which of the suitors would you have picked?”

  I shoved him, and he laughed.

  THEY RETURNED AT NIGHTFALL, alone. Odysseus reported to the council, while Menelaus sat silent. King Priam had welcomed them warmly, feasted them in his hall. Then he had stood before them, flanked by Paris and Hector, with his other forty-eight sons arrayed behind. “We know why you have come,” he said. “But the lady herself does not wish to return, and has put herself under our protection. I have never refused a woman’s defense, and I will not begin now.”

  “Clever,” said Diomedes. “They have found a way around their guilt.”

  Odysseus continued, “I told them that if they were so resolved, there was no more to say.”

  Agamemnon rose, his voice ringing grandly. “Indeed there is not. We have tried diplomacy and been rebuffed. Our only honorable course is war. Tomorrow you go to win the glory you deserve, every last man of you.”

  There was more, but I did not hear it. Every last man. Fear sluiced through me. How could I not have thought of this? Of course I would be expected to fight. We were at war now, and all had to serve. Especially the closest companion of Aristos Achaion.

  That night I barely slept. The spears that leaned against the walls of our tent seemed impossibly tall, and my mind scrambled to remember a few lessons—how to heft them, how to duck. The Fates had said nothing about me—nothing about how long I would live. I woke Achilles, in panic.

  “I will be there,” he promised me.

  IN THE DARK just before dawn, Achilles helped me arm. Greaves, gauntlets, a leather cuirass and bronze breastplate over it. It all seemed more of a hindrance than protection, knocking against my chin when I walked, confining my arms, weighing me down. He assured me that I would get used to it. I did not believe him. Walking out of the tent into the morning’s sun I felt foolish, like someone trying on an older brother’s clothing. The Myrmidons were waiting, jostling each other with excitement. Together we began the long trip down the beach to the enormous, massing army. Already my breaths were shallow and swift.

  We could hear the army before we saw it; boasting, clattering weapons, blowing horns. Then the beach unkinked and revealed a bristling sea of men laid out in neat squares. Each was marked with a pennant that declared its king. Only one square was empty still: a place of primacy, reserved for Achilles and his Myrmidons. We marched forward and arrayed ourselves, Achilles out in front, then a line of captains to either side of me. Behind us, rank upon gleaming rank of proud Phthians.

  Before us was the wide flat plain of Troy, ending in the massive gates and towers of the city. At its base a roiling morass was ranged up against us, a blur of dark heads and polished shields that caught the sun and flashed. “Stay behind me,” Achilles turned to say. I nodded, and the helmet shook around my ears. Fear was twisting inside of me, a wobbling cup of panic that threatened each moment to spill. The greaves dug into the bones of my feet; my spear weighed d
own my arm. A trumpet blew and my chest heaved. Now. It was now.

  In a clanking, clattering mass, we lurched into a run. This is how we fought—a dead-run charge that met the enemy in the middle. With enough momentum you could shatter their ranks all at once.

  Our lines went quickly ragged as some outstripped others in their speed, glory-hungry, eager to be the first to kill a real Trojan. By halfway across the plain we were no longer in ranks, or even kingdoms. The Myrmidons had largely passed me, drifting in a cloud off to the left, and I mingled among Menelaus’ long-haired Spartans, all oiled and combed for battle.

  I ran, armor banging. My breath came thickly, and the ground shook with the pounding of feet, a rumbling roar growing louder. The dust kicked up by the charge was almost blinding. I could not see Achilles. I could not see the man beside me. I could do nothing but grip my shield and run.

  The front lines collided in an explosion of sound, a burst of spraying splinters and bronze and blood. A writhing mass of men and screams, sucking up rank after rank like Charybdis. I saw the mouths of men moving but could not hear them. There was only the crash of shields against shields, of bronze against shattering wood.

  A Spartan beside me dropped suddenly, transfixed through the chest by a spear. My head jerked around, looking for the man who had thrown it, but saw nothing but a jumble of bodies. I knelt by the Spartan to close his eyes, to say a quick prayer, then almost vomited when I saw that he was still alive, wheezing at me in beseeching terror.

  A crash next to me—I startled and saw Ajax using his giant shield like a club, smashing it into faces and bodies. In his wake, the wheels of a Trojan chariot creaked by, and a boy peered over the side, showing his teeth like a dog. Odysseus pounded past, running to capture its horses. The Spartan clutched at me, his blood pouring over my hands. The wound was too deep; there was nothing to be done. A dull relief when the light faded from his eyes at last. I closed them with gritty, trembling fingers.