The Song of Achilles Read online

  She is waiting for me. Her hands are empty; she is taking nothing with her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. She does not say it is all right; it is not. She leans forward, and I can smell the warm sweetness of her breath. Her lips graze mine. Then she steps past me and is gone.

  Talthybius takes one side of her, Eurybates the other. Their fingers press, not gently, into the skin of her arm. They tow her forward, eager to be away from us. She is forced to move, or fall. Her head turns back to look at us, and I want to break at the desperate hope in her eyes. I stare at him, will him to look up, to change his mind. He does not.

  They are out of our camp now, moving quickly. After a moment I can barely distinguish them from the other dark figures that move against the sand—eating and walking and gossiping intently about their feuding kings. Anger sweeps through me like brushfire.

  “How can you let her go?” I ask, my teeth hard against one another.

  His face is blank and barren, like another language, impenetrable. He says, “I must speak with my mother.”

  “Go then,” I snarl.

  I watch him leave. My stomach feels burned to cinders; my palms ache where my nails have cut into them. I do not know this man, I think. He is no one I have ever seen before. My rage towards him is hot as blood. I will never forgive him. I imagine tearing down our tent, smashing the lyre, stabbing myself in the stomach and bleeding to death. I want to see his face broken with grief and regret. I want to shatter the cold mask of stone that has slipped down over the boy I knew. He has given her to Agamemnon knowing what will happen.

  Now he expects that I will wait here, impotent and obedient. I have nothing to offer Agamemnon for her safety. I cannot bribe him, and I cannot beg him. The king of Mycenae has waited too long for this triumph. He will not let her go. I think of a wolf, guarding its bone. There were such wolves on Pelion, who would hunt men if they were hungry enough. “If one of them is stalking you,” Chiron said, “you must give it something it wants more than you.”

  There is only one thing that Agamemnon wants more than Briseis. I yank the knife from my belt. I have never liked blood, but there is no help for that, now.

  THE GUARDS SEE me belatedly and are too surprised to lift their weapons. One has the presence of mind to seize me, but I dig my nails into his arm, and he lets go. Their faces are slow and stupid with shock. Am I not just Achilles’ pet rabbit? If I were a warrior, they would fight me, but I am not. By the time they think they should restrain me, I am inside the tent.

  The first thing I see is Briseis. Her hands have been tied, and she is shrinking in a corner. Agamemnon stands with his back to the entrance, speaking to her.

  He turns, scowling at the interruption. But when he sees me, his face goes slick with triumph. I have come to beg, he thinks. I am here to plead for mercy, as Achilles’ ambassador. Or perhaps I will rage impotently, for his entertainment.

  I lift the knife, and Agamemnon’s eyes widen. His hand goes to the knife at his own belt, and his mouth opens to call the guards. He does not have time to speak. I slash the knife down at my left wrist. It scores the skin but does not bite deep enough. I slash again, and this time I find the vein. Blood spurts in the enclosed space. I hear Briseis’ noise of horror. Agamemnon’s face is spattered with drops.

  “I swear that the news I bring is truth,” I say. “I swear it on my blood.”

  Agamemnon is taken aback. The blood and the oath stay his hand; he has always been superstitious.

  “Well,” he says curtly, trying for dignity, “speak your news then.”

  I can feel the blood draining down my wrist, but I do not move to stanch it.

  “You are in the gravest danger,” I say.

  He sneers. “Are you threatening me? Is this why he has sent you?”

  “No. He has not sent me at all.”

  His eyes narrow, and I see his mind working, fitting tiles into the picture. “Surely you come with his blessing.”

  “No,” I say.

  He is listening, now.

  “He knows what you intend towards the girl,” I say.

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see Briseis following our conversation, but I do not dare to look at her directly. My wrist throbs dully, and I can feel the warm blood filling my hand, then emptying again. I drop the knife and press my thumb onto the vein to slow the steady draining of my heart.

  “And?”

  “Do you not wonder why he did not prevent you from taking her?” My voice is disdainful. “He could have killed your men, and all your army. Do you not think he could have held you off?”

  Agamemnon’s face is red. But I do not allow him to speak.

  “He let you take her. He knows you will not resist bedding her, and this will be your downfall. She is his, won through fair service. The men will turn on you if you violate her, and the gods as well.”

  I speak slowly, deliberately, and the words land like arrows, each in its target. It is true what I say, though he has been too blinded by pride and lust to see it. She is in Agamemnon’s custody, but she is Achilles’ prize still. To violate her is a violation of Achilles himself, the gravest insult to his honor. Achilles could kill him for it, and even Menelaus would call it fair.

  “You are at your power’s limit even in taking her. The men allowed it because he was too proud, but they will not allow more.” We obey our kings, but only within reason. If Aristos Achaion’s prize is not safe, none of ours are. Such a king will not be allowed to rule for long.

  Agamemnon has not thought of any of this. The realizations come like waves, drowning him. Desperate, he says, “My counselors have said nothing of this.”

  “Perhaps they do not know what you intend. Or perhaps it serves their own purposes.” I pause to let him consider this. “Who will rule if you fall?”

  He knows the answer. Odysseus, and Diomedes, together, with Menelaus as figurehead. He begins to understand, at last, the size of the gift I have brought him. He has not come so far by being a fool.

  “You betray him by warning me.”

  It is true. Achilles has given Agamemnon a sword to fall upon, and I have stayed his hand. The words are thick and bitter. “I do.”

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Because he is wrong,” I say. My throat feels raw and broken, as though I have drunk sand and salt.

  Agamemnon considers me. I am known for my honesty, for my kindheartedness. There is no reason to disbelieve me. He smiles. “You have done well,” he says. “You show yourself loyal to your true master.” He pauses, savoring this, storing it up. “Does he know what you have done?”

  “Not yet,” I say.

  “Ah.” His eyes half-close, imagining it. I watch the bolt of his triumph sliding home. He is a connoisseur of pain. There is nothing that could cause Achilles greater anguish than this: being betrayed to his worst enemy by the man he holds closest to his heart.

  “If he will come and kneel for pardon, I swear I will release her. It is only his own pride that keeps his honor from him, not I. Tell him.”

  I do not answer. I stand, and walk to Briseis. I cut the rope that binds her. Her eyes are full; she knows what this has cost me. “Your wrist,” she whispers. I cannot answer her. My head is a confusion of triumph and despair. The sand of the tent is red with my blood.

  “Treat her well,” I say.

  I turn and leave. She will be all right now, I tell myself. He is feasting fat on the gift I have given him. I tear a strip from my tunic to bind my wrist. I am dizzy, though I do not know if it is with loss of blood or what I have done. Slowly, I begin the long walk back up the beach.

  HE IS STANDING OUTSIDE the tent when I return. His tunic is damp from where he knelt in the sea. His face is wrapped closed, but there is a weariness to its edges, like fraying cloth; it matches mine.

  “Where have you been?”

  “In the camp.” I am not ready yet, to tell him. “How is your mother?”

  “She is well. You are bleeding.”

  The band
age has soaked through.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Let me look at it.” I follow him obediently into the tent. He takes my arm and unwraps the cloth. He brings water to rinse the wound clean and packs it with crushed yarrow and honey.

  “A knife?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  We know the storm is coming; we are waiting as long as we can. He binds the wound with clean bandages. He brings me watered wine, and food as well. I can tell by his face that I look ill and pale.

  “Will you tell me who hurt you?”

  I imagine saying, You. But that is nothing more than childishness.

  “I did it to myself.”

  “Why?”

  “For an oath.” There is no waiting any longer. I look at him, full in the face. “I went to Agamemnon. I told him of your plan.”

  “My plan?” His words are flat, almost detached.

  “To let him rape Briseis, so that you might revenge yourself on him.” Saying it out loud is more shocking than I thought it would be.

  He rises, half-turning so I cannot see his face. I read his shoulders instead, their set, the tension of his neck.

  “So you warned him?”

  “I did.”

  “You know if he had done it, I could have killed him.” That same flat tone. “Or exiled him. Forced him from the throne. The men would have honored me like a god.”

  “I know,” I say.

  There is a silence, a dangerous one. I keep waiting for him to turn on me. To scream, or strike out. And he does turn, to face me, at last.

  “Her safety for my honor. Are you happy with your trade?”

  “There is no honor in betraying your friends.”

  “It is strange,” he says, “that you would speak against betrayal.”

  There is more pain in those words, almost, than I can bear. I force myself to think of Briseis. “It was the only way.”

  “You chose her,” he says. “Over me.”

  “Over your pride.” The word I use is hubris. Our word for arrogance that scrapes the stars, for violence and towering rage as ugly as the gods.

  His fists tighten. Now, perhaps, the attack will come.

  “My life is my reputation,” he says. His breath sounds ragged. “It is all I have. I will not live much longer. Memory is all I can hope for.” He swallows, thickly. “You know this. And would you let Agamemnon destroy it? Would you help him take it from me?”

  “I would not,” I say. “But I would have the memory be worthy of the man. I would have you be yourself, not some tyrant remembered for his cruelty. There are other ways to make Agamemnon pay. We will do it. I will help you, I swear. But not like this. No fame is worth what you did today.”

  He turns away again and is silent. I stare at his unspeaking back. I memorize each fold in his tunic, each bit of drying salt and sand stuck to his skin.

  When he speaks at last, his voice is weary, and defeated. He doesn’t know how to be angry with me, either. We are like damp wood that won’t light.

  “It is done then? She is safe? She must be. You would not have come back, otherwise.”

  “Yes. She is safe.”

  A tired breath. “You are a better man than I.”

  The beginning of hope. We have given each other wounds, but they are not mortal. Briseis will not be harmed and Achilles will remember himself and my wrist will heal. There will be a moment after this, and another after that.

  “No,” I say. I stand and walk to him. I put my hand to the warmth of his skin. “It is not true. You left yourself today. And now you are returned.”

  His shoulders rise and fall on a long breath. “Do not say that,” he says, “until you have heard the rest of what I have done.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  THERE ARE THREE SMALL STONES ON THE RUGS OF OUR tent, kicked in by our feet or crept in on their own. I pick them up. They are something to hold on to.

  His weariness has faded as he speaks. “ . . . I will fight for him no longer. At every turn he seeks to rob me of my rightful glory. To cast me into shadow and doubt. He cannot bear another man to be honored over him. But he will learn. I will show him the worth of his army without Aristos Achaion.”

  I do not speak. I can see the temper rising in him. It is like watching a storm come, when there is no shelter.

  “The Greeks will fall without me to defend them. He will be forced to beg, or die.”

  I remember how he looked when he went to see his mother. Wild, fevered, hard as granite. I imagine him kneeling before her, weeping with rage, beating his fists on the jagged sea rocks. They have insulted him, he says to her. They have dishonored him. They have ruined his immortal reputation.

  She listens, her fingers pulling absently on her long white throat, supple as a seal, and begins to nod. She has an idea, a god’s idea, full of vengeance and wrath. She tells him, and his weeping stops.

  “He will do it?” Achilles asks, in wonder. He means Zeus, king of the gods, whose head is wreathed in clouds, whose hands can hold the thunderbolt itself.

  “He will do it,” Thetis says. “He is in my debt.”

  Zeus, the great balancer, will let go his scales. He will make the Greeks lose and lose and lose, until they are crushed against the sea, anchors and ropes tangling their feet, masts and prows splintering on their backs. And then they will see who they must beg for.

  Thetis leans forward and kisses her son, a bright starfish of red, high on his cheek. Then she turns and is gone, slipped into the water like a stone, sinking to the bottom.

  I let the pebbles tumble to the ground from my fingers, where they lie, haphazard or purposeful, an augury or an accident. If Chiron were here, he could read them, tell us our fortunes. But he is not here.

  “What if he will not beg?” I ask.

  “Then he will die. They will all die. I will not fight until he does.” His chin juts, bracing for reproach.

  I am worn out. My arm hurts where I cut it, and my skin feels coated with unwholesome sweat. I do not answer.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard,” I say. “Greeks will die.”

  Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

  “But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”

  “You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

  We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

  He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

  I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.

  LATER THAT EVENING I go back to Agamemnon’s camp. As I walk, I feel the eyes on me, curious and pitying. They look behind me, to see if Achilles is following. He is not.

  When I told him where I was going, it seemed to cast him back into the shadows. “Tell her I am sorry,” he said, his eyes down. I did not answer. Is he sorry because he has a better vengeance now? One that will strike down not just Agamemnon, but his whole ungrateful army? I do not let myself dwell on this thought. He is sorry. It is enough.

  “Come in,” she says, her voice strange. She is wearing a gold-threaded dress and a necklace of lapis lazuli. On her wrists are bracelets of engraved silver. She clinks when she stands, as though she’s wearing armor.

  She’s embarrassed, I can see that. But we do not have time to speak, because Agamemnon himself is bulging through the narrow slit behind me.

  “Do you see how well I keep her
?” he says. “The whole camp will see in what esteem I hold Achilles. He only has to apologize, and I will heap the honors on him that he deserves. Truly it is unfortunate that one so young has so much pride.”

  The smug look on his face makes me angry. But what did I expect? I have done this. Her safety for his honor. “This is a credit to you, mighty king,” I say.

  “Tell Achilles,” Agamemnon continues. “Tell him how well I treat her. You may come any time you like, to see her.” He offers an unpleasant smile, then stands, watching us. He has no intention of leaving.

  I turn to Briseis. I have learned a few pieces of her language, and I use them now.

  “You are all right truly?”

  “I am,” she replies, in the sharp singsong of Anatolian. “How long will it be?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. And I don’t. How much heat does it take for iron to grow soft enough to bend? I lean forward and gently kiss her cheek. “I will be back again soon,” I say in Greek.

  She nods.

  Agamemnon eyes me as I leave. I hear him say, “What did he say to you?”

  I hear her answer, “He admired my dress.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, all the other kings march off with their armies to fight the Trojans; the army of Phthia does not follow. Achilles and I linger long over breakfast. Why should we not? There is nothing else for us to do. We may swim, if we like, or play at draughts or spend all day racing. We have not been at such utter leisure since Pelion.

  Yet it does not feel like leisure. It feels like a held breath, like an eagle poised before the dive. My shoulders hunch, and I cannot stop myself from looking down the empty beach. We are waiting to see what the gods will do.

  We do not have to wait long.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THAT NIGHT, PHOINIX COMES LIMPING UP THE SHORE with news of a duel. As the armies rallied in the morning, Paris had strutted along the Trojan line, golden armor flashing. He offered a challenge: single combat, winner takes Helen. The Greeks bellowed their approval. Which of them did not want to leave that day? To wager Helen on a single fight and settle it once and for all? And Paris looked an easy target, shining and slight, slim-hipped as an unwed girl. But it was Menelaus, Phoinix said, who came forward, roaring acceptance at the chance to regain his honor and his beautiful wife in one.