The Song of Achilles Read online

  Next come the horsewomen, breasts exposed, their skin glistening like oiled wood. Their hair is bound back, their arms are full of spears and bristling arrows. Curved shields hang from their saddles, crescent-shaped, as if coined from the moon. At their front is a single figure on a chestnut horse, hair loose, Anatolian eyes dark and curving and fierce—chips of stone that move restlessly over the army before her. Penthesilea.

  She wears a cape, and it is this that undoes her—that allows her to be pulled, limbs light and poised as a cat, from her horse. She tumbles with easy grace, and one of her hands flashes for the spear tied to her saddle. She crouches in the dirt, bracing it. A face looms over her, grim, darkened, dulled. It wears no armor at all anymore, exposing all its skin to points and punctures. It is turned now, in hope, in wistfulness, towards her.

  She stabs, and Achilles’ body dodges the deadly point, impossibly lithe, endlessly agile. Always, its muscles betray it, seeking life instead of the peace that spears bring. She thrusts again, and he leaps over the point, drawn up like a frog, body light and loose. He makes a sound of grief. He had hoped, because she has killed so many. Because from her horse she seemed so like him, so quick and graceful, so relentless. But she is not. A single thrust crushes her to the ground, leaves her chest torn up like a field beneath the plow. Her women scream in anger, in grief, at his retreating, bowed, shoulders.

  Last of all is a young boy, Troilus. They have kept him behind the wall as their security—the youngest son of Priam, the one they want to survive. It is his brother’s death that has pulled him from the walls. He is brave and foolish and will not listen. I see him wrenching from the restraining hands of his older brothers, and leaping into his chariot. He flies headlong, like a loosed greyhound, seeking vengeance.

  The spear-butt catches against his chest, just starting to widen with manhood. He falls, still holding the reins, and the frightened horses bolt, dragging him behind. His trailing spear-tip clicks against the stones, writing in the dust with its bronze fingernail.

  At last he frees himself and stands, his legs, his back, scraped and crusted. He faces the older man who looms in front of him, the shadow that haunts the battlefield, the grisly face that wearily kills man after man. I see that he does not stand a chance, his bright eyes, his bravely lifted chin. The point catches the soft bulb of his throat, and liquid spills like ink, its color bled away by the dusk around me. The boy falls.

  WITHIN THE WALLS OF TROY, a bow is strung quickly by rushing hands. An arrow is selected, and princely feet hurry up stairs to a tower that tilts over a battlefield of dead and dying. Where a god is waiting.

  It is easy for Paris to find his target. The man moves slowly, like a lion grown wounded and sick, but his gold hair is unmistakable. Paris nocks his arrow.

  “Where do I aim? I heard he was invulnerable. Except for—”

  “He is a man,” Apollo says. “Not a god. Shoot him and he will die.”

  Paris aims. The god touches his finger to the arrow’s fletching. Then he breathes, a puff of air—as if to send dandelions flying, to push toy boats over water. And the arrow flies, straight and silent, in a curving, downward arc towards Achilles’ back.

  Achilles hears the faint hum of its passage a second before it strikes. He turns his head a little, as if to watch it come. He closes his eyes and feels its point push through his skin, parting thick muscle, worming its way past the interlacing fingers of his ribs. There, at last, is his heart. Blood spills between shoulder blades, dark and slick as oil. Achilles smiles as his face strikes the earth.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  THE SEA-NYMPHS COME FOR THE BODY, TRAILING THEIR seafoam robes behind them. They wash him with rose oil and nectar, and weave flowers through his golden hair. The Myrmidons build him a pyre, and he is placed on it. The nymphs weep as the flames consume him. His beautiful body lost to bones and gray ash.

  But many do not weep. Briseis, who stands watching until the last embers have gone out. Thetis, her spine straight, black hair loose and snaky in the wind. The men, kings and common. They gather at a distance, afraid of the eerie keening of the nymphs and Thetis’ thunderbolt eyes. Closest to tears is Ajax, leg bandaged and healing. But perhaps he is just thinking of his own long-awaited promotion.

  The pyre burns itself out. If the ashes are not gathered soon, they will be lost to the winds, but Thetis, whose office it is, does not move. At last, Odysseus is sent to speak with her.

  He kneels. “Goddess, we would know your will. Shall we collect the ashes?”

  She turns to look at him. Perhaps there is grief in her eyes; perhaps not. It is impossible to say.

  “Collect them. Bury them. I have done all I will do.”

  He inclines his head. “Great Thetis, your son wished that his ashes be placed—”

  “I know what he wished. Do as you please. It is not my concern.”

  SERVANT GIRLS ARE SENT to collect the ashes; they carry them to the golden urn where I rest. Will I feel his ashes as they fall against mine? I think of the snowflakes on Pelion, cold on our red cheeks. The yearning for him is like hunger, hollowing me. Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. His ashes settle among mine, and I feel nothing.

  AGAMEMNON CALLS a council to discuss the tomb they will build.

  “We should put it on the field where he fell,” Nestor says.

  Machaon shakes his head. “It will be more central on the beach, by the agora.”

  “That’s the last thing we want. Tripping over it every day,” Diomedes says.

  “On the hill, I think. The ridge by their camp,” Odysseus says.

  Wherever, wherever, wherever.

  “I have come to take my father’s place.” The clear voice cuts across the room.

  The heads of the kings twist towards the tent flap. A boy stands framed in the tent’s doorway. His hair is bright red, the color of the fire’s crust; he is beautiful, but coldly so, a winter’s morning. Only the dullest would not know which father he means. It is stamped on every line of his face, so close it tears at me. Just his chin is different, angling sharply down to a point as his mother’s did.

  “I am the son of Achilles,” he announces.

  The kings are staring. Most did not even know Achilles had a child. Only Odysseus has the wits to speak. “May we know the name of Achilles’ son?”

  “My name is Neoptolemus. Called Pyrrhus.” Fire. But there is nothing of flame about him, beyond his hair. “Where is my father’s seat?”

  Idomeneus has taken it. He rises. “Here.”

  Pyrrhus’ eyes rake over the Cretan king. “I pardon your presumption. You did not know I was coming.” He sits. “Lord of Mycenae, Lord of Sparta.” The slightest incline of his head. “I offer myself to your army.”

  Agamemnon’s face is caught between disbelief and displeasure. He had thought he was done with Achilles. And the boy’s affect is strange, unnerving.

  “You do not seem old enough.”

  Twelve. He is twelve.

  “I have lived with the gods beneath the sea,” he says. “I have drunk their nectar and feasted on ambrosia. I come now to win the war for you. The Fates have said that Troy will not fall without me.”

  “What?” Agamemnon is aghast.

  “If it is so, we are indeed glad to have you,” Menelaus says. “We were talking of your father’s tomb, and where to build it.”

  “On the hill,” Odysseus says.

  Menelaus nods. “A fitting place for them.”

  “Them?”

  There is a slight pause. “Your father and his companion. Patroclus.”

  “And why should this man be buried beside Aristos Achaion?”

  The air is thick. They are all waiting to hear Menelaus’ answer.

  “It was your father’s wish, Prince Neoptolemus, that their ashes be placed together. We cannot bury one without the other.”

  Pyrrhus lifts his sharp chin. “A slave has no place in hi
s master’s tomb. If the ashes are together, it cannot be undone, but I will not allow my father’s fame to be diminished. The monument is for him, alone.”

  Do not let it be so. Do not leave me here without him.

  The kings exchange glances.

  “Very well,” Agamemnon says. “It shall be as you say.”

  I am air and thought and can do nothing.

  THE GREATER THE MONUMENT, the greater the man. The stone the Greeks quarry for his grave is huge and white, stretching up to the sky. ACHILLES, it reads. It will stand for him, and speak to all who pass: he lived and died, and lives again in memory.

  PYRRHUS’ BANNERS bear the emblem of Scyros, his mother’s land, not Phthia. His soldiers, too, are from Scyros. Dutifully, Automedon lines up the Myrmidons and the women in welcome. They watch him make his way up the shore, his gleaming, new-minted troops, his red-gold hair like a flame against the blue of the sky.

  “I am the son of Achilles,” he tells them. “I claim you as my inheritance and birthright. Your loyalty is mine now.” His eyes fix upon a woman who stands, eyes down, her hands folded. He goes to her and lifts her chin in his hand.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Briseis.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” he says. “You were the reason my father stopped fighting.”

  That night he sends his guards for her. They hold her arms as they walk her to the tent. Her head is bowed in submission, and she does not struggle.

  The tent flap opens, and she is pushed through. Pyrrhus lounges in a chair, one leg dangling carelessly off the side. Achilles might have sat that way once. But his eyes were never like that, empty as the endless depths of black ocean, filled with nothing but the bloodless bodies of fish.

  She kneels. “My lord.”

  “My father broke with the army for you. You must have been a good bed-slave.”

  Briseis’ eyes are at their darkest and most veiled. “You honor me, my lord, to say so. But I do not believe it was for me he refused to fight.”

  “Why then? In your slave’s opinion?” A precise eyebrow lifts. It is terrifying to watch him speak to her. He is like a snake; you do not know where he will strike.

  “I was a war prize, and Agamemnon dishonored him in taking me. That is all.”

  “Were you not his bed-slave?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Enough.” His voice is sharp. “Do not lie to me again. You are the best woman in the camp. You were his.”

  Her shoulders have crept up a little. “I would not have you think better of me than I deserve. I was never so fortunate.”

  “Why? What is wrong with you?”

  She hesitates. “My lord, have you heard of the man who is buried with your father?”

  His face goes flat. “Of course I have not heard of him. He is no one.”

  “Yet your father loved him well, and honored him. He would be well pleased to know they were buried together. He had no need of me.”

  Pyrrhus stares at her.

  “My lord—”

  “Silence.” The word cracks over her like a lash. “I will teach you what it means to lie to Aristos Achaion.” He stands. “Come here.” He is only twelve, but he does not look it. He has the body of a man.

  Her eyes are wide. “My lord, I am sorry I have displeased you. You may ask anyone, Phoinix or Automedon. They will say I am not lying.”

  “I have given you an order.”

  She stands, her hands fumbling in the folds of her dress. Run, I whisper. Do not go to him. But she goes.

  “My lord, what would you have of me?”

  He steps to her, eyes glittering. “Whatever I want.”

  I cannot see where the blade comes from. It is in her hand, and then it is swinging down on him. But she has never killed a man before. She does not know how hard you need to drive it, nor with what conviction. And he is quick, twisting away already. The blade splits the skin, scoring it in a jagged line, but does not sink. He smacks her viciously to the ground. She throws the knife at his face and runs.

  She erupts from the tent, past the too-slow hands of the guards, down the beach and into the sea. Behind her is Pyrrhus, tunic gashed open, bleeding across his stomach. He stands beside the bewildered guards and calmly takes a spear from one of their hands.

  “Throw it,” a guard urges. For she is past the breakers now.

  “A moment,” Pyrrhus murmurs.

  Her limbs lift into the gray waves like the steady beats of wings. She has always been the strongest swimmer of the three of us. She used to swear she’d gone to Tenedos once, two hours by boat. I feel wild triumph as she pulls farther and farther from shore. The only man whose spear could have reached her is dead. She is free.

  The only man but that man’s son.

  The spear flies from the top of the beach, soundless and precise. Its point hits her back like a stone tossed onto a floating leaf. The gulp of black water swallows her whole.

  Phoinix sends a man out, a diver, to look for her body, but he does not find it. Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest. I would give my life again to make it so.

  THE PROPHECY TOLD TRULY. Now that Pyrrhus has come, Troy falls. He does not do it alone, of course. There is the horse, and Odysseus’ plan, and a whole army besides. But he is the one who kills Priam. He is the one who hunts down Hector’s wife, Andromache, hiding in a cellar with her son. He plucks the child from her arms and dashes his head against the stone of the walls, so hard the skull shatters like a rotted fruit. Even Agamemnon blanched when he heard.

  The bones of the city are cracked and sucked dry. The Greek kings stuff their holds with its gold columns and princesses. Quicker than I could have imagined possible they pack the camp, all the tents rolled and stowed, the food killed and stored. The beach is stripped clean, like a well-picked carcass.

  I haunt their dreams. Do not leave, I beg them. Not until you have given me peace. But if anyone hears, they do not answer.

  Pyrrhus wishes a final sacrifice for his father the evening before they sail. The kings gather by the tomb, and Pyrrhus presides, with his royal prisoners at his heels, Andromache and Queen Hecuba and the young princess Polyxena. He trails them everywhere he goes now, in perpetual triumph.

  Calchas leads a white heifer to the tomb’s base. But when he reaches for the knife, Pyrrhus stops him. “A single heifer. Is this all? The same you would do for any man? My father was Aristos Achaion. He was the best of you, and his son has proven better still. Yet you stint us?”

  Pyrrhus’ hand closes on the shapeless, blowing dress of the princess Polyxena and yanks her towards the altar. “This is what my father’s soul deserves.”

  He will not. He dare not.

  As if in answer, Pyrrhus smiles. “Achilles is pleased,” he says, and tears open her throat.

  I can taste it still, the gush of salt and iron. It seeped into the grass where we are buried, and choked me. The dead are supposed to crave blood, but not like this. Not like this.

  THE GREEKS LEAVE TOMORROW, and I am desperate.

  Odysseus.

  He sleeps lightly, eyelids fluttering.

  Odysseus. Listen to me.

  He twitches. Even in sleep he is not at rest.

  When you came to him for help, I answered you. Will you not answer me now? You know what he was to me. You saw, before you brought us here. Our peace is on your head.

  “MY APOLOGIES for bothering you so late, Prince Pyrrhus.” He offers his easiest smile.

  “I do not sleep,” Pyrrhus says.

  “How convenient. No wonder you get so much more done than the rest of us.”

  Pyrrhus watches him with narrowed eyes; he cannot tell if he is being mocked.

  “Wine?” Odysseus holds up a skin.

  “I suppose.” Pyrrhus jerks his chin at two goblets. “Leave us,” he says to Andromache. While she gathers her clothes, Odysseus pours.

  “Well. You must be pleased with all you have done here. Hero by thirtee
n? Not many men can say so.”

  “No other men.” The voice is cold. “What do you want?”

  “I’m afraid I have been prompted by a rare stirring of guilt.”

  “Oh?”

  “We sail tomorrow, and leave many Greek dead behind us. All of them are properly buried, with a name to mark their memory. All but one. I am not a pious man, but I do not like to think of souls wandering among the living. I like to take my ease unmolested by restless spirits.”

  Pyrrhus listens, his lips drawn back in faint, habitual distaste.

  “I cannot say I was your father’s friend, nor he mine. But I admired his skill and valued him as a soldier. And in ten years, you get to know a man, even if you don’t wish to. So I can tell you now that I do not believe he would want Patroclus to be forgotten.”

  Pyrrhus stiffens. “Did he say so?”

  “He asked that their ashes be placed together, he asked that they be buried as one. In the spirit of this, I think we can say he wished it.” For the first time, I am grateful for his cleverness.

  “I am his son. I am the one who says what his spirit wishes for.”

  “Which is why I came to you. I have no stake in this. I am only an honest man, who likes to see right done.”

  “Is it right that my father’s fame should be diminished? Tainted by a commoner?”

  “Patroclus was no commoner. He was born a prince and exiled. He served bravely in our army, and many men admired him. He killed Sarpedon, second only to Hector.”

  “In my father’s armor. With my father’s fame. He has none of his own.”

  Odysseus inclines his head. “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.” He spread his broad hands. “We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?” He smiles. “Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Odysseus shrugs. “We cannot say. We are men only, a brief flare of the torch. Those to come may raise us or lower us as they please. Patroclus may be such as will rise in the future.”

  “He is not.”