Lyrnessos died, folding up its wings and spreading its plumage across the desolation with a shriek that was all the cries of the women put into one mouth. We had given Aineas into the care of his immortal mother, Aphrodite, glad he had been granted the opportunity to save our army. All the citizens had agreed it was the only thing to do, so that at least some part of Dardania would live on to strike a blow at the Greeks.
Ancient suits of armour had been lifted from chests by gnarled hands which shook with the effort; boys donned their toy suits with white faces, toy suits never designed to take the bite of bronze blades. Of course they died. Venerable beards soaked up Dardanian blood, the war cries of small soldiers turned into the terrified sobbing of little boys. My father had even taken my dagger from me, tears in his eyes as he explained that he couldn’t leave me with the means to escape drudgery; it was needed, along with every other woman’s dagger.
I stood at my window watching impotently as Lyrnessos died, praying to Artemis the merciful daughter of Leto that she would send one of her darts winging quickly to my heart, still its clamour before some Greek took me and sent me to the slave markets of Hattusas or Nineveh. Our pitiful defence was bludgeoned into the ground until only the citadel walls separated me from a seething mass of warriors all in bronze, taller and fairer than Dardanians; from that moment I envisioned the Daughters of Kore as tall and fair. The only consolation I had was that Aineas and the army were safe. So too was our dear old King, Anchises, who had been so beautiful as a young man that the Goddess Aphrodite had loved him enough to bear him Aineas. Who, good son that he is, refused to leave his father behind. Nor did he abandon Kreusa, his wife, and their little son, Askanios.
Though I couldn’t tear myself away from the window, I could hear the sounds of preparation for battle in the rooms behind me – old feet pattering, reedy voices whispering urgently. My father was among them. Only the priests remained to pray at the altars, and even among them my uncle Chryses, the high priest of Apollo, elected to cast aside his holy mantle and don armour. He would fight, he said, to protect Asian Apollo, who was not the same God as Greek Apollo.
They brought the rams to bear on the citadel gate. The palace shuddered deep in its bowels, and through the din beating on my ears I thought I heard the Earth Shaker bellow, a sound of mourning. For his heart was with them, not with us, Poseidon. We were to be offered up as victims for Troy’s pride and defiance. He could do no more than send us his sympathy, while he lent his strength to the Greek rams. The wood crumpled to splinters, the hinges sagged and the door gave way with a roar. Spears and swords at the ready, the Greeks poured into the courtyard, no pity in them for our pathetic opposition, only anger that Aineas had outwitted them.
The man at their head was a giant in bronze armour trimmed with gold. Wielding a massive axe, he brushed the old men aside as if they were gnats, cleaving their flesh contemptuously. Then he plunged into the Great Hall, his men after him; I closed my eyes on the rest of the slaughter outside, praying now to chaste Artemis to put the idea into their heads to kill me. Far better death than rape and enslavement. Red mists swam before my lids, the light of day forced itself relentlessly in, my ears would not be deaf to choked cries and babbling pleas for mercy. Life is precious to the old. They understand how hard won it is. But I did not hear the voice of my father, and felt that he would have died as proudly as he had lived.
When came the clank of heavy, deliberate feet I opened my eyes and swung round to face the doorway at the other end of the narrow room. A man loomed there, dwarfing the aperture, his axe hanging by his side, his face under the gold-plumed bronze helm stained with grime. His mouth was so cruel that the Gods who made him had neglected to give him lips; I understood that a lipless man would not feel pity or kindness. For a moment he stared at me as if I had issued out of the earth, then he stepped into the room with his head tilted like a pricking dog’s. Drawing myself up, I resolved that he would hear no cry or whine from me, no matter what he did to me. He would not conclude from me that Dardanians lacked courage.
The length of the room disappeared in what I fancied was one stride; he grabbed one of my wrists, then the other, and lifted me by my arms until I dangled with my toes just clear of the floor.
‘Butcher! Butcher of old men and little boys! Animal!’ I panted, kicking out at him.
My wrists were suddenly crushed together so hard that the bones crunched. I longed to scream in agony, but I would not – I would not! His yellow eyes like a lion’s showed his rage; I had wounded him where his self-esteem was still sensitive. He didn’t like being called a butcher of old men and little boys.
‘Curb your tongue, girl! In the slave markets they flog defiance out of you with a barbed lash.’
‘Disfigurement would be a gift!’
‘But in your case, a pity,’ he said, putting me down and releasing my wrists. He transferred his grip to my hair and dragged me by it towards the door while I kicked and struck at his metal form until my feet and fists felt broken.
‘Let me walk!’ I cried. ‘Allow me the dignity of walking! I will not go to rape and slavery cringing and snivelling like a servant woman!’
He stopped quite still, turned to stare down into my face with confusion on his own. ‘You have her courage,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re not like her, yet you have a look of her… Is that what you deem your fate, rape and slavery?’
‘What other fate is there for a captive woman?’
Grinning – which did make him look more like other men because grinning thins the lips out – he let my hair go. I put my hand to my head, wondering if he had torn my scalp, then I walked ahead of him. His hand shot out, fingers fastening about my bruised wrist in a hold I had no hope of breaking.
‘Dignity notwithstanding, my girl, I am no fool. You’ll not escape from me through sheer carelessness.’
‘As your leader let Aineas escape on the hill?’ I gibed.
His face didn’t change. ‘Exactly,’ he said impassively.
He led me through rooms I hardly recognised, their walls spattered with blood, their furnishings already heaped for the plunder wagons. As we entered the Great Hall his feet spurned a pile of corpses, tossed one on top of the other without respect for their years or standing. I stopped, seeking anything in that anonymous collection which might let me identify my father. My captor halfheartedly tried to pull me away, but I resisted.
‘My father might be here! Let me see!’ I begged.
‘Which one is he?’ he asked indifferently.
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to ask to look!’
Though he wouldn’t help me, he let me tug him wherever I willed as I plucked at garments or shoes. At last I saw my father’s foot, unmistakable in its garnet-studded sandal – like most of the old men he had kept his armour, not his fighting boots. But I couldn’t free him. Too many bodies.
‘Ajax!’ my captor called. ‘Come and help the lady!’
Weakened by the terror of the day, I waited as another giant strolled over, a bigger man than my captor.
‘Can’t you help her yourself?’ the newcomer asked.
‘And let her go? Ajax, Ajax! This one has spirit, I can’t trust her.’
‘Taken a fancy to her, little cousin? Well, it’s high time you took a fancy to someone other than Patrokles.’
Ajax put me aside as if I had been a feather, then, still holding his axe, he tossed the bodies about until my father lay uncovered, until I could see his dead eyes staring up at me, his beard buried in a gash which almost severed him across the chest. It was an axe wound.
‘This is the ancient who faced me like a fighting cock,’ the one called Ajax said admiringly. ‘Fiery old fellow!’
‘Like father, like daughter,’ the one holding me said. He jerked at my arm. ‘Come, girl. I haven’t the time to indulge your grief.’
I got up clumsily, tearing my hair into disorder as I saluted him, my father. Better by far to go knowing him dead than have to wonder if he had survived, hope the most foolish hope of all. Ajax moved away, saying he would muster any left alive, though he doubted there were.
We halted at the doorway into the courtyard so my captor could strip a belt from a body lying on the steps. He fastened the leather tightly about my wrist, then secured its other end to his own arm, forcing me to walk closely beside him. Two steps higher up, I watched his bent head as he completed the small task with a thoroughness I fancied typical of him.
‘You didn’t kill my father,’ I said.
‘Yes, I did,’ he answered. ‘I’m the leader your Aineas outwitted. That means I’m responsible for every death.’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Achilles,’ he said shortly, tested his handiwork and hauled me after him into the courtyard. I had to run to keep up with him. Achilles. I should have known. Aineas had said it last, though I had been hearing it for years.
We left Lyrnessos through its main gate, open as Greeks wandered in and out, looting and wenching, some with torches in their hands, some with wineskins. The man Achilles made no effort to reprimand them. He ignored them.
At the top of the road I turned to look down into the Vale of Lyrnessos. ‘You have burned my home. There I dwelled for twenty years, there I expected to dwell until a marriage was arranged for me. But I never expected this.’
He shrugged. ‘The fortunes of war, girl.’
I pointed to the tiny figures of plundering soldiers. ‘Can’t you prevent their acting like beasts? Is there any need for it? I heard the women screaming – I saw!’
His eyelids drooped cynically. ‘What do you know of exiled Greeks or their feelings? You hate us, and I understand that. But you don’t hate us as those men hate Troy and Troy’s allies! Priam has cost them ten years of exile. They delight in making him pay. Nor could I stop them if I tried. And frankly, girl, I don’t feel like trying to stop them.’
‘I’ve listened to the stories for years, but I didn’t know what war is,’ I whispered.
‘Now you do,’ he said.
His camp was three leagues distant; when we reached it he found a baggage officer.
‘Polides, this is my own prize. Take the belt and harness her to an anvil until you can forge better chains. Don’t let her free for one moment, even if she pleads privacy to relieve herself. Once you have her chained, put her where she has everything she needs, including a chamber pot, good food and a good bed. Start for the ships at Andramyttios tomorrow and give her to the lord Phoinix. Tell him I don’t trust her, that she isn’t to be freed.’ He took my chin and pinched it lightly. ‘Goodbye, girl.’
Polides found light chains for my ankles, padded the cuffs well, and took me to the coast on the back of an ass. There I was given to Phoinix, an upright old nobleman with the blue, crinkled gaze and rolling gait of a sailor. When he saw my fetters he clicked his tongue, though he made no attempt to remove them after he ensconced me on board the flagship. He bade me sit with gentle courtesy, but I insisted upon standing.
‘I’m so sorry for the chains,’ he said, grief in his eyes. But not grief for me, I understood. ‘Poor Achilles!’
It annoyed me that the old man thought light of me. ‘This Achilles has a better idea of my mettle than you do, sir! Only let me within reach of a dagger and I’ll fight my way out of this living death, or die in the attempt!’
His sadness vanished in a chuckle. ‘Ai, ai! What a fierce warrior you are! Don’t hope for it, girl. What Achilles binds fast, Phoinix won’t free.’
‘Is his word such sacred law?’
‘It is. He’s Prince of the Myrmidons.’
‘Prince of the ants? How appropriate.’
For answer he chuckled again, pushed a chair forward. I looked at it with loathing, but my back ached from the donkey ride and my legs were trembling, for I had refused to eat or drink since my captivity. Phoinix pressed me into the chair with a hard hand and unstoppered a golden wine flagon.
‘Drink, girl. If you want to maintain your defiance, you’ll need sustenance. Don’t be silly.’
Sensible advice. I took it, to find that my blood was thin and the wine went straight to my head. I could fight no longer. I propped my head on my hand and went to sleep in the chair, waking a long time later to find I had been put down on the bed. Shackled to a beam.
The next day I was taken on deck, my chains fastened to the rail so I could stand in the weak, wintry sun and watch the busy comings and goings on the beach. But when four ships hove into view over the horizon, I noticed a huge scurry and flutter pass through the toiling men, particularly among their supervisors. Suddenly Phoinix was there releasing me from the rail, hustling me not to my previous prison but to a shelter on the afterdeck which stank of horses. He took me inside and locked me to a bar.
‘What is it?’ I asked, curious.
‘Agamemnon, King of Kings,’ said Phoinix.
‘Why put me here? Aren’t I good enough to meet the King of Kings?’
He sighed. ‘Have you no mirror in your Dardanian home, girl? One look at you and Agamemnon would have you in spite of Achilles.’
‘I could scream,’ I said thoughtfully.
He stared at me as if I had gone mad. ‘If you did you’d regret it, I promise you! What good would changing masters do? Believe me, you’d end in preferring Achilles.’
Something in his tone convinced me, so when I heard voices outside the stable door I crouched down behind a manger listening to the pure, liquid cadences of proper Greek – and to the power and authority one of the voices owned.
‘Isn’t Achilles back yet?’ it asked imperiously.
‘No, sire, but he ought to arrive before nightfall. He had to supervise the sack. A rich haul. The wagons have been laden.’
‘Excellent! I’ll wait in his cabin.’
‘Better to wait in the tent on the beach, sire. You know Achilles. Comfort isn’t important.’
‘As you wish, Phoinix.’
Their voices faded; I crawled from my hiding place. The sound of that cold, proud voice had frightened me. Achilles was a monster too, but better the monster you know, as my nurse used to say when I was little.
No one came near me during the afternoon. At first I sat on the bed I presumed belonged to Achilles and inspected the contents of the bare and featureless cabin curiously. A few spears were propped against a stanchion, no attempt had been made to paint the plain plank walls, and the dimensions of the room were tiny. It contained only two striking items, one an exquisite white fur rug on the bed, the other a massive four-handled pouring cup of gold, its sides worked to show the Sky Father on his throne, each handle surmounted by a horse in full gallop.
At which moment my grief opened and swallowed me, perhaps because for the first time since my capture I had no urgent or dangerous situation to push it away. As I sat here my father would be sprawled on the Lyrnessos refuse heap, food for the perpetually hungry town dogs; that was the traditional fate for high noblemen killed in battle. Tears poured down my face; I threw myself on the white fur rug and wept. Nor could I stop. The white fur became slick under my cheek and still I wept, keening and snuffling.
I didn’t hear the door open, so when a hand rested on my shoulder my heart ran about the inside of my chest like a trapped animal. All my grand ideas of defiance fled; I thought only that the High King Agamemnon had found me, and cringed away.
‘I belong to Achilles, I belong to Achilles!’ I wailed.
‘I’m aware of that. Who did you think came in?’
Carefully wiping the relief from my face before I lifted it, I dabbed at the tears with the palm of my hand. ‘The High King of Greece.’
‘Agamemnon?’
I nodded.
‘Where is he?’
‘In the tent on the beach.’
Achilles went to a chest by the far wall, opened it, rummaged inside it and threw me a square of fine cloth. ‘Here, blow your nose and mop your face. You’ll make yourself sick.’
I did as I was told. He came back to my side and gazed at the rug ruefully.
‘I hope it dries unmarked. It was a gift from my mother.’ He looked me over critically. ‘Was it beyond Phoinix’s resources to find you a bath and a clean dress?’
‘He offered. I refused.’
‘But you won’t refuse me. When the servants bring you a tub and fresh raiment, you’ll use them. Otherwise I’ll order it done by force – and not by women. Is that understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ His hand was on the latch when he paused. ‘What’s your name, girl?’
‘Brise.’
He grinned appreciatively. ‘Brise. “She who prevails”. Are you sure you didn’t make that one up?’
‘My father’s name was Brises. He was first cousin to King Anchises and Dardania’s Chancellor. His brother, Chryses, was high priest of Apollo. We are of the Royal Kindred.’
During the evening a Myrmidon officer came to me, unbolted my chains from the beam and led me by them to the side of the ship. A rope ladder was suspended from the rail; silently he indicated that I was to descend, doing me the courtesy of going first so he wouldn’t look up my skirts. The ship was high on the pebbles, which rolled about and hurt my feet.
A huge leather tent squatted on the shore, though I couldn’t remember seeing it when I had arrived on my donkey. The Myrmidon ushered me in through a flap in the back, into a room crammed with about a hundred women of Lyrnessos, none of whom I recognised. I alone had the distinction of chains. Many pairs of eyes fastened on me in hangdog curiosity as I searched the throng for a familiar face. There, in the corner! A head of glorious golden hair no one could mistake. My guard still kept hold of my fetters, but when I moved towards the corner he let me do as I wanted.
My cousin Chryse’s hands were across her face; when I touched her she jumped in panic, her arms falling. She looked at me in dawning wonder, then flung herself at me, weeping.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, at a loss. ‘You’re the daughter of the high priest of Apollo, therefore inviolate.’
Her answer was a howl. I shook her.
‘Oh, stop crying, do!’ I snapped.
Since I had been bullying her from the days of our shared childhood, she obeyed me. Then she said, ‘They took me all the same, Brise.’
‘That is a sacrilege!’
‘They say not. My father put on armour and fought. Priests don’t fight. So they classified him as a warrior and took me.’
‘Took you? Have you been raped already?’ I gasped.
‘No, no! According to the women who dressed me, only the ordinary women are thrown to the soldiers. Those in this room have been saved for some special purpose.’ She looked down, saw my hobbles. ‘Oh, Brise! They’ve chained you!’
‘At least I bear visible evidence of my status. No one could mistake me for a camp follower, wearing these.’
‘Brise!’ she choked, a familiar expression on her face; I always managed to shock poor, tame little Chryse. Then she asked, ‘Uncle Brises?’
‘Dead, like all the rest.’
‘Why aren’t you mourning him?’
‘I am mourning him!’ I snarled. ‘However, I’ve been in the hands of the Greeks for long enough to have learned that a captive woman needs her wits about her.’
She looked out of her depth. ‘Why are we here?’
I turned to my Myrmidon. ‘You! Why are we here?’
Though he grinned at my tone, he answered respectfully enough. ‘The High King of Mykenai is the guest of the Second Army. They’re dividing the spoils. The women in this room are to be apportioned among the Kings.’
We waited for what seemed an aeon. Too tired to talk, Chryse and I sat upon the ground. From time to time a guard would enter and remove a small group of women according to coloured tags on their wrists; they were all very handsome girls. No crones, no strumpets, no horse faces, no skeletons. Yet neither Chryse nor I wore tags. The numbers dwindled, we were ignored; finally we were the only two left in the room.
A guard entered and flung veils over our faces before we were led into the next room. Through a thin mesh over my eyes I saw a huge blaze of light from what seemed a thousand lamps, a canopy of cloth overhead, and all around a sea of men. They sat on benches at tables, with wine cups at their elbows and servants hurrying back and forth. Chryse and I were shepherded to stand before a long dais on which stood; the high table.
Perhaps twenty men sat on one side of it only, facing the diners. On a high-backed chair in the middle was a man who looked as I had always fancied Father Zeus might. He had a frowning, noble head; his elaborately curled grey-black hair cascaded over his shimmering garments and a great beard bound with threads of gold fell down his chest, gems sparkling from hidden pins. A pair of dark eyes surveyed us broodingly as one white, aristocratic hand toyed with his moustache. Imperial Agamemnon, High King of Mykenai and Greece, King of Kings. Anchises looked not one-tenth as royal.
I tore my gaze away from him to scan the others as they lounged at their ease in their chairs. Achilles sat on Agamemnon’s left, though he was hard to recognise. I had seen him in armour, grimed and hard. Now he was in a company of kings. His hairless bare chest gleamed below a massive collar of gold and gems across his shoulders, his arms glittered with bracelets and his fingers with rings. He was clean-shaven and his bright gold hair was loosely combed back from his forehead, gold pendants in his ears. His yellow eyes were clear and rested, their unusual colour striking under his strongly marked brows and lashes, and he had painted them in Cretan fashion. I blinked, then looked away, confused. Upset.
Next to him was a man of truly noble aspect, tall in his chair, with red hair massed in curls around his broad, high forehead, his skin white and delicate. Under surprisingly dark brows his beautiful eyes shone grey and piercing, the most fascinating eyes I had ever seen. When my gaze dropped to his bare chest I saw in pity how scarred he was; his face seemed to be the only part of him had escaped.
On Agamemnon’s right was another red-haired man, a shambling fellow who kept his gaze on the table top. As he raised his cup to his lips I noticed that his hand shook. His neighbour was a most kingly old man, tall and erect, with a silvery white beard and wide blue eyes. Though he was dressed very simply in a white linen robe, his fingers were smothered in rings from knuckles to tips. The giant Ajax was next to him; I had to blink again, hardly able to associate him with the man who had uncovered my father’s body.
But my eyes grew tired of their different faces, all so deceptively noble. The guard drew Chryse forward, twitching away her veil. My stomach fluttered. She was so beautiful in her foreign clothes, Greek stuff given to her from some Greek chest, clothes bearing no resemblance to the long, straight gowns Lyrnessian women wore between neck and ankles. In Lyrnessos we hid ourselves from all save our husbands; Greek women evidently dressed like whores. Scarlet with shame, Chryse covered her bare breasts with her hands until the guard struck them down so that the table of silent men could see how tiny her waist was in the tight girdle, and how perfect her breasts were. Agamemnon ceased to look like Father Zeus, became Pan instead. He turned to Achilles.
‘By the Mother, she’s exquisite!’
Achilles smiled. ‘We’re pleased you like her, sire. She’s yours – a mark of the Second Army’s esteem. Her name’s Chryse.’
‘Come here, Chryse.’ The elegant white hand gestured; she dared not disobey. ‘Come, look at me! There’s no need to be afraid, girl, I won’t hurt you.’ White teeth flashing, he smiled at her, then stroked her arm without seeming to notice that she flinched. ‘Take her to my ship at once.’
She was led away. It was my turn. The guard threw off my veil to display me in my immodest garb. I stood as tall as I could, my hands by my sides, my face expressionless. The shame was theirs, not mine. Staring down the lust in the High King’s eyes, I forced him to glance away. Achilles said nothing. I moved my legs a little to make my manacles clink. Agamemnon raised his brows.
‘Chains? Who ordered that?’
‘I did, sire. I don’t trust her.’
‘Oh?’ There was a world of meaning in that single word. ‘And whose property is she?’
‘Mine. I captured her myself,’ said Achilles.
‘You should have offered me my choice of the two girls,’ said Agamemnon, displeased.
‘I’ve told you, sire, I captured her myself, which makes her mine. Besides which, I don’t trust her. Our Greek world will survive without me, but not without you. I have ample proof that this girl’s dangerous.’
‘Hmph!’ said the High King, not really mollified. Then he sighed. ‘I’ve never seen hair halfway between red and gold, nor eyes so blue.’ He sighed again. ‘More beautiful than Helen.’
The nervous man on the High King’s right, he with the red hair, brought his fist down on the table so hard that the wine cups leaped. ‘Helen has no peer!’ he cried.
‘Yes, brother, we’re aware of that,’ said Agamemnon patiently. ‘Calm yourself.’
Achilles nodded to his Myrmidon officer. ‘Take her away.’
I waited in a chair in his cabin, lids drooping, though I dared not allow myself to sleep. No woman is more defenceless than a sleeping one.
A long time later Achilles came. When the latch lifted I was dozing despite my resolution, and jumped in fright, gripping my hands together. The moment of reckoning had arrived. But Achilles didn’t seem consumed with want; he ignored me to go to the chest and open it. Then he ripped off the collar, the rings, the bracelets, the jewelled belt. Not his kilt.
‘I can never be rid of that rubbish soon enough,’ he said, staring at me.
I stared back, at a loss. How did a rape begin?
The door opened and another man entered, very like Achilles in colouring and features but smaller in size, and with a more tender face. His lips were lovely. Blue, not yellow, his eyes surveyed me with an apprehensive gleam.
‘Patrokles, this is Brise.’
‘Agamemnon was right. She is more beautiful than Helen.’ The glance he gave Achilles was fraught with meaning and filled with pain. ‘I’ll leave you. I only wanted to see if you needed anything.’
‘Wait outside, I won’t be long,’ said Achilles absently.
Already on the way to the door, Patrokles propped, gave Achilles a look no one could have mistaken. Absolute joy and absolute possession.
‘He’s my lover,’ said Achilles when he had gone.
‘That I gathered.’
He lowered himself onto one side of the narrow bed with a sigh of weariness, and indicated my chair. ‘Sit again.’
I sat regarding him steadily for some time while he stared at me with what seemed detachment; he didn’t, I was beginning to suspect, desire me in the least. Why then had he claimed me?
‘I had thought you women of Lyrnessos very sheltered,’ he said at last, ‘but you appear to know the ways of the world.’
‘Some ways. Those which are universal. What we don’t understand are fashions like these.’ I touched my bare breasts. ‘Rape must be rife in Greece.’
‘No more than anywhere else. A thing tends to lose its novelty when it is – universal.’
‘What do you intend to do with me, Prince Achilles?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘My nature isn’t easy.’
‘I know.’ His smile was wry. ‘In fact, your question was a telling one. I really don’t know what to do with you.’ He shot me a yellow look. ‘Do you play the lyre? Can you sing?’
‘Very well.’
He got to his feet. ‘Then I’ll keep you to play and sing to me,’ he said, and barked, ‘Sit down on the floor!’
I sat. He flipped the heavy skirt up around my thighs, then left the room. When he came back he was carrying a hammer and a chisel. The next moment I was free of my chains.
‘You’ve spoiled the floor,’ I said, pointing to the deep scores where the chisel had bitten too hard.
‘This is no more than a shelter on a foredeck,’ he said, climbing off his knees and hauling me to my feet. His hands were firm and dry. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said, and left me.
But before I crawled into the bed I offered up a prayer of thanks to Artemis. The virgin Goddess had heard me; the man who had taken me for his prize was not a man for women. I was safe. Why then was a part of my sadness not on behalf of my beloved father?
In the morning they ran the flagship down into the water, sailors and warriors hurrying about the deck and rowing benches, filling the air with laughter and choice curses. It was plain that they were delighted to be leaving blackened, denuded Andramyttios. Perhaps they could hear the shades of thousands of innocents reproaching them.
Patrokles the tender man threaded his way gracefully through the crowded midships and climbed the few steps to the foredeck, where I stood watching.
‘Are you well this morning, lady?’
‘Thank you, yes.’
I turned away, but he stayed by my side, apparently content with my chilly company.
‘You’ll get used to things in time,’ he said.
I just looked at him. ‘A more stupid remark is hard to think of,’ I said. ‘Could you get used to it if you were forced to live in the household of the man who was responsible for the death of your father and the destruction of your home?’
‘Probably not,’ he answered, flushing. ‘But this is war, and you’re a woman.’
‘War,’ I answered bitterly, ‘is a man’s activity. Women are its victims, just as they’re the victims of men.’
‘War,’ he countered, amused, ‘was equally prevalent when women ruled under the thumb of the Mother. High queens were as avaricious and ambitious as any High king. War isn’t an aspect of sex. It’s an intrinsic part of the race.’
As that was inarguable, I changed the subject. ‘Why do you, a man of sensitivity and perception, love a man as hard and cruel as Achilles?’ I asked.
His blue eyes stared at me in amazement. ‘But Achilles isn’t hard or cruel!’ he said blankly.
‘That I don’t believe.’
‘Achilles isn’t what he seems,’ said his faithful hound.
‘Then what is he?’
He shook his head. ‘That, Brise, you’ll have to discover for yourself.’
‘Is he married?’ Why did women always have to ask that?
‘Yes. To the only daughter of King Lykomedes of Skyros. He has a son, Neoptolemos, sixteen years old. And, as the only son of Peleus, he’s Heir to the High Kingdom of Thessalia.’
‘None of which alters my opinion of him.’
To my surprise, Patrokles picked up my hand and kissed it. Then he went away.
I stood in the stern as long as there was a smudge of land on the horizon. The sea was under me, I could never go back. No escaping my fate now. I was to be a woman musician, I who had expected to marry a king. Should already have been married to a king, save that the Greeks had arrived and those men who in other days would have come to negotiate for my hand were suddenly too busy to think of marriage alliances.
The water hissed under the hull, broken into white foam by the slap of the oars, a steady, soothing sound which filled my head so subtly that long moments had passed before I realised that I had made up my mind what to do. The rail wasn’t difficult; I clambered onto it and prepared to jump.
Someone jerked me roughly down. Patrokles.
‘Let me do it! Forget you’ve seen me!’ I cried.
‘Never again,’ he said, white-faced.
‘Patrokles, I’m not important, I mean nothing to anyone! Let me do it! Let me!’
‘No, never again. Your fate matters to him. Never again.’
Mysteries. Who? What? Never again?
It took a full seven days to reach Assos. Once we rounded the corner of the peninsula opposite Lesbos, the oars proved useless; the winds blew fitfully, pushing us to within sight of the beach, then blowing us away again. Most of the time I sat alone in a curtained off alcove on the afterdeck, and whenever I emerged Patrokles would drop whatever he was doing to hurry to my side. I saw no sign of Achilles, and finally I learned that he was on board the ship of someone called Automedon.
We managed to beach on the morning of the eighth day. I wrapped my cloak about me to shut out the bitter wind and watched the operations with fascination, never having seen anything like them before. Ours was the second ship mounted on its chocks; Agamemnon’s preceded it. As soon as the ladder was down I was let descend to the shingle. When Achilles passed within a few cubits of me I put up my chin and prepared for war, but he didn’t notice me.
Then the housekeeper arrived, a stout and cheery old woman named Laodike, and led me to the house of Achilles.
‘You’re rarely privileged, little dove,’ she crooned. ‘You’re to have your own chamber within the master’s house – which is more than I do, let alone the others.’
‘Doesn’t he have hundreds of women?’
‘Yes, but they don’t live with him.’
‘He lives with Patrokles,’ I said, striding out.
‘Patrokles?’ Laodike grinned. ‘He used to, until they became lovers. Then, a couple of moons later, Achilles made him build his own house.’
‘Why? That doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh, it does if you know the master! He likes to own himself.’
Hmmm. Well, perhaps I don’t know Achilles either, but I was learning fast. He liked to own himself, did he? The pieces of the puzzle were there to be picked up, just as they had been when I was a child. The real problem was putting them together.
Which kept me occupied all through that long winter, a prisoner of the cold. Achilles was always out and about, quite often dined elsewhere – sometimes slept elsewhere too, I supposed with Patrokles, who, poor man, seemed more agonised by his love than happy in it. The other women were prepared to hate me because I lived in the master’s house and they didn’t, but I am able to deal with women, so we were soon on good terms; they fed me all the gossip about Achilles.
He had periods of illness culminating in some kind of spell (they had heard him refer to this spell); he could be strangely withdrawn; his mother was a Goddess, a sea creature named Thetis who could change her physical form as quickly as the sun went in and out of clouds – cuttlefish, whale, minnow, crab, starfish, sea urchin, shark; his father’s grandfather was Zeus himself; he had been taught by a Kentaur, a most fabulous being who had the head, arms and torso of a man, though the rest of him was a horse; the giant Ajax was his first cousin, and a great friend; he lived for battle, not for love. No, they didn’t think him a man for men, despite his cousin Patrokles. But no, he was not a man for women either.
Occasionally he would summon me to play and sing, which I did with gratitude; my life palled. And he would sit, brooding in his chair, listening with only half his mind, while the other half went somewhere unrelated to the music or to me. No flicker of desire, ever. No indication as to why he kept me. Nor did I manage to find out what lay behind the things Patrokles had said when I tried to jump into the sea. Never again! Who? What had happened to kill desire in Achilles?
To my sorrow I found that Lyrnessos and my father were gradually fading from first place in my thoughts. I was becoming more and more caught up in what was going on in Assos than in what had happened to Dardania. Three times Achilles dined alone in his house, and on those three occasions he commanded that I should wait on him, that no other woman was to be present. Silly Laodike would primp me and perfume me, convinced that I was to be his at last, but he said nothing, did nothing.
In late winter we moved from Assos to Troy. Phoinix went back and forth countless times, gradually all the warehouses, granaries and barracks were emptied, and finally the army itself sailed north.
Troy. Even in Lyrnessos Troy ruled, for Troy was the centre of our world. Not to the taste of King Anchises or Aineas, yet a truth for all that. Now for the first time I laid eyes on Troy. The restless wind swept its plain clear of snow; its towers and pinnacles, ice-festooned, glittered in the sun. It was like a palace on Olympos – remote, chill, beautiful. Aineas lived inside it with his father, his wife and his son.
The move to Troy burdened me in some way I didn’t begin to understand; I became prone to fits of depression and bouts of weeping, unreasonable ill temper.
This was the tenth year of the war, and the oracles all spoke of an end at last. Was this why I moped? Knowing that when it was over Achilles would take me with him to Iolkos? Or fearing that he intended to sell me as a fine musician? I seemed not to please him in any other way.
In earliest spring the raiding parties began to come out of the city; with all the Greeks in one enormous camp, provender had to be found to eke out what was stored in vast quantities. Hektor lurked in wait for foraging expeditions, while Greeks like Achilles and Ajax lurked in wait for Hektor. By this time I knew how desperately Achilles wanted to meet Hektor in combat; the desire to kill the Trojan Heir all but consumed him, the other women said. All day and half the night the house rang to the sound of masculine voices. I came to know the other leaders by name.
Then spring filled the air with drenching, heady scents, the ground was starred with tiny white flowers, and the waters of the Hellespont grew bluer. Small skirmishes occurred almost every day; Achilles was even hungrier for Hektor. His bad luck continued to dog him, however. He never did manage to encounter the elusive Heir. Nor did Ajax.
Though Laodike deemed me too nobly born for menial work, I would set to with a will whenever she disappeared. Working was better than picking at some unnecessary scrap of embroidery with a dull and uninspired needle.
One of the most intriguing stories about Achilles concerned how he had finally taken Patrokles as his lover after so many years of friendship having nothing to do with the pleasures of the body. According to Laodike, the transformation had taken place during one of Thetis’s spells. At such times, she said, our master was peculiarly susceptible to the wishes and desires of others, and Patrokles had seen his chance. I thought that too trite an explanation, simply because I had seen nothing in Patrokles to indicate such unscrupulousness. But the ways of the Goddess of Love are passing strange: who could have predicted that I too would suffer the Spell? Perhaps the truth was that Achilles armoured himself so effectively he had no vulnerable chinks under any other circumstances.
It happened one day when I sneaked off to do the work I liked best, polish the armour in the special room where it was kept. And was caught. Achilles came in. His pace was slower than usual, nor did he see me, though I stood in plain view with a rag in one hand and my excuses ready. His face was tired and drawn, there was blood sprayed up his right arm. Not his own! I relaxed. The helmet came off, was dropped on the floor; he put both hands to his head as if it pained him. Frightened, I began to tremble as he fumbled with the ties on his cuirass, managed to shed it and the rest of his paraphernalia. Where was Patrokles?
Clad in the quilted shift he wore beneath all that metal, he stumbled towards a seat, blank face turned to me. But instead of sinking into the chair he collapsed to the floor, began to shake and twitch, drool copiously, mumble. Then his eyes rolled back; he went stiff, all four limbs extended, and started to jerk. The drool became great drops of foam, his face went black.
I could do nothing while he moved so violently, but after that ceased I knelt beside him.
‘Achilles! Achilles!’
He didn’t hear me; he lay grey-faced on the floor, arms moving aimlessly. When his hands encountered my side he groped until he managed to transfer them to my head, rocked it back and forth gently.
‘Mother, leave me alone!’
His voice was so slurred and altered I hardly knew it; I began to weep, terrified for him.
‘Achilles, it’s Brise! Brise!’
‘Why do you torment me?’ he asked, but not of me. ‘Why do you think I need reminding that I go to my death? I have sorrows enough without you – can’t you be content with Iphigenia? Leave me alone, leave me alone!’
After that he lapsed into a stupor. I fled from the room to find Laodike.
‘Is the master’s bath ready?’ I asked, breathless.
She mistook my state of distress for anticipation, began to tee-hee and pinch me. ‘About time too, silly girl! Yes, it’s ready. You can bathe him, I’m busy. Tee-hee!’
I bathed him, though he didn’t know me from Laodike. Which freed me to look at him, and so taught me what I had refused to admit: how beautiful he was, and how much I wanted him. The room was steamy, my Dardanian robe clung to me because I sweated, and I scorned my own foolishness. Brise had joined the ranks. Like all his other women, Brise was in love with him. In love with a man who was neither a man for men nor a man for women. A man who lived for one thing only, mortal combat.
I dipped a cloth in cold water and wrung it out, stepped onto the stool by the bath to sponge his face. Some semblance of awareness entered his eyes. He lifted his hand and put it on my shoulder.
‘Laodike?’ he asked.
‘Yes, lord. Come, your bed is here. Take my hand.’
His fingers tightened; I knew without needing to look that he had recognised my voice. Slipping from his hold, I picked up a jar of oil from the table. When I glanced quickly at his face he was smiling at me, the smile which almost gave him a proper mouth and was unexpectedly gentle.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘It was nothing,’ I answered, hardly able to hear what I was saying above the beating of my heart.
‘How long have you been here?’
I couldn’t lie to him. ‘From the beginning.’
‘You saw me, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘So we have no secrets.’
‘We share the secret,’ I said.
And then I was in his arms, how I do not know. Save that he didn’t kiss me; afterwards he told me that, lacking lips, kisses gave him scant pleasure. But oh, the body did. His and mine both. There was not a fibre of me those hands couldn’t make sing like a lyre; I hung inarticulate, feeling the blinding intensity that was Achilles. And I who had hungered vainly for so many moons, not knowing I hungered, knew at last the power of the Goddess. We were neither divided nor consumed; for a sliver of time I felt the Goddess move in him and in me.
He loved me, he said afterwards. He had loved me from the beginning. For though I wasn’t like her, he had seen Iphigenia in me. Then he told me that terrible story, content now, I fancied, for the first time since she had died. And I wondered how I would ever have the courage to face Patrokles, who out of the purity of love had tried to work the cure, but failed. All the pieces were together.