I WOKE NEXT MORNING to the sound of Trojan waves against the Trojan shore. Achilles still drowsed beside me, so I left the tent to let him sleep. Outside the sky was as cloudless as the day before: the sun bright and piercing, the sea throwing off great sheets of light. I sat and felt the drops of sweat prick and pool against my skin.
In less than an hour the raid would begin. I had fallen asleep thinking of it; I had woken with it. We had discussed, already, that I would not go. Most of the men would not. This was a king’s raid, picked to grant first honors to the best warriors. It would be his first real kill.
Yes, there had been the men on the shore, the previous day. But that had been a distant thing, with no blood that we could see. They had fallen almost comically, from too far away to see their faces or pain.
Achilles emerged from the tent, already dressed. He sat beside me and ate the breakfast that was waiting for him. We said little.
There were no words to speak to him of how I felt. Our world was one of blood, and the honor it won; only cowards did not fight. For a prince there was no choice. You warred and won, or warred and died. Even Chiron had sent him a spear.
Phoinix was already up and marshaling the Myrmidons who would accompany him down by the water’s edge. It was their first fight, and they wanted their master’s voice. Achilles stood, and I watched as he strode towards them—the way the bronze buckles on his tunic threw off fire flashes, the way his dark purple cape brightened his hair to sun’s gold. He seemed so much the hero, I could barely remember that only the night before we had spit olive pits at each other, across the plate of cheeses that Phoinix had left for us. That we had howled with delight when he had landed one, wet and with bits of fruit still hanging from it, in my ear.
He held up his spear as he spoke, and shook its gray tip, dark as stone or stormy water. I felt sorry for other kings who had to fight for their authority or wore it poorly, their gestures jagged and rough. With Achilles it was graceful as a blessing, and the men lifted their faces to it, as they would to a priest.
After, he came to bid me farewell. He was life-size again and held his spear loosely, almost lazily.
“Will you help me put the rest of my armor on?”
I nodded and followed him into the cool of the tent, past the heavy cloth door that fell closed like a lamp blown out. I handed him bits of leather and metal as he gestured for them, coverings for his upper thighs, his arms, his belly. I watched him strap these things on, one by one, saw the stiff leather dig into his soft flesh, skin that only last night I had traced with my finger. My hand twitched towards him, longing to pull open the tight buckles, to release him. But I did not. The men were waiting.
I handed him the last piece, his helmet, bristling with horsehair, and watched as he fitted it over his ears, leaving only a thin strip of his face open. He leaned towards me, framed by bronze, smelling of sweat and leather and metal. I closed my eyes, felt his lips on mine, the only part of him still soft. Then he was gone.
Without him the tent seemed suddenly much smaller, close and smelling of the hides that hung on the walls. I lay on our bed and listened to his shouted orders, then the stamps and snorts of horses. Last of all, the creaking of his chariot wheels as they bore him off. At least I had no fears for his safety. As long as Hector lived he could not die. I closed my eyes and slept.
I WOKE TO HIS NOSE on mine, pressing insistently against me as I struggled from the webbing of my dreams. He smelled sharp and strange, and for a moment I was almost revolted at this creature that clung to me and shoved its face against mine. But then he sat back on his heels and was Achilles again, his hair damp and darkened, as if all the morning’s sun had been poured out of it. It stuck to his face and ears, flattened and wet from the helmet.
He was covered in blood, vivid splashes not yet dried to rust. My first thought was terror—that he was wounded, bleeding to death. “Where are you hurt?” I asked. My eyes raked him for the source of the blood. But the spatters seemed to come from nowhere. Slowly, my sleep-stupid brain understood. It was not his.
“They could not get close enough to touch me,” he said. There was a sort of wondering triumph in his voice. “I did not know how easy it would be. Like nothing. You should have seen it. The men cheered me afterwards.” His words were almost dreamy. “I cannot miss. I wish you had seen.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Twelve.”
Twelve men with nothing at all to do with Paris or Helen or any of us.
“Farmers?” There was a bitterness to my voice that seemed to bring him back to himself.
“They were armed,” he said, quickly. “I would not kill an unarmed man.”
“How many will you kill tomorrow, do you think?” I asked.
He heard the edge in my voice and looked away. The pain on his face struck me, and I was ashamed. Where was my promise that I would forgive him? I knew what his destiny was, and I had chosen to come to Troy anyway. It was too late for me to object simply because my conscience had begun to chafe.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I asked him to tell me what it was like, all of it, as we had always spoken to each other. And he did, everything, how his first spear had pierced the hollow of a man’s cheek, carrying flesh with it as it came out the other side. How the second man had fallen struck through the chest, how the spear had caught against his ribcage when Achilles tried to retrieve it. The village had smelled terrible when they left it, muddy and metallic, with the flies already landing.
I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men.
AGAMEMNON POSTED GUARDS to watch Troy every hour of every day. We were all waiting for something—an attack, or an embassy, or a demonstration of power. But Troy kept her gates shut, and so the raids continued. I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.
Chapter Twenty-One
WITH THE RAIDS CAME THE DISTRIBUTION. THIS WAS a custom of ours, the awarding of prizes, the claiming of war spoils. Each man was allowed to keep what he personally won—armor that he stripped from a dead soldier, a jewel he tore from the widow’s neck. But the rest, ewers and rugs and vases, were carried to the dais and piled high for distribution.
It was not so much about the worth of any object as about honor. The portion you were given was equal to your standing in the army. First allotment went usually to the army’s best soldier, but Agamemnon named himself first and Achilles second. I was surprised that Achilles only shrugged. “Everyone knows I am better. This only makes Agamemnon look greedy.” He was right, of course. And it made it all the sweeter when the men cheered for us, tottering beneath our pile of treasure, and not for Agamemnon. Only his own Mycenaeans applauded him.
After Achilles came Ajax, then Diomedes and Menelaus, and then Odysseus and on and away until Cebriones was left with only wooden helmets and chipped goblets. Sometimes, though, if a man had done particularly well that day, the general might award him something particularly fine, before even the first man’s turn. Thus, even Cebriones was not without hope.
IN THE THIRD WEEK, a girl stood on the dais amidst the swords and woven rugs and gold. She was beautiful, her skin a deep brown, her hair black and gleaming. High on her cheekbone was a spreading bruise where a knuckle had connected. In the twilight, her eyes seemed bruised as well, shadowed as if with Egyptian kohl. Her dress was torn at the shoulder and stained with blood. Her hands were bound.