In the field beside him, I steadied, got my sea legs. I was able to discern other soldiers whole, not just body parts, pierced flesh, bronze. I could even drift, sheltered in the harbor of Achilles’ protection, along the battle lines, seeking out the other kings. Closest to us was Agamemnon skilled-at-the-spear, always behind the bulk of his well-ranked Mycenaeans. From such safety he would shout orders and hurl spears. It was true enough that he was skilled at it: he had to be to clear the heads of twenty men.
Diomedes, unlike his commander, was fearless. He fought like a feral, savage animal, leaping forward, teeth bared, in quick strikes that did not so much puncture flesh as tear it. After, he would lean wolfishly over the body to strip it, tossing the bits of gold and bronze onto his chariot before moving on.
Odysseus carried a light shield and faced his foes crouched like a bear, spear held low in his sun-browned hand. He would watch the other man with glittering eyes, tracking the flicker of his muscles for where and how the spear would come. When it had passed harmlessly by, he would run forward and spit him at close quarters, like a man spearing fish. His armor was always soaked with blood by the day’s end.
I began to know the Trojans, too: Paris, loosing careless arrows from a speeding chariot. His face, even strapped and compressed by the helmet, was cruelly beautiful—bones fine as Achilles’ fingers. His slim hips lounged against the sides of his chariot in habitual hauteur, and his red cloak fell around him in rich folds. No wonder he was Aphrodite’s favorite: he seemed as vain as she.
From far off, glimpsed only quickly through the corridors of shifting men, I saw Hector. He was always alone, strangely solitary in the space the other men gave him. He was capable and steady and thoughtful, every movement considered. His hands were large and work-roughened, and sometimes, as our army withdrew, we would see him washing the blood from them, so he could pray without pollution. A man who still loved the gods, even as his brothers and cousins fell because of them; who fought fiercely for his family rather than the fragile ice-crust of fame. Then the ranks would close, and he would be gone.
I never tried to get closer to him, and neither did Achilles, who carefully turned from his glimpsed figure to face other Trojans, to wade off to other shoals. Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. “What has Hector ever done to me?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
ONE FESTIVAL DAY, SOON AFTER OUR LANDING AT Troy, Achilles rose at dawn. “Where are you going?” I asked him.
“My mother,” he said, then slipped through the tent flap before I could speak again.
His mother. Some part of me had hoped, foolishly, that she would not follow us here. That her grief would keep her away, or the distance. But of course they did not. The shore of Anatolia was no more inconvenient than the shore of Greece. And her grief only made her visits longer. He would leave at dawn, and the sun would be nearly at its peak before he would return. I would wait, pacing and unsettled. What could she possibly have to say to him for so long? Some divine disaster, I feared. Some celestial dictate that would take him from me.
Briseis came often to wait with me. “Do you want to walk up to the woods?” she would say. Just the low sweetness of her voice, the fact that she wished to comfort me, helped take me out of myself. And a trip with her to the woods always soothed me. She seemed to know all its secrets, just as Chiron had—where the mushrooms hid, and the rabbits had their burrows. She had even begun to teach me the native names of the plants and trees.
When we were finished, we would sit on the ridge, looking over the camp, so I could watch for his return. On this day, she had picked a small basket of coriander; the fresh green-leaf smell was all around us.
“I am sure he will be back soon,” she said. Her words were like new leather, still stiff and precise, not yet run together with use. When I did not answer, she asked, “Where does he stay so long?”
Why shouldn’t she know? It wasn’t a secret.
“His mother is a goddess,” I said. “A sea-nymph. He goes to see her.”
I had expected her to be startled or frightened, but she only nodded. “I thought that he was—something. He does not—” She paused. “He does not move like a human.”
I smiled then. “What does a human move like?”
“Like you,” she said.
“Clumsy, then.”
She did not know the word. I demonstrated, thinking to make her laugh. But she shook her head, vehemently. “No. You are not like that. That is not what I meant.”
I never heard what she meant, for at that moment Achilles crested the hill.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said. Briseis excused herself, and returned to her tent. Achilles threw himself down on the ground, hand behind his head.
“I’m starving,” he said.
“Here.” I gave him the rest of the cheese we had brought for lunch. He ate it, gratefully.
“What did you talk about with your mother?” I was almost nervous to ask. Those hours with her were not forbidden to me, but they were always separate.
His breath blew out, not quite a sigh. “She is worried about me,” he said.
“Why?” I bristled at the thought of her fretting over him; that was mine to do.
“She says that there is strangeness among the gods, that they are fighting with each other, taking sides in the war. She fears that the gods have promised me fame, but not how much.”
This was a new worry I had not considered. But of course: our stories had many characters. Great Perseus or modest Peleus. Heracles or almost-forgotten Hylas. Some had a whole epic, others just a verse.
He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I think she is afraid that someone else is going to kill Hector. Before me.”
Another new fear. Achilles’ life suddenly cut shorter than it already was. “Who does she mean?”
“I don’t know. Ajax has tried and failed. Diomedes, too. They are the best after me. There is no one else I can think of.”
“What about Menelaus?”
Achilles shook his head. “Never. He is brave and strong, but that is all. He would break against Hector like water on a rock. So. It is me, or no one.”
“You will not do it.” I tried not to let it sound like begging.
“No.” He was quiet a moment. “But I can see it. That’s the strange thing. Like in a dream. I can see myself throwing the spear, see him fall. I walk up to the body and stand over it.”
Dread rose in my chest. I took a breath, forced it away. “And then what?”
“That’s the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief.”
“Do you think it can be prophecy?”
The question seemed to make him self-conscious. He shook his head. “No. I think it is nothing at all. A daydream.”
I forced my voice to match his in lightness. “I’m sure you’re right. After all, Hector hasn’t done anything to you.”
He smiled then, as I had hoped he would. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard that.”
DURING THE LONG HOURS of Achilles’ absence, I began to stray from our camp, seeking company, something to occupy myself. Thetis’ news had disturbed me; quarrels among the gods, Achilles’ mighty fame endangered. I did not know what to make of it, and my questions chased themselves around my head until I was half-crazy. I needed a distraction, something sensible and real. One of the men pointed me towards the white physicians’ tent. “If you’re looking for something to do, they always need help,” he said. I remembered Chiron’s patient hands, the instruments hung on rose-quartz walls. I went.