The Song of Achilles (14 page)

“Which one is your daughter?” Diomedes asked.

“She is not here, King of Argos. She is visiting family.”

“Too bad,” Diomedes said. “I hoped it was that one.” He pointed to a girl on the end, small and dark; she did look something like Deidameia, and her ankles were particularly lovely, flashing beneath the whirling hem of her dress.

Lycomedes cleared his throat. “Are you married, my lord?”

Diomedes half-smiled. “For now.” His eyes never left the women.

When the dance had finished, Odysseus stood, his voice raised for all to hear. “We are truly honored by your performance; not everyone can say that they have seen the dancers of Scyros. As tokens of our admiration we have brought gifts for you and your king.”

A murmur of excitement. Luxuries did not come often to Scyros; no one here had the money to buy them.

“You are too kind.” Lycomedes’ face was flushed with genuine pleasure; he had not expected this generosity. The servants brought trunks forth at Odysseus’ signal and began unloading them on the long tables. I saw the glitter of silver, the shine of glass and gems. All of us, men and women both, leaned towards them, eager to see.

“Please, take what you would like,” Odysseus said. The girls moved swiftly to the tables, and I watched them fingering the bright trinkets: perfumes in delicate glass bottles stoppered with a bit of wax; mirrors with carved ivory for handles; bracelets of twisted gold; ribbons dyed deep in purples and reds. Among these were a few things I assumed were meant for Lycomedes and his counselors: leather-bound shields, carved spear hafts, and silvered swords with supple kidskin sheaths. Lycomedes’ eyes had caught on one of these, like a fish snagged by a line. Odysseus stood near, presiding benevolently.

Achilles kept to the back, drifting slowly along the tables. He paused to dab some perfume on his slender wrists, stroke the smooth handle of a mirror. He lingered a moment over a pair of earrings, blue stones set in silver wire.

A movement at the far end of the hall caught my eye. Diomedes had crossed the chamber and was speaking with one of his servants, who nodded and left through the large double doors. Whatever it was could not be important; Diomedes seemed half-asleep, his eyes heavy-lidded and bored.

I looked back to Achilles. He was holding the earrings up to his ears now, turning them this way and that, pursing his lips, playing at girlishness. It amused him, and the corner of his mouth curved up. His eyes flicked around the hall, catching for a moment on my face. I could not help myself. I smiled.

A trumpet blew, loud and panicked. It came from outside, a sustained note, followed by three short blasts: our signal for utmost, impending disaster. Lycomedes lurched to his feet, the guards’ heads jerked towards the door. Girls screamed and clung to each other, dropping their treasures to the ground in tinkles of breaking glass.

All the girls but one. Before the final blast was finished, Achilles had swept up one of the silvered swords and flung off its kidskin sheath. The table blocked his path to the door; he leapt it in a blur, his other hand grabbing a spear from it as he passed. He landed, and the weapons were already lifted, held with a deadly poise that was like no girl, nor no man either.
The greatest warrior of his generation.

I yanked my gaze to Odysseus and Diomedes and was horrified to see them smiling. “Greetings, Prince Achilles,” Odysseus said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

I stood helpless as the faces of Lycomedes’ court registered Odysseus’ words, turned towards Achilles, stared. For a moment Achilles did not move. Then, slowly, he lowered the weapons.

“Lord Odysseus,” he said. His voice was remarkably calm. “Lord Diomedes.” He inclined his head politely, one prince to another. “I am honored to be the subject of so much effort.” It was a good answer, full of dignity and the slightest twist of mockery. It would be harder for them to humiliate him now.

“I assume you wish to speak with me? Just a moment, and I will join you.” He placed the sword and spear carefully on the table. With steady fingers he untied the kerchief, drew it off. His hair, revealed, gleamed like polished bronze. The men and women of Lycomedes’ court whispered to one another in muted scandal; their eyes clung to his figure.

“Perhaps this will help?” Odysseus had claimed a tunic from some bag or box. He tossed it to Achilles, who caught it.

“Thank you,” Achilles said. The court watched, hypnotized, as he unfolded it, stripped to the waist, and drew it over himself.

Odysseus turned to the front of the room. “Lycomedes, may we borrow a room of state, please? We have much to discuss with the prince of Phthia.”

Lycomedes’ face was a frozen mask. I knew he was thinking of Thetis, and punishment. He did not answer.

“Lycomedes.” Diomedes’ voice was sharp, cracking like a blow.

“Yes,” Lycomedes croaked. I pitied him. I pitied all of us. “Yes. Just through there.” He pointed.

Odysseus nodded. “Thank you.” He moved towards the door, confidently, as if never doubting but that Achilles would follow.

“After you,” Diomedes smirked. Achilles hesitated, and his eyes went to me, just the barest glance.

“Oh yes,” Odysseus called over his shoulder. “You’re welcome to bring Patroclus along, if you like. We have business with him, as well.”

Chapter Fifteen

T
HE ROOM HAD A FEW THREADBARE TAPESTRIES AND
four chairs. I forced myself to sit straight against the stiff wood back, as a prince should. Achilles’ face was tight with emotion, and his neck flushed.

“It was a trick,” he accused.

Odysseus was unperturbed. “You were clever in hiding yourself; we had to be cleverer still in finding you.”

Achilles lifted an eyebrow in princely hauteur. “Well? You’ve found me. What do you want?”

“We want you to come to Troy,” Odysseus said.

“And if I do not want to come?”

“Then we make this known.” Diomedes lifted Achilles’ discarded dress.

Achilles flushed as if he’d been struck. It was one thing to wear a dress out of necessity, another thing for the world to know of it. Our people reserved their ugliest names for men who acted like women; lives were lost over such insults.

Odysseus held up a restraining hand. “We are all noble men here and it should not have to come to such measures. I hope we can offer you happier reasons to agree. Fame, for instance. You will win much of it, if you fight for us.”

“There will be other wars.”

“Not like this one,” said Diomedes. “This will be the greatest war of our people, remembered in legend and song for generations. You are a fool not to see it.”

“I see nothing but a cuckolded husband and Agamemnon’s greed.”

“Then you are blind. What is more heroic than to fight for the honor of the most beautiful woman in the world, against the mightiest city of the East? Perseus cannot say he did so much, nor Jason. Heracles would kill his wife again for a chance to come along. We will master Anatolia all the way to Araby. We will carve ourselves into stories for ages to come.”

“I thought you said it would be an easy campaign, home by next fall,” I managed. I had to do something to stop the relentless roll of their words.

“I lied.” Odysseus shrugged. “I have no idea how long it will be. Faster if we have you.” He looked at Achilles. His dark eyes pulled like the tide, however you swam against it. “The sons of Troy are known for their skill in battle, and their deaths will lift your name to the stars. If you miss it, you will miss your chance at immortality. You will stay behind, unknown. You will grow old, and older in obscurity.”

Achilles frowned. “You cannot know that.”

“Actually, I can.” He leaned back in his chair. “I am fortunate to have some knowledge of the gods.” He smiled as if at a memory of some divine mischief. “And the gods have seen fit to share with me a prophecy about you.”

I should have known that Odysseus would not come with tawdry blackmail as his only coin. The stories named him
polutropos,
the man of many turnings. Fear stirred in me like ash.

“What prophecy?” Achilles asked, slowly.

“That if you do not come to Troy, your godhead will wither in you, unused. Your strength will diminish. At best, you will be like Lycomedes here, moldering on a forgotten island with only daughters to succeed him. Scyros will be conquered soon by a nearby state; you know this as well as I. They will not kill him; why should they? He can live out his years in some corner eating the bread they soften for him, senile and alone. When he dies, people will say,
who
?”

The words filled the room, thinning the air until we could not breathe. Such a life was a horror.

But Odysseus’ voice was relentless. “He is known now only because of how his story touches yours. If you go to Troy, your fame will be so great that a man will be written into eternal legend just for having passed a cup to you. You will be—”

The doors blew open in a fury of flying splinters. Thetis stood in the doorway, hot as living flame. Her divinity swept over us all, singeing our eyes, blackening the broken edges of the door. I could feel it pulling at my bones, sucking at the blood in my veins as if it would drink me. I cowered, as men were made to do.

Odysseus’ dark beard was dusted with fine debris from the door’s ruin. He stood. “Greetings, Thetis.”

Her gaze went to him as a snake’s to her prey, and her skin glowed. The air around Odysseus seemed to tremble slightly, as if with heat or a breeze. Diomedes, on the ground, edged away. I closed my eyes, so I would not have to see the explosion.

A silence, into which at last I opened my eyes. Odysseus stood unharmed. Thetis’ fists were strangling themselves white. It no longer burned to look at her.

“The gray-eyed maiden has ever been kind to me,” Odysseus said, almost apologetically. “She knows why I am here; she blesses and guards my purpose.”

It was as if I had missed a step of their conversation. I struggled now to follow. The gray-eyed maiden—goddess of war and its arts. She was said to prize cleverness above all.

“Athena has no child to lose.” The words grated from Thetis’ throat, hung in the air.

Odysseus did not try to answer, only turned to Achilles. “Ask her,” he said. “Ask your mother what she knows.”

Achilles swallowed, loud in the silent chamber. He met his mother’s black eyes. “Is it true, what he says?”

The last of her fire was gone; only marble remained. “It is true. But there is more, and worse that he has not said.” The words came tonelessly, as a statue would speak them. “If you go to Troy, you will never return. You will die a young man there.”

Achilles’ face went pale. “It is certain?”

This is what all mortals ask first, in disbelief, shock, fear.
Is there no exception for me?

“It is certain.”

If he had looked at me then, I would have broken. I would have begun to weep and never stopped. But his eyes were fixed on his mother. “What should I do?” he whispered.

The slightest tremor, over the still water of her face. “Do not ask me to choose,” she said. And vanished.

I
CANNOT REMEMBER
what we said to the two men, how we left them, or how we came to our room. I remember his face, skin drawn tightly over his cheeks, the dulled pallor of his brow. His shoulders, usually so straight and fine, seemed fallen. Grief swelled inside me, choking me.
His death
. I felt as if I was dying just to think of it, plummeting through a blind, black sky.

You must not go
. I almost said it, a thousand times. Instead I held his hands fast between mine; they were cold, and very still.

“I do not think I could bear it,” he said, at last. His eyes were closed, as if against horrors. I knew he spoke not of his death, but of the nightmare Odysseus had spun, the loss of his brilliance, the withering of his grace. I had seen the joy he took in his own skill, the roaring vitality that was always just beneath the surface. Who was he if not miraculous and radiant? Who was he if not destined for fame?

“I would not care,” I said. The words scrabbled from my mouth. “Whatever you became. It would not matter to me. We would be together.”

“I know,” he said quietly, but did not look at me.

He knew, but it was not enough. The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him. I opened my mouth, but it was too late.

“I will go,” he said. “I will go to Troy.”

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again.

He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. “
Yes,
” I whispered. “
Yes.
”

Relief broke in his face, and he reached for me. I let him hold me, let him press us length to length so close that nothing might fit between us.

Tears came, and fell. Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.

W
HEN DAWN CAME
, he rose stiffly. “I must go tell my mother,” he said. He was pale, and his eyes were shadowed. He looked older already. Panic rose in me.
Don’t go,
I wanted to say. But he drew on a tunic and was gone.

I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.

The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me.
It is like a tomb.
I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria.
This is what it will be,
every day, without him.
I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream.
Every day, without him.

I left the palace, desperate to shut out thought. I came to the cliffs, Scyros’ great rocks that beetled over the sea, and began to climb. The winds tugged at me, and the stones were slimy with spray, but the strain and danger steadied me. I arrowed upwards, towards the most treacherous peak, where before I would have been too fearful to go. My hands were cut almost to blood by jagged shards of rock. My feet left stains where they stepped. The pain was welcome, ordinary and clean. So easy to bear it was laughable.

I reached the summit, a careless heap of boulders at the cliff’s edge, and stood. An idea had come to me as I climbed, fierce and reckless as I felt.

“Thetis!” I screamed it into the snatching wind, my face towards the sea. “Thetis!” The sun was high now; their meeting had ended long ago. I drew a third breath.

“Do not speak my name again.”

I whirled to face her and lost my balance. The rocks jumbled under my feet, and the wind tore at me. I grabbed at an outcrop, steadied myself. I looked up.

Her skin was paler even than usual, the first winter’s ice. Her lips were drawn back, to show her teeth.

“You are a fool,” she said. “Get down. Your halfwit death will not save him.”

I was not so fearless as I thought; I flinched from the malice in her face. But I forced myself to speak, to ask the thing I had to know of her. “How much longer will he live?”

She made a noise in her throat, like the bark of a seal. It took me a moment to understand that it was laughter. “Why? Would you prepare yourself for it? Try to stop it?” Contempt spilled across her face.

“Yes,” I answered. “If I can.”

The sound again. “Please.” I knelt. “Please tell me.”

Perhaps it was because I knelt. The sound ceased, and she considered me a moment. “Hector’s death will be first,” she said. “This is all I am given to know.”

Hector
. “Thank you,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed, and her voice hissed like water poured on coals. “Do not presume to thank me. I have come for another reason.”

I waited. Her face was white as splintered bone.

“It will not be so easy as he thinks. The Fates promise fame, but how much? He will need to guard his honor carefully. He is too trusting. The men of Greece”—she spat the words—“are dogs over a bone. They will not simply give up preeminence to another. I will do what I can. And you.” Her eyes flickered over my long arms and skinny knees. “You will not disgrace him. Do you understand?”

Do you understand?

“Yes,” I said. And I did. His fame must be worth the life he paid for it. The faintest breath of air touched her dress’s hem, and I knew she was about to leave, to vanish back to the caves of the sea. Something made me bold.

“Is Hector a skilled soldier?”

“He is the best,” she answered. “But for my son.”

Her gaze flickered to the right, where the cliff dropped away. “He is coming,” she said.

A
CHILLES CRESTED THE RISE
and came to where I sat. He looked at my face and my bloodied skin. “I heard you talking,” he said.

“It was your mother,” I said.

He knelt and took my foot in his lap. Gently, he picked the fragments of rock from the wounds, brushing off dirt and chalky dust. He tore a strip from his tunic’s hem and pressed it tight to stanch the blood.

My hand closed over his. “You must not kill Hector,” I said.

He looked up, his beautiful face framed by the gold of his hair. “My mother told you the rest of the prophecy.”

“She did.”

“And you think that no one but me can kill Hector.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you think to steal time from the Fates?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” A sly smile spread across his face; he had always loved defiance. “Well, why should I kill him? He’s done nothing to me.”

For the first time then, I felt a kind of hope.

W
E LEFT THAT AFTERNOON
; there was no reason to linger. Ever dutiful to custom, Lycomedes came to bid us farewell. The three of us stood together stiffly; Odysseus and Diomedes had gone ahead to the ship. They would escort us back to Phthia, where Achilles would muster his own troops.

There was one more thing to be done here, and I knew Achilles did not wish to do it.

“Lycomedes, my mother has asked me to convey her desires to you.”

The faintest tremor crossed the old man’s face, but he met his son-in-law’s gaze. “It is about the child,” he said.

“It is.”

“And what does she wish?” the king asked, wearily.

“She wishes to raise him herself. She—” Achilles faltered before the look on the old man’s face. “The child will be a boy, she says. When he is weaned, she will claim him.”

Silence. Then Lycomedes closed his eyes. I knew he was thinking of his daughter, arms empty of both husband and child. “I wish you had never come,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Achilles said.

“Leave me,” the old king whispered. We obeyed.

T
HE SHIP WE SAILED ON
was yare, tightly made and well manned. The crew moved with a competent fleetness, the ropes gleamed with new fibers, and the masts seemed fresh as living trees. The prow piece was a beauty, the finest I had ever seen: a woman, tall, with dark hair and eyes, her hands clasped in front of her as if in contemplation. She was beautiful, but quietly so—an elegant jaw, and upswept hair showing a slender neck. She had been lovingly painted, each darkness or lightness perfectly rendered.