Warrior’s Prize

Patroclos handed round baskets of bread,

and Achilles served the meat.

Iliad, Homer, Book IX

(Rouse’s translation)

I slept, my dreams filled with shouts, challenges, clanging swords. Laodokos was in the hills and I must get to him, but I couldn’t make my legs move.

Then I heard two men speaking low, quite near. “This is not a good idea. She hates you.”

“Nay, she’s sorrowing for her husband and her brother. Give her time.”

I came fully awake, recognized Achilleus’s voice, and remembered. A fist closed around my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“She may try to harm you,” said the first voice.

“Patroklos, we’re speaking of a woman!”

“She’s trouble. I feel it. Who knows? She could be the death of us both.”

“What are you talking about? Have the gods stolen your wits?”

“Maybe, but I think you should give her away.”

“No.” The answer was sharp, quick, and angry.

“But if she—”

“Enough. She stays, and that’s the end of it.”

I opened my eyes. The room was in deep shadow and smelled of wood smoke. I looked toward the hearth, where the two men crouched. Achilleus was carving a shoulder of lamb into strips, which Patroklos slid onto skewers, then placed carefully over stones above the live coals. They were silent as they worked. Neither of them glanced my way. I studied Achilleus’s profile, half in shadow, his brow creased in a frown of concentration.

I sat up, careful not to attract the men’s attention. A sizzling sound came from the hearth as the fragrance of cooking lamb filled the room. Though I never wanted to eat again, my traitorous stomach growled loudly enough to catch Achilleus’s notice. He glanced over, then stood and came toward me. I slid back against the wall. “Briseis, you’re awake! Tonight you shall dine with Patroklos and me.”

My mouth opened in surprise. I guessed that a female captive was not often invited to eat with the men. Where did the other women sup? And on what? Perhaps the leavings, the scraps. Nothing so fine as the feast now being prepared, I was sure. “I’m not hungry. It would be better if I went back to the women’s quarters.”

“Nay, stay and share our meal,” he said. “Tonight I will earn your good will.” When I could find no answer, he put out his hand. “Come. The place of honor is yours.”

“It cannot be,” I said. “You have shed the blood of my kin. We are enemies.”

He smiled as if at a jest. “Spoken like a warrior on the battlefield! But what happened was ordained by the gods, who give victory to the strongest.” He grasped my hand before I could pull away, and helped me to my feet. I had little choice but to obey. Later I would think of vengeance.

Around the hearth were three chairs, each with a low table at its side. Achilleus indicated the nearest chair, and I sat down. Patroklos, bringing out a basket of flat breads and placing several pieces on my table, gave me a narrow-eyed look. Did he guess what I intended? If Achilleus noticed, he said nothing. He cast a piece of meat into the fire as an offering to the gods. As it sizzled, giving off a burning odor, he mixed wine, poured it into three goblets. He placed several pieces of meat on a wooden trencher in front of me, then sat down.

While he and Patroklos feasted on their meat and bread with the appetites of strong, hungry men, I stared at my food, seeing only Laodokos. I’ve lost everything and everyone. Then I remembered the baby.

Achilleus could not have known my thoughts, but he looked up and said, “Eat, Briseis! You need to regain your strength.” I took a bite and found I was famished. Patroklos got up to mix more wine. “Drink,” Achilleus commanded and refilled my goblet. I drank deeply to blunt the pain and sharpen my courage. As the men talked to each other about inconsequential things, I ate and let their conversation wash over me. Outside the window night deepened. I could hear the endless advance and retreat of the waves. The lamps burned low. The men finished eating and reclined in their chairs. My own tension wound ever tighter. Revenge. I must do it tonight when Achilleus took me to his bed. Even if I paid with my death.

But I wanted to live to hold my baby in my arms. And I felt a terrible reluctance to take a man’s life—even his. He had not known a moment’s remorse in killing my brothers, my husband, all the others, but when I pictured the blood bursting from his neck, my legs weakened. He had saved my life. He had even, in his own way, treated me kindly. Perhaps, as he said, it was my fate to belong to him. Men raided and conquered. The victors killed the vanquished and took their women. It was the way of war and always had been. Perhaps it was the will of the gods.

Yet I’d made that vow to Mynes after his death: I belong to you, only you, forever. And the promise to my mother to guard Laodokos’s life with mine. It was my duty to avenge them.

But how could I, a woman alone, do it? Even the Trojans hadn’t been able to kill him.

I thought of Mynes with his mild brown eyes, his gentle smile. Would he truly expect this terrible thing of me? Would Laodokos? Would my mother? I saw another face. Andromache on her wedding day, wearing the bridal crown, her lovely dark eyes hard with determination, as they never had been on that happy day. I imagined her saying, Kill him and save us all. I thought of her slain father and brothers, her mother lying stricken in the ship. I saw the faces of my people, dead and living, heard their voices beseeching me. Kill him. You alone have the chance.

I realized it was more than my own revenge. He was the Achaeans’ greatest warrior, the planner and leader of the raids that kept the camp provisioned. So many lives lost, so many towns destroyed to fill the Achaean storerooms. Killing him could change the course of the war.

Careful not to attract the men’s attention, I looked around. On the wall over Achilleus’s bed hung his mighty sword. It would be within easy reach if I lay with him on that bed. I had handled Mynes’s sword many times, if only to polish it. I imagined the feel of the hilt, cold bronze under my fingertips. I would grip it with two hands and thrust with all my might.

I turned to study my enemy. The firelight shone on bare brown arms, muscular legs. Even in repose, his body had an aura of power. Then my eyes found the soft place in his throat, the jugular. With one well-placed thrust, a man might be killed as easily as a sheep or a swine.

Zeus and all gods send me strength, I prayed. Would some god come to my aid? Aphrodite? Silently I said the name of my patroness, picturing her graven face in the shrine at Lyrnessos, lips smiling, always smiling. Now I saw the mockery in that smile. I remembered my disloyal thoughts as I lay in Mynes’s bed and envisioned a godlike man in his stead. Achilleus, though I hadn’t known it then. Aphrodite had put his image in my mind to tempt me—taunt me—with what was to come.

She would not help me now.

I cast a covert glance at Achilleus. His face was lit with a smile as he listened to some tale Patroklos was recounting. Unaware of my gaze, his eyes rested on the other man’s face—fond, amused—a look he seemed to reserve for Patroklos alone. Clearly he cared for him. Then I shut out the thought. He was a monster. I did not want to see him with human feelings.

“—when we were youths on the island of Skyros,” Patroklos was saying. “Remember when you went looking for a wayward goat and got stuck on a high crag?”

“No, my dear Patroklos, you have it wrong. The goat got stuck, not I! I had to rescue it. Here, have some more wine. You need it to sharpen your memory!” Achilleus, laughing, leaned forward to refill his friend’s goblet. Then, at the same instant, both recalled my presence. Achilleus poured me more wine and, as if reaching a decision, suddenly stood. Patroklos rose too, removed the tables, and flung the meat scraps outside to the dogs. Achilleus fetched something from a corner of the room. I heard a few notes of music and saw he was holding a beautiful, silver-bridged lyre. I gasped.

In his chair tuning the lyre, he looked up. “What is it?”

That lyre had belonged to King Eetion of Thebe. I’d seen him play it at Andromache’s wedding. I didn’t want to answer, but he was looking at me so probingly that I mumbled, “You stole that. On the raid.”

“Stole? No, it was a prize of war. I won it.” His hands rested on the lyre as he looked at me. “I would never steal. But if I am better in battle—” He smiled. “That is how I won you, my lovely one!” He reached out to caress my cheek. When I flinched, he turned back to the lyre, and a cascade of sound flowed from the instrument, each note bursting with its own color. I drew a surprised breath. He looked deep into my eyes, a noticing look as he continued to stroke the lyre, creating a rippling fountain of notes. The god Apollo himself could not have made greater magic. At last he raised his head. “A lament, I think,” he said, and began to sing.

The words floated up, his voice rich and melodious, filling the room with the sorrowful tale of a young warrior who took on a great hero and died before his time, leaving youth and manhood behind. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. The music opened a torrent within me. I tried to check my weeping but couldn’t. Memories flooded me: Laodokos a baby, a toddler, then a lad, his brown eyes wide and bright, his boyish grin, a dark line of down on his upper lip, his boy’s voice cracking as he said my name. I remembered a summer morning when he was eight or nine and we had gone into the green-gold foothills to search for a lost ewe. He ran bounding up the slope ahead of me. He kept hiding and wouldn’t wait. Mischievous laughter bubbled out of him as he vanished behind shrubs and reappeared, his cheeks stuffed with berries, the juices running down his chin. His eyes shone with irrepressible joy. When I caught up with him at last, he had one hand behind his back.

“What have you got there, you naughty boy?”

It was a posy of wildflowers, half-crushed in his sweaty fist. “For you, Briseis. I love only you.”

Sobs erupted from me. Achilleus looked up. The lyre fell silent with a clang as he set it down and got to his feet. He handed me a clean cloth, then sat again. I buried my face in it, and even as I cried, I was aware of his waiting silence.

When at last my sobs lessened, he said, “My poor Briseis, it was good for you to weep. But now, dry your tears.”

Patroklos got up and went about the room quenching the lamps until only the hearth glowed. Achilleus leaned over me and scooped me up into his arms.

“Come, my beauty, it grows late,” he said huskily. “It’s time for bed.”