Warrior’s Prize

“Every sane decent fellow loves his own

and cares for her, as in my heart I loved

Briseis, though I won her by the spear.”

—Achilleus (Iliad, Homer, Book IX,

Fitzgerald’s translation)

A faint gray light seeped through the opening above the hearth when I awoke, enough for me to see the face of Achilleus asleep at my side. Self-loathing filled me. I can’t stay here in his bed. I had to decide what to do and how to go on.

Perhaps I could even find a way out of the camp. Escape.

I didn’t have time to think or plan. If I was careful, I could slip out of the bed without waking him. Gingerly I sat up, reached for my gown and pulled it over my head. The morning air was chilly. His blue mantle lay on the floor. I wrapped it about me.

Tiptoeing to the food chest, I grabbed some scraps of dried meat and took an empty wine skin that I could fill with water when I reached a spring.

On silent feet I made for the door and unlatched it soundlessly. A whiff of cool air blew in. Someone muttered in the room behind me. I froze. When there was no further sound, I slipped out, pulling the door closed but leaving it unlatched. I started for the gate—and saw the dogs, several huddled shapes across the courtyard. One stood looking at me through the dimness, ears pointed, tail erect. He gave a low growl. I put out my hand to reassure him. He started toward me, still growling softly. Fearful that he might bark or attack, I handed him the meat scraps, which he wolfed down. So much for having food for the journey.

The gate was barred from the inside, the bar too heavy for me to lift, but I found a place along the fence where a stack of wood and a supporting beam provided footholds. Climbing up, I pulled myself over and landed on the other side. The Myrmidon camp was quiet, the beach deserted. The water was still, the sky just beginning to brighten over the eastern hills.

I went down to the edge of the sea. In the past times of trouble, I had stood at dawn on the shore of Lyrnessos to commune with Aphrodite, my patroness. I lifted my arms to her now and prayed in silence. O Goddess, guide me! Make your will known to me. But if there was an answer from her, it was a deafening stillness, as if she refused to acknowledge my existence. I felt abandoned. Was she angry that I had not accepted my lot as Achilleus’s prize?

I called silently to my lost Laodokos, but the pain was so fresh I turned my mind instead to my husband. Mynes, what should I do? Shall I risk returning to our people? I tried to see his face and hear his voice—how it sounded when he said my name. Instead, Achilleus’s voice resonated in my mind. My beautiful Briseis!

Must I resign myself? Was this the answer I sought?

No. Not if there was any possibility of escape from the man who had murdered my husband and my beloved Laodokos. An inner voice warned, If I get caught, things could get a lot worse. But I had to try. What better time than now, while the men still slept? If I kept walking down the shore with the sea on my right, I would reach a place where the last ship was beached. The Achaeans, mighty as they were, could not wall off the sea. Once I got to the end, there would be a way out of the camp. And if I kept walking, following the shore, eventually I would get to Lyrnessos even if I had to walk for many days. I would find the food supply mostly gone and those few left behind struggling to survive. But never mind the hardships. I could live among my own people and bear my child there.

Mynes, is this your will? For a moment he felt present in my mind. Then his spirit gently faded. “Farewell,” I whispered.

As I started walking, a vague, insistent back pain slowed my steps. The sea was beginning to shimmer with light. But its beauty only brought sadness. A lone sea gull glided by, turning on a black-tipped wing. The Achaean ships on my right seemed to stretch out without number until at last, far down the shore, I saw the end of the line. I hastened my steps. Full daylight blazed when I finally reached the last ship.

Here, the wall around the camp extended into shallow water. One hand on the wall, the other holding up my gown, I waded into the sea, knee-deep. Then something made me look back.

A form was hurtling down the beach, swift as fate.

My heart sank. I turned quickly and waded back to the shore, hoping to conceal my purpose. Later, I thought. There would be another chance.

I faced Achilleus as he stood before me, his breathing barely hastened from his run. He wore a short tunic and carried a javelin. The sight of it gave me a knife-thrust of pain, even though this was not the one that had belonged to Laodokos.

“A walk at sunrise, Briseis?” Achilleus gave a harsh laugh and pointed to the wall. “You would not have gotten far. There’s a sentry on the other side. But come!” He took my arm with sudden ferocity. “He will let us through.”

The sentry came forward from his station. “Good day, Amphimachos,” Achilleus called out. “A fair morning, is it not?”

“Prince Achilleus!” the man answered. “What brings you here?”

Achilleus grinned crookedly. “An early morning walk.” He pulled me forward. The sentry returned to his post as we waded in shallow water around the end of the wall. Beyond, a brackish stream ran into the sea. Without seeking my consent, Achilleus lifted me into his arms and forded the stream. On the other side he set me down, wordlessly pulling me along, until we rounded a rocky outcropping and passed beyond the sentry’s line of vision.

There he stopped, looking down at me, his eyes hard. His right hand clenched around the javelin, and I saw the knuckles whiten. “First the sword, and now this. I should punish you—lock you up.” He turned, throwing the javelin with vehement force. It flew in a long, flattened arc, far down the shore, and landed point down, quivering in the sand. He ran to retrieve it, took aim and threw again, as if to fling the pent-up anger from his body.

I watched because I could not help myself. With each throw his body was a poem of fluid motion. A too-vivid memory kindled in my mind: the walls of Lyrnessos and my first sight of that lethal grace. As he ran down the beach to retrieve the javelin, I sighed sharply and sat on the sand, facing out to sea. To my left, the shore stretched toward home, tantalizingly deserted. I thought of running down that strand—but for only an instant. There was no way to escape an angry man with a spear. A man who could outrun the wind. Hopelessness weighed on my heart.

Achilleus came up to sit beside me, very close. I did not look at him but heard his hard breathing. “You cannot escape, you know. You’re hemmed in by walls and sentries—and by the sea. And the sea is my friend!”

I shook my head. “How can that be?”

“My mother, Thetis, is a priestess to the sea god Nereus. The sea will never turn against me, nor those I love. Perhaps that’s why I found you yesterday, just in time.” He paused. “You were not indifferent to me last night, were you? Look at me, answer me, Briseis.” I kept my face resolutely turned away. He already saw too much. “Sometimes when I stand on the shore,” he continued, “my mother seems very near. I send her my thoughts, and I think she answers me.”

Surprised, I did look at him.

“If I told her about you,” he continued, “what would she say? She would tell me to be patient, that Briseis’s love will be mine one day.” He touched my cheek. When I drew back, his face twisted into a grimace. “I know I should listen to her, but—I can’t—” He broke off, and his fist struck the sand between us. There was a stinging silence.

“What do you want?” he asked at last in a stifled voice. “I’ve made you welcome, shown you every kindness—”

Aye, it was true. I was not ill-treated, as were so many women who endured rape and brutality. Yet I thought, Kindness, when you killed my loved ones! I gave a choked, bitter laugh that became a flood of tears. As if answering my unspoken rebuke, he said, “I’ve done no wrong; I’m a warrior!”

He was silent as I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands. Taking up a handful of sand, he sifted it through his fingers. “I never wanted to hurt you.” But he had done that, irreparably, before he ever laid eyes on me. “Briseis,” he said helplessly, “I can’t change the past. But when this war is over, when we go home to Phthia—”

Not wanting to hear, I spun away, scrambled to my feet. He was up before me. For just an instant I had a glimpse of his eyes, blue-green as the sea, bleak and hungry. Then he turned his back and stood still for several moments. At last he faced me. He smiled and took my hands in his, holding them lightly, gently, while he searched my face. “Tell me how I can make amends. What can I do? Name it, Briseis.”

“Leave me, Achilleus. Let me walk down that shore.” I pulled my hands away and pointed. “There’s nothing else I want. Just let me go. Back to my people.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “You know I can’t do that.”

You mean you won’t. But I didn’t say it. As he continued looking at me intently, I lowered my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t ask anything else.

But he only flashed his radiant smile and said, “Enough talk! Let’s bathe.” He flung his arms toward the sky, pulling off his tunic. Naked, he plunged into the sea, jumping, arcing like a dolphin, disappearing underwater amidst a silver fountain. Mynes had never been so unabashed, so exuberantly free in his body.

His head reappeared. With a shake, he flung back the wet hair clinging to his brow. “Come join me!”

I shook my head, but he came out of the water. He tugged my gown, pulled it over my head, and flung it aside. I gasped, trying to cover my nakedness with my hands. Grinning, he took my arm and drew me irresistibly into the water.

As soon as I could, I pulled away and immersed myself, crouching on the shallow bottom. The water was cool and cleansing. Cupping his hands full, Achilleus poured a shower over my head and laughed at my cry of surprise. Beads of water glistened on his skin. I closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my wet eyelashes. I put my head back and tried to let my body float as I had seen my brothers do in Lyrnessos. But I felt myself sinking. I struggled up. His hand under my head supported me. I floated, looking up into the deep sky. A feeling of peace washed through me. Everything else emptied out—the helplessness, the rage, the pain, as if the sea had washed it all away.

But in an instant the feeling was gone, and once again I felt anguish and a wave of nausea. The pain in my back was stronger. I found my feet and began splashing toward the shore. He reached for my hand, but when I walked past him, he let it slip out of his grasp and followed me. As I bent to pick up my gown, he stopped me and held me against him. His lips found mine, but I turned my face away. He dropped to his knees and pulled me down onto the sand, where the blue mantle lay discarded.

He spread it beneath us and began to kiss me, but my mouth was dry and my stomach nauseated. I lay still, feeling all at once too unwell and depleted to resist or respond—or even care. My body ached. “Briseis?” He must have sensed something amiss, for his caresses became very gentle, and as he entered me, I had no will to oppose him.

Afterwards, I lay next to him, listless and forlorn, thankful that this time my body had not responded. As if he sensed my mood, he stroked my hair. “Briseis?” I turned aside so that I wouldn’t see the question in his eyes. I knew what he was asking, but I had no answer. If the gods had brought me to this place, they had deserted me. I was alone on this shore with my baby to safeguard. I had nowhere to turn, no one to help me.

Except him.

The realization stunned me. Must I stop fighting and accept his care and protection? An answer came: If I do, then perhaps he will accept my child as his own. It might be the only way. But I must think it through when I wasn’t so tired and weak.

“Achilleus,” I whispered, “give me time. Then perhaps—” I heard his indrawn breath. When I said nothing more, he let out a sigh. His arm lay across me, and for a time neither of us spoke. Then he stirred and got to his feet, pulling on his tunic.

“We must go back. The men will be preparing for action. I’ve tarried too long.” Lifting me to my feet, he handed me my gown and helped me straighten it around my body. We started back up the shore. I walked a little behind, thinking of what I had just realized and almost admitted to him. But with the ache in my back raw and intense now, I couldn’t focus my thoughts. When we reached the guard post, the sentry spoke to Achilleus. I heard the words “seeking you” and “mustering for battle.” Achilleus thanked him and began walking swiftly. The war, the world of men, was calling him. I strove to keep up, but the ache spread to my belly and became a piercing pain, dragging at my steps. The gap between us widened. Soon I had a hard time walking at all, and I had to stop and catch my breath. I breathed against pain.

We were near the Myrmidons’ camp now. I saw men arming, men leading horses from the stables. “Achilleus, please wait!” I called in desperation, but with the commotion, he didn’t hear. “Help me!” I tried again, but it was only a weak croak. A spasm doubled me over. When I straightened he was far ahead where he couldn’t see my distress. He slowed for an instant, turned to wave at me, and sprinted the rest of the way to his hut.

Something wet was running down the inside of my thigh. I felt a terrible fear. In the midst of all the commotion, I couldn’t lift my gown to look. Stumbling, I reached the hut. Achilleus and Patroklos were arming in the courtyard, and as I staggered past them to the women’s quarters, I was vaguely aware that Achilleus paused and his eyes followed me, but I was beyond being able to speak. I had to lie down. I lurched into the empty women’s quarters. And saw the blood seeping down my thighs.

I don’t know how long I lay on my pallet in agony as blood soaked the blanket beneath me. When Diomede came in and found me, I lay shaking, sobbing. I could no longer deny that my baby was gone.