Warrior’s Prize

“So my life is trouble upon trouble without end.”

—Briseis (Iliad, Homer, Book XIX,

Rouse’s translation)

Diomede, with the help of two other women, removed the bloody bedding and put clean rags between my legs. She helped me change into a fresh gown and covered me with a blanket. When she brought bread and cheese, I was too ill to eat. All I could take was a little warmed wine, which Diomede had infused with poppy juice. I wanted to thank her, but I’d fallen into so deep an abyss I could only weakly clasp her hand.

“Rest, Briseis,” she said, and my exhausted body obeyed.

I awoke hours later with the afternoon sun slanting through the roof opening. At first I didn’t remember where I was or what had happened. Then it struck me anew, and I couldn’t move, not even the smallest muscle of my body. It was impossible that my life could go on.

I heard voices in the room outside, among them Achilleus’s. My gut twisted with nausea. I wanted to turn away and bury myself in my bedding. But a silent voice deep within me, perhaps the one that impelled my survival, urged me to be still. The door was flung open, and he entered. I was so weak that when he hunkered down at my side I couldn’t find the strength to turn away. He laid his hand on my brow, stroking back the sweat-dampened hair that clung there. He looked at me with concern, even tenderness. But it meant nothing to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were carrying his child?” His words seemed to come from far away. Tears swamped my eyes. He said, “Things would’ve been different if you’d told me.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant. After a moment he said, “Once these things start, they cannot be stopped.” I stared at him. My own mother had said much the same thing.

“My mother…” he began. A spasm crossed his face. “I’m told she lost several babies in this way before I was born.”

I wondered why I was supposed to care. I closed my eyes. I wanted him to go away.

He took my hand and said, “When you heal—” He paused. “You and I—we can—”

My eyes flew open. He changed his mind about what he’d been about to say, and too late fell silent. But I saw it in his eyes. The unspoken words, the question, hung between us. His half-uttered thought pushed me into the pit of Hades. How dared he think he could replace Mynes’s baby with his own? As if he could erase this child from my life as easily as he’d erased everyone else. As if nothing existed for me except him. I remembered my folly on the beach, when I thought I could accept his care and protection. But that was when my baby was alive.

He was looking at me as if he actually expected an answer. I couldn’t speak, but I shook my head so hard and so insistently I made myself dizzy, my silent refusal as loud as if I had screamed it. I felt his shock. Probably no one in his life had ever denied him anything. Everything was given to him before he asked. He had only ever commanded.

He commanded me now. “Briseis, look at me. I will take care of you.” He dared say it aloud. “We will have a child together.”

The part of me that wanted to survive urged silence, and I tried to hold my tongue, but I couldn’t. “NO!” I hissed, “Not ever.” Half hoping he wouldn’t hear. But he did. I knew at once I’d crossed a line and now there was no stepping back from it.

I’d heard of his temper, and I cringed, expecting him to strike me. But he only sat in absolute silence. At last he said, in a cold voice more frightening than the loudest shout, “Is that your final word, Briseis?” When I did not reply, he stood. “Then it’s over. From now on you shall be my slave only, my lowliest slave, and nothing more.”

He walked out, slamming the door, leaving me paralyzed. After several moments I turned over, buried my head in my arms, and wept.

Days passed. I woke up every morning feeling the loss anew like a physical pain. Though I knew I should exert myself to help the women with the chores, I couldn’t summon the strength to get up, except for the barest necessities. I hardly spoke to anyone. Diomede made sure I had food and water, which I barely touched, but I sensed that even she was losing patience.

One day she said, “For your own good, you should make an effort to go on with life.”

“I know,” I said, to placate her. “I will. Soon.” But though my body had mostly recovered, I couldn’t care whether I lived or died.

Then, early one morning before it was fully light, someone crept to my bedside. I awoke from half-sleep to astonishment.

“Patroklos! What are you doing here?” I said, wary. What did he want?

“Achilleus told me what happened, and I heard you were not well.” He was whispering so as not to wake the other women. “Get up,” he said.

“Why?”

He was silent for a moment. “Because the gods have decreed that your life isn’t over. And because you have the courage. So—stand up.” Before I knew what was happening, he took my hand, helped me to my feet, and smiled. “See? That wasn’t hard.” There were some stirrings among the women. Shaky as I was, he drew me forward. “Let’s go outside so we don’t wake the others.” Once we were standing in the courtyard, he said, “Come with me to the spring.” He looked almost mischievous.

“What?” I thought I’d misunderstood him.

“Let’s surprise the women and fetch the water before they wake up.”

It was unheard of for a man to help a woman with this most onerous of chores or even to carry water at all. I looked at him suspiciously. “Where’s Achilleus?”

He grinned. “He’s taken his two best horses for a gallop. Far down the shore.”

A small warmth flickered in my heart at his willingness to go behind his friend’s back for my sake. We went to fetch the hydriai, the water jars. Carrying one each, we made our way to the spring. My legs were feeble and flaccid, but the movement felt invigorating, as did the cold water swirling about my ankles as I bent to fill my jar. When I struggled to lift the full hydria onto my head, my arms trembled, but he was watching, so I wouldn’t yield to weakness. I sensed his silent approval as he hefted his own hydria man-style onto his shoulder.

We made several trips and filled all the water vessels. Each trip was harder than the one before, for I had become unaccustomed to exertion, and my exhausted limbs rebelled. But the struggle made my body come alive. As we set down the last of the hydriai in the courtyard, Patroklos grinned and said, “Well done! But don’t tell the other women I helped you.”

Before I could speak, he fled to the men’s hut.

“Thank you, Patroklos,” I whispered after him.

When the women got up and stared at the filled water jars in astonishment, I said nothing and went to help them with the other chores.

I began to find healing in our work. When I had thought nothing remained, it alone gave me a sense of purpose and kept me from dwelling on my sorrows. I wouldn’t let myself think, and somehow I kept going. I began to feel a comradeship with the other women. As we toiled through our daily drudgery, I listened to their talk but said little. They accepted me into their circle—all but Aglaia, who never lost an opportunity to make some spiteful remark. I refused to be drawn and looked upon her with pity. If she only knew how little threat I was to her!

As the days passed and my mind and strength returned, I feared for my future. I had assumed I would stay in Achilleus’s camp and continue to serve as a slave. But what if I was wrong? Diomede once told me that a captive woman could be given away or sold. For failing to please her master. I had done worse: I’d hurt and humiliated him—wounded his enormous pride. I had rejected him when he’d shown care for me. I would never be forgiven. On some deep level I wished I could go back to that moment and reverse it. Why had I been so obdurate? What if he was waiting for the right opportunity to get rid of me—or had already made plans to do it?

I became afraid. I’d found comfort in my growing friendship with Diomede, Helike, and some of the others. I didn’t want to lose the safe haven I now had. I could not bear the upheaval, the terror, of being sent to a different master—or sold to the slave merchants who came to our coast. A slave’s life was worth less than nothing. There had been women in Lyrnessos, destitute women without husbands or families, who’d had to sell their services just to survive. They lived in squalid huts and made thrice-daily trips to the springs, carrying heavy jars of water. From dawn to dusk they did all the heaviest and dirtiest work at the bidding of others. Their backs were bent, their skins shriveled from the sun, their stinking bodies ailing from daily hardships, hunger, years of toil. Others had sold themselves and their children to the Achaeans across the sea, and there, we heard, they worked from dawn to dusk at the grueling job of harvesting flax, soaking it and beating it into separate fibers, and spinning it into thread, twine, and rope for their masters. Was this the fate that lay ahead for me?

Perhaps I deserved no better. The gods had decreed I would belong to Achilleus, and I had rejected their gift.

Sometimes I caught glimpses of Achilleus in the courtyard or on the shore. I heard his voice raised in command, his quick laugh at one of the men’s jests, or his level, quiet tones in the next room as he conversed with Patroklos. Every evening, when the men returned from whatever skirmish or expedition had occupied them during the day, I listened through the thin wall of the women’s quarters and heard them speaking over the sounds of dinner. As night deepened, tension would grow in me. For when the lamps were extinguished, footsteps would cross the hut. Our door would creak open. And the men would summon their women.

Patroklos invariably called for Iphis. I would hold my breath when I sensed Achilleus just on the other side of the door. Over and over again I heard his words: You shall be my slave only—and nothing more. But a slave might still be summoned to the master’s bed.

I both longed for and dreaded a summons.

“Diomede!” he would call. And when she left with him, my legs would melt.

He never sought me out, never spoke to me. If our paths chanced to cross, his eyes, hard as stones, would look right through me as if I didn’t exist. Each time, I went cold with fear.