Warrior’s Prize

The first dawn, brightening

sea and shore, became familiar to him,

as at that hour, he yoked his team, with Hektor

tied behind, to drag him out, three times

around Patroklos’s tomb.

Iliad, Homer, Book XXIV

(Fitzgerald’s translation)

The men stayed with the burning pyre until dawn. Achilleus did not return to the hut. When morning came, the women awoke and went to fetch water and milk the goats and bake the bread. As if nothing had happened. As if there was a reason for life to continue.

Having no other choice, I went with them.

Later, as Diomede and I worked in the courtyard airing out the bedding, some of Achilleus’s men appeared. Two went to the stables and came out leading three horses. Others headed for a storage shed and came out bearing several bronze caldrons. Automedon and another man went into Achilleus’s hut and carried out cooking vessels, gold drinking cups, and other treasures. They took all these things and headed toward the center of the camp.

As we watched from the courtyard, Diomede asked, “What’s happening?”

“He said something about funeral games for Patroklos today,” I said. We had all begun to refer to Achilleus only as he, and always in a hushed voice.

“That probably means he sent for all those things to offer as prizes,” Diomede guessed.

One of his attendants, a man named Alkimos, approached us and asked, “Where is the woman Aglaia?”

Diomede pointed to our room in the back of the hut, where Aglaia often sat alone, sulking and shirking. “In there.” She shot a puzzled look at me as he went in and summoned Aglaia, who came out preening now, simpering. With a disdainful glance at us, she set off with Alkimos, who had also summoned several other women from nearby huts.

Diomede, watching them walk up the shore, gave a wicked grin. “I’ll wager our dear Aglaia is about to become a prize in one of the funeral games!”

“What makes you think so?” I asked.

“He knows she betrayed you to Agamemnon’s men that night. I overheard him say so to Patroklos. He said he was looking for an honorable way to get rid of her.”

I was silent. If Aglaia had not acted as she had, none of this might have happened. Might have! How many such broken threads are woven into the strands of our lives? How the Fates must laugh at their work!

All the men went to the games. Throughout the day we heard occasional shouts and cheers from the center of the camp, carried on the wind. It was late afternoon when the men returned, spent as if from a battle. Achilleus disappeared into his hut and closed the door hard. Shortly afterward, we went to his courtyard to hang up some clothes we had washed. I opened the gate and froze. A sickly carrion stench wafted out. I gagged, pressing my hand over my nose and mouth. Diomede, a step behind me, looked over my shoulder. “What is it?”

We stared. The body of Hektor lay naked and prone in the dust. Flies buzzed around him.

“Come away!” Diomede tried to pull me out through the open gate.

But I held back. “I thought—last night—he would have been put on the pyre with the others. So his soul could pass into the realm of Elysium in Hades.”

The door of the hut burst open. Achilleus charged out. Diomede pulled me behind the gate. I peered back in. He stood staring down at the body with haunted eyes. Then in a swift movement he bent over the corpse and turned it onto its back. He grasped some leather thongs that had been bloodily threaded through Hektor’s ankles. Achilleus dragged the corpse on its back by the thongs, toward the gate. Diomede and I dived out of sight around the corner of the palisade. He pulled the corpse to where his chariot stood hitched and ready, and attached the body to the back. He jumped up and drove down the shore, Hektor trailing behind.

I stood for long moments with my shawl pressed into my mouth.

Much later he returned, still dragging the body, which he left again on the bare ground. It looked like some large broken animal half devoured by wolves.

After that we stayed away from the courtyard, carrying out our tasks elsewhere. But it did no good. With my eyes closed I could still see Hektor’s body dragged along for its dreadful ride down the shore and around Patroklos’s tomb—just as I could see the first captive Trojan falling with his throat slit.

At dawn the next day, I heard sounds outside: the opening of the gate, the creak of wheels, the thump of hooves. Achilleus was once again wreaking his senseless, terrible vengeance.

“Don’t think about it,” Diomede said when she saw my face. “That’s how I’ve survived. Hektor is naught but a piece of earth now. The dead feel nothing.”

But what of his soul, which without proper burial must wander forever homeless? And what of Andromache and the fatherless little boy Astyanax? I’d wanted Achilleus to live. I’d asked the gods for his life. And the gods, laughing, had granted my prayer.

Death hung over the camp. The sickly stench from the corpse pervaded everything and would not let me forget, even for a moment. Achilleus made his vengeance a daily pattern. Each morning I, the only one awake, listened to those dreadful sounds. Death was in my heart too, as if I had taken part in all his bloodletting. I felt a terrible fear for the babe growing in my womb. Who would care for him and protect him? What would he become? His father was a monster, and I— a child should not be born to a mother such as I. I could never give love to anyone or anything ever again.

On the third morning I arose with my mind made up. Achilleus’s child would not be born.

With the flat calm of despair, I waited until after the morning chores were done and the women left to wash clothes at the spring. Diomede, when she saw that I had no wish to join them, did not press me. Though she kept a watch over me, she enjoyed spending time with the women from Lesbos—her friends. They managed to separate themselves from the dreadful events. At the spring, far away from the stench of death, there would be much talk, even laughter.

After returning from his terrible chariot ride, Achilleus went down to the shore, where he spent hours staring at the sea. I watched him leave. I entered his hut. He had many herbs stored there—though even he did not know all their uses. The one I sought was secret women’s lore, passed down by women to their daughters and granddaughters from time out of mind. It was an herb I knew he possessed, for it could also be used to staunch the flow of blood from wounds.

I searched through jars and bundles of herbs, sniffing them, examining the leaves until I found the one I needed. I prepared a strong potion and heated it over the hearth. Then I carried the steaming goblet out to the women’s courtyard.

As I sat on the ground, breathing against the pain of my leaden heart, trying to keep my resolve while I waited for the potion to cool, the gate swung open. I lurched and almost spilled the cup. Diomede stood there. When she saw my face, she came up quickly and sniffed the brew. Without a word she tried to yank it from my hands.

I struggled fiercely, but standing over me she had the advantage. She twisted my wrist and dashed the cup to the ground. We both watched the contents soak into the dust.

Then she sat next to me, leaning against the wall, breathing hard.

She picked up the cup and used a finger to scrape out the residue of herbs, which she flicked onto the ground. “I’ll help you stay out of his way,” she said. “You need never see him or speak to him. But this—” She stared at the cup, then flung it across the courtyard. “This hurts only you. And the little one. There’s been enough killing. Don’t be like him!”

She got up, reaching down to help me to my feet. I took her hand but couldn’t move. I pressed my other hand over my face and wept.