Page 26 of The Song of Achilles

“I hope that is not for me,” Chiron said, lifting an eyebrow. We tore it up for compresses and bandages and scrub cloths; the rough material was perfect for pulling up crusted dirt and food.

That afternoon, we lay on the grass in front of the cave. “It has been almost a year since we came,” Achilles said. The breeze was cool against our skin.

“It does not feel so long,” I answered. I was half-sleepy, my eyes lost in the tilting blue of the afternoon sky.

“Do you miss the palace?”

I thought of his father’s gifts, the servants and their gazes, the whispering gossip they would bring back to the palace.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t either,” he said. “I thought I might, but I don’t.”

The days turned, and the months, and two years passed.

Chapter Ten

I T WAS SPRING, AND WE WERE FIFTEEN. T HE WINTER ICE HAD lasted longer than usual, and we were glad to be outside once more, beneath the sun. Our tunics were discarded, and our skin prickled in the light breeze. I had not been so naked all winter; it had been too cold to take off our furs and cloaks, beyond quick washes in the hollowed-out rock that served as our bath. Achilles was stretching, rolling limbs that were stiff from too long indoors. We had spent the morning swimming and chasing game through the forest. My muscles felt wearily content, glad to be used again.

I watched him. Other than the unsteady surface of the river, there were no mirrors on Mount Pelion, so I could only measure myself by the changes in Achilles. His limbs were still slender, but I could see the muscles in them now, rising and falling beneath his skin as he moved. His face, too, was firmer, and his shoulders broader than they had been.

“You look older,” I said.

He stopped, turned to me. “I do?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Do I?”

“Come over here,” he said. I stood, walked to him. He regarded me a moment. “Yes,” he said.

“How?” I wanted to know. “A lot?”

“Your face is different,” he said.

“Where?”

He touched my jaw with his right hand, drew his fingertips along it. “Here. Your face is wider than it once was.” I reached up with my own hand, to see if I could feel this difference, but it was all the same to me, bone and skin. He took my hand and brought it down to my collarbone. “You are wider here also,” he said. “And this.” His finger touched, gently, the soft bulb that had emerged from my throat. I swallowed, and felt his fingertip ride against the motion.

“Where else?” I asked.

He pointed to the trail of fine, dark hair that ran down my chest and over my stomach.

He paused, and my face grew warm.

“That’s enough,” I said, more abruptly than I meant to. I sat again on the grass, and he resumed his stretches. I watched the breeze stir his hair; I watched the sun fall on his golden skin. I leaned back and let it fall on me as well.

After some time, he stopped and came to sit beside me. We watched the grass, and the trees, and the nubs of new buds, just growing.

His voice was remote, almost careless. “You would not be displeased, I think. With how you look now.”

My face grew warm, again. But we spoke no more of it.

W E WERE ALMOST SIXTEEN. Soon Peleus’ messengers would come with gifts; soon the berries would ripen, the fruits would blush and fall into our hands. Sixteen was our last year of childhood, the year before our fathers named us men, and we would begin to wear not just tunics but capes and chitons as well. A marriage would be arranged for Achilles, and I might take a wife, if I wished to. I thought again of the serving girls with their dull eyes. I remembered the snatches of conversation I had overheard from the boys, the talk of breasts and hips and coupling.

She’s like cream, she’s that soft.

Once her thighs are around you, you’ll forget your own name.

The boys’ voices had been sharp with excitement, their color high. But when I tried to imagine what they spoke of, my mind slid away, like a fish who would not be caught.