Page 40 of The Song of Achilles

“The child must have your name. You understand this?” This is what he had waited in the dark to say, beneath his furs, by the dying fire.

“I understand it,” Achilles said quietly.

“And you swear it?”

There was a hairsbreadth of a pause. I pitied the old king. I was glad when Achilles said, “I swear it.”

The old man made a sound like a sigh. But his words, when they came, were formal; he was a king again.

“Good night to you both.”

We bowed and left him.

In the bowels of the palace, Achilles found a guard to show us to the guest quarters. The voice he used was high and fluting, his girl’s voice. I saw the guard’s eyes flicker over him, lingering on the torn edges of the dress, his disheveled hair. He grinned at me with all his teeth.

“Right away, mistress,” he said.

I N THE STORIES, the gods have the power to delay the moon’s course if they wish, to spin a single night the length of many. Such was this night, a bounty of hours that never ran dry. We drank deeply, thirsty for all that we had missed in the weeks we were separated. It was not until the sky began to blanch at last to gray that I remembered what he had said to Lycomedes in the hall. It had been forgotten amidst Deidameia’s pregnancy, his marriage, our reunion.

“Your mother was trying to hide you from the war?”

He nodded. “She does not want me to go to Troy.”

“Why?” I had always thought she wanted him to fight.

“I don’t know. She says I’m too young. Not yet, she says.”

“And it was her idea—?” I gestured at the remnants of the dress.

“Of course. I wouldn’t have done it myself.” He made a face and yanked at his hair, hanging still in its womanly curls. An irritant, but not a crippling shame, as it would have been to another boy. He did not fear ridicule; he had never known it. “Anyway, it is only until the army leaves.”

My mind struggled with this.

“So, truly, it was not because of me? That she took you?”

“Deidameia was because of you, I think.” He stared at his hands a moment. “But the rest was the war.”

Chapter Thirteen

T HE NEXT DAYS PASSED QUIETLY. W E TOOK MEALS IN our room and spent long hours away from the palace, exploring the island, seeking what shade there was beneath the scruffy trees. We had to be careful; Achilles could not be seen moving too quickly, climbing too skillfully, holding a spear. But we were not followed, and there were many places where he could safely let his disguise drop.

On the far side of the island there was a deserted stretch of beach, rock-filled but twice the size of our running tracks. Achilles made a sound of delight when he saw it, and tore off his dress. I watched him race across it, as swiftly as if the beach had been flat. “Count for me,” he shouted, over his shoulder. I did, tapping against the sand to keep the time.

“How many?” he called, from the beach’s end.

“Thirteen,” I called back.

“I’m just warming up,” he said.

The next time it was eleven. The last time it was nine. He sat down next to me, barely winded, his cheeks flushed with joy. He had told me of his days as a woman, the long hours of enforced tedium, with only the dances for relief. Free now, he stretched his muscles like one of Pelion’s mountain cats, luxuriant in his own strength.

In the evenings, though, we had to return to the great hall. Reluctant, Achilles would put on his dress and smooth back his hair. Often he bound it up in cloth, as he had that first night; golden hair was uncommon enough to be remarked upon by the sailors and merchants who passed through our harbor. If their tales found the ears of someone clever enough—I did not like to think of it.

A table was set for us at the front of the hall near the thrones. We ate there, the four of us, Lycomedes, Deidameia, Achilles, and I. Sometimes we were joined by a counselor or two, sometimes not. These dinners were mostly silent; they were for form, to quell gossip and maintain the fiction of Achilles as my wife and the king’s ward. Deidameia’s eyes darted eagerly towards him, hoping he would look at her. But he never did. “Good evening,” he would say, in his proper girl’s voice, as we sat, but nothing more. His indifference was a palpable thing, and I saw her pretty face flinch through emotions of shame and hurt and anger. She kept looking to her father, as if she hoped he might intervene. But Lycomedes put bite after bite in his mouth and said nothing.

Sometimes she saw me watching her; her face would grow hard then, and her eyes would narrow. She put a hand on her belly, possessively, as if to ward off some spell I might cast. Perhaps she thought I was mocking her, flourishing my triumph. Perhaps she thought I hated her. She did not know that I almost asked him, a hundred times, to be a little kinder to her. You do not have to humiliate her so thoroughly, I thought. But it was not kindness he lacked; it was interest. His gaze passed over her as if she were not there.

Once she tried to speak to him, her voice trembling with hope.