Page 50 of The Song of Achilles

For the first time then, I felt a kind of hope.

W E LEFT THAT AFTERNOON; there was no reason to linger. Ever dutiful to custom, Lycomedes came to bid us farewell. The three of us stood together stiffly; Odysseus and Diomedes had gone ahead to the ship. They would escort us back to Phthia, where Achilles would muster his own troops.

There was one more thing to be done here, and I knew Achilles did not wish to do it.

“Lycomedes, my mother has asked me to convey her desires to you.”

The faintest tremor crossed the old man’s face, but he met his son-in-law’s gaze. “It is about the child,” he said.

“It is.”

“And what does she wish?” the king asked, wearily.

“She wishes to raise him herself. She—” Achilles faltered before the look on the old man’s face. “The child will be a boy, she says. When he is weaned, she will claim him.”

Silence. Then Lycomedes closed his eyes. I knew he was thinking of his daughter, arms empty of both husband and child. “I wish you had never come,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Achilles said.

“Leave me,” the old king whispered. We obeyed.

T HE SHIP WE SAILED ON was yare, tightly made and well manned. The crew moved with a competent fleetness, the ropes gleamed with new fibers, and the masts seemed fresh as living trees. The prow piece was a beauty, the finest I had ever seen: a woman, tall, with dark hair and eyes, her hands clasped in front of her as if in contemplation. She was beautiful, but quietly so—an elegant jaw, and upswept hair showing a slender neck. She had been lovingly painted, each darkness or lightness perfectly rendered.

“You are admiring my wife, I see.” Odysseus joined us at the railing, leaning on muscular forearms. “She refused at first, wouldn’t let the artist near her. I had to have him follow her in secret. I think it turned out rather well, actually.”

A marriage for love, rare as cedars from the East. It almost made me want to like him. But I had seen his smiles too often now.

Politely, Achilles asked, “What is her name?”

“Penelope,” he said.

“Is the ship new?” I asked. If he wanted to speak of his wife, I wanted to speak of something else.

“Very. Every last timber of it, from the best wood that Ithaca has.” He slapped the railing with his large palm, as one might the flank of a horse.

“Bragging about your new ship again?” Diomedes had joined us. His hair was lashed back with a strip of leather, and it made his face look sharper even than usual.

“I am.”

Diomedes spat into the water.

“The king of Argos is unusually eloquent today,” Odysseus commented.

Achilles had not seen their game before, as I had. His eyes went back and forth between the two men. A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

“Tell me,” Odysseus continued. “Do you think such quick wit comes from your father having eaten that man’s brains?”

“What?” Achilles’ mouth hung open.

“You don’t know the tale of Mighty Tydeus, king of Argos, eater of brains?”

“I’ve heard of him. But not about the—brains.”

“I was thinking of having the scene painted on our plates,” Diomedes said.

In the hall, I had taken Diomedes for Odysseus’ dog. But there was a keenness that hummed between the two men, a pleasure in their sparring that could come only from equals. I remembered that Diomedes was rumored to be a favorite of Athena as well.

Odysseus made a face. “Remind me not to dine in Argos any time soon.”