Page 83 of The Song of Achilles

When I told him where I was going, it seemed to cast him back into the shadows. “Tell her I am sorry,” he said, his eyes down. I did not answer. Is he sorry because he has a better vengeance now? One that will strike down not just Agamemnon, but his whole ungrateful army? I do not let myself dwell on this thought. He is sorry. It is enough.

“Come in,” she says, her voice strange. She is wearing a gold-threaded dress and a necklace of lapis lazuli. On her wrists are bracelets of engraved silver. She clinks when she stands, as though she’s wearing armor.

She’s embarrassed, I can see that. But we do not have time to speak, because Agamemnon himself is bulging through the narrow slit behind me.

“Do you see how well I keep her?” he says. “The whole camp will see in what esteem I hold Achilles. He only has to apologize, and I will heap the honors on him that he deserves. Truly it is unfortunate that one so young has so much pride.”

The smug look on his face makes me angry. But what did I expect? I have done this. Her safety for his honor . “This is a credit to you, mighty king,” I say.

“Tell Achilles,” Agamemnon continues. “Tell him how well I treat her. You may come any time you like, to see her.” He offers an unpleasant smile, then stands, watching us. He has no intention of leaving.

I turn to Briseis. I have learned a few pieces of her language, and I use them now.

“You are all right truly?”

“I am,” she replies, in the sharp singsong of Anatolian. “How long will it be?”

“I don’t know,” I say. And I don’t. How much heat does it take for iron to grow soft enough to bend? I lean forward and gently kiss her cheek. “I will be back again soon,” I say in Greek.

She nods.

Agamemnon eyes me as I leave. I hear him say, “What did he say to you?”

I hear her answer, “He admired my dress.”

T HE NEXT MORNING, all the other kings march off with their armies to fight the Trojans; the army of Phthia does not follow. Achilles and I linger long over breakfast. Why should we not? There is nothing else for us to do. We may swim, if we like, or play at draughts or spend all day racing. We have not been at such utter leisure since Pelion.

Yet it does not feel like leisure. It feels like a held breath, like an eagle poised before the dive. My shoulders hunch, and I cannot stop myself from looking down the empty beach. We are waiting to see what the gods will do.

We do not have to wait long.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

T HAT NIGHT, PHOINIX COMES LIMPING UP THE SHORE with news of a duel. As the armies rallied in the morning, Paris had strutted along the Trojan line, golden armor flashing. He offered a challenge: single combat, winner takes Helen. The Greeks bellowed their approval. Which of them did not want to leave that day? To wager Helen on a single fight and settle it once and for all? And Paris looked an easy target, shining and slight, slim-hipped as an unwed girl. But it was Menelaus, Phoinix said, who came forward, roaring acceptance at the chance to regain his honor and his beautiful wife in one.

The duel begins with spears and moves quickly to swords. Paris is swifter than Menelaus had anticipated, no fighter but fast on his feet. At last the Trojan prince missteps, and Menelaus seizes him by his long horsehair crest and drags him down to the earth. Paris’ feet kick helplessly, his fingers scrabble at the choking chin-strap. Then, suddenly, the helmet comes free in Menelaus’ hand and Paris is gone. Where the Trojan prince sprawled there is only dusty ground. The armies squint and whisper: Where is he? Menelaus squints with them, and so does not see the arrow, loosed from a ibex-horn bow along the Trojan line, flying towards him. It punches through his leather armor and buries itself in his stomach.

Blood pours down his legs and puddles at his feet. It is mostly a surface wound, but the Greeks do not know that yet. They scream and rush the Trojan ranks, enraged at the betrayal. A bloody melee begins.

“But what happened to Paris?” I ask.

Phoinix shakes his head. “I do not know.”

T HE TWO SIDES FOUGHT on through the afternoon until another trumpet blew. It was Hector, offering a second truce, a second duel to make right the dishonor of Paris’ disappearance and the shooting of the arrow. He presented himself in his brother’s place, to any man who dared answer. Menelaus, Phoinix says, would have stepped forward again, but Agamemnon prevented him. He did not want to see his brother die against the strongest of the Trojans.

The Greeks drew lots for who would fight with Hector. I imagine their tension, the silence before the helmet is shaken and the lot jumps out. Odysseus bends to the dusty earth to retrieve it. Ajax . There is collective relief: he is the only man who has a chance against the Trojan prince. The only man, that is, who fights today.

So Ajax and Hector fight, heaving stones at each other, and spears that shatter shields, until night falls and the heralds call an end. It is strangely civilized: the two armies part in peace, Hector and Ajax shaking hands as equals. The soldiers whisper—it would not have ended so if Achilles were here.

Discharged of his news, Phoinix gets wearily to his feet and limps on the arm of Automedon back to his tent. Achilles turns to me. He is breathing quickly, the tips of his ears pinking with excitement. He seizes my hand and crows to me of the day’s events, of how his name was on everyone’s lips, of the power of his absence, big as a Cyclops, walking heavily amongst the soldiers. The excitement of the day has flared through him, like flame in dry grass. For the first time, he dreams of killing: the stroke of glory, his inevitable spear through Hector’s heart. My skin prickles to hear him say so.

“Do you see?” he says. “It is the beginning!”

I cannot escape the feeling that, below the surface, something is breaking.

T HERE IS A TRUMPET the next morning at dawn. We rise, and climb the hill to see an army of horsemen riding for Troy from the East. Their horses are large and move with unnatural speed, drawing light-wheeled chariots behind them. At their head sits a huge man, larger even than Ajax. He wears his black hair long, like the Spartans do, oiled and swinging down his back. He carries a standard in the shape of a horse’s head.

Phoinix has joined us. “The Lycians,” he says. They are Anatolians, long allies of Troy. It has been a source of much wonder that they have not yet come to join the war. But now, as if summoned by Zeus himself, they are here.