For the Most Beautiful (17 page)

Patroclus moved towards me. ‘It is the truth, Briseis,' he said. ‘I am sorry.'

I turned and ran away from him along the seashore as if I could run from the horror of it: that Achilles should even think of defying the gods and taking a princess to his bed. That he wanted to touch me with the hands that had put the sword through Mynes' heart. I felt the sickness swell again in my belly.

‘Briseis!' Patroclus called, running after me. ‘Briseis, please stop!' He caught me by the shoulders and shook me, hard. ‘You are bound to sleep with him. You have to. Achilles can be most …' he hesitated, looking for the right word ‘… most passionate – when he is hot, in rage or in love. You have seen so already for yourself. There is no other way.'

I tore myself from his grip and ran on. ‘You tell him from me that he can take his passion with him to Hades,' I shouted back at him, tears welling, my whole body burning with rage and pain. I stopped and turned to him, my eyes blazing. ‘I shall never,
never
, as long as I have a heart in my chest and a soul in my body, let Achilles have me in his bed. Do you understand me?' I took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘
Never
. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to return.'

I turned on my heel and ran back up the beach towards the hut, leaving Patroclus standing, open-mouthed, by the shore of the sounding sea.

My resolve was tested that very night.

Achilles was strumming on a tortoiseshell lyre, humming to himself, singing stories of his exploits and tales of men and gods. Patroclus was stoking the dying embers of the fire with his dagger, the smoke still curling up to the thatched roof, trying to find a last few moments of heat. It was hours before I would be weary, I knew. But I had to act now, or it would be too late.

I walked quietly to the pile of warm fleeces and woollen covers that marked Achilles' bed, and bent down. It was dark in the corner, away from the glowing fire, but eventually I managed to gather a few skins and rugs and dried herbs to scatter on the ground, enough to make a small pallet for myself.

Achilles was still singing in a low voice, and I could hear Patroclus rustling the dry ashes of the fire.

I turned and walked, without looking at them, to the other end of the hut. Then I set down the skins and started to make my bed.

The sound of the lyre stopped.

‘What are you doing?' Achilles' voice cracked through the warm silence, like lightning, but I did not flinch.

‘Making my bed,' I said, trying to keep my voice calm, scattering the dried herbs with deliberate care.

There was a tense silence. I heard Patroclus set down his dagger, and knew he was about to interrupt.

‘I shall sleep here tonight,' I said, before Patroclus could speak. I continued scattering fragrant herbs and placing the skins. ‘I do not see why I cannot make my bed where I wish.'

‘Briseis—'

‘Be quiet, Patroclus.'

It was Achilles. I heard the discordant clang of strings as the lyre was dropped to the ground, hurled by a hand with more than mortal strength. In spite of myself, I turned.

Achilles had stood up. His dark eyes were blazing. He was radiating heat and power and wrath, like an angry god. He seemed to fill the entire hut in his rage.

‘Patroclus – get out,' he bellowed, and Patroclus stood up and ran, casting a single terrified glance at Achilles. The door banged behind him – and then, silence.

It felt like an eternity that I looked into those fathomless eyes. Achilles' face was unreadable, a mask. I could feel my heart beating fast against my chest, as if it knew it might be only moments away from death and would make up for lost time. And then—

‘I shall not force you,' he said, in a startlingly low, quiet voice. ‘No one should make love because they have to.'

There was a silence as I took in what he had said.

Achilles, murderer of thousands, slayer of my husband in cold blood, and he calls it making love?

He does not know what love is.

‘But remember this, Briseis,' he said, bending down so that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin and his warm breath on my face. ‘You
will
come to my bed. I shall not wait for ever.'

He straightened and stood there for a moment, tall and muscular, godlike, his eyes still dark, burning with passion. Then he strode to the door and slammed it, leaving me alone in the hut.

I had won again.

‘You are certain?' King Agamemnon asked. ‘Certain it was him?'

It was only a few days since I had been captured in the woods of Troy and brought to the Greek camp, though it felt like a lifetime. It was as if I had aged years for each night I had spent there, since I had first had to serve King Agamemnon in his bed, forced to please a foul-smelling boor of a man old enough to be my grandfather, to lie beneath the general who had brought his troops upon my home.

Now, on the third day of my captivity, I was pouring wine for the king and his favourite lords in his tent: his palace, my prison. Several ships' sails had been stitched together overhead as a canopy over the council room, the king's chamber and the kitchens, supported by a forest of poles – some of them driftwood, others oars that had been lodged blade-down in the sand. Tapestries woven in bright colours depicted the kingdoms of Greece over which King Agamemnon ruled, and a carved juniper-wood throne stood on a small dais before a large circular table covered with clay tablets and surrounded by intricately carved stools on which several of the Greek lords were sitting.

‘Completely certain,' said another voice, younger, warmer, with a slight rustic twang. I recognized it as that of Odysseus, another of the nobles serving in Agamemnon's army, lord of Ithaca and renowned for his cleverness and honey-tongued speech. ‘I can confirm it, my king. I saw the body myself in the healer's hut. There was no mistaking him from the descriptions our heralds have given us.'

Odysseus snapped his fingers at me. I walked over to him, as I had to do, and tilted the clay jug of wine to refill his goblet. He waited until I had done so, and I felt him watching me, his light brown eyes resting on my face with interest as I bent to pour the deep red wine.

I felt the heat rise into my cheeks under his stare and stepped back, taking care to wipe the rim of the jar, though no wine had spilt.

Odysseus raised his goblet to his lips and took a sip. ‘Yes, the man we killed in the woods was certainly Troilus, Prince of Troy.'

My hand slipped on the wine jug. It crashed to the floor and shattered into hundreds of pieces, the wine splashing everywhere and drenching my tunic with red stains.

The lords began to mutter. King Agamemnon snarled at me as I stood there, rooted to the spot in horror: ‘That was some of my best Attic wine, you clumsy fool! Well? Pick it up!'

I gasped and dropped to my knees to collect the broken fragments. I could hardly think.
Troilus was dead?
It could not be … Only a few days ago we had been lying together in his chambers in Troy. He could not be—

I bit my lip, my fingers trembling as I gathered the potsherds.
If he had not wanted to defy his father for me, if I had only said yes, we could have mounted the horses and outridden the Greeks …
Tears smarted painfully in my eyes and I tried to brush them away with my forearm, guilt and sorrow and terrible regret welling inside me, like a river threatening to burst its banks in the first melt of spring.
Troilus … dead …

‘But that is not all,' Odysseus continued, his eyes still upon me. ‘The death of this man is of far greater significance than even the Trojans know.'

There was a murmur as the lords of the council considered what Odysseus had said.

I looked up quickly, my hands filled with potsherds and dripping with wine. What did he mean?

Odysseus rubbed his chin again. ‘You must remember the prophecy that Calchas made when we landed.'

One of the warriors, a broad-shouldered man with a scrubby red beard, hit himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Of course! The prophecy!'

An old white-haired man, Nestor, raised his eyebrows. ‘Would any of you care to explain what this is about?'

All the lords became quiet, waiting to hear.

‘The prophecy, given to Calchas by the Lord Apollo himself,' Odysseus said, clearing his throat, ‘was this. “When Troilus falls …' he paused, surveying the council, ‘… Troy shall be yours.”'

I stared at him. This Apollo seemed to be a god – a prophecy-giver. Yet how could the Greeks think to pray to the gods when all the gods favoured Troy? They must be false gods – idols … and yet … and yet … how could they have received a prophecy from a false god, if that god did not exist?

Odysseus looked at the king and the gathered warriors, on whose faces a dawning comprehension was starting to register. ‘Troilus, the son of Priam, was the object of the prophecy,' Odysseus said, ‘and he has fallen at the hand of a Greek. His corpse even now lies in our camp. It is an omen – a sign! Troy will be ours! The gods have promised us victory!'

I knelt, frozen on the floor, paralysed by the words Odysseus had just spoken. I wanted to move, but my body would not respond. My heart was beating so fast it felt as if it was going to burst.

Troilus – dead – and Troy will fall—

My thoughts were scattering. I could not concentrate, could not think. Guilt and terror were flooding through my veins. Troilus had died trying to protect me, and now his death was prophesied by some god of the Greeks as the cause of Troy's fall. Panic gripped me as a terrible thought occurred to me. Was Apulunas punishing me for not wanting to become his priestess, as my father had foretold, by withdrawing his protection from us?

The lords around the table had burst into laughter, applauding, cheering and raising their goblets.

‘He thought,' King Agamemnon boomed over the noise, as the men clapped Odysseus on the back and repeated the prophecy over and over again, ‘that he could wander from his city and not suffer the consequences?' His tone changed to a derisive sneer. ‘And instead, he played into my waiting hands and gave me Troy into the bargain!'

The men roared with laughter, clattering their goblets against each other, then drinking deeply from them.

I sat on the floor, the broken shards of the jug in my hands, wine seeping into my rough slave's tunic. Horror was flooding through me, my stomach heavy with dread. If the Greeks were telling the truth, they had powerful gods on their side who were able to prophesy the future – and their gods had promised them that our city, our beautiful, god-built city, would fall.

And I was to blame.

I stood beside the rough wooden table in Achilles' hut holding a grey clay pot of boiled onion broth, while my own belly grumbled with hunger. Meals, these past few days, had been silent, and I saw no reason why this one should be any different.

As Patroclus reached out to ladle the broth into Achilles' bowl, Achilles held up his hand. ‘Not now.'

It was the first time that Achilles had spoken that day since he had returned from ransacking another of the cities of the Troad: Thebe, the city of Eëtion.
A beautiful city, and not far from Lyrnessus
, I thought, with bitterness.

Patroclus frowned at Achilles. ‘You have to eat. Starving yourself will not bring back the men you killed today.'

Achilles gave him a cold stare. Patroclus dropped the ladle, sat on his stool, then bent his head to eat.