Authors: Colleen McCullough
The length of the room disappeared in what I fancied was one stride; he grabbed one of my wrists, then the other, and lifted me by my arms until I dangled with my toes just clear of the floor.
‘Butcher! Butcher of old men and little boys! Animal!’ I panted, kicking out at him.
My wrists were suddenly crushed together so hard that the bones crunched. I longed to scream in agony, but I would not – I
would
not! His yellow eyes like a lion’s showed his rage; I had wounded him where his self-esteem was still sensitive. He didn’t like being called a butcher of old men and little boys.
‘Curb your tongue, girl! In the slave markets they flog defiance out of you with a barbed lash.’
‘Disfigurement would be a gift!’
‘But in your case, a pity,’ he said, putting me down and releasing my wrists. He transferred his grip to my hair and dragged me by it towards the door while I kicked and struck at his metal form until my feet and fists felt broken.
‘Let me walk!’ I cried. ‘Allow me the dignity of walking! I will not go to rape and slavery cringing and snivelling like a servant woman!’
He stopped quite still, turned to stare down into my face with confusion on his own. ‘You have her courage,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re not like her, yet you have a look of her… Is that what you deem your fate, rape and slavery?’
‘What other fate is there for a captive woman?’
Grinning – which did make him look more like other men because grinning thins the lips out – he let my hair go. I put my hand to my head, wondering if he had torn my scalp, then I walked ahead of him. His hand shot out, fingers fastening about my bruised wrist in a hold I had no hope of breaking.
‘Dignity notwithstanding, my girl, I am no fool. You’ll not escape from me through sheer carelessness.’
‘As your leader let Aineas escape on the hill?’ I gibed.
His face didn’t change. ‘Exactly,’ he said impassively.
He led me through rooms I hardly recognised, their walls spattered with blood, their furnishings already heaped for the plunder wagons. As we entered the Great Hall his feet spurned a pile of corpses, tossed one on top of the other without respect for their years or standing. I stopped, seeking anything in that anonymous collection which might let me identify my father. My captor halfheartedly tried to pull me away, but I resisted.
‘My father might be here! Let me see!’ I begged.
‘Which one is he?’ he asked indifferently.
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to ask to look!’
Though he wouldn’t help me, he let me tug him wherever I willed as I plucked at garments or shoes. At last I saw my father’s foot, unmistakable in its garnet-studded sandal – like most of the old men he had kept his armour, not his fighting boots. But I couldn’t free him. Too many bodies.
‘Ajax!’ my captor called. ‘Come and help the lady!’
Weakened by the terror of the day, I waited as another giant strolled over, a bigger man than my captor.
‘Can’t you help her yourself?’ the newcomer asked.
‘And let her go? Ajax, Ajax! This one has spirit, I can’t trust her.’
‘Taken a fancy to her, little cousin? Well, it’s high time you took a fancy to someone other than Patrokles.’
Ajax put me aside as if I had been a feather, then, still holding his axe, he tossed the bodies about until my father lay uncovered, until I could see his dead eyes staring up at me, his beard buried in a gash which almost severed him across the chest. It was an axe wound.
‘This is the ancient who faced me like a fighting cock,’ the one called Ajax said admiringly. ‘Fiery old fellow!’
‘Like father, like daughter,’ the one holding me said. He jerked at my arm. ‘Come, girl. I haven’t the time to indulge your grief.’
I got up clumsily, tearing my hair into disorder as I saluted him, my father. Better by far to go knowing him dead than have to wonder if he had survived, hope the most foolish hope of all. Ajax moved away, saying he would muster any left alive, though he doubted there were.
We halted at the doorway into the courtyard so my captor could strip a belt from a body lying on the steps. He fastened the leather tightly about my wrist, then secured its other end to his own arm, forcing me to walk closely beside him. Two steps higher up, I watched his bent head as he completed the small task with a thoroughness I fancied typical of him.
‘You didn’t kill my father,’ I said.
‘Yes, I did,’ he answered. ‘I’m the leader your Aineas outwitted. That means I’m responsible for every death.’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Achilles,’ he said shortly, tested his handiwork and hauled me after him into the courtyard. I had to run to keep up with him. Achilles. I should have known. Aineas had said it last, though I had been hearing it for years.
We left Lyrnessos through its main gate, open as Greeks wandered in and out, looting and wenching, some with torches in their hands, some with wineskins. The man Achilles made no effort to reprimand them. He ignored them.
At the top of the road I turned to look down into the Vale of Lyrnessos. ‘You have burned my home. There I dwelled for twenty years, there I expected to dwell until a marriage was arranged for me. But I never expected this.’
He shrugged. ‘The fortunes of war, girl.’
I pointed to the tiny figures of plundering soldiers. ‘Can’t you prevent their acting like beasts? Is there any need for it? I heard the women screaming –
I saw!’
His eyelids drooped cynically. ‘What do you know of exiled Greeks or their feelings? You hate us, and I understand that. But you don’t hate us as those men hate Troy and Troy’s allies! Priam has cost them ten years of exile. They delight in making him pay. Nor could I stop them if I tried. And frankly, girl, I don’t feel like trying to stop them.’
‘I’ve listened to the stories for years, but I didn’t know what war is,’ I whispered.
‘Now you do,’ he said.
His camp was three leagues distant; when we reached it he found a baggage officer.
‘Polides, this is my own prize. Take the belt and harness her to an anvil until you can forge better chains. Don’t let her free for one moment, even if she pleads privacy to relieve herself. Once you have her chained, put her where she has everything she needs, including a chamber pot, good food and a good bed. Start for the ships at Andramyttios tomorrow and give her to the lord Phoinix. Tell him I don’t trust her, that she isn’t to be freed.’ He took my chin and pinched it lightly. ‘Goodbye, girl.’
Polides found light chains for my ankles, padded the cuffs well, and took me to the coast on the back of an ass. There I was given to Phoinix, an upright old nobleman with the blue, crinkled gaze and rolling gait of a sailor. When he saw my fetters he clicked his tongue, though he made no attempt to remove them after he ensconced me on board the flagship. He bade me sit with gentle courtesy, but I insisted upon standing.
‘I’m so sorry for the chains,’ he said, grief in his eyes. But not grief for me, I understood. ‘Poor Achilles!’
It annoyed me that the old man thought light of me. ‘This Achilles has a better idea of my mettle than you do, sir! Only let me within reach of a dagger and I’ll fight my way out of this living death, or die in the attempt!’
His sadness vanished in a chuckle. ‘Ai, ai! What a fierce warrior you are! Don’t hope for it, girl. What Achilles binds fast, Phoinix won’t free.’
‘Is his word such sacred law?’
‘It is. He’s Prince of the Myrmidons.’
‘Prince of the ants? How appropriate.’
For answer he chuckled again, pushed a chair forward. I looked at it with loathing, but my back ached from the donkey ride and my legs were trembling, for I had refused to eat or drink since my captivity. Phoinix pressed me into the chair with a hard hand and unstoppered a golden wine flagon.
‘Drink, girl. If you want to maintain your defiance, you’ll need sustenance. Don’t be silly.’
Sensible advice. I took it, to find that my blood was thin and the wine went straight to my head. I could fight no longer. I propped my head on my hand and went to sleep in the chair, waking a long time later to find I had been put down on the bed. Shackled to a beam.
The next day I was taken on deck, my chains fastened to the rail so I could stand in the weak, wintry sun and watch the busy comings and goings on the beach. But when four ships hove into view over the horizon, I noticed a huge scurry and flutter pass through the toiling men, particularly among their supervisors. Suddenly Phoinix was there releasing me from the rail, hustling me not to my previous prison but to a shelter on the afterdeck which stank of horses. He took me inside and locked me to a bar.
‘What is it?’ I asked, curious.
‘Agamemnon, King of Kings,’ said Phoinix.
‘Why put me here? Aren’t I good enough to meet the King of Kings?’
He sighed. ‘Have you no mirror in your Dardanian home, girl? One look at you and Agamemnon would have you in spite of Achilles.’
‘I could scream,’ I said thoughtfully.
He stared at me as if I had gone mad. ‘If you did you’d regret it, I promise you! What good would changing masters do? Believe me, you’d end in preferring Achilles.’
Something in his tone convinced me, so when I heard voices outside the stable door I crouched down behind a manger listening to the pure, liquid cadences of proper Greek – and to the power and authority one of the voices owned.
‘Isn’t Achilles back yet?’ it asked imperiously.
‘No, sire, but he ought to arrive before nightfall. He had to supervise the sack. A rich haul. The wagons have been laden.’
‘Excellent! I’ll wait in his cabin.’
‘Better to wait in the tent on the beach, sire. You know Achilles. Comfort isn’t important.’
‘As you wish, Phoinix.’
Their voices faded; I crawled from my hiding place. The sound of that cold, proud voice had frightened me. Achilles was a monster too, but better the monster you know, as my nurse used to say when I was little.
No one came near me during the afternoon. At first I sat on the bed I presumed belonged to Achilles and inspected the contents of the bare and featureless cabin curiously. A few spears were propped against a stanchion, no attempt had been made to paint the plain plank walls, and the dimensions of the room were tiny. It contained only two striking items, one an exquisite white fur rug on the bed, the other a massive four-handled pouring cup of gold, its sides worked to show the Sky Father on his throne, each handle surmounted by a horse in full gallop.
At which moment my grief opened and swallowed me, perhaps because for the first time since my capture I had no urgent or dangerous situation to push it away. As I sat here my father would be sprawled on the Lyrnessos refuse heap, food for the perpetually hungry town dogs; that was the traditional fate for high noblemen killed in battle. Tears poured down my face; I threw myself on the white fur rug and wept. Nor could I stop. The white fur became slick under my cheek and still I wept, keening and snuffling.
I didn’t hear the door open, so when a hand rested on my shoulder my heart ran about the inside of my chest like a trapped animal. All my grand ideas of defiance fled; I thought only that the High King Agamemnon had found me, and cringed away.
‘I belong to Achilles, I belong to Achilles!’ I wailed.
‘I’m aware of that. Who did you think came in?’
Carefully wiping the relief from my face before I lifted it, I dabbed at the tears with the palm of my hand. ‘The High King of Greece.’
‘Agamemnon?’
I nodded.
‘Where is he?’
‘In the tent on the beach.’
Achilles went to a chest by the far wall, opened it, rummaged inside it and threw me a square of fine cloth. ‘Here, blow your nose and mop your face. You’ll make yourself sick.’
I did as I was told. He came back to my side and gazed at the rug ruefully.
‘I hope it dries unmarked. It was a gift from my mother.’ He looked me over critically. ‘Was it beyond Phoinix’s resources to find you a bath and a clean dress?’
‘He offered. I refused.’
‘But you won’t refuse me. When the servants bring you a tub and fresh raiment, you’ll use them. Otherwise I’ll order it done by force – and not by women. Is that understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ His hand was on the latch when he paused. ‘What’s your name, girl?’
‘Brise.’
He grinned appreciatively. ‘Brise. “She who prevails”. Are you sure you didn’t make that one up?’
‘My father’s name was Brises. He was first cousin to King Anchises and Dardania’s Chancellor. His brother, Chryses, was high priest of Apollo. We are of the Royal Kindred.’
During the evening a Myrmidon officer came to me, unbolted my chains from the beam and led me by them to the side of the ship. A rope ladder was suspended from the rail; silently he indicated that I was to descend, doing me the courtesy of going first so he wouldn’t look up my skirts. The ship was high on the pebbles, which rolled about and hurt my feet.
A huge leather tent squatted on the shore, though I couldn’t remember seeing it when I had arrived on my donkey. The Myrmidon ushered me in through a flap in the back, into a room crammed with about a hundred women of Lyrnessos, none of whom I recognised. I alone had the distinction of chains. Many pairs of eyes fastened on me in hangdog curiosity as I searched the throng for a familiar face. There, in the corner! A head of glorious golden hair no one could mistake. My guard still kept hold of my fetters, but when I moved towards the corner he let me do as I wanted.
My cousin Chryse’s hands were across her face; when I touched her she jumped in panic, her arms falling. She looked at me in dawning wonder, then flung herself at me, weeping.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, at a loss. ‘You’re the daughter of the high priest of Apollo, therefore inviolate.’
Her answer was a howl. I shook her.
‘Oh, stop crying, do!’ I snapped.
Since I had been bullying her from the days of our shared childhood, she obeyed me. Then she said, ‘They took me all the same, Brise.’
‘That is a sacrilege!’
‘They say not. My father put on armour and fought. Priests don’t fight. So they classified him as a warrior and took me.’