“Do you miss your home?”
His question surprised her into answering with complete honesty. “Yes, I do. I'm homesick for normal things.”
“Such as?”
Kat realized she'd answered herself into a corner and thought quickly, discarding answers like the Internet and hot running water. When she finally answered, it was, again, with an honesty that surprised her. “I miss my freedom. I'm used to being able to do what I want to do and not worry about asking permission. I like being responsible for myself.”
Achilles snorted. “I heard old Priam was too lenient with his children.”
“My father is not too lenient!” Kat said automatically, thinking about her dad back in Oklahoma who raised her to have a backbone and to value herself, but who didn't tolerate any crap from her, especially when she had been an obnoxious teenager.
“Then explain to me why he would allow Paris to abduct the king of Sparta's wife.”
Shit! Helen's husband was the king of Sparta? As in the Spartansthat spawned the kick ass three hundred?
Kat dug into the wet sand with her toe and wished, for the zillionth time, she'd paid more attention to mythology in college. Finally she shrugged and said what she figured was probably close to the truth based on the vague information she did have (that he was a middle child and that he'd stolen someone's wife). “Paris has always made stupid decisions the rest of us get stuck cleaning up.” Before he could ask any more difficult-to-answer questions Kat asked one of her own. “So did it bother you today not to join the battle?”
Instead of answering her, Achilles pointed to a half circle of coral that was just a few feet off the shoreline. “Bass like to rest in the shady spot there.” This time he didn't strip but waded, thick-soled leather shoes and all, out to the coral. He climbed up on a benchlike ledge and crouched so that he could look down into the water.
Kat sighed and picked up a smooth, round seashell, trying to think of something she could ask him he might actually answer.
“It did not bother me not to join the battle today.”
She glanced up from the shell to him.
“It does bother me that my absence might have caused the death of even one Greek.”
“But it's wrong to have you and your men keep fighting for someone who treats you like Agamemnon does.”
“Is it more wrong than to cause men's deaths?”
Kat wanted to tell him that his absence would cause the war to end sooner, and
that
would save lives, but Kat knew she couldn't. He was on the side of the Greeks. No matter how badly Agamemnon had used him and then pissed him off, he still couldn't want to hear that his people would be defeated. So instead she said the only thing she could: “I don't know.”
In the silence that followed, Achilles suddenly moved with blurring swiftness and hurled the spear into the sea beneath him. When he pulled it up it had neatly impaled a large, writhing bass. He pulled it off the spear and tossed it up on the beach entirely too close to Kat's feet and she skittered several steps away from the flopping thing.
“You said you liked sea bass.”
“I do. Cleaned and cooked. By someone else.”
Achilles crouched back on the coral outcropping and returned to staring down into the clear water. “Then I'll have to have one of the maidservants who like to whisper escape schemes to you take care of the preparation.”
Kat realized she shouldn't be surprised that he knew what was being whispered about in his own camp. “And were you told my answer to those escape schemes?”
He looked up from the water to her. “What was your answer?”
“I said no.”
“Why? Because you fear what I would do to you if I caught you trying to escape?”
Kat made sure her voice sounded as haughty as a princess. “No. Because a goddess sent me here. I'll leave when
she
tells me to.”
“So you wish to leave me already?” His voice was neutral, verging on uncaring, but Kat recognized the loneliness in his eyesâ she'd seen it the night before.
“No. I don't want to leave you.” As she said the words she knew they were true. She didn't want to leave himânot yet. Not until she had helped him to control the berserker and change his fate.
He didn't comment. He simply turned his attention back to the water. In no time there were two more huge fish added to the flopping pile on the beach. When he speared a fourth, he waded back to her and rammed the point of the spear through all four fish. Then, while Achilles carried them over his shoulder like a bizarre knapsack, they headed back to camp.
They walked awhile in silence, which, at least to Kat, didn't feel uncomfortable. But as they got closer to camp, and thereby closer to Achilles' tent and the inevitability of them spending another night together, her pile of unanswered questions became too heavy.
“I saw you fight off the berserker when you were drilling with your men today,” she said.
He glanced at her and then looked away. “There really wasn't any danger of the berserker overtaking me. I was simply surprised, that and the pain from the sword scratch were enough to make the men leery of me. But neither the pain nor the surprise was great enough to cause the monster to possess me.”
“It didn't seem like Patroklos was very leery of you.”
Achilles smiled one of his rare full smiles. “My foolish cousin believes I would never harm him and he often acts much too rashly.”
“But you wouldn't hurt him,” Kat said.
“
I
wouldn't. He is the closest thing I have to a brother or a son, and I would give my life to protect his. The berserker has no such loyalties.”
Kat thought about that and wondered just how true that statement was. Odysseus had said that the berserker had been possessing Achilles since he was about sixteen. The berserker was a being of anger and hatred and passion and killing. But did that mean he had no ability to develop a relationship with anyone in Achilles' life?
“Where did the berserker come from before he cursed your life?”
“Zeus,” Achilles said. “He sent the berserker when I made my choice. First he offered a long, happy life filled with the love of a fine woman and the respect of my family and friends. I would die of old age and my fame would mean naught but to my family.”
“That sounds like an amazing future. Many people would give almost anything to know that their lives would be fulfilled by love and family,” Kat said.
“I took the second choice. I chose a short, but glorious life of constant battle. I will die on the battlefield before the great walls of Troy shortly after the death of your noble brother, Hector. My life will be bereft of love. No children will carry the burden of my blood in their veins. But even without those things, my name will be remembered in all parts of the civilized world for thousands of years to come.”
Kat didn't say anything. What could she say?
You made a crappy, immature decision.
She didn't need to say anything like that. It was already more than obvious that the mature Achillesâ the man he'd grown intoâknew deep in his soul that the childlike version of him had made a serious mistake.
“Which one would you have chosen, Princess?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Achilles' question threw her off guard. Kat wasn't used to being asked the “if you could change your life decisions would you” questions. She was the shrink. She did the asking. She glanced up at the scarred warrior walking beside her. He was waiting attentively for her answer, as if it truly mattered to him.
“It's different for girls,” she said, trying to reason through her answer and be as honest with him as possible. “If someone had given my teenage self the choice you were given it wouldn't have been any choice at all. I didn't want to be a great warrior.” She smiled at him. “I still don't. But had I been given the choice between . . . say . . .” Kat paused, considering. “Well, between your first choice, which was basically to have a happy life fulfilled by all the normal things: marriage, family, home, blah, blah, or to have something heart-stopping, breathtaking and utterly ridiculously romantic. Like maybe a torrid, passionate love affair with someone who was completely taboo but whose love would flame forever in my soul even if it burned me out when I was still young.” Kat clutched her hands over her bosom dramatically and gave an exaggerated sigh, which made Achilles chuckle. “I probably would have taken the ridiculous romantic choice, and then regretted it when I grew the hell up.”
“You would regret love?”
“Fire-hot passion with someone because he's off-limits isn't love; it's a little girl's fairy tale idea of love. Plus now that I'm a grown woman I know that it's possible to have both if you choose wisely.”
“Both?”
“Yeah, you can have a fiery passion for someone that can actually last, and he doesn't have to be the bad boy Mommy wouldn't let you date. It has to be the kind of fire that is fed with realityâas in communication and respect and suchâversus the fantasy of . . .” She hesitated, wanting to refer to Romeo and Juliet, and finally finished with, “the fantasy of love, or rather
lust
, at first sight.” She looked up at him to see if she'd totally lost her audience, but he was still watching her with an intent, curious expression on his scarred face. “It's a little like the fact that you could have had both, too.”
“Explain.”
His abrupt tone said Kat might have pushed too far, but she figured there was no going back now. . . .
“You're an amazing warrior and a great leader without the berserker. In just the couple of days I've been here I've seen you stand up to the king of an entire nation, lead your men, who follow you with complete loyalty, and beat four warriors at the same time. You did all of that without the berserker.”
Achilles didn't speak for several moments, and when he did his voice was hollow with regret. “It is not possible to turn back the wheel of time.”
“Yeah, guess not . . .” Kat said as a vision of the queen of Olympus played through her mind.
Kat quickly decided missing running water and the Internet was nothing compared to not having grocery stores. True to his word, Achilles had tossed the bass at the feet of Aetnia and barked an order at her to cook it before he muttered something about “seeing to Odysseus” and striding away, leaving Kat frowning at his broad back and trying to ignore the dead fish eyes.
Aetnia, of course, instantly jumped to, grabbing the fish and hurrying off to do whatever it is one did to real fish to get them filleted and ready for the deli case and eventually the skillet.
“I need a drink,” Kat said. And before she could so much as enter Achilles' tent in hopes that the pitcher of wine had been refilled, another maidservant seemed to magically materialize at her side, offering a goblet full of a lovely red. “Oh, thanks!” Kat smiled at her.
The young woman blushed and bobbled a sweet curtsey. “Anything for you, Princess!” Then she retreated back across the little clearing that separated Achilles' tent from the others and joined a group of women who were sitting together mending what looked from the distance like articles of clothing while they threw her curious glances and whispered among themselves.
Kat sighed and sat on the bench beside Achilles' tent. Well, she was playing princess. That probably meant that she shouldn't go over to the group of women and try to make friends. She wasn't a mythology expert, but that didn't mean she was utterly a moron about ancient history. Nobility didn't mix with servants. Period. That was already more than obvious by the way the women were reacting to Jacky's new, outspoken persona. Clearly Polyxena was the only noble war-prize bride in the Myrmidon camp. Logically if there were others, they would have shown up to commiserate. The smartest thing to do would be to keep as low a profile as possible and stay away from the other women, avoiding unanswerable questions as well as escape plots.
But by the time Aetnia got back with the filleted fish, Kat was completely bored just sitting there by herself. Plus she really hated the subservient way Aetnia scurried around like she was really worried about offending The Princess. It made her wonder how awful Polyxena had been.
“Here, I'll help.”
“Oh, no, Princess! This isn't work forâ”
“Aetnia, really. I'll help. I want to.” Kat reached for a long wooden spatula-looking thing that was sitting on the cooking table beside the campfire. There was what seemed to be a perpetually simmering pot of stew hanging from poles over the fire, so Aetnia had placed the huge hunks of fish in two heavy iron skillets directly on the rocks that were interspersed with the glowing coals. “I'll poke these two. You take those two.” Kat situated herself near the skillet she'd commandeered, enjoying the delicious smell of garlic, olive oil and fresh fish frying.
“As you wish, Princess.”
“So whose war-prize bride are you?” Kat asked to fill up the extremely dead air.
“I belong to Diomedes, Princess,” Aetnia said.
“I haven't met him yet. Do you like him?”
“Like him?” She looked confused. “He does not beat me,” Aetnia said, as if that answered Kat's question. “He is the warrior who wounded Achilles yesterday.”
Kat thought back, vaguely remembering a young, muscular guy who definitely had a big sword. She wished Jacky was there so they could make nasty puns about it, but she settled for smiling at shy Aetnia and saying, “He seemed to know what he was doing with a sword.”
“IâI hope he didn't anger Lord Achilles,” she said in a little burst of breath.