“No, not at all.”
Aetnia looked so relieved Kat thought for a second that she was going to faint.
“Thank you, Princess!” she gushed.
“Aetnia, why were you so worried about Achilles being mad at Diomedes?”
The young woman's eyes grew huge and she lowered her voice fearfully. “The berserker, Princess. It overtakes him and he becomes a monster. He can kill anyone when the creature possesses him.”
“Have you ever seen Achilles in his berserker rage?”
“Only watching from the walls of our beautiful city.” She shivered. “That was terrible enough.”
“But you've been in his camp for, what, more than two years?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“And you've never seen the berserker take control of him here?”
“No, my lady.”
“You know, maybe you should consider that Achilles isn't as out of control and scary as everyone says he is.”
Aetnia gaped at Kat. “My lady, you, too, have watched him from the walls of Troy. You've seen him on the battlefield cutting a swath through our men. I do not understand how you can say even one kind word about him.”
“Aetnia, Diomedes is in need of you. Return to his tent.” Achilles' deep voice coming from behind them made both of them jump, but Kat thought Aetnia looked like she was going to pass out.
"Y-yes, my lord!” She bobbed several jerky curtseys and literally ran off.
Kat frowned up at the glowering Achilles and was getting ready to tell him to quit being such a bully, that they were already scared enough of him, when Jacky made her grand entrance, followed closely by an unusually pale Patroklos.
“Oh, sweet weeping baby Jesus, is that fried food that I smell?” She grabbed a pottery bowl from the table and sat on the log closest to Kat. “I am
starving
.” She looked at Kat appraisingly. “Did I miss something? Did hell actually freeze over and you cooked?”
“Don't start,” Kat told her, spooning up some of the hot, flaky fish for her friend.
“I do not understand how you can eat,” Patroklos said. “Not after the wounds you tended today.”
“Believe me, she can eat,” Kat said, gesturing at Jacky with the spatula. “She could eat a huge dinner while she lanced a boil while simultaneously playing with a ball of tapeworms.”
Jacky rolled her eyes at Kat. “Don't pay any attention to her. She exaggerates. I wouldn't play with the tapewormsâI don't like parasites. Plus like I've been telling you all afternoon. You've been in battle. I have no clue why the blood and guts after the fact should bother you so much.”
“Battle is one thing. Afterward is another,” Patroklos said. He gave Jacky an adoring look. “My beauty is not like other women.”
“True for so many reasons.” Jacky smiled flirtatiously at him. “One of them being I believe in cleanliness.” Her gaze went from flirty to incredulous when she turned it on Kat. “You would not believe how nasty the infirmary was withâ”
“Wine!” Achilles cut off Jacky's gross recounting, as he called over his shoulder to the women who were mending clothes in front of a nearby tent. Several of them scrambled to do Achilles' bidding, disappearing for only a moment and then reappearing with goblets for everyone, as well as four clay pitchers of wine.
Kat thought it was interesting how the women skirted around Achilles, giving him a wide berth. One girl, who must have drawn the short stick, was filling up his goblet and her hands were shaking so badly Kat was sure she was going to make a mess of it. “Keep an eye on the fish,” she told Jacky, and hurried over to Achilles. “I've got this. Go on back to your sewing.” Kat took the pitcher from her and gave her a friendly smile. The girl bowed and then bolted. With a hand that was decidedly steadier, Kat filled Achilles' goblet.
“You know, if you didn't bark commands at them, they might stop jumping out of their skin every time you're near,” Kat said softly as they walked the short distance to the campfire together.
“They fear me even though they have no reason to. Commanding them or not will not change that.”
Kat thought he sounded angry, and she guessed she couldn't really blame him. The women showed their fear of him so openly that it must grate on his nerves. Kat spooned up fish and garlic for all four of them, and even Patroklos ate at Jacky's insistence. Then she and Jacky sat comfortable on the bench and ate the utterly delicious fish with fresh bread and wine, while Patroklos and Achilles sat on the sandy beach on either side of them.
Kat noticed Patroklos leaned his back intimately against Jacky's knees. They ate and talked easily together. Kat decided she liked Jacky with Patroklos. That he was a good man was obvious, but he also had a fun sense of humor, and he seemed to appreciate her. And Jacky definitely liked himâdespite her cynical nature.
Kat looked down at Achilles. He was sitting close to her, but his back was so ramrod straight that no part of his body touched hers.
She bent forward and whispered in his ear as she tugged on a long strand of his golden hair. “Lean back against me. You look uncomfortable as hell sitting all perfect and straight like that.”
He looked up over his shoulder at her, grunted, and then leaned against her legs. He was still stiff, so Kat butted him with her knees. “Relax,” she whispered into his ear, and after only a little hesitation, he did relax, leaning back more comfortably.
Pleased with herself, Kat looked around as she ate the tasty fish and saw that all of the women who had been mending clothes across the campfire from them were staring at her with looks ranging from shock to fear. Kat sighed.
“What have you done to make all of those women so scared of you?” She asked him quietly, not wanting to be overheard, but Patroklos answered.
“The women condemn Achilles no matter what he says or does. He has never harmed one of them. None of us have. We are not barbarians. The war prizes who come to our beds do so willingly.” Patroklos paused long enough to give Jacky a big grin.
“Finish your dinner. I'll check your stitches afterward.” Jacky spoke matter-of-factly, but Kat could see that she also stroked the side of Patroklos's thigh with her bare foot.
“Will you check them in our tent? Alone?” Patroklos's eyes gleamed with obviously naughty intent, and for a split second he did remind her of Buffy's Spikeânot that she would ever admit that to Jacky.
“Yes.” Jacky made her voice all breathy, speaking in what Kat thought was a pretty darn good imitation of Marilyn Monroe. “There are some examinations that are much better done in private.”
Kat could have sworn only five more minutes had passed when Patroklos was picking up one of the pitchers of wine and two goblets and following Jacky, who said, “Good night,” to Kat with a wink, into their tent.
“So they've always been scared of you?” She took up the unfinished thread of their conversation after they were alone.
Achilles answered her, but it was clear the subject made him uncomfortable. “Women have feared me since the first time the berserker fully possessed me when I was with the maiden to whom I was betrothed.” His voice had gone from reluctant to cold. The more he spoke, the more dispassionate he sounded, but Kat could see the way his shoulders had tensed again and how he held himself too rigid so that he was no longer leaning relaxed against her. “I was nineteen and she was sixteen. She was of Ithaca's royal house, a distant cousin of Odysseus. We thought to join our families. I'd known her since we were children. The night before our wedding we snuck away to be alone. She wanted me, and I her. I'd had no idea the berserker could possess me during such a time.” His voice raised then, sharp with anger. “I wasn't on a battlefield. There should have been no reasonâ” He broke off and shook his head.
“What happened?”
“I killed herâraped her to death. I came back to myself with her bloody, lifeless body beneath mine. I have not taken a woman since that night.”
Abruptly he stood and, without so much as a backward glance at her, Achilles disappeared inside their tent.
“Well, hell. Where's some Xanax and a good, sturdy straight-jacket when you need them?” Kat tried to joke with herselfâto lighten the sadness of the oppressive mood Achilles had cast over them. Of course it didn't work. What he'd told her was awful. He'd killed the girl he'd loved and was supposed to marry.
She stood up, not wanting to sit there and let the women stare at her. Or worse, one of them might come over to her and whisper another escape plot that Achilles could overhear. Kat looked at the closed tent flap. She wasn't ready to go in there yet, either. With a sigh, she pulled off her shoes, hiked up her voluminous silk skirts and started walking toward the nearby seashore. Maybe the moon shining off the waves would calm her.
Kat had just reached the water when a huge burst of glittering diamond dust erupted in front of her, out of which Venus suddenly appeared.
“Darling, you're not doing a bad job, but I thought that, perhaps, you could use a little advice from Love herself.”
Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Well, it definitely couldn't hurt.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Yes, yes, you're quite right. You were doing very well together.” Venus had materialized in an almost obscenely short silk tunic that showcased her long, shapely legs as she stood at the edge of the surf, letting the soft sea waves flow over her bare feet and calves. “I particularly liked when you cast that little spell over him and brought both of you to orgasm. Well done you!”
Kat felt her face flame. “Let's make a deal. If my clothes come off, you stop peeping at me.”
“But, darling.” Venus smiled. “You didn't have your clothes off.”
“You know what I mean,” Kat ground out between her clenched teeth.
Venus sighed prettily. “Yes, of course, I understand. Actually the reason I was watching was to be quite sure Achilles wouldn't change when he became aroused by you, as he almost had earlier on the beach.”
“And he didn't,” Kat said.
“No, not while he was under your spell.”
“Venus, it's not a spell. You must know that. It's just hypnotismâ a trick that can be played with the subconscious mind. It's used to get conscious barriers out of the way. Suggestions can be implanted during hypnotism, too, like don't smoke. Or don't eat so much.”
“Or only remember what happened if you want to?”
“Yes, like that. And, again.
No more watching
. But speaking ofâdid you happen to listen in when he told me about raping to death the girl he was going to marry?”
“Achilles did not do that. The berserker did. You know they are not one and the same,” Venus said.
“I understand that, but it doesn't change the girl's outcome, or mine if I happen to trigger a berserker possession.”
“Katrina, darling, I don't believe you will.” The goddess paused, studying Kat carefully. “And I don't think you believe you will, either.”
“Actually I believe that he can learn to control what triggers the possession. I may have figured out what it is that has to happen to call the berserker to him, and it's not as simple as him being physically aroused or emotionally excited. It has to be a very specific combination of the two,” Kat said.
Venus nodded. “So you simply need to make sure both don't happen at once.”
“Well, it's not so simple. And both are bound to happen at the same time eventually. What I think I can do is get him to control himself enough so that he's just on the edge of the berserker's possession, but he doesn't trip over into it.”
“And all of this will take time and keep him away from the battle-field so that a quick, decisive Trojan victory can be orchestrated. Excellent! I will report everything back to Hera and Athena.” Venus's smile was brilliant. “I knew you were the right choice for this job.”
“Thanks. I think.” But she couldn't help smiling back at the beautiful goddess.
“Oh, and you should know that I would never allow Achilles' berserker to harm you. Had you awakened him last night, I would have protected you. So feel free to experiment with your lovely hypnotism spell.” The goddess raised her shapely arm, obviously getting ready to disappear.
“Wait! Okay, not that I'm unappreciative about you saying you'll be sure the berserker doesn't rape and pillage me, but can we work out some way you could know I need your help
without
you spying on me in way too intimate moments?”
“Darling, goddesses do not spy. We watch attentively and oversee our adoring subjects.”
“Fine, let's just have your watching be not so personal, and your overseeing be slightly less attentive. Can't I have like a panic button I could press or something?”
“What a lovely idea! And I saw the perfect thing on display at one of Tulsa's exquisite jewelry boutiques on Brookside called Nattie Blue. My mortal friend, Pea Chamberlain, and I have recently discovered the delicious Garlic Rose restaurant there. Their food is fit for a goddess.” Venus laughed. “And, of course, I would know!”
“The panic button. Remember?”
“Oh, of course, darling.” Venus lifted her arm again and made a fluttering motion with her long, elegant fingers causing diamond glitter to form in the air around her. And then, with a
pop
a golden heart locket was suddenly dangling from her fingers. Venus held it up in front of her face and frowned. “Well, it's more modern-mortal-world-looking then I remembered. But not a problem. I can fix that.” Venus closed her hand around the locket and then blew gently into her fist. When she reopened her hand Kat saw that the locket was the same basic shape and size, but the golden color had changed. Now it reminded her of the buttery color of the golden jewelry Agamemnon had draped himself in. “Perfect!” The goddess motioned for Kat to turn so she could fasten it around her neck.