For the Most Beautiful (21 page)

The sounds of soldiers tramping back from another raid were echoing around the hut: the rhythmic stamp of a thousand feet on hard wet sand, the rattle of shields and spears, the sobs of prisoners being led into the camp, and over it all, the steady hammering of rain on the rush roof.

I was sitting on my small pallet, holding Achilles' lyre in my lap and plucking at the strings.

‘You should not be playing that.' Patroclus was sitting on a stool, using his small bronze dagger to carve a wooden hawk out of driftwood. He was avoiding my eye, pretending he needed to focus on the woodwork.

‘Why not?' I asked. ‘Achilles is not here. He'll not know. Unless you tell him.'

Patroclus blushed slightly and did not look up from carving. ‘Maybe I shall,' he said. ‘In any case, I still do not think you should.'

I watched him as he chipped away at the wood. He seemed preoccupied, lost within his thoughts, his eyes distant. It was as if he hardly noticed what he was doing. As if he hardly cared.

‘Why do you not fight, Patroclus?' I asked him suddenly. ‘Why do you stay behind, when Achilles goes to war?'

He looked up at me, then down at his hands. It was a long time before he spoke. ‘My father,' he said at last. ‘My father made Achilles swear not to let me fight.'

‘But you would like to? Fight, I mean?'

He continued chipping shavings of wood on to the floor. ‘Who would not? War is where heroes are made. In Thessaly, my home, I am only Patroclus, son of Menoetius, companion of Achilles. Here I would have the chance to be something more.' The dagger hovered above the wood. ‘Something different.'

‘So you would wish to be with Achilles and his soldiers, raping and pillaging and burning the cities of the Troad?' I said bitterly. ‘I see. And whose lives were they ruining today?'

He was avoiding my eye. Rain pattered upon the roof into the silence, and the fire sparked. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘And do not be so harsh, Briseis. You know what war is like.'

‘I know what men are like,' I said. ‘I think Agamemnon has come to fill his overflowing coffers with Trojan gold. I think that most soldiers would do anything to bed a woman. And I
know
Achilles wishes for nothing other than to destroy and murder and burn as much as he can.'

‘That is unfair,' said Patroclus, quietly. ‘You do not know him at all, Briseis. You cannot talk about him like that.'

‘Why can I not?' I said, growing heated. ‘I may talk about him in any way I please. He's not here to defend himself.'

Patroclus returned to his wood carving, chipping away at the little bird, shavings of wood dropping on to the floor with growing insistence.

‘You still have not told me where Achilles went.'

‘I told you, I do not know,' he repeated. ‘It is not your business.'

I stood up, my cheeks reddening with anger, my temper flaring after days spent cooped up in Achilles' hut with only Patroclus and my grief for company, letting the lyre fall on to the rushes on the floor. ‘I do not understand it. How can you bear to stay at home and defend him while he is out murdering innocent men? How can you, Patroclus?'

‘It's not so simple,' he said, frowning. ‘Men kill because they have to. Achilles is a man like any other. It is his job to kill. But he is capable of love, too—'

‘Don't you
dare
talk of love!' I shouted, losing all self-control. ‘Don't you dare try to excuse him! What does Achilles know of love? He killed my husband before my very eyes! My
husband
– the only man I ever loved. The only man who ever saw me for who I was, despite – despite everything that happened in Pedasus. Achilles did not even take the trouble to look as he stabbed him through the heart …' I collapsed on to a stool, shaking, my head in my hands. I could not even weep. That loss and that rage were beyond tears.

Patroclus did not know what to say. ‘I am truly sorry,' he said. ‘I—'

‘I do not want your sympathy,' I said in a harsh tone, and my voice was steady. ‘What is done is done, and he did it. I shall not forget.' I swallowed and lowered my voice. ‘I shall never forgive him.'

Patroclus started to say something, but I spoke across him.

‘So,' I said, straightening my face, pulling myself up, ‘you know it all now. The worst is done. And you might be trying to hide it from me, but I know you know where he went. All I am asking is for you to tell me.'

Patroclus stood up slowly and walked towards the door. He pushed it open with both hands. Then he turned back to me, his eyes tortured with pain. ‘Pedasus, Briseis,' he said, in a low voice. ‘He went to Pedasus.'

I slipped from the healer's hut into the damp air of the evening. The rain had stopped, leaving a mist that hung low over the rippling surface of the sea, fogging the deep gold of the sky, like the gods' breath on a bronze mirror. The shore was filled with captured slaves.

I felt my heart swell with indignation as I surveyed the crowds of women, their wrists tied to one another. I had seen this happen too many times already during my two weeks in the Greek camp. How much longer would the gods allow this suffering to go on?

A movement in the direction of one of the tents further down the shore caught my eye, and I gasped. The flap had just been drawn aside. Nestor and King Agamemnon were stepping out on to the shore, Nestor's white hair flashing in the low sunlight.

I gathered my tunic and started to run towards King Agamemnon's tent, darting between the groups of slaves gathered on the shoreline and hoping against hope that I would not be seen.

I did not understand. The door was moving in the breeze, creaking on its heavy wooden hinges.

He had gone to Pedasus.

Pedasus.

He went to Pedasus. My home.

But what if he found my mother and father? What if he found my brothers, Rhenor, Aigion and Thersites?

How can I find out? Who would know?

Patroclus was my first thought. My throat tight, I ran towards the door and pushed it open, then dashed across the sand after him.

‘Patroclus!' I shouted, but the wind whipped my voice out of my mouth and over the ocean. ‘Patroclus – wait! Come back!'

But he was already lost in the maze of Greek huts and tents.

‘
Patroclus!
'

I looked around desperately for someone to ask. Any man who could tell me what had happened to my family, if they were still alive or if they had passed into the kingdom of the Underworld from which no mortal ever returns, and all this while I had been making idle conversation with a Greek in the Greek camp.

And then something else caught my attention.

The whole beach was crowded with people, silent, still, bowed, their arms and legs bound. I looked again, carefully now, and my shout caught at the back of my throat.

They were all the women I had grown up with – all my slaves, young and old, all the noble ladies – arrayed in front of me, like some strange nightmare of Pedasus.

But there were no men.

I started to run towards the slaves, not looking where I was going, not caring who saw me.

‘Have – have you seen Rhenor or Aigion?' I gasped, dashing between the rows of bent and broken women, searching for anyone who might be able to tell me where they were, any man among the crowd of smut-stained slaves.

‘Did you see Prince Thersites, or the king? Do you know where they are?'

Eyes that were blank with despair were my only answer; sometimes, a look of pity.

‘But they must be here somewhere,' I cried out. ‘It's all right, you just have to tell me where they are. I am the princess! I'm here …'

Nothing. Just the soft breaking of the waves against the beach and the faint, mournful keening of seagulls.

‘Please!' I sobbed, running in and out of the plaited chains of women, their faces blurred now. ‘Please – they must be—'

‘Princess Briseis?'

The voice was so familiar I felt as if I were in a dream.

I stopped running and faltered forwards a little, wiping the tears from my eyes, looking for the face that belonged to that voice …

‘Princess!'

It was my nurse, Deiope. Her old face was creased with worry, but it was still her. I should have known that face anywhere, as if it were inscribed on the hardened clay of my heart.

‘Deiope!' My voice cracked and I ran over to her. I unbound the ropes from around her wrists and ankles, and she folded me into her arms, stroking my hair and face. ‘Is it you, Princess?' she asked, the tears running down her wrinkled old cheeks. ‘Is it really you?'

‘It's me,' I said unsteadily. ‘It's me, Deiope. I am here. I am all right.'

She rocked me back and forth, cradling my head against her chest.

I felt the tears rush to my eyes more insistently than ever at the bittersweet pain of it, my love for her, the safety I felt, fleeting memories of a past that was gone and could never come back. The tears flooded out and on to her tunic, staining it dark.

‘We did not know where you were!' she exclaimed, pressing me to her. ‘We heard about Lyrnessus. We heard Prince Mynes had been killed and we thought they must have taken you, but we could not be sure if – if—'

‘No,' I said quickly. ‘No. I'm here. I'm a slave too. But – but that does not matter. Tell me, what happened? What happened to Pedasus? Do you know where my family is?'

Tears sparkled in her crinkled blue eyes. I had never seen her cry before. She took a deep breath. ‘We did not stand a chance,' she whispered. ‘He came like nothing I have ever seen – like fire. He …' she swallowed a sob ‘… he killed your father, the king. Not even your brothers could stop him, though they fought like heroes.'

He?
I thought, flooded with dread. My heart was doing an odd kind of drumroll against my ribs.
No. Not him.

Not him again.

‘We were hiding in the women's quarters, all us slaves. Your mother the queen had already set out for her father's palace in Killa, disguised as a trader's daughter. The men had gone out to fight. Your brothers too. And the king had gone to the treasury with his guard to shore up the vaults. There wasn't anyone left to protect the palace.'

I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

‘I looked out of the window, trying to see where they were, to check if we were safe, and I saw them. Your three brothers, down in the court, all fighting for their lives. And then
he
appeared, so suddenly you'd have thought he'd been transported there by a god – handsome, terrible, taller than Ares.' She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Achilles. And he was so fast with his sword it looked like a dance – just a dance, like the ones we used to have on feast days, do you remember? His blade glinted in the sun. I looked away for a moment, blinded by the light. And when I looked again it was done … Our three sweet boys were lying in the dust …'

Her words melted into tears, and I held her close to me, my head on hers, trying to take in what she had just told me.

I could not weep now. I could not feel anything except shock. I could not believe they were gone: my father, my brothers, my family. It was too large, too much to take in that they, too, could be gone. That I would never see them again, or talk with them in the palace at Pedasus.

It cannot be true.

‘Well, that's all done now,' Deiope said simply, crying herself to a last few sobs, then wiping her eyes on her smut-stained tunic. ‘Zeus knows there's no sense bearing a grudge, even against those who deserve it, for the only harm we do is to ourselves. It'll all come right in the end, Princess – you'll see.'

Another memory flashed, unbidden, across my mind. Deiope, standing beside me in the chariot on the way to my wedding. Deiope, straightening my gold necklaces and earrings. Deiope, as I asked her about the prophecy, saying that all would come right.

And then, with the blinding force of lightning, it crashed over me. It was so obvious.
That was the prophecy. That's it.

‘Princess?' Deiope asked tentatively. ‘Is – is something wrong?'

My mind seemed to be working faster than usual, images and memories flashing before my eyes.

He who seeks Briseis' bed shall then her brothers three behead
.

He who seeks my bed. And we had always assumed it would be a suitor. And when Mynes had come and chosen me and all had been well, I had thought I was clear of the prophecy.
But it was not Mynes
, I thought feverishly. It was Achilles. Achilles had slain his way through the Great Hall of the Palace of Lyrnessus to get to me. He had killed my husband without even turning to look at him. It was Achilles who had killed my brothers, Rhenor, Aigion and Thersites.

And it was Achilles, the murderer of my husband, the slayer of my brothers, who wanted me in his bed.

I was rigid with shock.
The prophecy was right. It was Achilles, not Mynes, who killed my brothers and seeks my bed.
The words drilled through my head, over and over, like a chant to the gods.

Achilles. It was Achilles.

‘The prophecy was right,' I whispered.

Deiope stopped stroking my hair and gave me an anxious look. ‘The prophecy?' she said. ‘You're not still worrying about that?'

I shook my head. ‘Yes – no – I don't know …'