The Song of Troy (32 page)

When we sailed into Assos harbour after a late winter campaign in Lykia (Achilles seemed to have some sort of pact with the Gods of the sea, for we sailed as safely in winter as in summer), Ajax was waiting on the beach to greet us, waving gaily to signal that he hadn’t been threatened in our absence, and was spoiling to go back to war. Spring had come in full measure, the grass ankle high; early flowers dotted the meadows, the camp horses leaped and frolicked in their pastures, the air was soft and heady as undiluted wine. Filling our chests with the scent of home, we scrambled to jump down onto the shingle.

We split up then to meet later, Ajax going off with Little Ajax and Teukros, his great arms about them, while Meriones stalked ahead in Cretan superiority. I strolled with Achilles, delighted to be back in Assos. The women had been busy in our absence; pale green shoots in their garden beds promised herbs and vegetables for the cooking pots, garlands of flowers for our heads. A pretty place, Assos, not at all like the dour war camp Agamemnon had built at Troy. The barracks were scattered randomly through groves of trees and the streets wandered the way streets did in an ordinary town. Of course we were secure. A wall, palisade and ditch twenty cubits high surrounded us, fully guarded even through the coldest moons of winter. Not that our closest enemy, Dardania, seemed interested in us; rumour had it that its King, Anchises, was always at loggerheads with Priam.

There were women everywhere through the camp, some bulging in late pregnancy, and over the winter a landslide of babies had arrived. The sight of them and their mothers pleased me, for they soothed away the ache of war, the emptiness of killing. There were none of mine among those babies, nor any from Achilles. I find women interesting creatures, despite the fact that I am not attracted to them. All of ours were captives of our swords, yet once the initial shock and disorientation had worn off, they seemed able to forget whatever past lives they had known, whatever men they had loved then; they settled down to love again, to have new families and espouse Greek ways. Well, they are not warriors. They are the prizes of warriors. I daresay feminine realities are taught to them by their mothers while they’re still little girls. Women are nest makers, so the nest is of first importance. Of course there were always a few who couldn’t forget, who wept and mourned; they didn’t last at Assos, were sent to toil in the greasy, muddy fields where the Euphrates almost marries the Tigris, there, I imagine, to die still grieving.

The hall was the biggest room in our house, serving both as a sitting room and as a council chamber. Achilles and I entered together, our shoulders combined just clearing the frame on either side of the doorway. Noting that always gave me a pang of pleasure, as if it spoke in some way of who and what we had become. Leaders, masters.

I took off my own armour, whereas Achilles let the women strip his gear from him, standing like a tower with half a dozen women tugging at straps and knots, clucking when they saw the long black ribbon of a half-healed wound on his thigh. I could never bring myself to permit slaves to disarm me; I had seen their faces when we chose them from the spoils as part of our share. But Achilles worried not one bit. He let them remove his sword and dagger without seeming to realise that one of them could turn with the weapon in her hand and slay him as he stood defenceless. I looked them over dubiously, but had to admit that the danger of such an occurrence was very slight. From youngest to oldest, they were all in love with him. Our baths were already filled with warm water, fresh kilts and blouses laid out.

Afterwards, when the wine was poured and the remains of our meal cleared away, Achilles dismissed the women and lay back with a sigh. Both of us were tired, yet it was no use trying to sleep; broad daylight poured through the windows, we were still likely to be invaded by friends.

Achilles had been very quiet all day – not unusual, save that today’s silence hinted at withdrawal. I disliked these moods in him. It was as if he went somewhere I couldn’t follow, into a world his alone, leaving me to cry fruitlessly at its gates. So I leaned across to touch him on the arm, more strength in my fingers than I had intended.

‘Achilles, you’ve hardly touched the wine.’

‘I’ve no appetite for it.’

‘Are you off colour?’

The question surprised him. ‘No. Is it a sign of illness in me when I refuse the wine?’

‘No. More your mood, I think.’

He sighed deeply, gazed about the hall. ‘I love this room more than any other room I’ve ever known. It belongs to
me.
Because not one thing in it wasn’t won with my sword. It tells me that I’m
Achilles,
not the son of Peleus.’

‘Yes, it’s a beautiful room,’ I said.

He frowned. ‘Beauty is an indulgence of the senses, I despise it as an infirmity. No, I love this room because it’s my trophy.’

‘A splendid trophy,’ I floundered.

He ignored this banality, went somewhere else again; I tried again to bring him back.

‘Even after so many years, you say things I don’t begin to understand. Surely you love beauty in
some
guises? To live deeming it an infirmity is no life, Achilles.’

He grunted. ‘It matters little to me how I live or how long I live, provided that I’ve ensured my fame. Men must never forget me when I’m in my grave.’ His mood swung anew. ‘Do you think I’ve gone about the getting of fame the wrong way?’

‘That lies between you and the Gods,’ I answered. ‘You haven’t sinned against them – you haven’t slain fertile women or children too young to bear arms. It’s no sin to give them over into bondage. Nor have you starved a place out. If your hand’s been heavy, it’s never been criminally so. I’m softer, is all.’

A smile dawned. ‘You underestimate yourself, Patrokles. Put a sword in your hand and you’re as hard as any of us.’

‘Battle is different. I can kill without mercy in battle. But sometimes my dreams are dark and heavy.’

‘As are mine. Iphigenia cursed me before she died.’

Not able to sustain the talk, he drifted away; I fell to watching him, as there was nothing I liked better to do. Many of his qualities were beyond my comprehension, yet if any man knew Achilles, that man was I. He possessed the ability to make people love him, be they his Myrmidons or his captive women – or me, for that matter. But the cause didn’t lie in his physical attractiveness; it was a facet of his spirit, a vastness other men always seemed to lack.

Since we had sailed from Aulis three years ago he had become extremely self-contained; I sometimes wondered if his wife would even recognise him when they met again. Of course his troubles were rooted in the death of Iphigenia, and that I shared as well as understood. But not where his thoughts led, nor the deepest layers of his mind.

A sudden breath of cold wind stirred the drapes at either side of the window. I shivered. Achilles still lay on his side, his head propped on one hand, but his expression had changed. I spoke his name sharply. He did not answer.

Suddenly alarmed, I sprang from my couch to drop down on the edge of his. I put my hand on his bare shoulder, but he didn’t seem to know it. My heart singing, I looked down at the skin beneath my palm and bent my head until my lips rested against it; tears leaped under my lids so swiftly that one fell upon his arm. Appalled, I snatched my mouth away as he shuddered and turned his head to look at me, something in his eyes only half formed – as if in this moment he saw the real Patrokles for the first time.

He opened that poor lipless gash to speak, but whatever he might have said was never said. His eyes went to the open door and he said, ‘Mother.’

Horrified, I saw that he drooled, that his left hand was jerking, that the left side of his face twitched. Then he fell from couch to floor and stiffened, his spine arched, his eyes so blind and white that I thought he was going to die. Down on the floor I collapsed to hold him, to wait for the blackened face to fade to a mottled grey, for the jerking to stop, for him to live. When it was over I wiped the saliva from his jaw, cradled him more easily and stroked his sweat-matted hair.

‘What was it, Achilles?’

He gazed at me cloudily, recognition dawning slowly. Then he sighed like an exhausted child. ‘Mother came bearing her Spell. I think I’ve been feeling her coming all day.’

The Spell! Was
this
the Spell? It looked to me like an epileptic seizure, though the people I had known who suffered them always wasted away in mind until imbecility negated them; soon after, they died. Whatever afflicted Achilles had not attacked his mind, nor had the Spell become more frequent. I thought this was the first Spell since that one in Skyros.

‘Why did she come, Achilles?’

‘To remind me that I will die.’

‘You can’t say that! How do you know?’ I helped him to his feet, put him on his couch and sat down beside him. ‘I saw you in this Spell, Achilles, and what it looked like to me was an epilepsy.’

‘Perhaps it is an epilepsy. If so, then my mother sends it to remind me of my mortality. And she’s right. I must die before Troy falls. The Spell is a taste of death, existence as a shade, uncaring and unfeeling.’ His mouth drew in. ‘Long and ignominious or short and glorious. There is no choice, which is what she will not see. Her visitations as the Spell can change nothing. My choice was made in Skyros.’

I turned away and rested my head on my arm.

‘Don’t weep for me, Patrokles. I’ve chosen the fate I want.’

I dashed my hand across my eyes. ‘I don’t weep for you. I weep for myself.’

Though I wasn’t looking at him, I felt him change.

‘We share the same blood,’ he said then. ‘Just before the Spell descended, I saw something in you I’ve never seen before.’

‘My love for you,’ I said, throat constricted.

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I must have hurt you many times, not understanding. But why are you weeping?’

‘When love isn’t returned, we weep.’

He got up from the couch and held out both hands to me. ‘I return your love, Patrokles,’ he said. ‘I always have.’

‘But you’re not a man for men, and that’s the love I want.’

‘Perhaps that would be so if I’d chosen a long and ignominious life. As it is, and for what it’s worth, I’m not averse to love with you. We’re in exile together, and it seems very sweet to me to share that exile in the flesh as well as in the spirit,’ said Achilles.

So it was that he and I became lovers, though I didn’t find the ecstasy I had dreamed of. Do we ever? Achilles burned for many things, but the satisfaction of his body was never one of them. No matter. I had more of him than any woman, and found a kind of contentment at least. Love isn’t truly the body. Love is freedom to roam the heart and mind of the beloved.

It was five years before we visited Troy and Agamemnon. I went with Achilles, of course; he also took Ajax and Meriones. I was aware that this visit was long overdue, but I thought that even then he wouldn’t have gone were it not that he needed to confer with Odysseus. The Asia Minor states had grown wary, devised stratagems to anticipate our attacks.

The long, bristling beach between Simois and Skamander was nothing like the place we had left over four years earlier. Its ramshackle, makeshift air had vanished; permanence and purpose were self-evident. The fortifications were businesslike and well designed. There were two entrances to the camp, one at Skamander and one at Simois, where stone bridges had been thrown across the trench and big gates yawned in the wall.

Ajax and Meriones disembarked at the Simois end of the beach while Achilles and I came in up Skamander, to find that barracks had been built to house the Myrmidons on their return. We walked along the main road which traversed the camp, seeking Agamemnon’s new house, which, we had been informed, was very grand.

Men nursed wounds as they sat in the sun, others whistled cheerfully as they oiled leather armour or polished bronze, some of them engaged in stripping purple plumes from Trojan helmets so that they could wear them into battle themselves. A busy, happy place telling us that the troops left at Troy were far from idle.

Odysseus was emerging from Agamemnon’s house just as we arrived. When he saw us he leaned his spear against the portico and opened his arms, grinning. There were two or three fresh scars on his sturdy body – had he got them in open combat or during one of those night excursions? He is the only devious man I have ever met who isn’t afraid to risk life and limb in a good fight. Perhaps that was the red man in him, or perhaps he was convinced he led a charmed life, thanks to Pallas Athene.

‘About time!’ he exclaimed, embracing us. And, to Achilles, ‘The conquering hero!’

‘Hardly apt. The coastal cities have learned to anticipate my coming.’

‘We can talk about that later.’ He turned to accompany us inside. ‘I must thank you for your consideration, Achilles. You send us generous spoils and some very fine women.’

‘We’re not greedy in Assos. But it looks as if you’ve been busy here too. Much fighting?’

‘Enough to keep everybody fit. Hektor leads a nasty attack.’

Achilles looked suddenly alert. ‘Hektor?’

‘Priam’s heir and the leader of the Trojans.’

Agamemnon was graciously pleased to welcome us to his half of our army, though he offered us no incentives to stay and spend the morning with him. Nor would Achilles have liked it if he had; ever since Hektor’s name was mentioned he was itching to find out more, and knew Agamemnon wasn’t the right person to ask.

None of them had really changed or aged, give or take a new battle scar or two. If anything, Nestor looked younger than of yore. He was in his element, I suppose, occupied and constantly stimulated. Idomeneus had become less indolent, which was good for his figure. Only Menelaos seemed not to have benefited from life in a campaign camp; he still missed Helen, poor man.

We stayed as the guests of Odysseus and Diomedes, who had also become lovers. Part expedience, part sheer liking for each other. Women were a complication when men led our kind of life, and Odysseus I think never noticed any woman other than Penelope, though his stories revealed that he was not above seducing some Trojan woman to obtain information. Achilles and I were told about the existence of the spy colony, an amazing tale in itself. Word of it had never got out.