The Song of Achilles (18 page)

The words drove breath from me, left me stuttering. “He is not—”

“But he is. The best the gods have ever made. And it is time he knew it, and you did too. If you hear nothing else I say, hear that. I do not say it in malice.”

I was no match for him and his words that lodged like quills and would not be shaken loose.

“You are wrong,” I said. He did not answer me, only watched me turn and flee from him in silence.

Chapter Nineteen

W
E LEFT THE NEXT DAY, EARLY, WITH THE REST OF
the fleet. From the stern of our ship, Aulis’s beach looked strangely bare. Only the gouges of the latrines and the ash-white ruins of the girl’s pyre were left to mark our passage. I had woken him this morning with Odysseus’ news—that he could not have seen Diomedes in time. He heard me out dully, his eyes bruised despite how long he had slept. Then he said, “She is dead, all the same.”

Now he paced the deck behind me. I tried to point things out to him—the dolphins that ran beside us, the rain-swelled clouds on the horizon—but he was listless and only half-listening. Later I caught him standing alone, practicing drill-steps and sword-swings and frowning to himself.

Each night we put in at a different port; our boats were not built for long journeys, for day after day of submersion. The only men we saw were our own Phthians, and Diomedes’ Argives. The fleet split so that each island would not be forced to give landfall to the entire army. I was sure it was no coincidence that the king of Argos was paired with us.
Do they think we will run away?
I did my best to ignore him, and he seemed content to leave us in peace.

The islands looked all the same to me—high cliffs bleached white, pebbled beaches that scratched the underside of our ships with their chalky fingernails. They were frequently scrubby, brush struggling up beside olives and cypresses. Achilles barely noticed any of it. He bent over his armor, polishing it till it shone bright as flame.

On the seventh day we came to Lemnos, just across from the Hellespont’s narrow mouth. It was lower than most of our islands, full of swamps and stagnant ponds choking with water lilies. We found a pool some distance from the camp and sat by it. Bugs shivered on its surface, and bulbous eyes peered from amidst the weeds. We were only two days from Troy.

“What was it like when you killed that boy?”

I looked up. His face was in shadow, the hair falling around his eyes.

“Like?” I asked.

He nodded, staring at the water, as if to read its depths.

“What did it look like?”

“It’s hard to describe.” He had taken me by surprise. I closed my eyes to conjure it. “The blood came quickly, I remember that. And I couldn’t believe how much there was. His head was split, and his brains showed a little.” I fought down the nausea that gripped me, even now. “I remember the sound his head made against the rock.”

“Did he twitch? Like animals do?”

“I did not stay long enough to watch.”

He was silent a moment. “My father told me once to think of them like animals. The men I kill.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. He did not look up from his vigil over the water’s surface.

“I do not think I can do it,” he said. Simply, as was his way.

Odysseus’ words pressed in on me, weighed down my tongue.
Good,
I wanted to say. But what did I know? I did not have to win my immortality with war. I held my peace.

“I cannot stop seeing it,” he said softly. “Her death.” I could not either; the gaudy spray of blood, the shock and pain in her eyes.

“It will not always be like that,” I heard myself say. “She was a girl and innocent. These will be men that you fight, warriors who will kill you if you do not strike first.”

He turned to look at me, his gaze intent.

“But you will not fight, even if they strike at you. You hate it.” If it had been any other man, the words would have been an insult.

“Because I don’t have the skill,” I said.

“I don’t think that is the only reason,” he said.

His eyes were green and brown as forest, and even in the dim light I could see the gold.

“Perhaps not,” I said, at last.

“But you will forgive me?”

I reached for his hand and took it. “I have no need to forgive you. You cannot offend me.” They were rash words, but I said them with all the conviction of my heart.

He looked down a moment at where our hands sat joined. Then his hand ripped itself from mine and blurred past me so swiftly I could not follow it. He stood, something limp and long as a piece of wet rope dangling from his fingers. My eyes stared at it, uncomprehending.

“
Hydros,
” Achilles said. Water-snake. It was dun gray, and its flat head hung brokenly to the side. Its body still trembled a little, dying.

Weakness sluiced through me. Chiron had made us memorize their homes and colors. Brown-gray, by water. Quick to anger. Deadly bite.

“I did not even see it,” I managed. He threw the thing aside, to lie blunt-nosed and brown among the weeds. He had broken its neck.

“You did not have to,” he said. “I saw it.”

H
E WAS EASIER AFTER THAT
, no longer pacing the deck and staring. But I knew that Iphigenia still weighed on him. On both of us. He took to carrying one of his spears with him always. He would toss it into the air and catch it, over and over again.

Slowly, the fleet straggled back together. Some had gone the long way around, south by the island of Lesbos. Others, taking the most direct route, already waited near Sigeum, northwest of Troy. Still others had come as we did, along the Thracian coast. United again, we massed by Tenedos, the island just off of Troy’s wide beach. Shouting from ship to ship, we passed word of Agamemnon’s plan: the kings would take the front line, their men fanned out behind them. Maneuvering into place was chaos; there were three collisions, and everyone chipped oars on someone else’s hull.

At last we were set, with Diomedes on our left and Meriones on our right. The drums began to beat and the line of ships thrust forward, stroke by stroke. Agamemnon had given the order to go slowly, to hold the line and keep pace as one. But our kings were green still at following another man’s orders, and each wanted the honor of being first to Troy. Sweat streamed from the faces of the rowers as their leaders lashed them on.

We stood at the prow with Phoinix and Automedon, watching the shore draw closer. Idly, Achilles tossed and caught his spear. The oarsmen had begun to set their strokes by it, the steady, repetitive slap of wood against his palm.

Closer, we started to see distinction on the shore: tall trees and mountains resolving out of the blurring green-brown land. We had edged ahead of Diomedes and were a whole ship length in front of Meriones.

“There are men on the beach,” Achilles said. He squinted. “With weapons.”

Before I could respond, a horn blew from somewhere in the fleet, and others answered it. The alarm. On the wind came the faint echo of shouts. We had thought we would surprise the Trojans, but they knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.

All along the line, rowers jammed their oars into the water to slow our approach. The men on the beach were undoubtedly soldiers, all dressed in the dark crimson of the house of Priam. A chariot flew along their ranks, churning up sand. The man in it wore a horsehair helmet, and even from a distance we could see the strong lines of his body. He was large, yes, but not as large as Ajax or Menelaus. His power came from his carriage, his perfectly squared shoulders, the straight line of his back arrowing up to heaven. This was no slouchy prince of wine halls and debauchery, as Easterners were said to be. This was a man who moved like the gods were watching; every gesture he made was upright and correct. There was no one else it could be but Hector.

He leapt from the chariot, shouting to his men. We saw spears hoisted and arrows nocked. We were still too far away for their bows, but the tide was dragging us in despite our oars, and the anchors were not catching. Shouts came down the line, in confusion. Agamemnon had no orders; hold position; do not make landfall.

“We are almost in range of their arrows,” Achilles commented. He did not seem alarmed by it, though around us there was panic and the sound of feet pounding the deck.

I stared at the shore coming closer. Hector was gone now, back up the beach to a different part of his army. But there was another man before us, a captain, in leather armor and a full helmet that covered all but his beard. He pulled back the string of his bow as the line of ships drew closer. It was not as big a weapon as Philoctetes’, but it was not far off. He sighted along the shaft and prepared to kill his first Greek.

He never had the chance. I did not see Achilles move, but I heard it: the whistle of air, and his soft exhalation. The spear was out of his hand and flying across the water that separated our deck from the beach. It was a gesture only. No spearman could throw half so far as an arrow could fly. It would fall well short.

It did not. Its black head pierced the bowman’s chest, drove him backwards and over. His arrow twanged harmlessly into the air, shot wild from nerveless fingers. He fell to the sand and did not rise.

From the ships beside us, those who had seen, there were shouts and triumphant horns. The news flared along the line of Greek ships, in either direction: first blood was ours, spilt by the god-like prince of Phthia.

Achilles’ face was still, almost peaceful. He did not look like a man who had performed a miracle. On the shore, the Trojans shook their weapons and shouted strange, harsh words. There was a group of them kneeling around the fallen man. Behind me I heard Phoinix whisper something to Automedon, who ran off. A moment later he reappeared with a handful of spears. Achilles took one without looking, hefted it, and threw. I watched him this time, the graceful curve of his arm, the lift of his chin. He did not pause, as most men did, to aim or sight. He knew where it would go. On the shore another man fell.

We were close now, and arrows began to fly on both sides. Many hit the water, others stuck in masts and hulls. A few men cried out along our line; a few men fell along theirs. Achilles calmly took a shield from Automedon. “Stand behind me,” he said. I did. When an arrow came close, he brushed it aside with the shield. He took another spear.

The soldiers grew wilder—their overeager arrows and spears littered the water. Somewhere down the line Protesilaus, Prince of Phylace, leapt laughing from the bow of his ship and began to swim to shore. Perhaps he was drunk; perhaps his blood was fired with hopes of glory; perhaps he wished to outdo the prince of Phthia. A spinning spear, from Hector himself, hit him, and the surf around him flushed red. He was the first of the Greeks to die.

Our men slid down ropes, lifted huge shields to cover themselves from arrows, and began to stream to shore. The Trojans were well marshaled, but the beach offered no natural defense and we outnumbered them. At a command from Hector they seized their fallen comrades and relinquished the beach. Their point had been made: they would not be so easy to kill.

Chapter Twenty

W
E GAINED THE BEACH, AND PULLED THE FIRST SHIPS
onto the sand. Scouts were sent ahead to watch for further Trojan ambush, and guards were posted. Hot though it was, no one took off his armor.

Quickly, while ships still clogged the harbor behind us, lots were drawn for the placement of each kingdom’s camp. The spot assigned to the Phthians was at the farthest end of the beach, away from where the marketplace would be, away from Troy and all the other kings. I spared a quick glance at Odysseus; it was he who had chosen the lots. His face was mild and inscrutable as always.

“How do we know how far to go?” Achilles asked. He was shading his eyes and looking north. The beach seemed to stretch on forever.

“When the sand ends,” Odysseus said.

Achilles gestured our ships up the beach, and the Myrmidon captains began unsnarling themselves from the other fleet lines to follow. The sun beat down on us—it seemed brighter here, but perhaps that was only the whiteness of the sand. We walked until we came to a grassy rise springing from the beach. It was crescent-shaped, cradling our future camp at the side and back. At its top was a forest that spread east towards a glinting river. To the south, Troy was a smudge on the horizon. If the pick had been Odysseus’ design, we owed him our thanks—it was the best of the camps by far, offering green and shade and quiet.

We left the Myrmidons under Phoinix’s direction and made our way back to the main camp. Every place we walked buzzed with the same activities: dragging ships onto the shore, setting tents, unloading supplies. There was a hectic energy to the men, a manic purpose. We were here, at last.

Along the way we passed the camp of Achilles’ famous cousin, towering Ajax, king of the isle of Salamis. We had seen him from afar at Aulis and heard the rumors: he cracked the deck of the ship when he walked, he had borne a bull a mile on his back. We found him lifting huge bags out of his ship’s hold. His muscles looked large as boulders.

“Son of Telamon,” Achilles said.

The huge man turned. Slowly, he registered the unmistakable boy before him. His eyes narrowed, and then stiff politeness took over. “Pelides,” he said thickly. He put down his burden and offered a hand knobbed with calluses big as olives. I pitied Ajax, a little. He would be
Aristos Achaion,
if Achilles were not.

Back in the main camp, we stood on the hill that marked the boundary between sand and grass, and regarded the thing we had come for. Troy. It was separated from us by a flat expanse of grass and framed by two wide, lazy rivers. Even so far away, its stone walls caught the sharp sun and gleamed. We fancied we could see the metallic glint of the famous Scaean gate, its brazen hinges said to be tall as a man.

Later, I would see those walls up close, their sharp squared stones perfectly cut and fitted against each other, the work of the god Apollo, it was said. And I would wonder at them—at how, ever, the city could be taken. For they were too high for siege towers, and too strong for catapults, and no sane person would ever try to climb their sheer, divinely smoothed face.

W
HEN THE SUN HUNG LOW
in the sky, Agamemnon called the first council meeting. A large tent had been set up and filled with a few rows of chairs in a ragged semicircle. At the front of the room sat Agamemnon and Menelaus, flanked by Odysseus and Diomedes. The kings came in and took their seats one by one. Trained from birth in hierarchy, the lesser kings took the lesser places, leaving the front rows for their more famous peers. Achilles, with no hesitation, took a seat in the first row and motioned me to sit beside him. I did so, waiting for someone to object, to ask for my removal. But then Ajax arrived with his bastard half-brother Teucer, and Idomeneus brought his squire and charioteer. Apparently the best were allowed their indulgences.

Unlike those meetings we had heard complaints of at Aulis (pompous, pointless, endless), this was all business—latrines, food supplies, and strategy. The kings were divided between attack and diplomacy—should we not perhaps try to be civilized first? Surprisingly, Menelaus was the loudest voice in favor of a parley. “I will gladly go myself to treat with them,” he said. “It is my office.”

“What have we come all this way for, if you intend to talk them into surrender?” Diomedes complained. “I could have stayed at home.”

“We are not savages,” Menelaus said stubbornly. “Perhaps they will hear reason.”

“But likely not. Why waste the time?”

“Because, dear King of Argos, if war comes after some diplomacy or delay, we do not seem so much the villains.” This was Odysseus. “Which means the cities of Anatolia will not feel so much duty to come to Troy’s aid.”

“You are for it then, Ithaca?” Agamemnon asked.

Odysseus shrugged. “There are many ways to start a war. I always think raiding makes a good beginning. It accomplishes almost the same thing as diplomacy, but with greater profit.”

“Yes! Raiding!” brayed Nestor. “We must have a show of strength before anything else!”

Agamemnon rubbed his chin and swung his gaze over the room of kings. “I think Nestor and Odysseus are correct. Raids first. Then perhaps we will send an embassy. We begin tomorrow.”

He needed to give no further instructions. Raiding was typical siege warfare—you would not attack the city, but the lands that surrounded it that supplied it with grain and meat. You would kill those who resisted, make serfs of those who did not. All their food went now to you, and you held their daughters and wives as hostages to their loyalty. Those who escaped would flee to the city for sanctuary. Quarters would quickly grow crowded and mutinous; disease would arise. Eventually, the gates would have to open—out of desperation, if not honor.

I hoped that Achilles might object, declare that there was no glory in killing farmers. But he only nodded, as if this were his hundredth siege, as if he had done nothing but lead raids his whole life.

“One final thing—if there is an attack, I do not want chaos. We must have lines, and companies.” Agamemnon shifted in his chair, seemed almost nervous. Well he might be; our kings were prickly, and this was the first distribution of honor: the place in the line. If there was a rebellion against his authority, now would be the time. The very thought of it seemed to anger him, and his voice grew rougher. This was a frequent fault of his: the more precarious his position, the more unlikable he became.

“Menelaus and I will take the center, of course.” There was a faint ripple of discontent at that, but Odysseus spoke over it.

“Very wise, King of Mycenae. Messengers will be able to find you easily.”

“Exactly so.” Agamemnon nodded briskly, as if that had indeed been the reason. “To my brother’s left will be the prince of Phthia. And to my right, Odysseus. The wings will be Diomedes and Ajax.” All of these were the most dangerous positions, the places where the enemy would seek to flank or punch through. They were therefore the most important to hold at all costs, and the most prestigious.

“The rest shall be determined by lot.” When the murmur had died, Agamemnon stood. “It is settled. We begin tomorrow. Raids, at sun-up.”

The sun was just setting as we walked back up the beach to our camp. Achilles was well pleased. One of the greatest places of primacy was his, and without a fight. It was too soon for dinner, so we climbed the grassy hill that lay just beyond our camp, a thin thrust of land emerging from the woods. We stopped there a moment, surveying the new camp and the sea beyond. The dying light was in his hair, and his face was sweet with evening.

A question had burned in me since the battle on the ships, but there had been no time before now to ask it.

“Did you think of them as animals? As your father said?”

He shook his head. “I did not think at all.”

Over our heads the gulls screamed and wheeled. I tried to imagine him bloodied and murderous after his first raid tomorrow.

“Are you frightened?” I asked. The first call of a nightingale in the trees at our backs.

“No,” he answered. “This is what I was born for.”

I
WOKE NEXT MORNING
to the sound of Trojan waves against the Trojan shore. Achilles still drowsed beside me, so I left the tent to let him sleep. Outside the sky was as cloudless as the day before: the sun bright and piercing, the sea throwing off great sheets of light. I sat and felt the drops of sweat prick and pool against my skin.

In less than an hour the raid would begin. I had fallen asleep thinking of it; I had woken with it. We had discussed, already, that I would not go. Most of the men would not. This was a king’s raid, picked to grant first honors to the best warriors. It would be his first real kill.

Yes, there had been the men on the shore, the previous day. But that had been a distant thing, with no blood that we could see. They had fallen almost comically, from too far away to see their faces or pain.

Achilles emerged from the tent, already dressed. He sat beside me and ate the breakfast that was waiting for him. We said little.

There were no words to speak to him of how I felt. Our world was one of blood, and the honor it won; only cowards did not fight. For a prince there was no choice. You warred and won, or warred and died. Even Chiron had sent him a spear.

Phoinix was already up and marshaling the Myrmidons who would accompany him down by the water’s edge. It was their first fight, and they wanted their master’s voice. Achilles stood, and I watched as he strode towards them—the way the bronze buckles on his tunic threw off fire flashes, the way his dark purple cape brightened his hair to sun’s gold. He seemed so much the hero, I could barely remember that only the night before we had spit olive pits at each other, across the plate of cheeses that Phoinix had left for us. That we had howled with delight when he had landed one, wet and with bits of fruit still hanging from it, in my ear.

He held up his spear as he spoke, and shook its gray tip, dark as stone or stormy water. I felt sorry for other kings who had to fight for their authority or wore it poorly, their gestures jagged and rough. With Achilles it was graceful as a blessing, and the men lifted their faces to it, as they would to a priest.

After, he came to bid me farewell. He was life-size again and held his spear loosely, almost lazily.

“Will you help me put the rest of my armor on?”

I nodded and followed him into the cool of the tent, past the heavy cloth door that fell closed like a lamp blown out. I handed him bits of leather and metal as he gestured for them, coverings for his upper thighs, his arms, his belly. I watched him strap these things on, one by one, saw the stiff leather dig into his soft flesh, skin that only last night I had traced with my finger. My hand twitched towards him, longing to pull open the tight buckles, to release him. But I did not. The men were waiting.

I handed him the last piece, his helmet, bristling with horsehair, and watched as he fitted it over his ears, leaving only a thin strip of his face open. He leaned towards me, framed by bronze, smelling of sweat and leather and metal. I closed my eyes, felt his lips on mine, the only part of him still soft. Then he was gone.

Without him the tent seemed suddenly much smaller, close and smelling of the hides that hung on the walls. I lay on our bed and listened to his shouted orders, then the stamps and snorts of horses. Last of all, the creaking of his chariot wheels as they bore him off. At least I had no fears for his safety. As long as Hector lived he could not die. I closed my eyes and slept.

I
WOKE TO HIS NOSE
on mine, pressing insistently against me as I struggled from the webbing of my dreams. He smelled sharp and strange, and for a moment I was almost revolted at this creature that clung to me and shoved its face against mine. But then he sat back on his heels and was Achilles again, his hair damp and darkened, as if all the morning’s sun had been poured out of it. It stuck to his face and ears, flattened and wet from the helmet.

He was covered in blood, vivid splashes not yet dried to rust. My first thought was terror—that he was wounded, bleeding to death. “Where are you hurt?” I asked. My eyes raked him for the source of the blood. But the spatters seemed to come from nowhere. Slowly, my sleep-stupid brain understood. It was not his.

“They could not get close enough to touch me,” he said. There was a sort of wondering triumph in his voice. “I did not know how easy it would be. Like nothing. You should have seen it. The men cheered me afterwards.” His words were almost dreamy. “I cannot miss. I wish you had seen.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Twelve.”

Twelve men with nothing at all to do with Paris or Helen or any of us.

“Farmers?” There was a bitterness to my voice that seemed to bring him back to himself.

“They were armed,” he said, quickly. “I would not kill an unarmed man.”

“How many will you kill tomorrow, do you think?” I asked.

He heard the edge in my voice and looked away. The pain on his face struck me, and I was ashamed. Where was my promise that I would forgive him? I knew what his destiny was, and I had chosen to come to Troy anyway. It was too late for me to object simply because my conscience had begun to chafe.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I asked him to tell me what it was like, all of it, as we had always spoken to each other. And he did, everything, how his first spear had pierced the hollow of a man’s cheek, carrying flesh with it as it came out the other side. How the second man had fallen struck through the chest, how the spear had caught against his ribcage when Achilles tried to retrieve it. The village had smelled terrible when they left it, muddy and metallic, with the flies already landing.

I listened to every word, imagining it was a story only. As if it were dark figures on an urn he spoke of instead of men.

A
GAMEMNON POSTED GUARDS
to watch Troy every hour of every day. We were all waiting for something—an attack, or an embassy, or a demonstration of power. But Troy kept her gates shut, and so the raids continued. I learned to sleep through the day so that I would not be tired when he returned; he always needed to talk then, to tell me down to the last detail about the faces and the wounds and the movements of men. And I wanted to be able to listen, to digest the bloody images, to paint them flat and unremarkable onto the vase of posterity. To release him from it and make him Achilles again.