Warrior’s Prize

An angry man—there is my story: the bitter

rancour of Achilles, prince of the house of Peleus…

Iliad, Homer, Book I

(Rouse’s translation)

It was late. I ran back to the hut, and when I reached the courtyard I found Achilleus there, fully armed, his helmet perched on the back of his head. His face was stormy. “Where were you?”

“I’m here now,” I said evasively. I felt oddly guilty and could not meet his eyes.

“Go to Patroklos. He’s waiting.”

He left and I entered the hut. Patroklos was sitting up on the bed, testing and flexing his wounded arm.

“Good day, Briseis! Look—it’s almost completely healed.” He smiled, but, as with Achilleus, my eyes fell away from his. Sudden doubt filled me. Clearly, he had not spent a tormented night as I had. Had I imagined that look yesterday? Had I constructed a lie?

I took firm steps into the room. “I’ll fetch your breakfast. Then, if you like, we can walk down to the shore.”

This time, at Patroklos’s insistence, we walked far from the Myrmidon camp. He said he wanted to regain his strength. When we had gone a fair distance, he remarked, “I’ve been idle too long. I must return to battle soon.”

This gave me the opening I sought. “Why do you fight, Patroklos?” I asked. “What purpose is there in this war?”

I feared the question might provoke him, but when he turned to face me, his eyes were thoughtful. “Sometimes I ask myself that very thing.”

We stopped walking. Here the shore was deserted, with only a few ships drawn up on the sand. An old piece of timber lay near the water’s edge. Patroklos stood for a moment pushing it with his foot. Then he sat down on it and invited me to do the same.

I said, “What answer have you found?”

He was silent for a time. “It started out as a glorious expedition. Now it’s an endless, tedious war. Would that it were over!” He scooped up sand, let it run through his fingers. I studied his profile, noticing gray streaks in his dark hair, deep lines around his eyes. The war was stealing his youth. “And Achilleus—” he continued. Then he faltered and stopped.

But if we were to get to the heart of this, he must feel free to speak of his friend. “Go on.”

“I think he feels the same. Sometimes he says this war is pointless and he wishes he had never come.”

“Then why did he?”

“To gain honor. To be the greatest warrior. And so he fights with no concern for his own life. He says he will not survive, and it does not matter—that only deathless fame matters.” Was that why Achilleus had such disregard for the deaths he inflicted on others? Patroklos added, “How can he know if he will live or die?”

I said, “No man can know his fate.”

“I pray that he’s wrong,” Patroklos said as if I hadn’t spoken. “So far nothing has touched him—only bruises and scrapes. But he frightens me. He has such morbid moods. ‘Patroklos,’ he says, ‘when I am dead you must comfort my father and take my son home to him.’”

“His son!” I said, astonished. I had never heard mention of this.

“Aye, he has a son. Surely you knew? A near-grown youth on Skyros named Neoptolemos.”

“Near-grown?”

“Aye, fifteen or sixteen—I forget.”

Laodokos’s age. Achilleus must have been a young father indeed, for I guessed him to be not yet thirty years. “Who is the mother?” I asked.

“Her name is Deidameia. She’s a princess on Skyros, where we lived for a time. They were not wed. Achilleus had to leave the boy there when we came to fight the Trojans.”

I had never imagined Achilleus as a father. With a pang of sorrow, I thought of my brother, dead by his hand. How could Achilleus have slain a lad the age of his own son?

Patroklos, lost in his reflections, didn’t notice my silence. “It was a good life we left behind. I often wonder if this war is worth it. So much death and destruction…” He spread his hands ruefully. “Those are cowardly thoughts. Don’t repeat what I’ve said.”

“Whom would I tell?” I asked.

“If we don’t die,” he resumed, “what will our lives be when this war ends?”

My heart pounded. Now we had come to it—the future. When the men returned to their homes in Achaea, they would surely choose some of the women to accompany them as concubines, perhaps even wives. But Achilleus would never take me into his home. He had made it clear what my status was.

“As a slave, I might be given away, or sold,” I said. “My life will be that of a menial. But I’m young. If only there were another fate for me!” I found that my hands were clenched. I forced them open, drew a deep breath, and plunged on. “I could be a wife and bear children. I could make some man happy.”

He was silent. I ventured a glance. His eyes, full of feeling, met mine, then fell away. My heart jumped. O Aphrodite, I prayed, make him say the words.

But as the uneasy silence stretched out, I felt my hope slipping away. I turned on the log to face him. Daringly I put one hand on his knee in supplication—and felt a quiver run through him. “We get on well together, you and I. If only I belonged to you and not Achilleus! He doesn’t want me.” I put my other hand on his wrist. “You could ask him—” Looking into his eyes, I finished in a whisper, “Ask him for me.”

He took my hand and leaned toward me. He gave a strained smile. “Briseis,” he began gently. “I—I—”

At that exact moment a long shadow fell across the sand between us.

Patroklos looked up with a start—then froze. “Achilleus! You are not in battle?”

“There was no battle. The men returned.” But he answered absently. He was standing there, no longer in his armor, looking down at us, deathly still.

How much had he heard? Patroklos’s face had gone white. Then I couldn’t shift my gaze from Achilleus. Terrible things were in his eyes. He leaned down and pulled Patroklos up by his good arm. “Go,” he said in an oddly hoarse voice. “Go back—my friend!” His mouth twisted. “Wait for me at our camp.”

As Achilleus’s arm on his shoulder urged him away, Patroklos shot an agonized look at me. He muttered something to Achilleus. I thought I heard, “Don’t hurt her.” Then he was gone around the stern of the nearest ship.

I sprang to my feet. Murderous hands seized me, dug into my flesh—shook me. The world was blurred and jagged. I thought my neck would snap. Then he hurled me to the sand. I landed with a force that jarred my bones. Tasting blood, I came up on my knees, my arms smarting from his grip. His arm went back for a blow. I shielded my face with my hands.

The blow never fell.

“I won’t strike you,” he said in a strangled voice, “or I’d kill you.”

He dropped his arm. For a moment, his eyes looked just the way Patroklos’s eyes had on the day of his wounding. Then a lightning flash of rage lit them. He kicked the dirt violently with his sandaled foot. “I never want to look upon you again,” he said. “Stay out of my sight.” And he walked away.

As I got to my feet, bruised and shaken, something inside me ached far more than the pain of the fall.