Warrior’s Prize

Conspicuous as the evening star that comes,

amid the first in heaven, at fall of night,

and stands most lovely in the west, so shone

in sunlight the fine-pointed spear

Akhilleus poised in his right hand, with deadly

aim…

Iliad, Homer, Book XXII

(Fitzgerald’s translation)

“Run, Mynes!” I cried. I lost sight of him in the press of bodies, then saw him again, standing firm, legs planted wide as he faced the tall Achaean. His arm was steady as he aimed his spear and thrust with all his strength. I watched as if in a nightmare. Light blazed from the Achaean leader’s shield when he raised it and deflected Mynes’s charge, throwing him off balance, knocking his spear into the dust. Swiftly the tall warrior lunged and drove his enormous spear clear through Mynes’s neck.

I screamed but no sound came. Mynes staggered back. For an instant he kept to his feet. Then he fell. A voice near me shouted, “Zeus help us, that’s the prince!”

My legs lost strength, and I dropped to the ground, my face pressed into rocks and dirt. “No, no, no!” I couldn’t stop saying it.

Faces leaned over me. “Poor lady, she’s the prince’s wife,” someone muttered.

A huge tumult came, a shout from a multitude of men. I scrambled to my feet to look for Mynes. But where I had last seen him there were only charging warriors.

The Achaeans, yelling, running, stormed through the gates into the town. The remaining Lyrnessos men were swept aside like chaff in the wind. Men were pinned against the walls or trampled. I pressed my hands into my eyes. When I looked again, I saw a dreadful stillness. Everything went dark and I couldn’t breathe. Bodies were strewn over the open ground—these were the men of our town: Mynes’s men, his comrades—and my two older brothers, who must have been in the fight. My beloved Laodokos was surely safe in the hills. But even so, I couldn’t stop my gasping sobs that sounded more like screams.

When I raised my head and looked again, Mynes was still nowhere in sight. I began to hope that from this distance my eyes had deceived me and the spear hadn’t really pierced his neck. He could have arisen and chased the Achaean leader into the town. You’re fooling yourself, said an inner voice, but I clung to hope.

I took a few steps, and then hesitated. Stay here where it’s safe, he’d said. But the Achaeans had stampeded into the town, no doubt looking for spoils, leaving the battleground empty except for the dead. That would give me time to search for Mynes. If he’d been killed, I would tend his corpse. I owed him this much and more. I owed him my very life.

My legs went wobbly. This could not be real.

As I began to run down the slope, a woman I knew from her fish stall in the marketplace reached out a hand to grab me. “Don’t go there!”

I pulled away. “I must find him.”

Others from the town were still climbing up the slopes, vanishing into the trees. Old Euphemos the goatherd was struggling up the hillside. As I passed him, he shouted, “Where are you going?” and he, too, tried to hold me back, but I ran by without slowing my pace. Tangled underbrush tore at my gown, scratched my skin. I took a steep, direct way down the hill, clambering over rocks and branches. I reached the bottom gasping, pain knifing through my side, and pressed on until I came to the open space where the battle had been fought.

The stench of blood filled my nostrils. Bodies were everywhere. Hardly believing that I could still stand, let alone walk, I managed a step forward and another. My skirts trailed through a pool of blood. I snatched them up, then let them fall. Flies buzzed in my ears. I knew these men. Tros the potter lay sprawled near my feet, his eyes fixed open, a hand pressed over his belly, holding a shiny, purple mass of entrails. I spun away and saw Phyleus, who hunted with my brothers. A spear was planted in his breast. And here was Mydon, who had golden hair, rare in our people. His skull was crushed, his hair matted with blood. Flies swarmed around him. And beyond him were more dead men, and more. If I looked, I would know them all.

I fell to my hands and knees and vomited in the dust. After many moments of being too weak to move, I staggered to my feet. I must find Mynes. I prayed he wasn’t here, but my heart knew. As I searched for his familiar armor and his red-crested helmet, I stepped over tangled, bloody limbs. A few old women wandered among the dead looking for their kin, but none came near me or even seemed to notice me. I couldn’t look, couldn’t think. My eyes were separate from the rest of me, passing over each body as if it had no meaning. I refused to dwell on the faces of the fallen or name them. I would go mad. Yet I also looked for Laodokos, and my heart stopped every time I saw a young man’s body. But surely he’d stayed safely in the hills with the sheep. I spared a thought for my older brothers. I’d search for them once I found Mynes.

Then I froze. Ten paces from me Mynes lay on his back with a great, bloody hole in his neck. His helmet was off, his head at an angle. His sparse beard was matted with blood. His eyes stared at the sky, all surprised, all unknowing. My knees gave way and smashed into the ground.

I crawled close. His skin was still warm. I searched his face. Surely his eyes would shift to me and his lips would move, speak. Why hadn’t I stopped him from running down the mountain? He’d never had a chance against the Achaean leader.

I shut his poor, staring eyes. His eyelids felt soft and thin, and I was afraid of hurting him, until I remembered he was beyond pain. I envisioned his loving smile, felt his arms around me as he buried his face in my hair. Your black, black hair, he would say. I hugged his still body.

I remembered how I’d feared I would never wed, for my drunken father had left me no dowry. I’d prayed to Aphrodite, my special patroness, and she must have led Mynes to me that day in the marketplace. But why hadn’t she put more love in my heart? With raw, aching remorse I recalled how I’d betrayed him in my imaginings. Mynes, I belong to you, only to you forever, I vowed. I wanted the time back, every hour and day of our marriage, so I could prove my devotion. “Mynes, I love you, I do love you,” I heard myself saying aloud over and over, and too late, I knew it for the truth. My love wasn’t passionate, but it was nonetheless real.

If only I had told him about the baby!

Heavy footfalls struck the hard ground behind me as someone approached. One of the enemy. I’d heard that they despoiled the corpses of their victims and fed them to dogs and vultures. I flung myself over Mynes. Too late, I was terrified. These men were rapists as well as killers. What folly to have come here when Mynes ordered me to stay safely in the hills! I thought of the babe inside me and backed away, folding my arms across my belly.

“Patroklos, have this body taken away with the others,” said a voice.

I lifted my head to look, and froze. Just paces away stood Mynes’s killer, tall and powerful, the sun reflecting a dazzle of light from his helmet and breastplate. A massive sword hung at his side. On one arm he held a huge round shield while the other hand supported a spear as tall as a young tree. Its point and haft were streaked with blood. Behind him stood another man, bareheaded, who watched me intently.

Then a strange thing happened. Instead of feeling afraid, I noticed that the warrior’s armor covered his chest but left his neck and throat bare. My heart raced. Surely the gods had sent me this chance because they meant me to kill him. I owed Mynes this death. Without an instant’s hesitation, I bent over his corpse and pulled the dagger from his belt. Hiding it in a fold of my gown, I stood up. I aimed the blade at the warrior’s neck and hurled myself at him.

The warrior lifted his shield. I collided with it and staggered back. The shock and impact jarred my bones. The other man caught me from behind, taking the dagger and tossing it aside like a child’s toy. I fought furiously, kicking my captor in the shins, but he forced my arms behind my back. Pain shot through my shoulders, rendering me helpless. My hair came loose and fell down my back and over my face. I struggled to catch my breath.

I was sure the tall warrior would draw his sword and kill me, but he only watched without moving. A sudden tension in his stillness told me something had shifted within him. Even with his eyes concealed by the helmet, I felt the intensity of his gaze. His mouth curved upward in an expression too hard to be a smile.

“Don’t take him!” I cried in a shaking voice. “He’s my husband, the prince.”

“He fought well,” the warrior answered, to my surprise. “He shall have his own funeral pyre. I’ll see to it myself. Patroklos, take her to the others.”

Before I could move, he hefted the spear, slung the gleaming shield over his shoulder and walked away. All my muscles went slack. When the man named Patroklos released me, I fell to my knees next to Mynes’s body. I pressed my cheek against his leather corselet. I felt Patroklos’s eyes on me. Looking up I saw that he was of medium height with dark eyes, brown hair. I caught his expression of pity and realized that this man, at least, meant me no harm. He would even, I sensed, protect me.

He bent to lift me away from Mynes’s body.

“No!” I cried.

“He must go to the flames.” His voice was oddly gentle. “So that his spirit can be set free.” He made some signal, and two Achaean warriors came from nearby to lift Mynes and carry him away. I watched, too shaken to protest.

“Come with me.” When I hesitated, the man called Patroklos said, “Have no fear. You will be well treated, lady.” I didn’t believe him, but I let him lead me away by the arm. For the sake of Mynes’s child I must go on. He threaded his way through the bodies and led me toward a large group. He gestured. “The women of your town,” he said. “They’re unharmed. Our commander does not let women be despoiled on the battlefield.”

Not until later, I thought.

The women stood surrounded by Achaeans with spears. I saw their faces, all known to me, all distorted with grief. A strange noise was coming from them like the howling wind but infinitely more sonorous, filled with a terrible despair that pierced my heart—a lamentation directed at the gods, at the departing spirits of the dead. Every throat pulsed with it. It came in waves, a huge sound, a hundred sounds, a hundred untold sorrows, a hundred separate laments.

Tears choked me. I felt their grief as my own, my heart crushed under the weight of all our sorrows. In front stood Amaltheia, her dress spattered with blood. Oh, gods, had she seen her husband Mydon with his skull crushed in? Sharp-tongued, shrewish Speio had her face buried in her hands. I’d spotted her much-older husband among the dead. And there was my sister-in-law Pherusa, the one who had treated us as her slaves. Now her proud head was bowed, her hands tearing her hair. Did that mean my oldest brother Pylaios was dead? And what of the second oldest brother, Amphios? He would have been in the battle as well.

As Patroklos’s hand on my elbow urged me forward, I stopped, hesitant. Having grown up without a mother or sisters, I was often reserved and unsure around other women. But my neighbor Nesaia put her arms around me, weeping. I noticed then that every face was marked with scratches, streaks and dots of blood. The fronts of their gowns were stained with blood where they had raked their nails across their breasts. The nearest women stared at me and fell silent, and I realized that I’d neglected to honor Mynes with this outward show of mourning. At once I brought my hands up to my face and scraped my cheeks until I felt the sting of blood. I scratched my arms, tore at my hair, and when their keening began again, I filled my lungs and lifted my voice with theirs, sending my cries to the heavens.

A long time passed before our crying diminished. I felt a touch on my elbow. Patroklos had stayed near, keeping a wary eye on our group. He pointed toward the shore “See?”

My gaze followed the direction of his arm and saw two fires blazing, one large and one smaller, the orange flames, thin in the sunlight, swirling skyward. “The funeral for your brave warriors,” Patroklos said. “The smaller pyre is your husband’s.”

I hadn’t believed Mynes’s killer would keep his word. My throat closed, and I could only stare until the flames vanished in a film of tears. The others fell silent too, exhausted with grief. Then someone pointed. Nearby, the Achaeans had made heaps of gold objects, jewels, food, cloth, and cooking vessels, all our possessions and treasures. “They’re stealing our things!” Pherusa said, and we watched helplessly; some recognized their own belongings.

The Achaeans came, a few at a time, to stand about us, their numbers swelling until we were surrounded by their army. They seemed to be waiting. I heard whispers, and because I was on the edge of our group, many men’s eyes stared at me. All at once the Achaeans fell silent, and their ranks parted. The tall warrior had returned. Still wearing armor and helmet but no longer carrying his shield or spear, he walked forward in that long, easy gait. From among the Achaeans came a whisper, a murmur, growing louder, like a swift-running brook. They were shouting his name over and over, pounding fists on shields and spear-hafts against the ground.

“Achilleus! Achilleus!”

Next to me, Patroklos relaxed. His eyes rested on his commander. When I saw those watchful brown eyes fill with warmth and pride, my stomach sickened.

Achilleus came forward until he was just paces away and stood looking over the women, his face concealed by the helmet. Then his eyes fixed on me. I stepped back and bumped into Nesaia. He came so close I could see gold hairs on his arms and streaks of dust and spatters of blood along his sun-browned skin. Not his, I knew. His gaze bored into me, forcing me to look at him. Fear rippled down my spine.

He extended his arm, holding something out: Mynes’s silver ring. This man had torn it from my husband’s corpse. The ring and the hand holding it blurred for an instant, then turned sharply clear. I understood the warrior wanted me to take it and perhaps didn’t intend me harm, but I could only stare at the hand that had slain Mynes—at the blood in blackened lines under the nails and in the creases of the knuckles. Time stopped. I wanted to take the ring but could not force my arm to move. All the while his gaze never left my face.

Then abruptly he picked up my hand, put the ring in it, and closed my fingers around it. My hand burned from his touch. Before I could react, he turned his back, facing his men. “You fought well, Myrmidons!” His voice carried over the crowd. “Just look at what we’ve taken: food, supplies—and women. Every man shall have his share.”

Their raucous cheers greeted his words. Their greedy looks devoured us. We’re their prisoners, I realized, their slaves. I saw the same horror dawning on the others’ faces. Never mind Patroklos’s assurances, these marauders would rape us.

Achilleus lifted his hand for silence. “We’ll take all back to camp so that King Agamemnon can choose his share first. We took many lovely women and much treasure from Thebe as well as Lyrnessos, and I say he is welcome to them. For myself, I shall only ask for one.” Achilleus paused. Stillness. Even the group of women was listening now. Who? Oh please gods, I thought, not I! But I’d drawn his notice.

“I planned this raid—I led it,” he said. “Will you support me in my choice?”

A shout arose from the men. “Aye, brave Achilleus!”

“Aye! Aye! Name your prize!”

When silence fell, he turned and lifted that bloodied hand to point at me. “This one, the prince’s wife,” he said, his voice deep and harsh. “She’s mine.”