Warrior’s Prize

“And when Achilles killed my husband and took

the city of Prince Mynes, you told me not to weep; you

promised that Achilles should take me to Phthia and make

me his wedded wife, and hold our wedding in the Myrmidons’country.”

—Briseis, Iliad, Book IX

(Rouse’s translation)

Seeing a look of incredulity and indignation cross Patroklos’s face, I understood that this was a most unusual command and he did not wish to comply. As clearly as if he’d spoken, his eyes said, Why send me and not one of your underlings? But Achilleus had already turned away.

His face sullen, Patroklos took my elbow to lead me away from the bonfire and the throng of warriors. In his touch I sensed reluctance and anger. He dropped his hand quickly. He bore no torch. Moonlight showed us the way. As the shouts and cheers of the men grew faint behind us, a small voice in my head whispered that I was better off with Achilleus than with Agamemnon. Look after her for me, he’d said. My thoughts were a betrayal of Mynes, but I was too tired to fight them off. Too tired to think at all. Patroklos walked ahead, along a line of ships that creaked and shifted as waves slapped their hulls. The sea was black, each ripple capped in moonlight. A wind penetrated my wet gown and pierced my bones. Sand and small rocks filled my sandals, and an aching weariness dragged at my legs. Patroklos did not speak until, after we’d passed what seemed like hundreds of ships, he halted and said, “Here is the Myrmidons’ camp.”

“Myrmidons?”

“Our people, Achilleus’s followers. These are our ships.” I saw a row of ships separated from their neighbors by a stretch of beach. Farther up the shore were low wooden huts with thatched roofs. He led me toward a hut larger than the rest, surrounded by a palisade. “This is ours, Achilleus’s and mine.” His lips drew into a tight line. “You’ll stay there too. In the back, the women’s quarters.”

We stepped through a gate into a courtyard. It was eerily quiet. I asked, “Where is everyone?”

“The women are asleep. The men are at the gathering.” I’d thought him kind when I first saw him, but now his answers were terse, barely civil. Clearly he wanted to be at that gathering, but, it was implicit in Achilleus’s command that he keep a watch on me. He resented this duty, I was sure.

I said, “Do you always do his bidding?” He narrowed his eyes and said nothing. “Will the gathering last a long time?” I asked. All night, I hoped.

“Aye. After the women and the spoils are divided among the men, the priests will make offering to Zeus. They’ll slaughter a score of oxen and sheep.” No doubt some of those sacrificial animals had come from Lyrnessos. As Patroklos led the way across the courtyard, he added, “It will be grand—flames rising to the sky. Afterwards they’ll hold a feast with lots of wine. For some, the revelry will go on until dawn.”

I was angry. “Why don’t you join them? Why not celebrate your great victory? You slew our men by the hundreds. Go! Enjoy yourself. I’ll be all right on my own. I have to be, don’t I? You’ve taken everything from me.”

He made no reply. Instead he said brusquely, “Wait here,” and pointed to a crude timber bench by the door of the hut. “I’ll bring you food and wine.” He went inside, shutting the door hard, leaving me alone in the dark courtyard.

Without warning, a dam broke within me and I fell face down in the dirt, my face buried in my arms. Scream-sobs tore my throat, shaking me with their force. I couldn’t stop.

After a time, hands came onto my shoulders and pulled me up. Patroklos guided me to the bench. His anger and impatience gone, he put his arms gently around me. I subsided, against his chest. My tears soaked his tunic, until at last the wrenching spasms eased into shaken sobs, and I became aware of other things. I felt how strange it was to be held by a man I didn’t know, an enemy. Yet as I lay against his chest, I felt his kindness, and through it, a jumble of other feelings. I sensed that he carried a sadness of his own.

He whispered things I only half heard. “Don’t weep so. It’ll be all right.”

It won’t. Never again. Mynes, my brothers, my lost home, the grieving women, the dying woman on the ship. At last, my weeping subsided into exhaustion. I felt his firm chest beneath the wool of his tunic. I did not quite trust him, yet his presence was oddly comforting.

The baby, I thought suddenly. He mustn’t know. Achilleus mustn’t know. Already I had taken a tiny step back from the abyss. I loosened myself from his hold and sat up.

“I’ve brought you bread and some wine,” he said, placing a goblet in my hands.

I forced myself to eat the bread, dry as dust, and drink the wine, which didn’t warm me. I shivered. Patroklos touched the skirt of my gown. “It’s wet,” he said, “and you have no shawl. I can’t give you another gown, but you can wear one of my tunics and a mantle. Come.”

He led the way into the main room of the hut, where he had lit a lamp. As he opened a chest and searched through it, I looked around. There was a large hearth, unlit, in the center of the room, low chairs and tables around it, and two beds along opposite walls. Along a third wall were chests, storage bins, cooking pots, and a stone basin.

Patroklos handed me some folded garments. “These will do. Change in here. I’ll wait outside.”

When he left, I pulled off my filthy, ragged gown. Naked I fumbled into the tunic, which draped loosely about my chest and left me barelegged. I pulled the woolen mantle around me, wishing it covered more. At least it was warm and dry. My hands went to my hair, coarse and tangled as a wild horse’s mane. I could only push it out of my face.

Patroklos was waiting on the bench outside. He stood. “Perhaps you should go to bed.”

At the thought of a cold bed in the darkness, my stomach clenched. “Please don’t send me away. Not yet.” Tired as I was, I wanted whatever small comfort he could offer.

He hesitated, then sat down and motioned me to sit as well. “The first day is the hardest. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“How can you say that? You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Oh, but I do! When I was a boy of eleven years, I too was taken from my home and everyone I loved.”

I was struck dumb. At last I said, “Why?”

“I killed a playmate, the son of a friend of my father’s.”

I had not expected this. I looked at his face in the moonlight. He gave a wry smile. “His father was visiting mine, and we were ordered to play together. He was a pompous, overbearing boy who insisted on his own way. I was humble. I yielded. Then, suddenly, I’d had enough. We were playing knucklebones, and he cheated. We quarreled. I lost my temper and pushed him hard. He fell and struck his head on a stone. I didn’t mean to kill him; it was a silly child’s quarrel… I—” He stopped. Clearly the memory was painful. I could picture him, a dark-haired lad standing over the suddenly lifeless body of his playmate, tears streaming down his face.

“Then what happened?”

“In our country, a death must be paid for with a blood price, and the killer must leave his home and become an exile. My father, Menoetios, took me away to the court of King Peleus of Phthia—Achilleus’s father.”

At the mention of that name I tensed.

He went on, “My father barely spoke as we journeyed to this strange household where he would leave me in disgrace. Then, as we stood in the courtyard with Peleus, Achilleus came flying out of the house. He was a royal prince, three years younger than I. I was to be his attendant, his servant. But when he saw me, he knew at once how I felt. He came to me and threw his arms around me.” Patroklos paused. “He welcomed me into his heart.” Though he tried to disguise it, his voice quavered. “From that moment, we became as brothers.”

I could envision it all: the stern, somber adults, young Patroklos shamed and heartsick, the boy Achilleus bursting on the scene like a storm, changing everything. My limbs were growing cramped from the cold. I stretched, and my bare legs came out from beneath the mantle. Patroklos’s eyes darted away. Quickly I tucked in my legs. “I thank you for telling me, Patroklos. What a hard lot for you!”

“But my life took a different course—a better one. If that hadn’t happened, I never would have met Achilleus. You too,” he went on. “Fate has sent you to him. The gods clearly intended this. Achilleus will make up to you everything you have lost.”

“He can’t,” I blurted.

Patroklos went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “He cares for you. I saw it the first moment he looked at you. He’s always attracted to a lovely woman, but this was more.” Patroklos hesitated. “On the ship he said—” He stopped.

Against my will I asked, “What?”

“That there was a fire in your eyes. That you had spirit and courage as well as beauty. That you were a match for him.”

I was stunned. “He doesn’t even know me.”

“He saw enough to know his mind. He said that when this war is over, he will take you back to Phthia, his home, where he will make you his wife.”

“His wife!” I saw Mynes lying on the bloodstained ground. “I was a wife. He killed my husband.”

“That’s the way of war,” Patroklos said in the brusque voice he’d used earlier. “You’d best get used to it.”

“I will never wed him.” Not willingly, I added to myself, yet Patroklos’s words reminded me how many women before me must have made a similar vow in vain. I drew a shaky breath. “It would have been better if Agamemnon had claimed me.”

“You’re a fool to think so!” Patroklos blazed. His eyes had a hard glitter. His sudden flash of anger took me unawares. “You’ve no idea what Agamemnon is like. Achilleus is fair and honorable. You should thank the gods he claimed you.”

“Why? He’s just a brutal murderer.” But I saw at once I’d gone too far.

Patroklos stood abruptly. His voice got cold, deadly quiet. “You’re not to speak of him like that. Ever.”

I rose too and put out a hand in entreaty. “Patroklos, I only meant—”

But a chasm had opened between us. He was, after all, a stranger. He said, “You’d best go to bed now.” He picked up a bundle from the bench and handed it to me. “Here’s your bedding.” He took up the lamp. “Come.”

The night wind drove into my bones. From somewhere in the courtyard, a dog growled. Patroklos beckoned me forward with a jerk of his head. He opened the door of the hut and led me across the room to a door in the back that I hadn’t noticed before. “In there,” he said, pushing it open. “The women’s quarters.”

I stepped into a smaller, poorer room. As he held the lamp aloft, I saw a few long, uneven shapes lying in a row. Bedding stirred, heads rose, eyes stared at me.

“There are only women in there,” he said.

Women taken on other raids, I realized.

“Find yourself a place. Do you need the lamp?”

I shook my head. “Good night,” I said, as curt as he.

He did not answer but remained in the doorway gazing beyond me. Taking advantage of the lamplight, I found a spot between two bedrolls and spread out my rugs. Patroklos lifted his lamp toward the other end of the room. “Iphis,” he said, “come.”

I froze in surprise, kneeling on my bedding. There was a movement in the back of the room. A young woman arose and threaded her way between the sleeping bodies toward him. I caught a glimpse of a square-jawed face, dark eyes, straight brown hair. He drew her out, closing the door behind them. A stir passed through the others. Then silence returned.

During all the time we had talked, I had not imagined that he was waiting to be with his own slave woman, his concubine.

Then I thought of the other bed in that large, comfortable room. The revelry in the center of the camp would not last all night. At any time now, Achilleus would return to claim his prize.