Warrior’s Prize

…with loud clamour they rushed toward their ships,

the dust rose under their feet and hung over them in clouds, they shouted to one another to get hold of the ships

and draw them into the sea…

Iliad, Homer, Book II

(Rouse’s translation)

Crashes and thumping noises jolted me awake. When I opened my eyes, light stabbed through my skull. I was in a dim, cavernous place with curving walls and no roof, only beams that crisscrossed the blue sky. Like ribs. Something familiar nagged at me. The beams were thwarts. A ship—I was in the hold of a ship.

How did I get here? I must have fallen off the deck—hurt my head—after Achilleus left. I had the faintest memory of him running down the beach in the darkness. But now it was day.

The shouts, thumps, and crashes from outside grew into a deafening din. The ship was shaken violently. Someone shouted. “Home! We’re going home!”

Joy filled me as I remembered—we’d talked of going to his home. He must have gone to summon his men, and now they were launching the ships. If I listened carefully, I would hear his voice giving the orders. But when I lifted my head, the thwarts blurred and the sky disappeared.

I awoke to silence. There were no rowers sitting on the thwarts above me, no one around at all. What had happened? I moved my head and dizziness overwhelmed me. When I pulled myself up onto my elbows, I was sick. Afterwards I lay back, too weak to move.

Much later I heard footsteps. A man came to my side, a small, balding man of middle years, whom I had never seen before. He busied himself cleaning up the mess of sickness. When I tried to speak, I managed only a weak croak.

He turned at once. “So you’re alive! The physician thought you might live.”

Physician? Was I beyond Achilleus’s help? As the stranger crouched, I heard water splashing. He held a cup to my lips. I drank, fighting dizziness, then laid my head down and kept it motionless. “Who are you?” I managed to ask.

“My name is Odios.” The name meant nothing to me. Why had Achilleus sent a stranger? “That’s a nasty bump on your head,” Odios said.

I touched a large, tender swelling on my temple. I closed my eyes. I wanted Achilleus very badly. “When will he come?” I asked.

Odios frowned, his small features compressed between bushy brows and shaggy brown beard. “I expect he’ll send for you when you feel better. I’ll bring you food. Then you must rest.”

Send for me? Why didn’t he come? Tears stung my eyes. “Why aren’t we moving?” I asked Odios. “How long will it take?”

“What?”

“To reach his home.”

He shook his head. “This ship is beached. We’re not going anywhere.”

“But—I felt the men launch the ship.”

He sighed. “They tried to launch the ships. They thought they were going home. But he was only testing them.”

I stared, completely at a loss. “Why test them?”

Odios shook his head. “It was an ill-judged scheme. He thought it would rouse their fighting spirit, so he told them we would give up the war and sail for home. He expected them to protest. But instead they ran to launch the ships. That’s what you heard. It took all the leaders to stop their flight.”

His words made no sense. I pulled myself up. The ship seemed to spin about me. “That’s absurd. Achilleus has never lied to his men. And I don’t believe he lied to me.”

Odios stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “Achilleus? What are you talking about? I was speaking of Agamemnon.”

Agamemnon? He’d planned to test the men in this way. Pieces of memory came back: A blow on the head. Treachery. I was on Agamemnon’s ship.

I gave a great cry and struggled to sit up. My head pounded. I fell back hard. The taste of blood filled my mouth. “My lady—Briseis!” Odios’s voice was faint, far away. Silence and blackness swallowed me.

I sank below pain into deepest dark. Mists swirled. I was floating in some dank rocky place. When I tried to move, it was like wading through a swampy thickness. Cold fear filled me, but I had no voice to cry out. I heard the murmur and splashing of water. Before me was an open place where a river glided, black and smooth, between banks of gray sand. I stopped. There was a boat on the shore. A hooded figure rose from it and came toward me, a stooped old man. His strange-looking, milky eyes gazed from an ancient wrinkled face, translucent as wax. His hand stretched out. The seamed palm was open. He wanted something. A fee—to ferry me across.

I looked at the far bank of the river. A man stood there—a man with thinning brown hair and a beard. Smiling, he held his arms open in welcome. A boy crept up behind him, insubstantial in the mist. I knew them. Mynes and Laodokos! Waiting for me.

But I had no gold to give the old ferryman. His hand dropped. He turned away. Take me! I cried, but my throat made no sound. Then I remembered the gold-threaded girdle I wore. I reached for the knot. The ferryman was leaving. My nails scratched and tore at the fabric in desperate haste. At last it came loose.

No! cried a soundless voice. Don’t go with him!

I stood still. The girdle dropped to my feet. The boy and the man vanished into the mist. The old boatman too disappeared. I stood alone in a dark dream.

I drifted through shadows. Nothingness. Then, out of nothingness I heard voices. I tried to shut out the sounds, to go back to the dark river, but the voices pulled, distracted me.

“—insensible as you see her now.”

“How long has she been like this?” This voice was harsh, ugly, familiar.

“Days, my lord.”

There was silence. My skin prickled. Men, very near, were watching me.

“Days, you say?” The harsh voice rang out. “Why wasn’t I told? Why wasn’t the physician brought back to see her?”

I opened my eyes. The dim gray light made me blink. Two figures stood by my side, one broad and large, one small and cringing. Neither looked at me. “If she dies,” said the large man, “you shall pay the price.”

“Look, my lord Agamemnon, she wakes!”

The larger man bent, and his face loomed right over me, a wide face rimmed in bushy hair and beard, with small yellow-brown eyes. A face I’d hoped never to see again.

“You had better find a way to heal her,” he said to the other man. “Send for Machaon, the physician. And get one of the women to tend her. See that she mends. See that she puts on flesh and her looks are restored.” His voice became a snarl. “As she is now, she’s no use to me.”