by Pat Barker
I heard a movement from the other side of the wall and put my lips to a gap between the planks. “Amina?”
“Briseis? You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve brought you some food.”
“Well, thanks for the thought, but—”
“No, look, if you go along the wall to your right, about five paces…” I was trying to visualize the room as I spoke. “There ought to be a gap. Can you see it? About shoulder height.”
I heard her fingers scrape along the wall. “Yes, I see it.”
“I’ll pass you something.” Slices of cold meat and bread. I’d brought apples too, but there was no way I could get them through the gap. “Have you got enough water?”
“Gallons. There’s something soaking in it, mind.”
“Has anybody been to see you?”
“Yes, they’ve all been asking questions.”
“But they haven’t hurt you?”
“Not yet. I think Pyrrhus might come.”
“Well, look, if he does, just be honest with him…”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You could say…Oh, I don’t know. Say you knew Priam—he was kind, and—”
“I don’t mind saying that—it’s true. Though if I’d never met Priam, I’d still have buried him.”
“And then—sorry, Amina, I know you’re not going to like this—plead with him, get down on your knees, grovel if you have to. Whatever it takes.”
“Is that what you’d do?”
“Yes, if I had to.”
“Do you really think he’ll take pity on me?”
“No, but he’s a vain man, and he’ll like the idea of being merciful—you can use that.”
“You could.” Amina sighed. “Go back to your husband, Briseis. Live. Be happy.”
“I won’t be able to bear it if you die.”
“Ah, come on, you don’t even like me!”
(Which was also true.) “At least, try to live.”
I wished I could see her face, reach out and take her hand. But there were only our two voices whispering in the darkness through a crack in a wall. It wasn’t enough. I felt her slipping away from me, sliding through my fingers like mist.
“Why do you want to die?”
“I don’t! That’s a stupid thing to say…”
From outside the yard came a burst of laughter. A group of fighters walking past.
“Because I can’t bear the thought of him touching me.”
“He hasn’t shown much sign of that…”
“No, but he could. Any time—and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. People are made differently, Briseis. Andromache can bear that. I don’t know how, but she can. I know I couldn’t.”
More shouts, more laughter. The fighters were gathering round the cooking fires, settling down to a hard night’s drinking. I couldn’t risk being seen. “I have to go.”
I wriggled my hand in between the planks as far as it would go and felt her fingertips touch mine.
“I’ll try to bring you some food in the morning,” I said.
Then I went back to my hut, wondering if I’d ever see her again.
23
Coming in from the darkness, there’s always a moment when he remembers the room as he saw it when he first arrived in the camp. Five months ago, now, nearly six. Then, it had seemed rich, bright, welcoming, full of his father’s presence, though Achilles had been dead ten days: his funeral games over, his body burned, his burial mound raised. Now, the living quarters just look bleak—so bleak Pyrrhus is tempted to go straight out again. There’ll be any number of drinking sessions going on. He could walk across to Menelaus’s compound—he’d certainly be welcome there—or anywhere else in the camp, for that matter. He’s the hero of Troy, his reputation guarantees him a welcome wherever he goes. Except this room. Except this room.
What more do I have to do? He struggles to suppress the question, but up it bobs again. What more do you want?
Nothing to look forward to, that’s his problem. No more battles to fight, no more glory to be gained. If the games get off the ground, he supposes he might win the chariot race—and that produces a momentary spurt of excitement, but no more than momentary. Absent-mindedly, he picks up a cloth and begins polishing Achilles’s shield. Not everybody can lift it, but he can—easily. He props it up against the wall, places a lamp on either side, the flames warm on his naked thighs. By now, the design’s as familiar as the lines on the palms of his hands, and yet so complex he always finds something new. Encircled by Ocean, the whole of human life plays out in front of him: two men settling a blood feud, a lawsuit, a war, a prosperous city, a city in flames—and a herd of cattle grazing by a river, a crowd of people with torches on their way to a wedding, young men and girls dancing, holding garlands of flowers above their heads…
A shield forged by a god. You can’t put a price on this—because there’s nothing like it in the world, nothing to compare it with—and he owns it; he owns every inch of it, all of it, it’s all his. Except the meaning. Though it’s not the shield he needs to understand, it’s the man who once knelt in front of it, as he’s kneeling now, polishing the metal until the flames in the lamps find other flames hidden deep inside the bronze. Once, Achilles’s breath had misted this shield, as now his own breath does, and another hand, long since reduced to fragments of charred bone, had rubbed the mist away.
After a while, the sheer monotony of the polishing sets the mind free. Is that why Achilles used to do it? What he needs to decide—and he really can’t put it off any longer—is comparatively trivial. What to do about that bloody girl. He still can’t believe it was just her—there’s got to be somebody else. Not Helenus, that was obvious the minute he hobbled into the room. Calchas, then—now he could easily have done it. Though, as Automedon said, why would he start being loyal now when the Trojan cause is lost? It’s a good point—but still he feels it must have been Calchas. Awful creature, awful—but it looks as if he’s got away with it. It’s the girl who’s been left to face the consequences.
Which brings him back to the original question: what are the consequences going to be? It’s entirely his decision—she’s his slave, he can do what he likes with her. He’s no stomach for killing her. It’s not that he thinks there’s been too much killing—quite the reverse; there hasn’t been nearly enough. He doesn’t feel his reputation’s secure. He fought bravely at Troy—without any boasting, he knows that. At the gates, and again on the palace steps, he’d faced dozens of Trojan fighters—not green boys who scarcely knew one end of a spear from the other, no, battle-hardened veterans who’d known bloody well they were fighting for their lives. He’d fought them and he’d won—but nobody seems to remember that. They remember him killing Priam—and he remembers too, bursting into the throne room and seeing Priam, on the altar steps, holding a spear he could barely lift.
And that’s the problem. Just there. That’s it. He’s famous for killing Priam, and Priam’s little grandson, and Polyxena, Priam’s youngest daughter, whom he’d sacrificed at Achilles’s tomb. An old man, a baby and a girl. Oh, the deaths were necessary: he doesn’t regret them. Only, sometimes, at night, he feels a child’s chubby legs kicking against his chest, and struggles awake, relieved to find it’s no more than the pounding of his own heart. Heroic deeds, atrocities—who’s to say where the line is drawn?
It’s just not fair. If he could’ve waved a magic wand and transformed Priam into a young, strong man, the greatest fighter of his generation, he wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. He’d have preferred it to be like that.
So, no—getting back to the present moment—he doesn’t want to kill the girl, and yet he’s got to make an example of her. If you once start tolerating disobedience in slaves, you may as well give up altogether. Flogging, that’s the obvious answer—
and make sure the other women hear the screams. Or—sell her to slave traders, save himself the bother. Actually, that’s not a bad idea—there’s a group of slave traders in the camp now, working their way from compound to compound, haggling over slaves not needed on the voyage home. She’s young, admittedly not much of a looker, but strong, probably fertile; she’d fetch a good price. And that’ll be the end of her—done and dusted, he’ll never have to set eyes on her again.
But first, he needs a drink. Wine’s the only thing that drowns out the dreadful silence in this room. Throwing down the cloth, he goes to the table and pours himself a generous cup. As he crosses the floor, he’s careful not to catch sight of his reflection in the mirror because recently it hasn’t been behaving exactly as it should. Once or twice, it’s gone on moving after he’s stopped. One cup, thrown at the back of his throat, two, slower—he hesitates over the third, but then decides against it. Better get the business with the girl over first, then he can relax.
Minutes later, he’s striding down the path that leads to the laundry hut. This is where dead fighters used to be prepared for cremation. You carried them there, heaved them up onto the slab, left clean clothes, coins for their eyelids—and then you backed out of the room, leaving the laundry women with their pale, moist, fungoid faces to start on their work. Outside the laundry, there used to be a whole row of troughs overflowing with piss. You’d see the women, skirts kilted up round their waists, treading blood-stained battle shirts. Apparently, urine gets blood stains out better than anything. Sometimes you’d see men stop and pee into the troughs, now and then directing a jet straight at the women, who’d shriek and try to get out of the way. All good-natured fun, of course—the Myrmidons are a good bunch. No bloodstained shirts in the troughs now, though the smells still linger: the ferrous tang of blood, the sickly sweetness of stale piss. Something else too. Fuller’s earth? Is that the name? Anyway, the stuff they use to whiten the sheets.
On the threshold, he stops to look around. The troughs are empty now. Since Troy fell, the laundry work must have got a whole lot easier: no bloodstained shirts, no bandages. God knows what they’re doing now to earn their keep…
Since Troy fell…Those words still have the power to amaze. That night, cooped up inside the horse, he’d told himself that things had got to change—and change they had. Complete success, from his point of view. Oh, he might doubt himself at times, but nobody else doubts him. Odysseus has given him Achilles’s armour—no more than his due, but still nice to have it, and, almost certainly, Menelaus is about to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage—and what a brilliant match that will be: Helen’s daughter, Achilles’s son. Just have to hope she doesn’t get her looks from her father. Everywhere, he’s listened to, consulted; he dines on equal terms with all the kings. Nobody in this camp dare defy him now.
Except this girl. This slave.
Taking a torch from a sconce on the wall, he enters the porch and kicks the inner door open. A breath of fresh herbs, not strong enough to cut the stench of soaking wool. Somewhere in the shadows, he hears a scratching sound, the same noise a rat might make, but it’s not a rat, it’s the girl. Lifting the torch high above his head, he sends a tumult of shadows fleeing round the walls, but right at the centre of this chaos of light and dark there’s a small, pale face.
Ignoring her for the moment, he looks around the room. At the centre, there’s a long marble slab where dead fighters used to be washed and prepared for cremation. Above that, creaking and swaying in the draught, are two huge airing racks where damp shirts are put to dry. There are a few hanging there now, casting man-shaped shadows that swing from side to side as the racks move, an oddly disorientating experience, because the room seems to be full of fighting men—and yet it’s silent. Ranged along the benches that line the walls, there are dozens of candles, all, to varying degrees, burned down, melted wax running down their sides like tears.
“Let’s have these lit, shall we?”
No reply, but then he wasn’t exactly expecting an answer. He lines up the candles, taking his time—not knowing why he’s taking his time—and lights them, one by one. He feels her eyes follow him from flame to flame to flame. Not all the candles survive. Some flicker into life but immediately gutter and die. Still, by the time he’s finished, the benches are crowded with tiny lights. The room’s no longer a squalid, stinking hole where creatures barely identifiable as human eke out a miserable existence—no, it’s a palace, a royal bedroom decorated for a wedding night.
Lighting the last candle, he waits to see if it will burn, then turns to face the girl. A plain, slightly masculine face, though striking. He must have chosen her, though he can’t for the life of him think why. Perhaps he didn’t? Perhaps she’s one of the women allocated to him by lot. Thick eyebrows, protuberant eyes, square jaw; nothing there to get you going. She’s certainly not a patch on Helle, the girl he saw dancing round the fire.
For a moment, he can’t think of her name, but then it comes back to him. “Amina.”
No response. She might as well be carved from wood. He moves towards her; with the marble slab behind her she can’t back away. Spread out across the surface, there are swathes of fresh herbs, blocks of salt, scrubbing brushes, bowls full of soaking clothes whose sodden folds rise above the scummy water like rocks exposed at low tide. So many sources of light in this room now—all of them casting shadows—but at least they can see each other clearly. Going back to the door, he slots the torch into a sconce, then walks slowly back towards the slab, enjoying the creak of floorboards under his measured tread.
“You know,” he says, at last—and his voice sounds strange after the long silence. “This really doesn’t need to be a problem. If I tell the guards not to mention it to anybody they won’t, simple as that. We can all forget about it. But, you see, a lot depends on how many other people know. Did you meet anybody else out there?”
“Only Briseis. And she was just trying to stop me.”
“So you keep saying. What about the other girls? Did they know?”
“No.”
“Oh, c’mon, you must’ve said something. I mean, there you are, leaving the hut in the middle of the night…Where did they think you were going?”
“I just said I had to get out. It was true—I hate being shut in.”
“This must be a real nightmare?” He sees her glance from side to side, as unsettled by the swinging shadows as he is himself. “So, you didn’t tell Andromache?”
“No.”
“She didn’t give you the ring?”
“I stole it.”
It’s only now when he hears himself asking these questions that he realizes this is what matters. He can’t bear the idea of people conspiring behind his back—and he’s still not convinced they didn’t. The shadows are beginning to get on his nerves. Shadows and silence. Their voices—even her voice, which is a lot quieter than his—echo round the walls, and yet they seem to make no sound. There’s the howling of the wind, but that’s so familiar it hardly registers, any more than the sound of his own breathing. It’s as if everything outside this room—the camp, the cooking fires, the crowded huts—has ceased to exist, and there’s only this moment, alone in this room, with this girl.
“But you knew whose ring it was?”
“Priam’s.”
“Not Hector’s?” That possibility still rankles.
“No, I knew it was Priam’s. It was part of Hecuba’s dowry—she gave it to him on their wedding day, and he wore it for fifty years. I hated stealing it, but then I thought: Well, it’s his really—and anyway, he had to have something to pay the ferryman.”
“Pay the ferryman? Listen to yourself. Do you really believe souls wander about for all eternity just because they can’t pay some fucking ferryman who doesn’t exist anyway? It’s a story—it’s not real.”
“I know what I believe, Lord Pyrrhus.” Staring s
traight at him. “Do you?”
Too bold for a slave; slaves are trained not to look at you, they’re trained to face the wall as you go past. He’s not as firmly in control of this situation as he ought to be—she’d been terrified when he first came into the room. He’d smelled it on her—but she’s not terrified now. Time to rattle her cage a bit.
“Briseis says she helped you.”
“She’s lying.”
“Why would she lie about that?”
“She didn’t help me. Nobody did.”
She’s angry now. Watching her eyes flare like that, it’s like he’s seeing her for the first time; except it’s not the first time. Something that’s been gnawing at the edges of his mind ever since the guards pushed her into the hall finally crawls into the light. She was one of the women in the throne room who’d surrounded Hecuba. The more he looks at her the more convinced he is. The goggle eyes, the frog mouth…No, there’s no mistake, it’s not a face you’d ever forget—it’s her all right. She’s the one who stood up and stared him out when all the others ran away. It takes a moment for the implications to sink in. She’d seen it all: his desperation, his clumsiness, his repeated, cack-handed attempts to dispatch an old man who should’ve been as easily killed as a rabbit. She’d seen everything.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She doesn’t need to say anything more; he reads the contempt in her eyes. And now there’s no stopping the torrent of memory: the slippery feel of Priam’s hair, the shameful hacking-away at the scrawny old neck, Priam’s stubbornness, his obdurate refusal to die. Why wouldn’t he die? How close had the women been? Can’t remember. He hadn’t really been aware of them till it was over and their screaming started to get on his nerves. He’d seen them then, of course—and it’s not as if he’d forgotten they were there, he’s always known they were. Only he’s never thought of them as witnesses, not in the same way that Greek fighters would have been witnesses. Nobody would listen to them…but that’s not what matters. They know.
