The Silence of the Girls

by Pat Barker

  But Automedon returns a moment later, shaking his head. There’s nobody out there, only a covered farm cart and a pair of mules.

  The ring of men around Achilles is becoming tighter, but then Achilles glances at Automedon and jerks his head, meaning Keep them back. Instantly, Automedon spreads his arms, pushing everybody away, and Alcimus, who’s been rooted to the ground till now, slack-mouthed with shock, does the same, so they create a space around Achilles and Priam. Everybody else is reduced to a circle of muttering faces, with the torchlight casting their shadows over walls and ceiling, but still that’s not enough. Achilles makes pushing movements with both hands. At once, Automedon breaks the circle and starts ushering everybody out. “It’s all right,” he keeps saying, as he herds them towards the door. “You can see it’s all right…” A few linger and look back, still unable to credit what they’ve seen, but Automedon half persuades, half pushes them over the threshold. Outside, as they begin to disperse, a voice can be heard asking: “Is it him?” Then other voices: “Yeah, it’s all very well, though, isn’t it? He could’ve had a knife.” “Still could—nobody’s searched the bugger.” “What the FUCK were the sentries doing?” “They must’ve been bribed.”

  Gradually, the voices fade away.

  * * *

  ——————

  Inside the hall, silence. Achilles holds out his hand and raises Priam gently to his feet. Priam’s knees click as he struggles to stand up, and he smiles, as old men do, ruefully accepting the slight humiliation.

  Achilles pulls up a chair. “Come on, sit down. It’s all right, you can have your son. Tomorrow, though, not now.”

  But Priam doesn’t want to sit down. Quite suddenly, he’s at the end of his tether, as out of control and petulant as a toddler past its bedtime. He wants to see Hector’s body and, no, not tomorrow—NOW. He wants to touch him, wrap him lovingly in whatever covering he can find and take him home. He wants to give Hector’s mother the only consolation she can have now: to prepare her son’s body for cremation. There’s a hectic flush on his cheeks, he’s elated, even reckless—because he’s survived, he’s walked into the enemy camp, right into Achilles’s hall, and survived. He never expected to—yes, the laws of hospitality are sacred, but they don’t apply to him, he’s an interloper, not a guest. But even if he had been a guest, what can the laws of hospitality possibly mean to a man like Achilles, who’s broken every other law there is?

  Somewhere, in the back of Priam’s mind, is the fear that Hector’s body has long since gone to feed the dogs, and Achilles is playing with him, Priam, for some cruel purpose of his own. So: No, no, he won’t sit down. Why should he sit and chat to his son’s killer, while somewhere in this compound Hector’s body lies, dishonoured at best, at worst reduced to a pile of bones surrounded by dogs licking their chops? No, no, NO! “Don’t ask me to sit down, Achilles, when my son’s out there, unburied. Fed to your dogs for all I know.”

  For the first time, in his petulance, he sounds like what he is: a weak old man.

  Instant fury. “I said: SIT DOWN.” A vein in Achilles’s temple stands out like a worm under the skin. “If I’d fed him to the dogs there’d be nothing left for you to take home. And I’d have been fully justified, because that’s what he had planned for Patroclus. And you’d have let him do it. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t, I know you would.”

  Even the two young men who seem to be Achilles’s closest companions are backing away from him now. Shaking, Priam falls into the chair. Meanwhile, Achilles strides up and down, punching his clenched fist into the palm of his other hand, bringing himself gradually, by slow degrees, under control. At last he stops pacing and looks down at Priam. “Come on, let’s go through there and have a drink. It’s more private, anybody could walk in here.” Unexpectedly, he smiles. “Well, I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”

  They go through to the living quarters, Achilles leading the way. As always, there’s a fire burning, a jug of wine ready to pour, plates of sliced figs, cheese, bread and honey set out on the table.

  “Sit down,” Achilles says.

  Still shaking, Priam sits in what he does not know to be Achilles’s chair.

  “Briseis!” Achilles yells at the top of his voice. And then, to Automedon, “Tell her to bring something stronger, it’s virgins’ piss, this stuff.” He turns to Priam. “You’ll have a cup of wine?”

  Priam’s got one hand pressed against his mouth to keep his lips still. He looks like a frightened old man. But that’s on the surface. Underneath, where it really matters, he’s indomitable. Achilles sees both the fear and the courage—and Priam has his absolute respect.

  Alcimus and Automedon are still hovering. “You can go now,” Achilles says. “I’ll be all right.”

  Involuntarily, Automedon shakes his head.

  “Oh, and keep the men quiet. I don’t care what you have to do, just shut them up. We don’t want this all over the camp.”

  Reluctantly, Automedon bows and backs out. Still gaping at Priam, Alcimus follows.

  Priam stares into the fire, as motionless as a mouse under a cat’s paw. He’s thinking: Well, what’s the worst that can happen? He’s going to die soon, anyway. Even without the war, he’s…Well, who knows? Somewhere near the end. And mightn’t it be better to die now—one quick thrust of Achilles’s dagger—than have to endure weeks of further torment? And yet he wants to live, he wants to kiss Hecuba again and tell her he’s brought their son home.

  A girl comes in, carrying a jug of wine, and hesitates in the doorway, obviously not knowing who to serve first. Achilles indicates Priam. When both cups are full the girl withdraws, silently, into the shadows, but not before Priam’s noticed how beautiful she is. Even here, at life’s end, in the presence of his enemy, he can’t stop himself wondering what it would be like to be young again and hold that girl in his arms…

  Achilles sits down and takes a sip of wine, but he seems restless and soon jumps up again. “I’ve got a few things I need to see to. If there’s anything you want, ask Briseis. I won’t be long.”

  I know that name, Priam thinks. He’s pretty sure he’s seen the girl before—she’s not the kind of girl you forget seeing—but he can’t for the life of him remember where.

  “Would you like more wine, sir?” she asks.

  And he thinks: Yes, why not?

  Achilles returns a few minutes later. Probably he’s been checking the ransom’s big enough, something like that. He comes straight to the fire, rubbing his hands. “I’ve told them to bring us some food.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “No, but you’ll have something…When did you last eat?”

  Achilles turns to Briseis, but she’s a step ahead of him. The table’s already being laid.

  42

  Once the platters of roast meat had been carried in and set down on the table, Automedon and Alcimus were again told to withdraw. Automedon, I could plainly see, was furious; as Achilles’s chief aide he’d normally have been the one to wait on a royal guest, and he obviously found the thought of me taking his place intolerable. He needn’t have worried. Achilles himself waited on Priam, selecting the juiciest cuts of meat and transferring them deftly to his plate.

  I’d put a lamp on the table and the light glinted on gold cups and plates. Usually, when entertaining a king, Achilles would have worn one of his richest robes, but tonight he’d changed into the coarsest and plainest tunic he possessed, obviously not wanting to outshine his guest. Nothing would have pleased me more than to be able to think of Achilles as a thug with no redeeming characteristics or grace of manner; but he was never that.

  I set another jug of wine on the table by his elbow and withdrew into the shadows.

  First problem: Priam had no knife. Quickly remedied; Achilles simply polished his own dagger on a linen cloth and handed it across the table, while I scurried around to find h
im a replacement. Oh, it sounds trivial, I know—but that trifling little incident changed everything. Achilles’s face had gone smooth with shock. He’d known Priam was unarmed—no sword, no spear, no posse of Trojan fighters waiting outside the door—but to come into the hall of his worst enemy without even a dagger…Nobody left home without a knife, not even a slave. Achilles was a connoisseur of courage on the battlefield, but this was a kind of courage he’d never encountered before. And because he was fiercely, almost insanely, competitive, I knew he’d be wondering: Could I do that? Could I do what Priam’s just done?

  Achilles ate remarkably well, considering this was his second dinner of the evening, but then he’d eaten virtually nothing at the first. Juices and blood ran glistening down his wrists as he cut and tore the meat. Priam merely picked at his, though he was careful to taste and praise every dish. But I could sense his relief when, his duty as a guest done, he was able to push the plate away.

  I couldn’t hear much of the conversation, and in fact they spoke very little, seeming content just to stare at each other—like lovers, or a mother with her newborn baby. Generally, an unblinking stare, particularly when directed by one man at another, will be seen as threatening, but neither of them seemed to be made uncomfortable by it. They were meeting for the first time. Nine years before, when Achilles came to Troy, Priam was already too old to fight. Almost every day since then, he’d watched Achilles on the battlefield and no doubt, from time to time, Achilles had looked up and seen a white-haired old man looking down, and known, or guessed, that it was Priam. But, crucially, they’d never tested each other’s strength in combat, and so perhaps this prolonged scrutiny was a substitute for that. Though I think it went deeper. They seemed to be standing at opposite ends of a time tunnel: Priam seeing the young warrior he’d once been; Achilles the old and revered king he would never be.

  I’m sure Achilles thought of this as a meeting of equals. That wasn’t the way I saw it. For more than forty years, Priam had ruled over a great and prosperous city; Achilles was the leader of a wolf pack. But that made it all the more strange to see the two of them dipping bread into the same dish. In fact, everything about that evening seemed unreal, dreamlike—and infinitely fragile, like the bubbles that form on a breaking wave, there a moment and gone for ever.

  Towards the end of the meal, I brought in a platter of sliced figs drizzled with honey and was pleased to see that Priam did eat a little of that. Perhaps he’d reached the stage of exhaustion where all you crave is sweetness. When I thought he’d finished, I offered him a bowl of warm water scented with lemon juice and herbs and he washed his fingers and dabbed them dry on a square of fine linen.

  After the meal, he went back to Achilles’s chair and sat staring into his wine. Nothing had changed, and yet suddenly the atmosphere was tense again.

  “Please,” Priam said. “I want to see Hector now.”

  I could see Achilles’s mind racing: he’d be thinking of Hector’s body lying on the cobbles of the stable yard, naked and caked in shit. If Priam were to see that, his grief might well flare into anger and that in turn would reignite Achilles’s grief for Patroclus and with it his own rage. You could see Achilles pacing himself, reining himself in, like a rider on a half-broken horse. Beneath the courtesy—and the occasional flicker of something remotely resembling compassion—I don’t believe he was ever more than one breath away from killing Priam.

  “Of course you can,” he said, standing up. “But not tonight. Tomorrow, first thing. I promise.”

  He refilled Priam’s cup and beckoned me to follow him. Alcimus and Automedon were waiting on the veranda. I held the torch while they unloaded the ransom from Priam’s cart and carried it into the storage huts. A lot of it was textiles, clothes and bedding made from the rich embroidered cloth for which Troy was famous. Achilles set aside a particularly fine tunic to clothe Hector’s body. Then he told me to make a bed up for Priam on the veranda, but round the side of the building, where it couldn’t be seen from the main entrance, and to make it as warm and comfortable as possible.

  “Take anything you need,” he said. “Take the furs from my bed if you like, I don’t want him to be cold.”

  I went to one of the storage huts and collected ox-hide rugs to form the base of the bed. The smell of ox hides, no matter how carefully they’ve been cured, is not pleasant and normally I’d have been in and out of there as fast as I could. But I needed these few minutes alone. Like everybody else, I’d been shaken by the sudden appearance of Priam in Achilles’s hall. I’d felt blank and at the same time abnormally attentive. I could still hear him pleading with Achilles, begging him to remember his own father—and then the silence, as he bent his head and kissed Achilles’s hands.

  I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.

  Those words echoed round me, as I stood in the storage hut, surrounded on all sides by the wealth Achilles had plundered from burning cities. I thought: And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.

  That was the lowest point for me, worse than standing in the arena half naked in front of a baying mob, worse even than the hours I’d spent in Agamemnon’s bed, and yet that moment of despair strengthened my resolve. I knew I had to seize this opportunity, minuscule though it might be. I had to get away. So, almost at random, I selected a couple more hides and asked Alcimus to carry them to Achilles’s hut. They were good, strong, thick hides, far too heavy for me to lift.

  It didn’t take me long to make up the bed. I used only the finest linen sheets, the softest pillows, the warmest blankets, and spread over it all a coverlet of purple wool lavishly embroidered with gold and silver thread. Then I put a cup of well-diluted wine on a table by the bed, and a bucket, discreetly covered, a few yards away. As a girl, I’d helped my mother care for my grandfather; I knew the ways of old men in the night. By the time I’d finished, it really did look like a royal bed, and I hoped it would comfort Priam, here, in the midst of his enemies, to be accorded the honour due to a king.

  When I returned to the living quarters, I found Priam, exhausted after his dangerous journey, dozing over his wine, though he jerked awake a minute later when Achilles came in. “I want to see Hector,” Priam said again, apparently forgetting that he’d asked for this already.

  “Tomorrow,” Achilles said. “Sleep first.”

  Priam passed a hand over his eyes. “Yes, I’ll be glad to be in bed.”

  He bade Achilles a courteous good night and managed to get as far as the door without stumbling, but once outside on the veranda he was weaving from side to side. I guided him round the corner of the hut and he almost fell onto the bed. He sat on the edge for a moment, stroking the coverlet with both hands, appreciating the beauty of the cloth. Then he let out a small, contented sigh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see a bed in my life.”

  I asked if there was anything else he needed. He looked up at me then, and said, “Don’t I know you?”

  “We have met, sir, but it was a long time ago.”

  “Where?”

  “In Troy. I lived there for two years. Helen used to bring me with her to the battlements.”

  “Yes! I knew I’d seen you before, you’re Helen’s little friend.” His face was flooded with an old man’s pleasure at identifying a figure from the past. “Well. Who’d have thought you’d grow to be a beauty?”

  “I’m not Helen’s friend anymore. I’m Achilles’s slave.”

  His expression changed. “Yes, I know, I heard. It’s hard on the women when a city falls.”

  I knew he was thinking of his own daughters, who’d be shared out among the conquerors when Troy fell. And it would fall. I looked at the frail old man sitting there—no strong sons left to defend him—and I knew there was no hope.

  When I went back insi
de, Achilles was standing by the table staring down—rather vacantly, I thought—at the empty plates. He looked round when I came in. “Is he in bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Asleep?”

  “Not yet, but I don’t think it’ll be long.”

  He was tapping his fingers on the table, clearly thinking hard. “What a thing for him to do. Did you notice, he didn’t have a knife?” He shook his head. “Come on, we’ve got to get the body washed—and there isn’t much time. He’s got to be out of here before dawn. If they find him here they’ll kill him.”

  43

  Taking a torch from a sconce by the door, Achilles led the way to the stables, Automedon and Alcimus following along behind. I could see Hector’s body, spread-eagled on the filthy ground. Dirty, yes—every inch coated in mud and shit—but still the length and shape of a man. I shivered with relief. Because it had crossed my mind that the gods might play one final trick and Achilles would find what he should have been finding for the last week at least: a pile of greasy, partially articulated bones.

  Looking down, he nodded grimly, then knelt and slid his hands underneath the corpse. Without needing to be told, Alcimus knelt on the other side and did the same. Very slowly, they lifted Hector until he was shoulder height, Automedon supporting the legs. All around us, horses stamped and whinnied. I held the torch high, as the three men shuffled slowly out of the yard and down the narrow passage that led to the laundry hut, where the dead were prepared for cremation.

  When they reached the door, Automedon changed position, cradling Hector’s head in his hands to see it safely across the threshold. Unexpectedly, I found myself wanting to laugh: the care they were taking now was so ludicrous after all the abuse Achilles had inflicted on that body day after day. I followed them inside and found a sconce for the torch. Grunting with effort, they lowered Hector onto the slab and stepped back.