A Song of War: a novel of Troy

by Kate Quinn

I thought of many things.

  But for once in my life, I didn't say any of them aloud.

  The part I had most dreaded passed without any effort at all. Automedon served wine and then was ordered to bed, and the camp was quiet. Skara came, and Patrocles took her in his arms, and suddenly the two of them were kissing, kissing deeply.

  Achilles chuckled. “Get a tent,” he said with almost-human humor.

  Skara looked at me and gave a little moan, perhaps the most erotic sound I’ve ever heard.

  Patrocles rose and lifted her effortlessly. “I have a tent,” he said with a brilliant smile.

  They were gone for perhaps ten beats of my heart, and Achilles leaned back in his ivory chair and smiled at me under his dark brows. “Aphrodisiac in the wine,” he said. “Now does Patrocles think you would be good for me? Or perhaps that I would be good for you?”

  His voice was thick.

  “Perhaps both,” I said. I could have moved to him with those words. But I was still not sure, although the wine, if drugged it was, certainly had an effect. Something did; my blood was singing. The whole world was his face, his lips, his eyes.

  His eyes met mine again, and for once, they seemed like eyes: beautiful but without divinity. “That would be pleasant,” he said. “An exchange of equals. That would be remarkable.”

  And so it was.

  I made no attempt to seduce Achilles. We said very little about the war, although we had no sleep at all that night, and neither, I'll wager from the sound in the tent, did Skara or Patrocles. But we talked and talked, kissed, made love, and talked again.

  In the morning, the sun rose. Achilles went and opened the tent, which faced east, and we watched the round ball of the sun rise over the distant land of Hattusa.

  “I will die here,” he said. “My mother has told me of the fate the gods have left me.”

  I was exhausted; the range of experience of the last day and night left me feeling that I had just lived a lifetime. And I was languorous, and he was already ranging the tent, moving things, and then standing, naked, looking at his armor.

  He looked back at me. “I don't want to die,” he said. “It's stupid; I should be a god.” Then he smiled, sighed, and lay down by me. “Or not. Oh, Briseis.”

  “Perhaps your mother is wrong,” I suggested.

  “Yes, I would love to believe that,” he said. “Come.”

  It is difficult to explain that on the very day where I discovered that I was just a woman, that the god-born are just men and women, that on that morning, I could rise, naked, and follow him, naked, because he did it, and he was like a god. Perhaps I make no sense to you, but he was god-born. So I needed no modesty.

  He led me into the back of his tent, which was a palace of tents and huts all built together, perhaps ten rooms, none of which I had been allowed to see when I first came to the Myrmidon camp.

  And my new lover’s tent was a monument to a life of robbery. He had beautiful things, dozens of them; he had a swan made entirely of crystal, a great rhyton of solid gold like a boar’s head, and another as fine carved from onyx with the head of a lion. He had so many gold and silver cups that they sat on the floor in a heap. He had a dozen tapestries, each of them representing the labor of a dozen women for five years.

  Achilles clearly cared little for any of them. His armor stood on a stand by the door, like a silent guardian. Achilles’ armor was as good as Hector’s; he had bronze breast and back studded with silver nails and edged in blood-red leather and with shoulders of lapis scales, whole rows of scales made of lapis—a fortune, the value of a city in one piece of armor. He had a helmet with three great crests dyed red and white and black. His armor always had to be clean and spotless, I remembered from my first days here because sometimes he put it on with no warning, went outside, did exercises; it had seemed to me that he was always practicing.

  But aside from the armor, he only valued a few items. He had a lyre; the hull was of tortoise, and there was nothing precious about it, nothing was ivory, nothing was gold. I picked it up to tune it, that morning after a night of lovemaking, and he took it from me without a sign of tenderness.

  “Mine,” he said. “Don’t.”

  So the gold cups lay in stacks, and I wasn’t to touch the lyre.

  “Come,” he said like a child, holding his lyre, and I followed him into another room of chests, leather, piled to the height of the side walls, full of textiles. And one of wood, big and black and shining, like a wet horse.

  I had never seen a chest with a lock. “What is in it?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” he said. He hugged his lyre as if it would protect him. “My mother gave it to me when I left Phthia. She told me that she would send a key when I needed it.” He turned over and drank wine. “Will you dance for me if I play?” he asked.

  He was shy.

  I danced. It seemed simple enough after a night of lovemaking. If what Patrocles said was true, that Achilles had been raised among girls, it explained a great deal; he knew more about making love to a woman than any man I’ve ever lain with, before or since. But truly, I mean nothing salacious, merely that I felt no need to be coy about dancing.

  Patrocles came out and threw a pillow at his friend and then kissed him; Skara came out and sat cross legged; slaves came with fruit. Skara leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “I knew you’d be the one,” she said.

  “More dancing and less talking,” said Achilles, although I’d only paused a moment.

  So when Agamemnon’s herald, Talthybius, came, I was dressed in a single layer of linen, sheathed in sweat; and he was sitting in a chitoniskos so old that you could see the tan of his skin though it; it had blood stains along the shortened hem—some man he’d killed, no doubt. He looked very much like a beautiful young man, and not a god.

  Talthybius did all the talking this time, promising Achilles rich gifts if he returned to the war and promising him the return of his slave Briseis.

  Poor Talthybius, clever as he was—and he was a clever man—he had the wrong tone from the first. He was brave, but he’d have been better to learn more from the humility of his friend Leitus. I didn’t know him, but he was from Plataea; he had been a hunting companion of Achilles before the war and was close to Patrocles and Philoctetes, too. He was not a great name, but later that day Leitus would show himself a great man, a hero and a leader. But that’s not part of my story.

  At any rate, when Talthybius was done, Achilles sat back and smiled his killer’s smile.

  He pointed at me where I sat by his feet.

  “Here is Briseis; mine, as you say, and already in my tent. As for these treasures your great king offers, I have all the treasure I need.”

  “But, Prince Achilles,” Talthybius said, “the Trojans are at the gates!”

  “That’s what comes of attacking them, I suspect.” Achilles laughed. “Tell Agamemnon to come and carry my shit for a few weeks. Then we’ll talk.”

  Talthybius was shocked.

  I was shocked myself.

  But the herald left, and we sat in the tent, and Achilles stretched and looked at his friend. “I had a sleepless night,” he said. “I think I’ll nap.” He looked at me. “Perhaps you’d join me, Lady?”

  I remember smiling at him, for all he’d just shocked me. “I seem to remember why there was so little sleep,” I said.

  Patrocles laughed, as he always did. “If you ever tire of him... ” he said. Skara punched his arm, and he laughed harder.

  We all slept. We slept, we ate, we rose. Achilles exercised with Automedon and with Patrocles, and I watched. We made love. We slept.

  We slept through a day and another and a third morning, so that I knew nothing when the Trojans drove the Achaeans back to their earthworks and palisades; through the heat of the next day, when the Trojans stormed the west gate, which might have been a vague roaring while we made love; and then they were among the ships, and Phoenix demanded we wake.

  Patrocles ran
off into the brilliant sunlight. I confess that I had a pounding head, and my body ached. Everything was too bright.

  Achilles was out of bed and moving. He stood in the doorway of the tent, shielding his eyes with his hand. Skara was laying out something that rattled; dishes, I thought, and went to help her.

  Patrocles returned, as shaken as I had ever seen him.

  “They are putting fire to the ships,” he said. “Ajax is wounded. Achilles, we must fight. The high king has apologized. You have Briseis. Let’s go.”

  “No,” Achilles said. “I feel another nap coming on.”

  Patrocles drew himself up. “Damn it!” he shouted. “I'm not playing now, Achilles. Men are dying. Good men, men you love. Diomedes is wounded; Ajax, Odysseus, all the best men!”

  “All the best men are in this tent,” Achilles said.

  “Shall I weep? Shall I beg you on bended knee?” Patrocles was red.

  Achilles grimaced. “Really, Patrocles!” he said. “Has there been a ship from home saying that Phthia is under threat from Troy? Our fathers killed, perhaps, by raiders?” He went on, remorseless. “If not, nothing has changed.”

  “Then let me go!” Patrocles said. “Let me lead the Myrmidons.” He looked around. “I'll wear your armor, drive your chariot. They’ll recoil; look at how Nestor fooled them just the other night.”

  Automedon nodded. “With Patrocles in your armor, no one would know but me.”

  Achilles appeared to consider.

  I knelt at his feet. “My prince,” I said. “No half measures. Go or do not go.” I had promised Odysseus, and the Fates were speaking in my head.

  But Moira, that strumpet, goddess of the fates, was against me; Achilles heard me but gave me only a condescending smile. “Compromise is always urged on me; I accept this one. Go, Patrocles. Drive the Trojans off the walls, and then come back to me.”

  Patrocles grinned. “You give me this?” he said, his anger gone.

  “With both hands,” Achilles said. “Go and save the worthless Agamemnon. Only make sure he knows you are not me. And when you have driven them from our ships and walls, come back. I will not win the high king’s war for him.”

  “Of course,” Patrocles said. He bowed deeply, and Skara and I began to arm him. He was a bigger man even than Achilles, but the armor fit him well enough; the only part that went awry was that Achilles’ waist was as trim as a girl’s, and his fine bronze breast-and-back plate would not close on Patrocles’ thicker trunk, but with a bronze war belt over it, it looked well enough, leaving only a triangle of Patrocles’ flesh bare above the belt.

  A curse was on us, that we paid no attention to that opening.

  Automedon was armed in a shirt of Aegyptian scales, scarcely less magnificent than Achilles’ armor, and he wore a plumed helmet more like what a knight would wear than a charioteer, with hinged cheek-plates that covered his face and a scarlet plume of horsehair.

  The Myrmidons were formed in their ranks, every warrior standing where he belonged, no shuffling, no talking; they were as inhuman as their master, I thought. But they cheered when Patrocles/Achilles emerged, and they cheered again when he mounted his chariot.

  I stood in the door of the great pavilion with Skara, and we waved, and Patrocles led the Myrmidons to victory.

  Perhaps two hours passed. An eternity, for some; for me, time to wash. I swam with Skara, and then we washed some things in the little fresh water we had, washed our wine cups, and made women’s jokes about men.

  “I need them to do some fighting,” she said, putting a hand between her legs. “I'm tired.”

  We laughed.

  For the Achaeans, it was clearly victory. For in a single hour, before my body was clean, if a little salty, the Rage of Ares had passed beyond my hearing, and the screams of men were far away. Patrocles and the Myrmidons drove the Trojans off our walls and then all the way along the plain toward Troy.

  But you did not stop there, did you, Patrocles?

  Ever modest, ever the older and wiser, was this your day? Was it that, having spent so much time in the shadow of Achilles, you wished, just once, to be the best yourself?

  Close under the great double gate of Troy, Hector killed you. He thrust his spear in that little triangle where the breast and back would not close, and you were dead.

  It was late in the day when Automedon returned. He was badly wounded, though Achilles’ superb stallions appeared fresh and god-given.

  Achilles was sitting in the sun.

  I think that he knew the very moment he saw the chariot. Certainly, I knew.

  He got to his feet.

  I ran to Automedon. It was like a repeat of our adventure under Nestor; but he was not dying, merely badly hurt. I got his reins and held the horses, and Skara came and took him, got an arm over her shoulders, and half carried him from the chariot car.

  The horses were fresh enough but thirsty. I went with them to the available water, but I could not hold them, and they were going to drink too much. I was aggressive and struck the off-side horse with a stick, and he turned on me, teeth bared.

  But I got his head down, and he was more careful after that. He drank and then lifted his head; the other drank. They were too big for me but just tired enough to be mild.

  Yes, I knew it was bad, and I hid myself in simple work and horses. Besides, I owed Automedon.

  Behind me, I heard a great cry. It was like the cry a woman gives in childbirth, or a man with a spear in his guts; certain death, and yet a long time to live.

  The horses started at the sound.

  They gave a great heave; the near-side horse snapped at me, and I flinched.

  And then there was a tall woman in black; she seemed to have a black himation over a black chiton, and a veil over her head. She put a hand on the horses, and they were instantly quiet, and she smiled at me. She was old and yet beautiful; difficult to explain, really.

  She kissed me on the head as if I were her daughter. “There,” she said. “They’ll be your friends now.” She reached into her garments, and I saw the flash of blue, as if she wore a blue chiton under all the black. And then she handed me a golden key. “He’ll need this soon,” she said. “It is fitting that you give it to him.” She smiled and walked off down the beach.

  “Who are you?” I called.

  The darker of the two horses nuzzled me, and Achilles gave a great moan beyond the tent. I had to see to the horses; horses require calm and discipline. But I looked back for the woman, and she was gone, and despite the heat of the day, I shivered.

  And then I led the horses around to the front of the tent.

  Achilles was on his knees, gathering dirt in his hands and pouring it on his head, which lay almost on the ground. He was hugging himself and weeping.

  Automedon was kneeling by him in shock, I think.

  Skara was already keening.

  Achilles was beyond helping for a long time. I had no one to help me hold the horses; I stood there, transfixed by his grief and Skara’s.

  Finally, he raised his head.

  “Where is his body?” Achilles demanded.

  Automedon shuddered. “My prince, when Ajax sent me from the battle, the Trojans were trying to take it from our best men. Ajax and Menelaus stood over him.”

  “Who killed him?” asked Achilles. His tears were gone. His voice was completely flat.

  “Hector, my prince.” Automedon was afraid of Achilles. So was I in those moments. “And a crowd of lesser men. He leaped from his chariot; he went to kill Hector’s charioteer, in a fair fight, but... ” He looked up.

  Achilles looked at Automedon as if he were carrion.

  He twisted in fear. He was right, I think, to be afraid.

  Achilles looked at him. He laughed, his terrible laugh. “Oh gods,” he said. “Look how all your wishes are fulfilled. I will kill Hector; I will die; Troy will fall.” He was still on his knees, his face and hair full of dust, and truly, he looked like a monster. He spread his arms to the gods in
the age-old invocation. “Oh gods!” he called. “Oh gods! May there be vengeance for mortal men on you!”

  I shuddered at that invocation. Vengeance on the gods?

  But he raised his head, and his immortal eyes met mine.

  “You can drive?” he asked, as if it were a feast day morning in Mythimna and he needed a ride to the temple.

  I thought of the woman in black. “I can perhaps drive these horses,” I said.

  Automedon frowned. “You cannot go, my prince. You have no armor.”

  Achilles smiled at him. “You know, this morning I sent my best friend to his death for a point of honor that now, I confess, seems vain and foolish. So you see, not wearing armor seems just fine to me.” He nodded to me. “You, on the other hand, need Automedon’s armor.”

  “You need to wash the dirt out of your hair,” I said, more a mother than a lover.

  He ran a hand through his long hair. His pale green eyes were red with weeping; he looked more like Medusa than a hero.

  “No,” he said.

  He held the horses while I got Automedon’s scale shirt and his helmet, and only then I saw his wounds. I wrapped the wounded man’s torso in bandages where a spear had slipped under into the muscles of his side and perhaps his kidney. I laid him on what had been my bed.

  I shook Skara and begged her to see to Automedon.

  And then I went out to find Achilles, covered in dirt, holding the heads of his horses and speaking to them.

  “Come, my prince,” I said, leaping into the car. In that moment, I was leading him. He was at the end of something. I knew what we had to do.

  He handed me the reins and went into the tent while I waited. He returned with a sword from his pile of swords and a great spear, a heavy thing of black ash.

  He swayed up into the car behind me. I moved my hands, and the horses responded; and we were rolling along the broad path that led to the main gate from the Myrmidon camp.

  Achilles said nothing.

  I concentrated on the reins. They were the largest horses I’d ever handled; too big for me, and yet since the woman in black touched me, no trouble at all, and only as we passed the gate did I trouble to wrap the reins around my waist.