Hand of Fire

by Judith Starkston

  “We must leave the city. Go from the back of the palace away from the fighting that is centered on the Great Gate. We’ll escape the other way, out the Stag Gate, and head up into the hills for the sheep camps.”

  She hoped that by starting their journey on the steep backside of the palace hill, well above the packed neighborhoods, they could avoid both Greeks and crowds. By the time they dropped into the populated area, they would be near the Stag Gate where they could leave the city.

  The menservants had knives, clubs and other weapons snatched from the work sheds or kitchens, but she said a prayer that enough of the guard had survived to keep the Greeks busy so that her household and the townspeople could escape without a fight. The shrieks from the battle kept increasing. Had the fighting spread this far? As they unbarred the gate, Briseis held her breath.

  The street lay empty. They hurried along the road that hugged the back of the palace. The children held tight to their mothers and moved silently with the adults. All went well until they reached a side road with houses and shops on either side.

  Other fleeing people crowded in so that she lost sight of the servants at the front of her group. Family groups trying to stay together got pushed to the sides by faster moving men. Some women, carrying children in their arms or on their hips, shoved others out of their way in desperation to get through. Briseis glanced behind and saw Hatepa stumbling forward, her eyes wide with terror.

  Maira walked next to the queen, holding her arm, but Briseis couldn’t find Eurome. She tried to go back to look for her, but the flow of the crowd made it impossible, and in the confusion her old nurse could have passed her. Briseis pressed on, fighting back tears.

  Other paths and alleys led to the gate, but she stayed on the main road, hoping her household and Eurome had also. The crowd pushed her faster, and she could no longer see Maira. A few of her servants ran near her. Two of the men, armed with a club and a butchering knife, stayed on either side of her. How had they clung to her when she had lost both Eurome and Maira?

  Suddenly she heard screams. The crowd in front turned back, driven by something. The serving man with the knife took her arm. “Down this alley.”

  She ran up several stone steps and into a narrow passage between the buildings. Some of her serving women ran after her in single file, the men behind them. She heard a man bellow in agony and looked back. The man with the club was on the ground. Close behind she saw the horsehair plume of a Greek helmet. As the other manservant sprinted forward, terror flashed in his eyes.

  She raced faster, the serving women screaming behind her. The alley widened, but it was stacked on either side with piles of wooden crates. She turned and beckoned to her servants. As they scrambled past Briseis, one of the women knocked Briseis sideways. Her head struck the corner of a mud-brick house and she crashed to the ground.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ash, Fire and Arms

  Briseis opened her eyes and saw a grayish blur. Where was she? On the ground. Sitting up caused a wave of dizziness. With her hand she steadied herself and grasped splintery wood. Something wet ran down her forehead. She reached up. Her fingers came back bloody. She saw again Mynes’s whip lashing out. Was she bleeding from that? Her vision cleared. She sat behind a pile of weathered crates. Leaning forward, she peeked out.

  One of her serving women sprawled close by. The woman’s arm had been cut off, and the bloodied fingers of her severed arm brushed the cheek of a palace serving man in a grotesque caress. The Greeks chasing them—it came back to her—this was the servant who had tried to protect her, but now he had a gaping wound in his side. Briseis wanted to curl up and stay behind the protection of the crates, but she crawled forward to check for signs of breath. None, only the overwhelming stink of spilled blood. How long had she lain there?

  She was rising on one knee when she heard a man groan and another speak in Greek. “Help is coming.”

  She scurried back into her wooden cave. Through a crack she could see the men further up the alley. One lay propped against a wall, his chest armor removed. The other held fabric against the wounded man’s shoulder. Blood seeped out.

  The wounded man’s eyes drooped closed, and the other man was turned away from her. She started to creep out.

  The metallic footsteps of bronze-nailed soldiers’ boots rang out. She dropped back behind the crate.

  “He’s over here.” Three men ran past her hiding place to the injured man and his comrade.

  “Let’s see this slash. Next time dodge the knife, my friend.” A towering man, encased in the most magnificent armor she had ever seen, knelt down and expertly pressed the wound. He had tossed his shield on the ground beside him—the same shield she had seen raised above the fallen gate. Achilles.

  He turned and she saw his face. She gasped. Even wearing a helmet, she could see enough to recognize him. Why? Why did he look like the god she had first seen in her vision during the Spring Festival and in her dreams ever since? Why did Achilles look like her Telipinu? Those same sea green eyes.

  “Patroklos, hand me the wound kit.”

  Briseis remembered that name—Achilles’ great friend. As Patroklos pulled the supplies from a leather bag, Achilles reached for them. At the sight of those hands that knew her body so intimately, had given her such pleasure, Briseis shivered. Nothing made sense.

  Achilles crushed a dark root in his palm and pressed it into the cut. The wounded man’s face relaxed as the pain subsided. Achilles wrapped a linen bandage across the shoulder and around the chest to hold it in place. Watching Achilles lit a quiver low inside her. She had to grip the wooden crate to keep herself from going toward him.

  Achilles lifted the injured man to his feet and supported him. Heads taller than his patient, he bore him up as easily as a mother guides her child learning to walk. Even in armor he moved with fluid grace—exactly as Telipinu did.

  The others followed him toward the main street.

  She looked down the empty alley. Her confusion felt like the kind that comes in a dream, but the rough cobblestones refused to dissolve under her fingertips. Had she brought Achilles to Lyrnessos through her dreams? Had her protective god betrayed her?

  Perhaps Telipinu had taken Achilles’ form in her dream, but had truly been the god. The gods could take any form they liked. Had Telipinu envied this man’s beauty and taken it for his own?

  It didn’t make any difference. Her city lay dead around her, and she had been helpless even to slow its destruction. The smell of fires already filled the air. She pulled herself up and looked down the way Achilles had gone. She saw only the bodies of her dead servants. She walked in the opposite direction.

  Her head ached and a dizzy nausea made her unsteady, but she pulled herself straight and took a deep breath. She had to do something useful. She could no longer help the palace household escape—let Eurome and Maira be safe. She would tend the wounded—the Greeks must have left many—snatch every life she could from the jaws of this monstrous attack. If Achilles could care for his injured, she would match his skill. She felt the healing satchel at her side and walked faster.

  She thought of Iatros. Perhaps he helped the wounded somewhere in the city. Adamas and Bienor should be safe—unless they had seen the Greeks moving down from the mountain pastures with the stolen herds. If they had seen the Greeks, they would have joined the fight.

  Briseis worked her way toward the neighborhoods nearest the marketplace by the Great Gate where the Greeks had burst through. Many of the wounded would lie there. Smoke darkened the sky above her and she hurried her pace. She couldn’t leave those incapacitated by wounds stranded to burn.

  Houses had their doors battered in. Bodies lay piled like sacks of grain. She knelt by men with sword wounds only to find them already gone. These fallen did not wear the leather armor of the guard. The Greek warriors had cut down her townsmen as they fled. Few women lay among the dead.

  The Greeks appeared to have attacked her people from all directions. Leaving
the palace, she had imagined the Greeks sweeping through the Great Gate, the townspeople fleeing in front of them toward the Stag Gate. More Greeks must have been waiting on the other side of the Stag Gate, and when the Lyrnessans opened the gate to escape, the enemy entered.

  Suddenly she heard a sound and rushed behind a door. She panted in panic. The destroyed city felt so abandoned she’d foolishly forgotten to keep watch. A group of Greek soldiers trudged past carrying plunder: wine cups, platters and other objects of silver and gold, quantities of foodstuffs. One soldier walked bent over like an old man with a full-size amphora of wine on his back.

  Two soldiers carried a chest loaded so full that the lid did not close, and a strange assortment of silver cups, bronze tools and wheels of cheese poked out, but their words turned her stomach.

  “We’ll take back a lot more ’n cattle from this raid. With all the women we’ve captured, even an ugly sot like you will finally get some flesh for your bed.”

  “Ugly is the word for what we’ll get. Agamemnon skims off all the beauties for himself and the commanders.”

  “We won’t be back to the camp at Troy for days. Those bitches have to bed down somewhere, don’t they?” They both laughed in a way that reminded her of Mynes.

  Fragments of ash blew in chaotic patterns on waves of hot air, making her choke and cough. Taking a strip of linen from her satchel, she tied it over her mouth and nose.

  The fires did not appear to have spread to the palace, but the wealth there would draw the Greeks like crows to a newly seeded field. She avoided the streets leading up the hill and aimed for the area from which she had heard the cries of her people.

  In a neighborhood of potters and other artisans, humble dwellings lined a street with broken-down doors. The Greeks had rejected the modest belongings of these residents, but not before they ransacked them. Plain wooden chests, earthenware dishes, rough tunics and cooking tools lay strewn in the street.

  Her anger compelled her to look inside one of the shops. The family had not left in time. A man lay dead amidst a pile of broken pots—his trade. Huddled in a corner, three children had been run through with swords; their blood formed a pool around them. A baby had been swung against a wall, its head crushed. The mother must have been dragged off. The Greeks left only the dead. Briseis fell to her knees. She ripped away the linen covering her mouth and threw up, then pulled herself up.

  Blinded by smoke, she ran down into the next street, her throat so dry she was desperate for water. Her head throbbed. She hated feeling so helpless.

  From the marketplace square she heard voices shouting orders in Greek. They must be gathering their loot there by the Great Gate. No escape that way. The picture returned of Achilles tending his wounded soldier. His men had smashed a baby’s head and run their swords through children. Yet he had carelessly tossed aside that extraordinary shield the moment he had seen one of his men hurt. Who was Achilles, and why did he look like one of her gods? She shook herself.

  In the streets approaching the marketplace square, she saw dead guardsmen. She’d hoped to find Iatros working among the injured, but the smoke grew thicker and she heard the crackle of fire. She guided her steps by running a hand along the rough plaster of the buildings and when she came to a corner, she looked around it.

  Two soldiers carried a litter. Though she could barely see through the ash in the air, their helmets looked Lyrnessan with downward ribbons, not horsehair plumes. She ran but they disappeared in the smoke. Then she caught sight of them again. She hurried forward but tripped as her skirt caught her legs. Yanking it, she followed fast, but she lost them again. She climbed a pile of rubble.

  At the end of the alley a door closed.

  She hurried to it and listened—no sounds. Greeks wouldn’t go inside a workshop. She knocked. The door opened a crack. She saw the glint of a sword blade. Two powerful hands grabbed her. She screamed. Both she and the man who had seized her fell to the floor inside and someone else slammed the door shut.

  “Lady Briseis! I apologize, I didn’t recognize you.”

  Her name! The man withdrew. Her heart pounded from the shock, but hearing her name—she hadn’t been captured by Greeks. Someone knew her. She wasn’t alone.

  “When I saw a woman outside, I just pulled you in as fast as I could.”

  “Who are you?” Briseis asked. “My eyes are full of ash. I can’t see.”

  Then she heard a voice and as quickly as she recognized it, she felt his arms around her. Iatros, her brother, at last.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brotherly Loss

  Briseis and Iatros clung to each other. “Bris, I’m glad to see you, but why are you here? It isn’t safe.”

  “I got separated from the palace household as we fled, so instead of leaving the city, I looked for our wounded—but with all the ash I can barely see. Are Bienor and Adamas with you?”

  “Let me bathe your eyes.” He stood. Something in his voice chilled her heart.

  “Where are they?”

  “Tip your head sideways.” She felt the cool water and blinked. “Now the other way.” She did as he asked. “How did you get this gouge on your cheek? And there’s dried blood in your hair. Is your head injured?”

  “Yes, but I’m fine. You know how any cut on the head bleeds.”

  She reached for his hand. “Have Bienor and Adamas been wounded?”

  He looked away and she knew. Iatros groaned and hung his head. “They’re gone—killed in the battle outside the city.”

  Brother and sister held each other.

  People moved in the room. Her eyes cleared and she looked around. In spite of the dim light she knew where she was. She recognized the smell of a leather shop she had visited with her father. Racks against one wall held tanned skins. The craftsman had arranged his tools on bronze nails in neat rows. Behind the shop she could see into the rooms where the family lived. Now injured men lay on the mud-brick worktables. Two soldiers attended the wounded.

  She took Iatros’s hand. “Tell me what happened.”

  He looked exhausted. His eyes had sunk in their sockets and the skin underneath looked bruised. “Not long after you left the house this morning, Bienor went out to the fields. He saw movement on Ida and came back for his armor. We went to investigate—Greeks. Too many for us alone, so we raced to the city to warn them to close the gates. Instead, Mynes was organizing the guardsmen outside the city wall. He screamed that he would not let cowards near his men and ordered us away. We slipped into the ranks where Mynes would not notice us. The men welcomed our help.

  “You know the guards aren’t trained warriors. Some threw their spears before the Greeks came into range, and they didn’t have the skills to defend themselves. They fell before the Greeks like wheat before the farmer’s scythe.” He shuddered.

  She looked at him. “Mynes?”

  “He fought with courage. He raced his chariot directly toward their leader—a giant man who must be Achilles, the warrior we heard about. I’ve never seen anyone so terrifying, but Mynes didn’t stop, even when the huge man threw his spear. He dodged, but the spear flew fast and true through his chest, and he fell into the dust.”

  Mynes was dead. She had grown to hate him. He had humiliated and hurt her, but the picture came to her of Mynes hesitating in her doorway holding the soft wool he had brought as a gift.

  “Bienor and Adamas?” she whispered.

  “Bienor saw Mynes fall and took command. He and Adamas rallied the men, and the Greeks fell back.” He spoke with fierce pride. For a moment Briseis even imagined that the story would turn out differently.

  “Bienor and Adamas said a healer was too important to risk being killed, and I should stay back.” He looked at her. “I felt relief when they said that. I am a coward.” The look in his eyes tore at Briseis’s heart. “But I paid for it.” His voice broke.

  “I heard Bienor’s war cry. He came face to face with the huge warrior who had killed Mynes. They had their spears raised. Bieno
r threw true—it pierced the warrior’s shield, but the giant somehow eluded the point and in the same moment threw his spear. It pierced Bienor just below the ribs. He fell to the ground.

  “I ran toward him, but Adamas reached him before I did. With his legs straddled over Bienor’s body, he swung his sword. The Greek withdrew as if to let Adamas pull Bienor’s body out of the fray, so I ran faster. But as the warrior turned away, Adamas, seeing his advantage, dove in with a sword thrust.” Iatros’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “As if he had a sixth sense, the Greek avoided Adamas’s blow and turned, driving his sword into Adamas.” He looked at her, tears streaming down his face. “I did nothing to defend them.” He turned away from her, shaking with sobs.

  She reached for him. “You would only have been killed. I thank the gods you are alive. This work takes courage.” She indicated the wounded.

  “We should get back to the men,” he said. “Word spread among the survivors to bring the wounded here. Once I’d patched them up, the men went back out to fight, though they shouldn’t have. They’ve stopped coming. All dead, I fear.” She nodded.

  They checked on the men laid out on the worktables. One man, his face drained white, had a chest wound that Iatros had compressed with a linen bandage. Iatros had bound strips of leather around the man’s chest to keep the bandage in place. Briseis thought the leather must increase the pain of the wound. The man’s unfocused eyes lolled in a sort of trance.

  “I’ve run out of linen,” said Iatros with a shrug when he saw her studying the leather straps. “He bled so profusely. Without pressure, he’d bleed to death.”

  She nodded. She studied the binding. She didn’t know much about wounds like this. As healing priestess, rather than a physician like Iatros, no one had taught her to mend a wound. Men’s work. She had linen in her satchel, but under the circumstances the leather had a better chance of holding and restraining the bleeding if they had to leave this shelter. That would matter more than the pain.