She crept forward behind Maira, unsure what she would find. The camp remained whole, but rows of bodies revealed the day’s losses. Women washed the dead, wrapping them in their shrouds. Briseis understood the sounds of grief she’d heard—as she herself had, the captive women mourned their own lost families while outwardly giving the Greek soldiers their due. Ordinarily the comrades of the fallen encouraged this honor for the dead. Why silence the women tonight?
The fighting had never come up against the camp before, but now she heard the noise of the Trojan army camped on the other side of the bulwark that ran across the front of the camp between the shore and the ridge. Perhaps by Achilles’ ships, further down the shore toward the Hellespont, the sound was not so ominous, but here in the center of the camp, she could distinguish the sounds of victorious soldiers preparing dinner and hundreds of cook fires crackling and sparking, their light glowing up from the plain. No wonder the soldiers had silenced the women. The Trojans would hear the wailing and be glad. Better to withhold honor from the dead than strengthen the enemy.
As Maira had said, the women were stretched thin trying to prepare the meal and attend to the dead. Briseis knelt by the cook fire and mixed bread dough. The women glanced at her; a silence fell over their conversation, but Maira nodded encouragement, so she stayed.
Gradually the others started talking quietly again and accepted her presence. When the Trojan onslaught had come close, they had been taken away from the fighting. The Greeks naturally feared their captive women might view the enemy with sympathy, and they had also been afraid of losing them if the Trojans set fire to the ships and shelters. Briseis shuddered when she realized they’d left her locked in a wooden hut. Why hadn’t Achilles come to free her from such a horrific death? Then she realized, Achilles couldn’t know she was locked in a hut. There was certainly no communication between Achilles’ camp and Agamemnon’s.
Briseis heard the women say Agamemnon had called the Greek leaders to his shelter to eat and decide how to save themselves.
She whispered to Maira. “Is there a safe way for you to listen to their plans? Surely they must realize they have to win back Achilles. I want to know how they intend to do that.”
Maira nodded. “They’ll be arriving soon. I had the same thought. When they left you behind today—to face the flames if they had come—I knew we had to do something. I tried to come back and release you, but they’re afraid of the women and kept watch on us, though they don’t seem to care about you anymore. I guess the soldiers have met with something more frightening than a wolf. I’m not letting them lock you up again.”
The leaders arrived. They would eat before they talked. Henchmen carried spitted meat to the fire inside Agamemnon’s shelter. The men had fought all day without eating. No matter how dire their situation, food and drink came first.
Briseis kept out of sight whenever the men came near the cooking area. Sullen, downcast, dreading the morning, they would forget about her if she made it easy.
Women took baskets of bread, trays of food and pitchers of wine to Agamemnon’s shelter.
Maira took a wine pitcher and went inside. When most of the women came out with the empty trays, Maira was not with them. If the Trojans’ glowing fires on the plain boded the future, the Greek kings would be desperate to persuade Achilles to set aside his anger. They could only succeed if they returned her to Achilles.
Briseis could not hold still. She washed trays and pitched the scrapings where the dogs and birds would eat them, but her eyes stayed on the door, waiting for Maira. It opened.
Odysseus, Phoenix, and Aias came out and left. With Phoenix and Aias in the group, she guessed they were going to speak to Achilles. Odysseus was honored as the best negotiator, a logical choice, except she knew Achilles felt an innate distrust of this man who would say anything to win the day. On the other hand, no men besides Patroklos were as dear to Achilles as Phoenix and Aias. If this was, as she assumed, a delegation to persuade Achilles to set aside his anger, these men might win Achilles’ heart.
Maira slipped out of the doorway and blended into the darkness away from the cook fires. Briseis went to her. “What did they say?”
“The kings persuaded Agamemnon to make recompense for the insult he made to Achilles’ honor. Odysseus, Phoenix, and Aias have gone to describe the gifts Agamemnon offers and persuade Achilles to return to the fighting. Along with the rest, Agamemnon promises to return you. You should be freed by morning.” Maira turned and went toward the other women. Briseis followed, caught up in hope. Maira had been abrupt in reporting this good news and she wanted more.
Her heart beat furiously in her chest. Trying to catch up to Maira, she felt short of breath. She would be free and back in Achilles’ arms. If he were still transformed by anger, she would find the man she loved inside and calm the storm so that he could reclaim his mortal self. She longed for the joy of being together again for whatever time they had left. She couldn’t help what would come after—she couldn’t stop fate.
She called to Maira. She wanted to hear how much Agamemnon was forced to pay out of his greedy store of wealth. She needed him to pay dearly. “What gifts did Agamemnon offer?”
“Seven tripods, ten talents’ weight of gold, twenty cauldrons, twelve horses, seven captives, and he promised if they sack Troy, that Achilles may take as much gold and bronze as he pleases to fill his ship and twenty Trojan women besides.” Maira turned back toward the women immediately. She didn’t hold Briseis’s gaze, didn’t revel in this good news. Something was wrong. Maira had learned the skill of hiding her feelings from those she served, but Briseis was her friend.
“You’ve left something out, Maira. Tell me.”
Maira shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Please tell me.”
Maira looked at her in concern. “Agamemnon offered in marriage any one of his three remaining daughters along with a huge kingdom, and to be treated equally with Agamemnon’s own son.”
Briseis burst out laughing. Maira’s look of concern deepened.
Briseis put her arm around Maira’s shoulder. “Don’t look so worried. I haven’t gone mad.”
“Why are you laughing at the news of Achilles’ marriage to one of Agamemnon’s daughters?”
“Because it shows how little Agamemnon understands Achilles. For one thing Achilles will never consent to be Agamemnon’s son-in-law, not after all that has passed between them—even if he didn’t love me enough to say no, which he does.”
“He hates the king so much he’d turn down a powerful bond like this?”
“Achilles was born with all the power he will ever want within himself. That’s why Agamemnon hates him. Achilles will never trust an offer like this. It sounds like Agamemnon is trying to absorb him into his influence—limit his innate power.”
“What do you think will happen?”
Briseis scowled. “Now that I think about it, I’m afraid Achilles will mistrust the whole offer and I’ll be stuck here. He never sees the need to negotiate—pull the good from the bad in an offer. It isn’t in his nature. His strength keeps him from seeing the virtue in subtlety.”
“Unfortunately he needs you to advise him,” said Maira.
Briseis nodded. “And I’m not there.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Wrathful Fire
The impenetrable blackness of the sky above and the ominous glow of Trojan watch fires on the horizon pressed in on Briseis as she and Maira sat, waiting for the men to return with Achilles’ answer. A rushing sound filled her head, like the cascade of the waterfall in the ravine near Lyrnessos.
Agamemnon’s men and captives had eaten their dinners and finished the night’s chores. The rest of the women had gone into their huts. Soldiers, somber and exhausted, curled up in their cloaks and slept, leaving it to their leaders to find a way to avoid death. The cold night wind carried with it the only noises: the calling of owls and wolves on the hunt, the settling of the triumphant Trojans.
Finally Briseis saw Odysseus and Aias approach. Maira stood and slipped inside Agamemnon’s shelter, where the Greek kings waited. Briseis’s heart sank when Maira returned almost immediately. In this crisis, the leaders wanted no one overhearing their counsels. The two women sat silently, watching for clues.
Then a short, round figure disengaged itself from the shadows around the stockade gate and Briseis heard a familiar voice speak to the guards by the gate. Briseis rose to meet her visitor.
“How did you make your way through the dark camp?” She hugged her dear nurse. “The men are on edge tonight—you shouldn’t have taken such a risk coming here, but I’m so glad to see you.” Eurome coughed and Briseis looked at her sharply. “Are you sick?”
Eurome waved away her concern. “It’s nothing for you to worry about, just the cool air tickling my throat, that’s all. With my token from Lord Achilles I’m safe around the camp.” She held up the leather patch she wore around her neck. “Almost as important as a herald, I am.” She chuckled. “I’ve brung news. Stop fussing about me. D’you hear that Agamemnon sent men to beg Achilles to save ’em?” Briseis nodded. “I hid on the porch outside the door, so I heard what they said.”
“Tell me.” Briseis’s heart thumped hard in her chest.
Eurome patted her hand and let Briseis lead her toward a seat on a rough log bench by the dying cook fire. “First Lord Odysseus told him what a hard place they was worked into and how much they need him—Achilles could ha’ seen that for hisself, if you asked me. It don’t seem like Lord Achilles trusts Lord Odysseus. When Odysseus got through, Achilles went on about men who say one thing but hide another in their heart.”
Eurome settled down by the fire, reaching her hands out to warm them. “I’m jumping ahead of myself. Where was I?” Briseis resigned herself to a long-winded telling. “Oh, yes, then Lord Odysseus told him all the gifts Agamemnon offered—quite a long list that, but Achilles didn’t like what he said somehow, as I says before.”
Eurome coughed again and gave Briseis’s hand a squeeze to reassure her it was nothing. “To speak true, I didn’t like the sound of it when, for one of them gifts, Agamemnon offered his daughter for a wedding and all kinds of lands and such with her, when I knowed you two love each other well enough.” Briseis gave her a quick smile.
“Come to think of it, maybe that were what got Achilles feeling so contrary, Agamemnon wanting him to be his son-in-law and all. No family love between those two. I can’t really say, but whatever it were, Lord Achilles said no to everything.”
Briseis sighed and shook her head. It was what she’d feared.
Eurome pulled Briseis close against her. “He were still angry at Agamemnon and he would no way fight for him. Said he’d fought so many battles and raids—taking care of the men like a mother bird takes care of her fledglings, that’s how Lord Achilles put it—and that ungrateful king never gave him anything much in return and now he’d insulted him over much.” Eurome coughed harder.
Briseis leaned closer and listened to the old woman’s chest. “I don’t like the sound of that, Eurome. You should stay here where I can take care of you.”
Briseis saw Maira shaking her head. “Agamemnon’s men will herd us up onto the ridge tomorrow as they did today. If Eurome stays with you, she’ll be worse off tomorrow, unable to rest in bed. Agamemnon’s camp is too close to the front of the battle now. She’ll be safer in Achilles’ camp.”
“Give me one of them healing teas of yours and I’ll be fine. Patroklos and Lord Achilles are healers too, you’ll remember. I’m no way going to be herded like some old nanny goat by those louts of Agamemnon’s.”
“I suppose so,” said Briseis. “I’ll give you some licorice tea to take with you.”
“I’ll be glad to have it.” Eurome gave Briseis a hug.
“If you have your breath, can you tell me what happened after Achilles refused the gifts? Odysseus and Aias couldn’t have taken no without trying something more.”
“Oh, my little Poppy.” Eurome shook her head and her hands fluttered up and down in distress. “Then Lord Achilles said the most confusing, mixed-up things. One breath ugly as could be, the next lovely.”
“What do you mean? What did Achilles say?”
“First he called you the ‘bride of my heart’ and how Agamemnon had no right to keep you. That’s a pretty thing to say.” Eurome brushed back a strand of Briseis’s hair, and Briseis smiled. “What he said in the next breath he didn’t mean—it were just his anger at that pig talking, I’m sure of it.”
“Just tell me what he said.”
“After he said Agamemnon keeps his bride, he growled out, ‘Let him lie beside her and be happy.’” Bile rose in Briseis’s throat. “Don’t you go thinking he meant it—more like let him die and be eaten by the dogs, if you listened to the way he said it. Then he pointed out that they’d come to Troy to fetch back Helen, and was Menelaos the only one who loved his wife? He loves you just the same as a queen like Helen, from his heart, as his wife, even though he won you with his spear—those were his words. You ignore anything you hear otherwise.”
Yes, but Menelaos had brought an army to get Helen. Achilles seemed willing to leave her with Agamemnon. “What is he going to do?”
“He went back and forth like a teething baby that don’t know what it wants. First he were going to sail back to his papa in Phthia—” Eurome’s coughing interrupted, “—and then after Phoenix went on for a long time telling old stories that made no sense I could get hold of, Aias reminded Achilles he couldn’t desert the men—you know Lord Achilles is always looking out for his men, or he were until this madness come—so then Achilles says he wouldn’t sail but stay by his ship until Hector got to burning the ships. Don’t seem quite what Aias were wanting, but he isn’t leaving, anyway.”
“So I’m left here, and he’s going to sit out of the fighting, desert the men, until it’s too late—and then he’ll fight?”
Eurome shrugged. “That seems about the way of it. He don’t show much sense sometimes.”
“None at all.” Briseis didn’t know whether she wanted to weep or scream. She remained Agamemnon’s slave. Perhaps worse, Achilles would destroy himself with guilt if he left the men to die. How had Eurome said he’d described himself—a mother bird with her fledglings? Such an odd phrase, but it suited despite the incongruity. And it spoke of the sorrow he would feel when he came back to himself and realized what he had done to the men.
Eurome tried to hold back another coughing fit, but it racked her. Briseis put her hand to Eurome’s forehead and cheeks—her skin felt clammy.
“You’re having chills, aren’t you?”
“It’s nothing, Poppy. I’m a little tired out. The night feels cool now that the fire has died down—that’s all. Give me some of your licorice tea. It’ll mend me up in no time.”
Eurome rose slowly. “I better go. I don’t want to cause no trouble for you here with Agamemnon. We all know how bad that can be. I’ll be in good hands in Achilles’ camp.”
“I’ll give you some willow bark also. Have the women boil both for your tea. You need to rest in bed. Let the other women do your chores.” She studied her old nurse in concern.
“I will, little Poppy. Don’t you worry about me.”
Maira brought her satchel, and Briseis gave Eurome a generous portion of teas. She embraced the old woman.
“Sick as you are, you shouldn’t have come to me, but thank you for bringing me news of Achilles’ decision. I love you. Go carefully back through the camp. Do you want a torch to light your way?”
“No, the moon has risen—that’s light enough, and I can go about unnoticed more easily. I just show my token if anyone growls at me. No one wants trouble with Achilles.”
Briseis hugged her again and Maira wished her well. The old woman slipped away.
“Come stay with me tonight,” said Maira. “I won’t allow you to be locked up again and you saw the way the women reacted. They are cautious about yo
u, but they remember the healing you’ve done among them.”
Before Briseis could answer, the door of Agamemnon’s shelter opened, and the Greek leaders emerged. Their silence expressed the gravity of their situation. Maira pulled Briseis into her hut and closed the door.
A small fire burned low in the hearth. By its light, Briseis saw some of the women lift their heads from their pillows, look at her and then lie back down. Maira made Briseis a place to sleep beside her pallet.
The next morning after a hurried meal, one of Agamemnon’s henchmen herded Briseis and the rest of Agamemnon’s captives onto the ridge above the ships. To her relief the surly man didn’t pay any attention to her. He had more dangerous things to worry about than a captive woman, whatever curses he thought she could command.
She and Maira sat with the other women high on the slope from which they could look out at the Greek ships and defensive wall, with the Trojan army positioned terrifyingly close. The Greek army poured out from the camps scattered among the ships. A formidable force gathered to face the Trojans. Briseis peered down to the end of the camp closest to the Hellespont and furthest from the Trojan threat. While all the rest of the camp bustled with soldiers arming and forming into ranks, she saw no movement among the Myrmidons, Achilles’ men. She couldn’t believe Achilles had come to this.
The two armies clashed on the plain in front of the Greek defensive wall. The captives leaned forward, watching the battle below with an intensity born of their conflicted feelings. Briseis understood what these drawn faces around her meant—the same confusion pulled tight every one of Briseis’s muscles. If the Trojans overran the Greek camp, the captives would likely be killed. Yet they couldn’t wish for a Greek victory over their own people, either.
The two armies held each other at a stalemate for much of the morning; then, inexorably, the Trojans pushed against the Greek palisade. At midday, Hector, Troy’s greatest hero, lifted a massive stone and, with one preternatural blow, brought down the gate guarding the Greek camp. For a confused moment Briseis thought she must be witnessing the fall of her own city again under Achilles’ onslaught. She saw Lyrnessos’s Great Gate in a pile of rubble and a triumphant warrior raising his golden shield. She shook her head to clear away this vision.
Hand of Fire Page 29
