Hand of Fire

by Judith Starkston

  “I have heard you are a seer. We can spare a small amount if you believe that is Lord Patroklos’s wish.”

  They carried a pile up the slope to a flat area by the spring and laid it out as she requested. She had chosen the spot with care—the best place to overhear gossip since so many women gathered there. When the wood had been laid, Briseis returned to the hut in which they had laid out Eurome. She took a small linen sack from her healing satchel and started up the hill in front of the other women of Achilles’ camp who carried Eurome’s litter for her.

  She climbed up on the pile of wood and kissed Eurome’s wrinkled cheek. Then she opened the linen sack and sprinkled dried lavender over her body. “May Antiope’s favorite scent sweeten your funeral pyre so that the spirits of my mother and brothers will draw near and guide you into the land of the dead in their dear company. Since I have lost you, the best wish I can have for you is that you may always be with those who loved you.”

  When she had climbed down, one of the women handed her a brand and she walked around the pyre lighting it in several places. A light breeze off the sea lifted the flames. She sat next to the spring and wept throughout the day as the fire did its necessary work. She wanted to be anywhere where the smell of a pyre would never reach her again.

  Occasionally she looked out at the building of Patroklos’s pyre, gigantic to consume so many dead. When the men laid Patroklos at the center of it and she knew they would soon begin the sacrifices—animal and human—she did not look again. Patroklos had given her good advice. She would not witness the violence of Achilles’ grief.

  When the smoke and heat from the flames made her thirsty, she knelt by the spring and drank deeply of the clean water. A sweet memory came to her of drawing water from the spring in the orchard on her father’s estate. How she longed for that life again, part of a loving family there on the slopes of Mount Ida. She wept for Eurome, so central to that family and the one who had been at her side through every struggle in life.

  Now she needed to eat. She could imagine Eurome’s voice, “Keep up your strength, my Poppy. Eating’s important for growing a baby. You know that better’n me. Feed that little one.” She yearned for Eurome’s chatter.

  Patroklos’s pyre burned most of the night, its light flickering against the dark sky. She shuddered at the thought of the sacrifices that had been laid upon that pyre. She hadn’t watched, but her mind conjured up more than she wanted. Surely Patroklos would not want twelve youths killed upon his pyre, and yet, on that last day he had killed far more than twelve Trojans as he drove them back to the city walls. He had said to let Achilles grieve as he must. He had also said to seek him out, but Achilles and his men stayed on the shore. Achilles could not yet leave his friend’s side.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Life or Death

  The next day Maira slipped into Achilles’ camp. Briseis and she embraced. She had left Agamemnon’s camp as soon as she could—when she’d said where she was going, the guards were fearful of angering Achilles by preventing her, so she’d had no trouble. They shared a meal in honor of Eurome and talked about the dear old woman together.

  Maira described how quickly Eurome had brought order among the servants who worked in the women’s quarters of the palace.

  “She’d share some bit of gossip with a serving woman,” said Maira, “and slip in that she needed the servant to do this or that. Everyone liked her too much to refuse. Was she like that as a nurse when you were a child?”

  Briseis shook her head with a smile. “No. She was quite happy to boss me around. I was always trying to outsmart her, but I adored her.”

  Briseis told some stories about Eurome and the household of her childhood.

  “I wonder if I will ever again live in a place that feels as much a part of me as my father’s estate and the woods of Mount Ida. It is as if I were born from them as much as from my mother.”

  Briseis looked at her friend. “Maira, where did you grow up? I don’t know anything about your life before the palace.”

  “I came from the island of Cyprus, far down the coast from here, but I was taken captive when young, and I remember only a little of what it was like there. Pirates made a surprise attack on our town during the night. My father tried to organize the defense of his citadel, but the pirates killed my parents. After that, wherever my sister was, felt like home to me.”

  “Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “We served together on the estate of the lord who bought us from the pirates until Lord Mynes attended a feast there and forced my sale to the palace.”

  “Do you know where your sister is now?”

  “I hope safe on the estate. I never saw her after Mynes bought me, but sometimes word would come from her through the palace shepherds. I have asked for her throughout the Greek camp. She isn’t here. So either the Greeks did not find the estate she worked on or—” Briseis understood.

  “Your father’s citadel? You were a princess?”

  Maira nodded but pointed out that she hardly remembered her life as a princess. She had only the briefest memories of either her father or her mother. It was her sister that she loved and wondered about.

  “I should return to Agamemnon’s camp now,” Maira said. They stood and embraced. “Keep the happy memories of Eurome foremost in your mind.”

  Achilles and his men built a massive barrow to honor Patroklos and contain his ashes. Achilles remained beside it day and night. When Achilles’ friends encouraged him to return to his shelter, he turned away, and to the horror of all he continued to drag Hector’s body around Patroklos’s barrow. Some god kept the body whole, but Achilles’ rage still burned too strongly for him to contain it without this revenge.

  Briseis rejoined the women in Achilles’ camp, but each day felt like a wrenching of her heart in Eurome’s absence. Both Eurome and Patroklos had told her to seek out Achilles, but she did not know how, nor did she want to. A maddened god, he did not look or sound like the man she loved. She slept in the bed in Achilles’ shelter—if she returned to her old place in the women’s hut, it would be an open rejection of Achilles’ love, something difficult to undo when they were already so disconnected. So she slept alone in his shelter each night, but she ate with the women outside by the kitchen fire, and she tended to the tasks she had before Agamemnon had taken her away.

  Briseis kept her own watch when she could of Achilles’ vigil at Patroklos’s barrow. At least the spring weather held mild and fair. The elements offered Achilles that kindness in his grief. She waited for a sign that he reached for her. After all the hurt, she needed him to show he loved her. His men seemed to understand her distance and left her alone. She listened as Achilles’ men urged him to eat or partake of other normal activities of life. They waited cautiously for moments when Achilles’ inner rage damped down temporarily. At those times he acted distant but not rude. Most of the time it seemed as if he did not remember what these human needs were or why his men cared about them. He looked puzzled by their kindness. Briseis saw that his immortal grief did not leave room for these weaknesses.

  When she realized that he was incapable of seeking her, she ignored her pain and approached him as he paced along the beach. Achilles was even less able to hold still than he had been in the past. His henchmen feared him these days, so she came near slowly, watching for his mood. He did not slow his frantic walking, but she braced herself and fell in step beside him.

  When she spoke his name, he looked at her with an anguished expression. She placed her hand on his arm and told him how deeply she grieved for Patroklos’s loss, but he shook his head and answered with a strange question.

  “Why do we warriors think that we must seek the battlefield—do we die any less finally because we have overcome great foes while we fought all day long, splattered in blood and weary at heart?”

  She knew this war made him sick at heart, and the drive for glory on the battlefield had never made sense to her; but how strange this
question sounded from him—the greatest of the warriors, who had plunged back into the battle to avenge his friend, whose honor had seemed more important to him than his love for her.

  Before she could think of any reply to his odd question, he went on. “In the span of generations, each man lives only a short time, whether he reaches old age or not. What does life mean if we do not stand by those near to our hearts? Who are we if we leave our companions to be slaughtered, undefended?”

  She had hoped for comfort, an understanding between them after so many hurts, but instead he spoke in spasms. Now these two questions that had bothered him before were inextricably weighted with the guilt of Patroklos’s death. Had he not refused to fight for Agamemnon, he would have been at Patroklos’s side at the critical moment. His words sounded like prophecies, she thought—cryptic and profound and illusive. Like oracles, what he said at one moment contradicted what he said next.

  “Welcome death. It is the only escape from agony,” he cried as his gaze swept across the white-capped sea.

  She wanted to scream No! at him, to tell him there would be a child, another reason to live, among so many others, but she could not speak with him of something as tender as a baby while he continued to drag Hector’s corpse, while his grief trapped him in such madness that he would not eat, could not even hold a conversation. It might have been possible to speak of it if he would look at her—see her and know her as he once had. But he didn’t. Perhaps it was kinder not to hinder his headlong rush toward death—the fate the gods had pronounced for him would drive him along whether he wanted to go or not. She told him how much she missed his company and asked if he would join her at his shelter. He looked puzzled and said nothing. She left him still pacing on the beach.

  She tried again another day. This time Achilles seemed no less disoriented except that he greeted her by name and he seemed to want her company. She walked beside him, saying little, letting time and nearness do what they could.

  He still spoke of his fate, how near death was—a state he welcomed now that he had failed Patroklos. He granted no room for her in this, no handhold to draw him back to life. She understood that even the news of a child would not be enough to bring him back unless the rage of his grief-driven fire lessened—and his daily desecrations of Hector proved it had not.

  He often brought up another subject—her going to Phthia and how old Phoenix would take her there when finally Troy had fallen and the Myrmidons returned in their ships over the sea. He assumed this was her dearest wish because it was his. She knew he intended this plan as a way to care for her when he had died. It was the one way in which he now showed concern for her, and she valued it as such—and besides, she saw no other place she could go besides this strange, far away place that found no answering call in her heart. Yet the more he spoke of Phthia, the colder and more desperate she felt. Once he had seen things through her eyes—he would have recognized her doubts—but now he did not see her in any meaningful way.

  Achilles assumed everyone would comply with his wishes once he had died, but she feared everything would change without his powerful presence. He had always treated her as if she were not a captive, but the other Greeks did not hold her in high esteem. She did not believe she would be Peleus’s daughter as Achilles thought, but rather a foreign captive in an unfamiliar land.

  He described his father’s palace and the beauty of the horse fields around it. He told her she would be a comfort to his father. It was hard then not to tell him about the baby, a grandchild for Peleus, but she kept silent. He had hurt her almost beyond repair. Watching him blazing on the battlefield in pursuit of Hector, she had felt he was already lost to her. Perhaps if he turned toward their love when she told him about the baby, she would believe he loved her again, but if even that did not bring back the man she loved, it would be the last blow. Like a tree the woodsmen bring down with one final stroke, her love would suffer that deadly crash. She had to wait until his madness had passed, if death gave him that much time.

  On the twelfth day after Achilles had killed Hector, Briseis rose from her solitary bed in Achilles’ shelter. He remained by Patroklos’s barrow. As soon as she stepped out of the hut, she felt drawn to the shore and that puzzled her. She stayed away from the beach in the early morning because, after each tormented night, Achilles raged against Hector’s corpse, but this morning the sound of the sea called to her and she obeyed.

  Where the waves ordinarily rolled upon the beach, the sea had drawn back to form a dry path. Briseis felt a wash of coldness go through her. Achilles stood enveloped in a golden glow. She could faintly see a slender woman in shining garments wiping away his tears with her hand. Thetis had returned. Briseis wondered why she could see the goddess this time and what purpose had brought her here. She glanced around. Few people had awakened this early, and they showed no signs of noticing this divine visitation.

  After a moment Thetis spoke.

  “My son, I have come from Zeus to tell you he and the other gods are angry that you have not allowed Hector’s body to be redeemed. Apollo has kept all harm and decay from the corpse, but this desecration must stop. If you were any other goddess’s child, the gods would have stolen Hector’s body away, so great is their outrage, but they fear my wrath if they dishonor you. Accept Priam’s ransom for his son’s body.”

  Achilles inclined his head. “If it is Zeus’s command, I cannot refuse. Let Priam come with ransom, and I will relinquish Hector’s body.”

  “In this you act wisely.” Thetis cupped his cheek softly. “But it is not good to go on sorrowing as you are, my son, refusing food and rest. Your life will be short—I do not want to think of it—even in your grief you should savor what pleasures you can in the brief span allotted to you. Why not lie with a woman in love?” Briseis felt Thetis’s eyes on her. The coldness inside spread.

  The goddess’s form began to fade from her sight and she no longer heard her voice, although the strange glow and the parted waters remained for some time. Gradually the sea returned to its accustomed place. Achilles remained in the water, allowing it to rise to his waist before he dove and swam out to the middle of the bay. Perhaps he sought his mother, or more likely, having agreed to give back Hector’s corpse, he needed to cool his fury. Finally he turned and swam back to shore. He pulled off his soaked tunic and stretched out on the beach. The sun glistened on his wet skin.

  She felt dizzy looking at his naked beauty. She approached, sat beside him and gently caressed his chest. He turned in surprise. He held her hand and, bringing it to his lips, kissed it. Then he put it in her lap. She read the sadness in his eyes. This hint of connection wasn’t enough. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms tightly around them.

  That evening, mindful that the goddess had brought her to the sea to overhear, Briseis went to Achilles’ shelter at dinnertime to see if she could encourage him to eat. At least he sat in a chair by his hearth instead of raging on the shore. Two of his henchmen roasted meat on spits. Briseis laid out a basket of bread and poured wine into Achilles’ cup—the one upon which an image of Thetis rose from the sea. Achilles had suggested in jest that his mother kept her eye on him from that cup. If so, she would be disappointed at how little her son ate. He politely took the food from his men, but almost none of it passed his lips.

  Briseis wondered how the ransom would be arranged. Even if Achilles initiated it, who would dare to come into the Greek camp and face him?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A Father’s Kiss

  Briseis left Achilles’ hut and went outside, tired of watching him refuse to eat. The air was oddly still, and she climbed up onto one of the ships near the shore to catch the breeze. Looking across the Trojan plain as dusk fell, she saw a wagon and chariot approaching Scamander’s ford, each holding only one man, although the wagon brimmed with goods. The men who climbed down from the vehicles moved with the care and slowness of the elderly as they let the mules and horses drink from the stream.

  From the s
hadows of the trees along the riverbank, a lanky young man approached them. Briseis observed him intently. Despite the growing darkness, the air around him seemed light, and when he grasped the hand of the old man who had stepped from the chariot, the light stretched out to include the whole group. The god disguised as a young man—for surely, thought Briseis, he must be a god—sprang into the chariot and helped the old man in beside him. The other took his place driving the wagon, and they came toward the Greek camp.

  She saw no movement by the ramparts—the guards did not seem to be on duty. She climbed down from the ship and waited in the shadow of Achilles’ shelter. An unnatural silence had fallen on the camp. None of the usual noises of men and horses filtered to her. Zeus had sent some kindly god to bring King Priam, Hector’s father, safely to Achilles’ door. How else could two old men come through the enemy camp?

  They arrived in Achilles’ courtyard. The aged servant stayed with the chariot horses and wagon, which was piled high with treasure for the ransom. Priam walked heavily toward Achilles’ shelter. When she glanced back at the wagon, the young man had disappeared.

  She had never seen a man more weighed down with grief than Priam, a heavy load different from Achilles’ fiery sorrow. Every line of his aged face, every movement spoke of a shattered heart. He paused in the doorway as if to collect himself and regain some measure of the regal and commanding presence he was known for. When he had stepped through the door, she slipped into the room unnoticed.

  Priam knelt before Achilles and took his hand—the one which had killed so many of his sons, and Hector, his most beloved son, protector of Troy. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. Achilles leaned toward him and touched his gray head. The symmetry of their grief was so painful that she had to look away.