by Jackie Rose
He lay with his eyes closed, barely breathing, so pale that he seemed almost green. Hecamede put her finger against a vein on his throat and pressed for a moment before taking my hand in hers and putting it in the same place.
“Do you feel that?” she demanded. “That tells you the blood is still running through his body. If you can’t feel it, leave the man alone and go on to another.”
I put my finger obediently on the spot, searching carefully for the pulsing blood, little dreaming how I would use that knowledge some day.
Satisfied that I had felt the pulsing that told me the man was alive, I reached for the pitcher that stood on the low three-legged wooden stool between the bed and the tub. She sighed and reached out to stop me.
“Aren’t you going to cut his shirt away?” she prompted. “Hasn’t he enough problems without you pouring his shirt into his flesh?”
As I obediently away tore the remnants of the fabric, I winced as I saw bleeding wound beneath it. It seemed impossible that I could ever wash it clean, but I drew and poured pitcher after pitcher, until I finally reached the tiny pinpricks beneath the great wound.
Stepping back, I looked up at Hecamede for approval.
“Aren’t you going to pat his skin dry?” she prompted again. Taking a cloth from the table, I patted as gently as I could and winced when I heard his moans.
As I hesitated, waiting for her judgment, we heard Machaon shouting, “Hecamede, send a girl here quickly!”
“The new girl will do,” she replied. I knew then, with pride, that I had earned her good opinion.
“Then come here quickly, girl!” he shouted. “I need you now!”
In normal times, no decent man would have talked that way to a farm slave, and I could not imagine Achilles calling to me in that tone. Now, somehow, it was as flattering as Achilles’ praise.
But I almost stopped in my tracks when I saw why he had called me. The man lying beneath him was in convulsions. One of the other women was trying, but failing, to hold onto his chest.
“You hold his legs!” Machaon shouted at me. When the violent trembling proved too much for my hands to control, I threw my body across the wounded man, heedless of the blood spurting over me.
With a look of desperation in his pale eyes, Machaon pounded a dark powder into the wound. It was the sign of his desperation that he did not wait to have his hands washed, even at the risk of offending the gods. Then the trembling stopped, and Machaon’s hand was still. He probed the neck quickly and then turned away. I jumped back, knowing that a dead man lay under me.
As he and his other assistant went off to find the next wounded man, I turned away in search of Hecamede and my next assignment. I was stopped by a voice saying, “I was told to find Briseis.”
The man coming through the door was holding his wounded arm carefully. As I walked towards him, he held it out to me.
“Achilles sent me to you,” he said. “I am his prisoner. He said he had given me a nice little wound for you to practice on.”
“An unusual gift,” I responded. “A pretty pair of earrings would have done just as well.”
To my own shame and surprise, I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. I kept smiling to myself, until the moans and screams became a loud, steady roar. The wounded were pouring in.
“No more gifts, Achilles, please,” I begged him silently, as I raced from one bed to another, not caring that I was pouring half the water over my own gown. Soon it was clinging to my legs, leaving me half chilled, even in that warm room. Some of the men I cared for would be dead soon enough, I realized, but perhaps caring for these was the most important work of all. I did not realize that the day was ending, only that my chilled wet limbs were growing colder and the men’s wounds were getting harder to see.
When Patrocles strode into the hall, mercifully unwounded, I remembered that he and Achilles had studied medicine together.
“Patrocles is here to help us,” I called to Machaon. “He is a physician, too.”
“No, Briseis, I am here to take you home,” he corrected me. “Achilles is entertaining guests and needs you. We have been waiting since sunset, so I could start the meat roasting.”
“But I can’t leave here,” I answered, without stopping to realize that I was defying Achilles yet again. “Can’t Iphis pour the wine for him?”
“Achilles has sent for you,” he repeated firmly.
Helplessly, I looked at Machaon, hoping that he would explain why I could not leave here now. Instead, he informed me that, since Achilles had sent for me, of course I must go.
Chapter Four
Patrocles all but dragged me out to his waiting chariot and threw me inside. I clung desperately to the railing as he sped off towards Achilles’ house. We barely noticed the wounded streaming past us in the other direction, to Machaon’s hall.
As I scurried through Achilles’ doorway, I saw to my dismay that he was glaring from the head of the table with his annoyance all too obvious, even in the dim torchlight. His three guests sat waiting around him, barely concealing their own impatience.
The working-women had set out the pitchers and cups before going back to the ships, leaving only Diomede, the stewardess. As I ran forward to pour the wine, the men gasped at my appearance. One, who sat hidden by shadows, said “a charming sight,” in a tone that could have been either ridicule or regard.
At his words, I looked down to see that my white robes of Apollo were covered with water and blood. Glancing at my reflection in a polished silver pitcher, I saw that I had smeared blood across my face and even into my hair. It was, of course, flying out in all directions, even more wildly than usual.
I flinched as Achilles rose, his hands gripping the table, obviously appalled at the sight. Mercifully, his hands relaxed as he decided to make a joke of it.
“So, friends, this is my lovely girl,” he said. They all laughed nervously. I wondered if I could possibly be right in feeling that Agamemnon, king of kings, was eyeing me as my old husband Mynes had done when he first visited my parents’ house. It was too easy to believe that the great king had such a base nature, remembering the cowardly part that he had played in the fighting.
“Have you been beating her?” asked the man in the shadows, still taking the same light tone. “If so, you may have gone too far.”
The others glanced at Achilles, obviously wondering whether they should laugh at this, and quickly decided against it.
“I sent her to help the physicians care for my wounded men, Odysseus,” Achilles answered, in a tone of reproach. “But now she is here, so we can begin our feast.”
Taking my cue, I reached for the wine pitcher. Instead of leaning forward, the men pulled away. Then I saw my bloody hands grasping the handle and realized why they had done so. Helplessly, I stared at the red-smeared vessel until Iphis mercifully ran forward, bearing a pitcher of water with a towel over her arm. I was already reaching for the towel as she poured the water over my hands, so I accidentally knocked the pitcher from her fingers. Agamemnon jumped up as the water splashed over the leather straps of his sandals. Trying, for once, not to look at Achilles, I resolutely grasped the wine pitcher, filled each cup and said, “Please, gentlemen, drink,” before I fled into the women’s hall.
I would have stayed there, too, half dead with shame, if Iphis had not come to me with a wet cloth to wipe my hands and face. Then she ran to the wooden chest, pulled out a fresh gown, draped it over me and tied the tasseled sash. It was black, but we had no time to wonder whether the color suited me. I was starting back into the main hall when Iphis grasped my wrist.
“You can’t let them see you without the jewels he has given you,” she said.
“I don’t want them to see me at all!” I wailed. “I was supposed to reflect Achilles’ glory, and instead I have disgraced him completely instead. They must all wonder why he ever wanted me.”
“It would take worse than that to disgrace Achilles,” she answered soothingly. “And they won
’t wonder why he wants you, when they see you in your finery.”
She pulled me towards the chair. When she saw me shrink away from the wooden seat, she silently found a cushion to place there. This made it barely possible for me to sit, as long as I kept my hands beneath my thighs, between the chair and my bruised backside. I would, I knew, be sitting on cushions this way for the next two days at least. What’s more, I knew that Iphis knew it, from my gesture, so I no longer had any reason to keep from speaking of the matter.
“He must be angry enough already to punish me again,” I said, “and this time I would deserve it, even if he used a horsewhip.”
“When Achilles is angry, he does not try to hide it. And you could never make him angry while you are trying so hard to please him.”
As she spoke, she reached into the chest again and pulled out a golden cap with dangling earpieces of golden beads. With no time to fight my hair, she pushed the cap on top of it to hide the worst. Three gold chains were quickly draped around my neck. The face paint went on even more rapidly. Seeing that I still shrank back, she added, “It will really disgrace him if you refuse to return.”
When I returned to the hall, I had good reason to thank Aphrodite for Iphis’ skills. Agamemnon said, in all seriousness, “Charming, indeed.” I bowed my head slightly in thanks with a slight smile. It faded when he went on, “Perhaps, Achilles, I should not have let you have her so easily.” Then he smiled, to show he meant it merely as a compliment. Achilles did not smile in return.
Because of things that happened to him much later, Agamemnon is now widely seen as some great and tragic hero. At the time, he seemed to me like a fop, with his black ringlets, short curly beard and even a jeweled earring. None of these adornments did anything to hide his marked resemblance to a goat, with his too-high cheekbones and sharply pointed chin.
“Achilles deserves no less of a gift from us,” said the man beside him, in a tone of mild reproach. “The lovely girl seems happy with him.”
“Are you saying that I do not make the girls happy, Menelaus?” his brother said with a laugh. I realized that, despite all the evidence, Agamemnon thought he was as attractive as Achilles.
In fact, Menelaus was much more attractive than his brother, although he never seemed to know it. He resembled not a goat, but a great shambling bear, with his curly red beard, powerful shoulders and surprisingly mild blue eyes.
If he does not make the girls happy, I thought, they must be very hard to please. Then I remembered the girl he had not kept happy, and I was stunned by the veiled cruelty of his brother’s words.
For the first time, I found myself wondering why Helen had not been happy with him. Perhaps, I thought, he should have thrown her across his lap and strapped her backside even redder than mine had been the first time he saw her looking at his rival too long.
Failing that, I wondered why he had not simply let her go. There must have been plenty of women, much younger and just as beautiful, who would have been happy to take her place. My mind ran through the list on his behalf. Renegade though he was, Prince Moses had a sister named Miriam with a fine dowry of Egyptian loot, along with renowned musical talent and a reputation for the highest morals besides.
As it was, Menelaus was conspicuously without a woman of his own. This was not for any shortage of candidates, I assure you. Working-women were constantly brushing their bosoms against his arms when they bent down to serve him his dinner. Our stewardess Diomede did so that very evening, and I am sure she had chosen a gown so sheer that he could see her nipples through it, just for the occasion. I am just as sure that he often accepted such invitations for a night or two. But having an official companion would have made it harder for him to play his role as the injured husband, whose injuries were great enough to justify the war.
I mentally shook my head as I wished, not for the first time, that the men were as practical as we are. But then, I realized, if they had been, I would never have met Achilles.
Once again, my thoughts were interrupted by the scent of the sheep that Patrocles was roasting in the courtyard.
“Your dinner will be ready soon, my lords,” I assured them.
“About time,” Achilles grumbled.
“But your lovely girl was caring for our wounded,” Menelaus reminded him mildly. “That is a good reason to forgive her.”
“No doubt as clever as she is beautiful,” Odysseus joined in. “I can assure you, gentlemen, that many women are just as clever as we. Are you one of them, girl?”
I squinted to make him out in the shadows. He seemed a simple man, with a heavy, rugged face. Beneath those shaggy brows, though, I thought I saw a cold amusement and a dark intelligence that mocked us all.
As honestly as I could, I answered, “I hope I have learned enough to help your men survive their wounds, my lord.”
He bowed, as if in surrender, with a pleasant smile that prickled my skin as his dark eyes probed into mine.
“The women have their own hard work, just as we do,” said Menelaus, in the same mild tone. “And they must also eat. I see that Iphis had brought our dinner in for us. Shall we let the women finish serving us so they can have their dinners, too?”
Wondering, again, why Helen had left him, I gratefully took my cue and directed Diomede to fill the men’s plates with roast lamb from the platter that Iphis handed me. Yet another plate brought the bread, cheese and grapes that Diomede placed beside the crusted meat. I was glad enough to flee from them when I was finished, carrying my own dinner to the women’s hall.
I was even happier to hear the guests leaving, and I forgot everything else as I returned to Achilles in the central hall. Patrocles was waiting there for Iphis. As tired as she was, she smiled eagerly as he took her wrist to lead her out to the sleeping porch.
As soon as the door had closed behind them, I reached up to help Achilles pull his tunic over his head. He stood straight to let me do it, but then suddenly asked me, “Are you tired of doing this, after doing your hard work all day?”
My fingers stopped on his shoulders. “How could I ever be tired of serving you, my lord?”
“I know you are not,” he assured me, stroking my wild hair. “I know you are trying to care for me by caring for my men. But now you must care for me in a better way.”
As though I had doubted what that way was, he slid both hands around my backside to press me against him. Seeing me wince with pain although I tried to hide it, he raised his hands to my waist instead. We stood there rocking back and forth together as he thrust into me.
* * *
When he spoke of my tardiness again the next morning, I was pleased, I admit, that he had decided to blame the blameless Patrocles. Obviously, Achilles told me, Patrocles should have come to fetch me when Machaon failed to have me escorted home by sunset. I wisely refrained from reminding Achilles that the chief physician had neither men nor women to spare as escorts.
When Patrocles came in from the sleeping porch, Achilles accordingly ordered him to be sure I had left Machaon’s house by sunset or else to come after me. With shame, I noticed Patrocles’ downcast expression as he silently accepted the blame. I felt equally ashamed as Iphis fed us all in total silence, her own dark eyes carefully cast down as she accepted a share of Patrocles’ disgrace.
As Patrocles and I entered Machaon’s hall, I nerved myself to offer an apology. Our chief physician’s voice stopped me from speaking. Coming from the small side room that held the medicines and bandages, he sounded as irritable as ever as he used words that I had never expected to hear from him.
“Do you think I am satisfied with the way we are going now, meeting in the early morning, so I will have time to bend you over the supply table among the powders and bandages, before the day’s first wounded are brought in?” Machaon demanded. “I want you to sleep beside me and walk with me proudly to our work. The army needs me a great deal more than it needs old Nestor. I am worth a thousand fighting men, as Agamemnon has told me often enough. He will
give you to me gladly enough. I deserve no less.”
Hecamede’s voice, as ever, was so calm, I could not imagine even one of her well-combed hairs falling astray. “And does Nestor deserve this humiliation?” she demanded. “And will any man let his women serve with us, if this is his reward?”
Patrocles raised his voice to be sure they heard us as we came through the door. As though he himself had heard nothing amiss, he said to me, “Just be sure to remind Machaon that you must leave by sunset. Achilles will not want to wait for his bath and dinner again.”
“I am sorry I was late last time,” I replied, in the same raised tone. “It was not Machaon’s fault. I should have reminded him that I had to go.”
“I’ll be sure to remind him tonight,” Hecamede responded just as smoothly, as she emerged from the little side room. While she pinned back a stray strand of hair that had fallen over her still-spotless white robes of Apollo, she went on just as calmly, “Now, Briseis, you came here at just the right time to help me light the fires beneath the bathing tubs, since none of the other women are here yet.”
“Then I will leave you to your work,” said Patrocles.
Left alone with her, I felt compelled to witness once more to my goddess, no matter how awkwardly I did it. As I bent to help her, I said, “I prayed to Aphrodite for her gifts, when I never thought I could have them. She found a way to give them to me, and I know she can do the same for you.”
As calmly as ever, not seeming to understand, she answered, “Thank you, but we serve Apollo the Healer here.” But, I thought, even Apollo cannot stop his divine sister from having her way.
My religious musings were interrupted by Machaon’s voice, giving urgent orders to two men who were supporting a third between them. As I moved forward to help them, I saw that the patient was barely breathing and so pale he almost seemed green, with a strange cold sweat coming from him, but without any wound that could have explained the symptoms.
