Warrior's Captive: I, Briseis

by Jackie Rose

  Obviously, our chief physician had seen the same thing. “No, Briseis!” Machaon shouted, holding out his palm to stop me. “This man is sick, not wounded. Whatever it is, you must not carry it home to Achilles. Hecamede, you stay back, too. You, men, take this man to the women’s hall, but first tell the women to leave it and not go back again. They can move back to the ships for now. If any others come here looking like this, take them there, too. You have already been with them, so you stay there and care for them.”

  The next patients were a relief to us in comparison, with a problem we were well used to treating. Some of our men led in two Trojan prisoners, with one, who was wounded, leaning against his comrade. Their captors introduced them with the usual joke, “Fix them up so we can sell them.”

  “That won’t be too difficult,” I answered, mostly for the prisoners’ sake. “Neither one is badly hurt.” The wounded prisoner was, indeed, well enough to stay standing, as I poured water over his torn shoulder. His head was lowered as mine was, so that we did not have to face each other and the shame on both sides.

  “You, Briseis!” at the sound of my name, my patient almost jerked his arm away. I pretended not to hear him as he muttered, “Achilles’ whore!” It was easy enough to pretend to that, because his whisper was almost drowned out by the shouting that came from the doorway. “Briseis, come here!”

  It was neither Machaon’s voice nor Achilles’, so I saw no reason not to finish with my patient. When I was finally able to turn towards that voice, I was glad to have a reason to leave the contempt in the Trojan prisoner’s eyes.

  Then I was racing towards my new patient, because he was King Menelaus himself. The braying voice belonged to his brother, the king of kings, who was supporting him with his shoulder.

  It was a bad wound, I could see, with the bronze arrowhead still buried in his thigh and the blood pouring out around it. Amazingly, though, his brother Agamemnon could still find something else to think of, and his thoughts were as base as ever.

  “You were treating Trojan prisoners along with our own men, even my own royal brother,” Agamemnon accused me. “We have no love for those people, so you must stop doing it.”

  Your men brought in these prisoners so they could earn a ransom for them. I stopped myself just in time from making that sharp answer and remembered instead, what Hecamede had instructed us to say if the need arose.

  “We take our commands from the chief physician,” I answered.

  Agamemnon was so shocked at my reply, for a long moment he could only glare silently. “This slave wench learned her manners from her master,” he muttered finally.

  Menelaus somehow managed a smile. “I wish you would not insult her,” he said, “since we want her to save my life.”

  Trying to ignore both their voices, I concentrated on examining the wound more closely. It was both wide and deep. Just as frightening, Menelaus’ ruddy face was almost green with pallor, all the more notable against his red beard.

  “There’s too much blood for me to wash away,” I decided. “Let’s get him into a tub.”

  I slipped my shoulder beneath Menelaus’ left arm, taking half of his weight on myself, as his brother supported his right side in the same way.

  “I am very heavy for you,” Menelaus whispered through clenched teeth, his blue eyes closed in pain.

  “I am used to this work, my lord Menelaus,” I assured him.

  He leaned more heavily on me as he tried to climb into the tub. I stopped him long enough to pull his blood-soaked shirt away, as gently as I could do it, as he moaned through his clenched teeth.

  “What do you think you are doing, girl?” a familiar voice roared form the door. I turned quickly towards it.

  “My lord Achilles, I am bathing the blood out of my lord Menelaus’ wound, so my lord Machaon can pull the arrow out,” I answered.

  “I am aware of that!” he shouted. I flinched, as did the other women, when he slapped his thighs in anger. “I see that he is naked, too.”

  “I must be sure that the fabric will not stick in the wound while I bathe him,” I explained, wondering why Achilles, himself a trained physician, did not know that.

  “You will do no such thing!” he shouted. “You will stop your work right now!”

  Seeing that the other women were too busy to take my place, he looked around helplessly for a moment, seeking someone else to take my place. Then he found the usual solution and gave the inevitable command.

  “Patrocles!” he shouted. “You take care of it.”

  Having, as always, followed him, his cousin sprang silently to the wounded king’s side. Achilles grasped my wrist and pulled me outside.

  “But the sun is still shining,” I objected. “I am not supposed to be home yet.”

  “You are not supposed to be hugging naked men, either,” he answered shortly. “That’s the last time you’ll come here.”

  “But the physicians need me,” I protested. “You said I could learn to help them.”

  “I never said you could take other men’s shirts off,” he said, as he half-lifted, half-threw me into his chariot. The sudden, violent gesture startled the well-trained horses so badly that I had to grasp the sides of the chariot to keep from being thrown to its floor.

  “I was trying to care for your friends!” I exclaimed indignantly. Then I flinched away from him, fearing that I had earned myself another beating by answering him that way.

  “I know that,” he answered more gently, obviously seeing my fear. “I came to do the same. I had heard that King Menelaus was wounded, and I came as a physician to help him. But I see that you were helping him well enough without me.”

  If I had only stayed silent, he might have gotten over his rage. I could not help trying to defend myself, as I had never done with the husband whose rages had meant nothing to me.

  “Nestor lets his Hecamede do the same,” I reminded him. “You said he is a wise man.”

  “Nestor is an old fool, trying to please a young sweetheart,” he answered. “He may regret it yet.” I opened my mouth to defend her, but remembered what I had overheard her and Machaon saying to each other.

  “But you said I could go to help Machaon,” I insisted. As soon as I had spoken, I knew, with a sinking heart, what his answer would be.

  “And now I say you cannot,” he declared, grasping my arm. “It’s no use crying about it, either, this time. You must swear not to go there again. If you refuse to obey me as you did before, I will chain you up all day.”

  For the first time, I shrank back from his grasp, remembering those other men who had locked me up and left me to burn. He dropped my arm, almost in shame, and his voice grew milder.

  “If you will stop being so eternally stubborn and do as I tell you for once, you can come and watch me fight all day,” he promised. “You like that, don’t you? And I will not even ask you to pray.”

  I tried to smile again.

  “As you say, my lord,” I agreed. “I swear by Aphrodite that I will not go to Machaon’s house again.”

  “Or anyone else’s house, unless I give permission,” he added sternly. “I won’t have you going off to help one of the other physicians, then saying you kept your word by not going to Machaon.”

  “Or anyone else’s house,” I assured him. And them, anticipating what his next provision would be, I added, “and I will not help the physicians outside their houses, either.”

  * * *

  So I went back to climbing the platform every morning, with Patrocles’ help, to watch Achilles fighting. Within two weeks, I was so accustomed to it, I could use my hands to shield my eyes as Chryseis did, rather than grasping the railing while squinting against the sun.

  He no longer climbed up to ask me to pray. It would have been hard for me to pray to anyone but Apollo now, in any case, because I could not help thinking of how much work Achilles was making for the healing god’s servants in Machaon’s hall. I wondered if Achilles, who had been trained as a physician, eve
r thought the same.

  But Achilles had not been wrong in saying I enjoyed watching him fight. I had forgotten, while assisting Machaon, how beautiful Achilles was in battle, how surely he moved and struck. His surgeon’s hands were trained, as I now knew, to find the fatal veins unerringly, thus aiding his natural power and grace.

  On my first evening after watching him, I could not wait to let the women bathe me. Having sent the others to the women’s hall, I greeted him alone at the door. There, I made him stagger backwards with the violence of my own assault.

  He laughed and lifted me lightly into the air, freeing me to wrap my legs around his waist. My fingers traced his face beneath his red-plumed helmet, and his cheeks were hot and damp. He smelled of leather, metal and sweat, mingling with the fine, delicate fragrance that Iphis had given me. My skirt fell like a pale-blue cloud around us, and he impatiently brushed it away.

  As that great spear filled me with thrust after thrust, I learned again how huge, how hard, how magnificent he was. I grasped his long red-gold hair, pulled his head back and thrust my tongue between his lips, like a tiny spear of my own. His own thrusting became even harder and faster in response.

  The next evening he told me, in a note of triumph, that I must now thank him for having taken me from Machaon’s house. That illness I had seen was spreading. The physician would soon have sent me away in any case, to keep me from carrying it back to Achilles himself.

  When I saw that Chryseis looked worried, I assumed that she, too, had heard about the plague. I noticed that change in her expression at once, as we stood on the platform together. It was so far from her usual look of cheerful mockery. Her full lips were pressed together, with no smile this time. For once, she stood motionless, with her arms crossed before her, as though she were chilled more deeply than the brightest sun could touch. It was so unlike her that I could not help asking what the matter was.

  “My father,” she answered shortly, without turning away from Agamemnon. She watched him with a new intensity now, as though fearing she might not be able to do it much longer. For the first time, it struck me that she might love him as I loved Achilles.

  “What about him?” I asked, knowing how much trouble fathers could make.

  “A man wants to marry me,” she answered. “He has offered a good bride price.”

  “But…” I let my voice trail off, sure that she knew the objection. She shook her head ruefully in response.

  “He says he’ll forgive me, since I was a helpless captive, if my father gives him my hand.”

  “An old man?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t ask,” she said. “I believe he is another priest, who wants to rise high in the priesthood, with my father to help him.”

  “Did you tell him you would rather stay with Agamemnon?” Not that my father would have asked about my wishes in such a matter, but I hoped against hope that Chryseis had better fortune with hers.

  Again, she shrugged impatiently. “I haven’t even spoken to him. Agamemnon sent me to the women’s hall when he came.” For a moment, she smiled proudly, without mockery, as she added, “I heard what they said, though. Agamemnon refused to send me away.”

  Both her voice and her smile grew soft as she added, “He told me he would keep me with him right along with his wife, coming to my bed until we grew old together.”

  In that moment I was almost envious, wondering if Achilles would say the same about me.

  “Then what are you worrying about?” I asked. “The priests of Apollo will not fight the army.”

  “My father told Agamemnon that Apollo himself would fight for him,” she answered. I heard the growing fear in her voice. “He said that his god had sent the plague, and he would pray to make it fatal to us all.”

  Despite myself, I shuddered. What sort of priest would pray for illness? And worse, what if Apollo heard him? If he was the god of doctors and healing, could he not send sickness as well?

  The same question must have occurred to Agamemnon. As Chryseis told me later, he went to the chief physician for advice. Machaon assured him that plagues, like wounds, had a human cause and that Apollo used his power only to cure the sick. Chryseis’ father, he added disapprovingly, was obviously no physician and not much of a priest, either, based on that blasphemous prayer.

  Still, Chryseis sounded worried as she repeated that conversation to me. Agamemnon seemed convinced by Machaon’s reasoning, but she knew her lord well enough to read his doubts on his suddenly distant face.

  * * *

  When the plague continued, as plagues will, Machaon went on assuring the king that all such diseases were often seen in war, with the men living so close together. The true cure was to keep the healthy men away from the sick ones. But the very fact that Agamemnon sent for his chief physician so often to hear his reassurances, showed that he had his doubts

  Chryseis’ face reflected those doubts, as she grew increasingly silent. One morning she burst out suddenly, through gritted teeth, “If they take me away from him, I will find a way back, I swear it.” I told her I was sure she would.

  But her fears aroused my own. Having dreamed of a war god when I lived with an old man, now the old man lived in my dreams. He was coming to take me away with him, to listen again to his harsh voice complaining about my hair, my weaving, my embraces, my childlessness. I prayed to Aphrodite that she would keep those dreams from coming true, from letting my husband or father or anyone else come to drag me from the warm sunlight, back to an eternal winter’s chill. I had thought myself safe with my lord, but Chryseis had thought the same.

  On a morning that was too cold for even the leopard cloaks to warm me, I was pleased when Achilles told me that there would be no battle. Such days had always been given over to long hours of lying together. Today he did not seem pleased by the prospect. I soon learned why when he told me that he was going to meet with all the kings. From his grim expression as he threw a leopard skin over his shoulders, I knew that the meeting would be no happy one.

  The shouting reached us all the way from Agamemnon’s house. We women ran out to the courtyard, straining in vain to hear what they were shouting about. Sly Diomede offered to sneak off there to try to find out. Sneaking is what she is best at, I thought, as I agreed to send her.

  By the time she returned, the sun was down, and a cold rain had forced us back inside the shelter. Iphis lit a fire in the stone hearth and we gathered around it, despite the smoke. As she approached the fireplace, Diomede was trying to hide a happy smile, which should have been warning enough.

  Iphis also knew her well enough to realize that her smile boded no good. “What are you grinning about?” Iphis shouted into that sharp little fox face.

  Diomede normally jumped to obey her. This time, she only smiled more broadly and said, “You would never believe me.”

  “Tell me, girl!” Iphis shouted, shaking her arm. Diomede pulled it away indignantly as Patrocles strode into the room.

  “Ask your lord, Iphis,” Diomede told her, tilting her head in his direction. “You’ll believe him when he tells you.”

  Iphis and I both opened our mouths at the same time to do so. We fell silent as he approached me and silently pulled me into his arms.

  “Achilles is dead,” I wept, too terrified to realize that that news would not have made Diomede smile. “Agamemnon had his men kill him!”

  Without releasing me, he shook his red-gold mane of hair that was so much like his cousin’s.

  “Achilles is as well as ever,” he assured me. “But you must go and stay with Agamemnon now.”

  For a moment, his words had no meaning. Then I felt as though the earth were falling away under my feet. I tried to pull away from him, but it was like pulling against iron bands.

  “If my lord Achilles does not want me any more, why does he not tell me so himself?” I wailed.

  “He loves you as much as ever,” Patrocles assured me, stroking my hair in comfort. “But Agamemnon is saying that he gave you to A
chilles and has the right to take you back.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” I cried. “Chryseis loves him.”

  “Achilles told him to give Chryseis back to her father, for the good of all. Agamemnon finally said he would do it, but you had to take her place.”

  “And Achilles agreed?”

  “Achilles jumped on him and almost broke his neck, but Odysseus came between them and persuaded Achilles to give Agamemnon his way. He promised that the king of kings would send you back, unharmed, soon enough.”

  “Achilles should have killed Odysseus, the liar,” I whispered.

  Patrocles managed a thin smile. “I promise you that he spoke truly this time. It will only be for a little while. The king of kings will learn that he can’t do without Achilles and his men soon enough. But you must come with me now. Agamemnon has sent his messengers. They are waiting on the porch for you.”

  “Why doesn’t Achilles take me to them himself?” I demanded, pulling my head back to stare at him. “It’s always Patrocles, take care of this, or Patrocles, do that. Can’t he do his own dirty work for himself?”

  He was silent, leaving me sorry that I had attacked him, when I knew he was not to blame. For once, though, I was in no mood to ask for any Argive soldier’s pardon. Just as silently, I let Patrocles throw my fur cloak over my shoulders and lead me by the wrist into the cold rain.

  Achilles stood in the courtyard with his arms folded and a cold anger that was more frightening that his fiercest rage. I ran towards him, crying out his name, and the sudden motion broke Patrocles’ grasp. I stopped short when Achilles turned away and refused to turn his head again to look at me.

  Agamemnon’s men approached me, their head bowed in well-earned shame. Silently, I waited as they took their places at either side of me, to keep me from escaping. The man to my right grasped my wrist and would not let me pull it away. An hour earlier, no man but Achilles would have dared do that to me. So this, I thought, this is slavery. This helplessness and humiliation, where Achilles had always made me feel strong and proud.