by Jackie Rose
Grateful, at last, for the rain that kept them from seeing my tears, I walked between them with my head held high to the courtyard gate, where Achilles men were stationed. They hesitated until, still without turning towards me, he gestured for them to raise the bar.
Chapter Five
When the soldiers opened the door to Agamemnon’s house, I saw that every sign of Chryseis was gone. If she had not taken her weaving with her, it must have been put away. I wondered if she had been able to take his gifts of jewelry. I saw none of hers that I recognized in the piles of gold and gems overflowing the treasure chests on the floor.
Agamemnon, as always, wore his own jewels around his neck and in his earlobes, above his freshly curled and perfumed beard. He was dressed like a suitor, I realized with revulsion, trying to impress his promised bride. And, yes, I had been right about him, at our first meeting. He sat back at his table leering at me as my old husband had done.
Still, I saw that he was trying to play the courteous host, as he gestured me towards an elaborately carved wooden chair across the table from him. The table was spread with the finest black-and-orange pottery in yet another attempt to impress me.
“Welcome, Hippodamia Briseis,” he said cheerfully. “Did you know that Hippodamia was my mother’s name? It’s a sign that we will get along very well. But for now, you must be as hungry as I am,” he said. His friendly voice held an unmistakable second meaning.
Turning his head, he cried, “My guest is here, and now we can dine.” At once, two women appeared carrying trays of roast meat, bread and honey cake, with pitchers of wine. One of them took my leopard cloak, leaving me grateful to be so near the fire on this cold night. I did my best to eat my portion, so he would not see my fear.
“You heard me call you my guest,” he said, in his friendliest tone. “That is just how I see you. Others may call you my captive, but I always become my captive’s captive, you may be sure. No doubt Chryseis told you so.”
“She said she would find some way to get back to you.”
“I only wish it could be true,” he said with a sigh as he crunched a crust of bread between his teeth. “She was as generous as she was beautiful, especially with her mouth. Did you see that big wide mouth of hers? She knew how to use it.”
“She was certainly very witty,” I answered carefully.
His eyes narrowed, burning straight into mine. His voice grew harder as he went on, “I mean that her mouth was generous in a different way. Do you understand me, girl?”
“No, sir, and I do not wish to,” I answered in a tone as hard as his own, meeting his gaze head-on.
“I would rather you called me your lord,” he said, managing a smile. My silence enraged him more than any words of refusal would have done.
Like a striking snake, his hand reached across the table and seized my wrist.
“Honor would be satisfied for both of us that way,” he said. “I would have had you, just as I said I would, but not in the natural way, which is probably the only one that Achilles cares for.”
Seeing my stunned gaze, he shook his head with a great show of sympathy.
“No doubt you wish you could get back to him, as I wish I could have my Chryseis back again. But things are as they are, and we must take what the gods send us, gratefully. You don’t imagine, do you, that Achilles will not replace you?”
I thought of Diomede, and I wondered how often the stewardess would accidentally brush her bosom against Achilles’ upper arm, as she had brushed it against Menelaus’ arm so often.
“Aphrodite gave me to Achilles, and she may do the same for Diomede,” I told Agamemnon firmly and shrank back before the anger that blazed in his black eyes. “I am sorry that I cannot serve you in the way you mean.”
“But you would serve Achilles in that way, if he wished it.”
“I would serve Achilles in any way.”
“I gave you to Achilles, and I have taken you back again,” he told me. “But you will have nothing to be sorry for, unless you choose to defy me as you defied him.”
I shrank back even further at that open threat. He jumped to his feet, knocking a platter of meat to the floor. Ignoring the mess before him, he seized my wrists and pulled me to my feet. Knowing it was hopeless, I could not stop myself from trying to pull my wrists away.
“You told Chryseis how it was his spear that won you,” he went on, leaving me to curse the way I had confided in her.” But I assure you, my spear is as fine as his, and I use it as skillfully. I’ll teach you to use that tight little mouth of yours skillfully, too. You might come to enjoy it as much as she did.”
I fought to pull my head away as his lips pressed onto mine, his coarse beard scraping my face. His hand was on my head, holding it steady against his. Held so close to him, I knew that his perfume was mixed with the smell of raw wine. He must have taken a great deal of it, to nerve himself to take Achilles’ woman.
Relentlessly, he forced my head downwards, towards his lower parts. I pulled away, clawing desperately at his bare hands.
“You will take my spear in your mouth,” he ordered, in a low voice that was like an animal’s growl. “You will close your mouth tight around it and suck as hard as you can until I finish inside your mouth. Then you will swallow what I shoot there.”
He pushed me to the ground and fell to his knees beside me, I clawed at his face with my nails seeking his eyes, as he pressed my head ever closer to the place between his legs.
Then I saw my weapon. Grasping the opportunity, I went limp and helpless for a moment. He closed his narrow eyes as he raised his tunic, and my lips moved up his legs, to the base of his spear, my head bowed in seeming surrender At the same time, my fingers reached up to stroke his face, and his entire body relaxed beneath their feather touch. It caressed his chin and his cheeks until they reached his earlobes. When they did, I seized the gold ring and pulled it from his ear.
Howling, he reached for the injured spot, then stared disbelieving at his bloody hand. The world exploded, as he seized my hair and banged my head against the floor. Then he slapped me with one hand and then the other, over and over again.
But even as I suffered, I knew Achilles was still protecting me. This king of kings did not dare to close his fist, afraid to leave marks of his brutality that Achilles might see on me. Instead, he reached up to the table, pulled down his meat knife and held it against my throat. He was thus determined to enforce my submission.
I could not believe my good fortune when I saw his brother Menelaus limping into the room as fast as his wound would allow. My relief was so great I did not realize that he must have been waiting there in case he was needed for just such a crisis as this. I felt him pulling his brother, the king of kings, off of me.
“What are you doing?” Menelaus cried. I saw, again, the kindness in those pale blue eyes. “Have you forgotten why we fight this war, because Prince Paris stole Helen from me? Would you take another man’s woman the same way?”
“I’ll kill this Trojan bitch instead!” his brother shouted.
“Is that the way you will thank her for saving my life when I was wounded, and she brought Achilles’ anger down on herself by helping me?”
Agamemnon hesitated, long enough to let Menelaus pull me from the floor.
“Now off you go to the women’s hall,” Menelaus told me, pointing to the side door. “Agamemnon will not send for you again.”
* * *
But I found little comfort there. Instead, the other women stared silently at me while one of them, who seemed to be their leader, led me to my bed. This was not the carved wooden couch I had shared with Achilles, beneath the soft purple blanket, but a straw pallet with a thin homespun cover. It stood in a row of five such beds crowded together and facing five more.
“You’ll earn your keep here,” she promised me, in a brazen shout that, as I soon learned, was her normal tone of voice. “And you needn’t think you can put yourself above us, because you are the famous Briseis. I hea
r that your given name is Hippodamia, and that is what we will call you. Hippodamia: horse woman.” She emitted a coarse, mirthless burst of laughter.
If anyone was a horsewoman it was obviously my tormenter, and she seemed to be daring me to say so. Her coarse red-brown hair flew around like a horse’s chestnut mane, even more wildly than mine did, and her face was as long as any old mare’s. Her voice was even less attractive, sounding more like a donkey’s bray than the whinny of a noble steed.
I dared say nothing, though. Instead, I looked around at her minions, hoping that one of them would defend me. They stayed silent: as I thought, in fear of her. But I soon realized that they disliked me for reasons of their own. When they thought I was asleep, I heard them whispering about it.
“No wonder they are fighting over her,” our leader told her companions. “I served Helen, and I tell you that this Briseis is almost as beautiful. Or if not that, then she looks sweet, soft and helpless, which the men like even more.”
“She looks a lot sweeter than she is, Alcestis, I’ll tell you that much,” another woman replied. “She’ll make as much trouble as Helen ever did.”
Alcestis agreed, in her braying voice, “Helen may have started this war, but this Hippodamia Briseis could lose it for us.”
The next morning they would barely even speak to me, but I heard them whispering to each other often enough while glancing in my direction. It seemed to me that the ones in line before me lingered in the bath, to be sure that my water was neither warm nor clean. I remembered vividly then how my women, Achilles’ women, had bathed me, dressed me and even called me 'mistress'.
They did not take my fine Egyptian cotton gown away but neither did they replace it. Soon it became even shabbier than their coarse linen clothes. I would not ask for a new gown, though, because I knew that they would take my old one in return. I would not see any of these creatures mincing around in the gift that Achilles had given me.
I must have been a strange, sad sight, spinning wool in my worn finery, squinting to catch the pale sun that found its way through the narrow windows. I have confessed to having no talent for weaving, even the simple warm cloaks and blankets that the working-women made for the soldiers. Alcestis took great pleasure in pointing that out to me, in her loudest bray, while all the others were listening. Then she tore my work apart so I would have to do it all over again.
At last, as though she had lost all hope for me, Alcestis threw me the spinning to do. I was at it hour after hour, my fingers bleeding while the days spun out as slowly as the thread. It seemed to me that they all took a malicious joy in making sure I was never without a spool of coarse sheep’s hair.
Many times, I felt someone walking behind me and tweaking my hair. When I turned around, no one was there. Finally, I reached back and pulled without turning around, so that I surprised her. Charis’ shriek rewarded me. Then she tore at my hair with both hands, as hard as she could, and I tugged hers in return. It seemed an eternity before Alcestis stamped between us, with her horse’s mane flying behind her, and grasped us both by the arms.
“I have a mind to slap you both,” she roared. “Get back to your work at once.”
The others started turning back to their looms and worktables with barely concealed smiles, but I finally burst out at them, tears of pain still filling my eyes.
“Why are you angry at me?” I demanded. “Chryseis was my friend, so should I have fallen into bed with her lord the moment she was gone?”
“Is that why you injured him?” Charis demanded. “And he let you do it. Do you know what he would have done to any of us who had attacked him?”
With her fists thrust against her hips, she raced angrily on. “But, no, he did nothing to you. The name of Achilles still protects you, even if he no longer cares to do it himself.”
“That’s enough, Charis,” Alcestis snapped.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? If he cared about her, would he have let them bring her here? So why shouldn’t she go with Agamemnon, instead of making all this trouble for us.”
“What do you mean by trouble?” I wailed. “I am locked up here spinning wool, what trouble could I make?”
“Don’t you know?” she cried.
“Know what? How could I know anything, when no one will talk to me.”
“Achilles has taken his men out of the war.”
Stunned by her words, I looked from one to the other, to see if she could possibly be lying or making some fool’s joke.
“And now we are losing,” Alcestis added quietly, making it clear that it was the simple truth. “Without them, we’ll be lucky if we don’t wind up being Hecuba’s slaves. The gods and goddesses only know how she will treat us for having been Agamemnon’s women, and she won’t care that he captured us. They say she’s become a real old bitch, and she’ll prove it on us. We’ll be set to cutting flax out in the sun, even my lady Hippodamia Briseis.”
“But I don’t see how I am to blame,” I cried. “If I had gone with Agamemnon, Achilles would be angrier yet.”
“He could not be any angrier,” said another woman with a shudder. “Iphis says that only Patrocles dares go near him.”
“And Diomede,” said Charis, a smile spreading across her plain face. Then she grinned even more broadly, seeing from my expression that this was the most terrible thought of all.
If Charis had no pity for me, though, her superior did.
“I told you, that’s enough,” Alcestis ordered.” Briseis has work to do, and so do you all.”
They scattered at her words, and I turned back to my spindle. Surprised at Alcestis’ sudden kindness, I would have been even more content if I had known what the next day would bring.
* * *
Hecamede came to beg Agamemnon for my services. Machaon needed all the trained women to help him, she said, with so many wounded coming in every day, and Briseis was one of the best-trained women they had. Other women were being brought from the ships, but there was not even a moment to teach them.
Her voice was raised so urgently, I could easily hear her through the door that divided Agamemnon’s great hall from the workroom. That was the measure of her desperation, I realized: She had always been so calm and quiet, even when facing the wounded and dead.
Just as urgently, I prayed to Apollo the Healer, begging him to move Agamemnon to grant her request and let me back into his service, where my life might still be useful.
Apollo must have anticipated my prayer. Menelaus was with his brother when Hecamede arrived, and I had started regarding Menelaus as my friend. In a tone of reproach, he was reminding his brother that I had helped save his life once and might have cause to do it again. With this encouragement, Agamemnon grudgingly told her that I was welcome to go with her. I might be of some use at Machaon’s house, he said, even though, as Alcestis had told him, I was no use at all in his.
Hecamede ran so fast to get back to her work that I had to run beside her. Her hair, always so neatly groomed before, was now almost as wild as mine. That alone should have told me how badly the war was going. I did not realize that, though, until I saw that wounded men were lying outside the house on rickety makeshift platforms, because there was no room for them inside. Almost all were Argives now: The Trojans were taking the prisoners, rather than being taken.
They grabbed at my skirts as I passed them, pleading for care, for help, for water. Hecamede pulled me behind her into the house, not even waiting for a man to open the door.
Inside, the screaming was even louder, as the women raced from one bedside to another. They were not merely washing the wounds and the physicians’ hands now. The trained women were pressing the medicines into the wounds. The most skilled physicians, like Machaon, were too busy to deal with medicines now. They spent all their time pulling out arrows and cutting off limbs, after we women had helped the victims to swallow the drugs that would still their pain. Still without taking time to talk, Hecamede pressed a pitcher and cloth into my hand.
&nbs
p; Wash the wound, press on the medicine, then wrap the bandages, tie them and go on. But always feel the neck first, to be sure the patient was still alive. I mouthed these orders to myself as I carried them out, time and time again.
Always the cries for water tore at me. Finally, I saw that other women, not trained, had been sent here to carry the pitchers around and fill the cups that the men held out to them. When the men were too weak to do even that, the women cradled their heads and held the pitchers to their lips.
The work went on for two days. They were marked only by the coming and going of the sunlight, with no one daring to sleep or eat, except for the bread and water that the untrained women brought us. We held the food in one hand while we kept working with the other. The same untrained women were also set to holding down the wounded men while the physicians cut the arrows out or sawed the limbs off. We trained women had always held the patients down before, but now there were not enough of us to do it.
And always, we heard the unending cries, as the men called desperately for the first women who had tended them: “Mother, mother, mother—nurse, nurse, nurse!”
The worst, the most frightening moment came when Nestor led Machaon into his own house. “He was shot while trying to rescue me,” Nestor explained.
For a moment, that surprised me. The chief physician had needed only to rescue someone else instead, while leaving Nestor to his fate, and then he could have claimed Hecamede for his own. Then I remembered the oath we had taken, to do our patients no harm. Nestor had not been his patient then, but Machaon had gone beyond the words to the very heart of the oath.
Nestor must have seen the bond between them when Hecamede ran to bathe Machaon’s wound. Then the chief physician worked the barbed arrow out of his own shoulder, his teeth set tight to muffle his screams. “Now you must lie down and rest,” she begged him, as she quickly applied the medicine and wound the bandage around it. Instead, he ordered her to give him drugged wine to dull the pain so he could go back to work.
