Warrior's Captive: I, Briseis

by Jackie Rose

  Instead, his first words on awakening were that he had to send for his mother to perform the ceremony, as a priestess of Zeus. He would present me to her as a captive princess, which I had never claimed to be. I was forced to wonder about this formidable woman who could make even Achilles care about her good opinion.

  So I lived through six days filled with the hope of the happiness I had not even dared to dream of. In my dreams, I saw the Argive island where Achilles and I would reign together.

  Since I had never seen the real Argos, this one was born in my dreams. Grass and flowers grew there in abundance, beneath green mountains, in a perpetual mist of dew. And Achilles and I stood there together, beneath stone arches, as strong as our love. And since here I usually saw him in his armor, clutching his sword, I imagined him looking the same way once we got home. And we stood alone there together. It was a wonderful six-nights’ dream.

  On the seventh day, Thetis arrived.

  Achilles led me out to meet her ship. Again, I wondered at how eager he was to please her. As her servant tied her little boat between two of Achilles’ great ships, I was amazed at first to see how small and slim she was. Then I wondered that she was still so beautiful.

  Her golden curls were tight against her head, interwoven with a few silver strands. Her eyes were the same bright blue as Achilles’, with a few small lines beneath them.

  She reached up both of her arms to embrace him, and he obediently lowered his head for her kiss. Then she pushed him gently away and clutched me to her. I felt her little hands pressing into my shoulders and caught her delicate, costly fragrance, like a breeze from a lily field. Finally she stood back, regarding me with her bright blue eyes.

  “You were right,” she pronounced, and I was startled to notice that her voice was harsh and grating. “She is a lovely girl. A lucky one, too, since she will not be living with her mother-in-law. Did Achilles tell you that I left his father?”

  Lowering my eyes, I murmured that I had, indeed, heard that she had her own household.

  “My own island, dear,” she corrected me gently. “You must come visit me there and bring the children.”

  There had been no children yet for me, and I felt that she must have known it. Her next question made me even more uncomfortable.

  “Have you arranged for me to meet her family, Achilles?”

  My family had unfortunately been casualties of the war, he told her hastily. Even more quickly, he added, “Her late husband was king of Lyrnessos.”

  “Lyrnessos is not a kingdom, dear,” she responded sweetly. “He was merely the chief man of a little town. You must not think that I live so far away from the world that I do not hear what is happening in it.”

  Then she took my hands again and turned her gaze on me.

  “But no matter, as long as you make my son happy,” she assured me. “He already has one son. If he had any more, there might be fighting between them.”

  As though to seal the bargain, she reached behind her slim neck, pulled off her strand of fat pearls and handed them to me, carrying her faint scent of lilies.

  “A gift for the bride,” she said.

  As I draped them over my own head, I answered apologetically, “But I have nothing to give you, or your son, in return for all he has given me. I can’t even weave well enough to make you some pretty thing.”

  “I can’t either,” she confided, with a smile. “I just never bothered to learn. Aren’t we terrible?”

  Soon enough, I would learn that she could weave very fine webs indeed. Now, though, she said only, “Achilles, will you take us to our room?” It was Achilles’ room, of course, but she did seem at all concerned that she was putting him out of it.

  When Thetis’ servants had carried in her possessions, her jewel chest covered the small table and her cosmetics case took up the chair. All we could do was sit on the bed beside each other. To clear more space for us, I sent for Diomede to put Thetis’ belongings away. Things became even more awkward, with Diomede listening to our conversation.

  “You know, of course, that Achilles’ cousin Patrocles is dead,” I told her.

  “As I told you, dear, even on the White Island we hear what is happening in the world,” she replied, with a cold smile. “Hector is dead, too, and that is why you are having a truce. Diomede, I want you to go to Hector’s parents with a message of sympathy from me.”

  “But, mistress, how can I go there, without being taken prisoner again?” Then Diomede shrank back, waiting for Thetis to flare out at her for her insolence. She thought seriously about the problem instead.

  “We’ll return some Trojan prisoners with you,” she decided. “Besides, I think Priam will be pleased with my message. Who knows, you may be pleased with it, too.”

  She smiled at Diomede, in a way that clearly told the girl to raise no further objections. Her smile also made me very glad that Thetis had her own island to live on. It made me think, somehow, for a moment, of the smile a Harpy might give her prey before dragging it down to eternal torment. But the moment passed almost instantly, and she was the soldier’s worried mother again.

  “Such a dreadful war,” said Thetis with a hearty sigh, shaking her gold-and-silver head, when Diomede had gone. “I would do anything to end it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course, if I could, who would not?” I asked in confusion.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said gently. “You really are a lovely girl.” And she patted my hand just as tenderly. Then, more briskly, she added, “Now I’m very hungry. Shall we rejoin Achilles and order the women to bring some dinner for us?”

  He was as relieved as I was that my first meeting with his formidable mother had gone off so well. As he sat between us, he took our hands and pressed them both in his great ones. We leaned forward to smile at each other across his massive chest, pleased to know that we had made him so happy.

  Naturally, I slept with her in Achilles' room while he went elsewhere. It was just as though I really had been a captive princess whose virtue must be preserved, even though we were all aware that she knew better. No matter, I thought, soon I can lie with him as his bride, which I had barely dared to dream of.

  Sitting with her day by day, listening to her tales of Achilles’ childhood, was a small price to pay. She mentioned in passing how he had sired his son at the age of twelve, when he was starting his studies in the house of learned women. Some of them came up with the theory that they could breed heroes like dogs or horses, and Neoptolemus was the result. But that, of course, only meant Achilles had no need to sire another son, she quickly said, as she patted my hand to reassure me. Nor had I any need to worry about his mother, because Deidamia had long since married another man.

  “And Neoptolemus himself is now thirteen,” she mused. “How old are you, dear?”

  I was three years older than Achilles, but I saw no reason to tell her so. “I am twenty-three,” I said, making myself one year younger than he.

  * * *

  My happiness grew the next day, when we were interrupted by the news that I had a visitor in the courtyard. We went out to find Chryseis, who was smiling triumphantly, obviously radiantly happy and even more obviously a few months away from giving birth. I thought about it for a moment, then burst into laughter as merry as her own.

  “You swore you would find a way to get back to him,” I remembered. “This is how you did it.”

  Her embrace smothered me in waves of rose perfume that seemed overpowering after Thetis’ subtle lily scent.

  “The husband he had found for me didn’t want me this way, so my father had no choice but to send me back,” she crowed. “My lord Agamemnon was happy to see both of us.” She patted her belly triumphantly.

  “And after all the trouble he caused.”

  “Yes, especially for Achilles and you.”

  For once, I had almost forgotten that Achilles’ lady mother was there. Now, to keep Chryseis from telling the whole sordid story, I put in hastily, “Have you met
the mother of Achilles? She is here to marry us.”

  “I heard, and it’s wonderful,” Chryseis answered, kissing me again. “It’s just too bad that Agamemnon is married already.”

  Over her shoulder, I saw Thetis’ eyes narrowing. She was wondering, understandably, what sort of company this was for her son’s bride. Wishing that Chryseis had not decided to share her good news with me so publicly, I cast about for a safer topic. With her customary good manners, Achilles’ mother saved the day.

  “Have you chosen a name for the child?” she asked.

  “I thought of Atreus, after his father,” Chryseis answered. “But that might be too—presumptuous.”

  “What about Chryseus, after your father?” Thetis suggested. “That should please both of them.”

  Chryseis clapped her hands together.

  “What a wonderful idea!” she said. “Briseis, what a wonderful mother you will have.”

  I was starting to believe it, too. Until I went into dinner with Thetis one evening, after another day of listening to stories of Achilles' childhood. Achilles had been waiting for us and stood there glaring down at her with his arms crossed.

  “The messenger has come back from Troy,” he said. “King Priam is very pleased with your offer to marry me to his daughter Polyxena.”

  As the earth fell away beneath me again, I sank into a chair.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, echoing my thoughts.

  “I wanted no arguments,” she said, with a shrug.

  “Well, you’ve gotten them, mother or no. What if I don’t agree to marry her?”

  “Even to end the war? Of course you will agree.”

  “I have promised to marry Briseis.”

  “And she can certainly hold you to your word,” she answered, with a slight bow towards me, barely masking her coldest Harpy’s smile. “But will she do it, when it will keep the war going, and the war will probably kill you? Just think about it, dear.”

  There was nothing to think about.

  “I will not hold you to your word,” I managed to answer, through frozen lips. “Your mother will see you married to a princess, as she wishes.”

  “And my mother can stay in the women’s hall, while you come back to me.”

  “Of course, my dear,” she answered. “I would not want to keep you apart any longer.”

  Until he is ready to marry his princess. Her unspoken words screamed between us. We made love in the same deafening silence, sure that our time together was coming to a close. My lovemaking had a kind of desperation that could not even wait for him. Instead, as his fingers reached towards my lower lips, I seized his spear and forced my body upwards to impale myself on it, eager even for the pain I would feel as it stretched my sheath beyond its normal limits.

  * * *

  The truce ended within three days, while the marriage negotiations continued. On the first day that fighting resumed, two incidents convinced Achilles that the war must end at any cost.

  Thetis prayed for his victory with added authority as a priestess of Zeus. Standing beside me on the platform, her voice rang in my ear as she called on the father of all the gods. She poured the wine onto the ground with an expert hand, from a silver goblet trimmed in gold, making a crimson splash in the yellow sand as his men cheered.

  As it turned out, Achilles had need of her prayers that day.

  Men had come from all over the world to fight in this war. All the states of Argos had sent their soldiers to fight for Menelaus, and all the nations on Troy’s side of the ocean had sent their men to Priam.

  King Memnon had come from fabled Ethiopia, where even the gods find their treasure, and its unlimited gold had paved his way here.

  The sight of those black warriors impressed even Achilles. They were an impressive sight indeed—riding forth from the walls of Troy, as stern as ebony statues beneath their many-colored plumes, which seemed even brighter in the sun. Beneath the platform, I heard an Argive exclaim that the foreign king, Memnon, was almost as beautiful as Achilles himself. I could only nod agreement. Even Thetis leaned forward in admiration, carrying her faint lily fragrance.

  They must certainly be very advanced in knowledge, I thought. They had traveled a distance that not even Odysseus, the great sailor, ever dreamed of crossing, even after his journeys had become the talk of Argos.

  I had feared that Achilles might disgrace us all, Argive and Trojan, by behaving as he did when Hector died. The black men would then return to their own country with the report that we were nothing but savages. I need not have feared: On that day, Achilles was everything he should have been. Driving as close as he dared to the black king’s chariot, Achilles bowed his helmeted head and said, “My lord Memnon.”

  “My lord Achilles,” the Ethiopian replied, making his plumes nod in return. He spoke just as formally as though Antilochus, Nestor’s son, were not lying nearby with Memnon’s spear through his chest.

  “You have traveled a long way to die,” Achilles told him, with his faint smile.

  “Have I traveled too far to fight for safety and honor?” Memnon answered, just as gently. “Should I wait until you Westerners invade my own home?”

  Achilles bowed his red-gold head again. “Then let us do what we came here for,” he said.

  Reaching back, he pulled his sword and raised his spear in one swift gesture. With the next motion, he leapt from his chariot and was facing his adversary head on.

  He did not have to wait long for him. Memnon moved with the same lightning grace, winning another brief bow from the Argive champion. Thetis clutched my hand and, forgetting everything that was between us, I clutched hers in reply. Zeus would have to bless Achilles indeed, if he were to prevail against this foreign king.

  Achilles threw his spear, but it was a ritual gesture. Neither he nor his spectators felt any doubt that the Ethiopian would avoid it.

  We were all their spectators now. The other fighting pairs had stopped to watch these royal adversaries, who were well worth watching.

  Achilles lunged with his savage grace. Memnon spun away out of the reach of his sword, then lunged in turn.

  His only flaw was his well-earned confidence. His final spin brought him too close to Achilles’ sword for an instant. That was all my prince needed. His weapon found Memnon’s chest.

  Once again Achilles bowed, to acknowledge a great enemy, as the light faded from the Ethiopian’s eyes. But, to our amazement, that was not the end of it. One of the Ethiopians jumped from his chariot and impatiently pushed Achilles aside. Falling to his knees beside Memnon, he placed his ear to the fallen king’s chest. From his satisfied expression, I could tell that the heart was still beating because the spear had missed its mark. Then the physician motioned to his chariot driver, who raced over carrying an ivory box.

  You may not believe what happened next, because you have never seen it. But then, you have probably never seen a black man either, so you will have to take my word for it that both things exist.

  From the ivory box, the foreign physician took a bottle of water. He used one hand to pour it over the other. Then he took out a vial of a black fluid and poured it down the patient’s throat. A few moments later, he started working the spear out of his chest. The medicine not only dulled the pain, it let the king sleep through it, as his chest rose and fell.

  Everyone stared at them in amazement. Achilles leaned over for a better view.

  “Get out of my light,” the physician ordered. Achilles obediently pulled away.

  “Will you give us a litter to return him to Troy?” The physician asked.

  Achilles could only nod, speechless. He saw, as we all did, that the king’s chest had started moving rhythmically again. Some of his men were shouting that it was Zeus’ miracle, but Achilles shook his head, ashamed of their ignorance.

  “Will you teach our physicians?” he finally managed to ask. Then, incredibly, he asked in a humble tone, “Will you teach me? I am a physician, too.”

 
The Ethiopian managed to smile, not unkindly. “It would take us years,” he said. “Perhaps when the war is over.”

  “I could be a great physician too, with that knowledge,” Achilles said. It was the first time I had ever heard him talk about doing anything after the war. I realized, too, that as a trained woman, I might help him do it.

  “Will you give me some of that medicine?” he asked. “We have nothing like it here.”

  “I should think not,” the physician replied. “But I will give you enough to let you try to copy it for your own wounded men. The wounded are no one’s enemies.”

  By now, his men were shouting, “The gods have made him immortal!”

  Achilles glared at them impatiently, then turned back to the Ethiopian physician.

  “Our people have never heard of such skill,” he apologized. “What can they say about it, except that the gods have sent a miracle?”

  “All wisdom comes from the gods,” the Ethiopian answered. It seemed to me that he took a patronizing tone, but Achilles was too awed to protest.

  When the litter arrived, Achilles tried to help lift Memnon into it, showing again his respect for his adversaries. The physician waved him off.

  “You have done quite enough!” he snapped. Then he added, more tactfully, “Merely lifting a man in this condition requires some skill.”

  Achilles accordingly called for his men to stand back as the Ethiopians carried their king from the field, back towards the walls of Troy.

  Already shaken from that encounter, which had left him, with all his vaunted medical knowledge, seeming like an ignorant barbarian, Achilles was forced to face an even more shameful episode that same day.

  While the Ethiopian was carried from the field, a troop of archers started firing from the Trojan walls, obviously thinking that they needed to cover his escape. Looking up, I noted that they seemed to be smaller and slimmer than most soldiers are, but I assumed that the best and biggest men were out here on the field with their swords and spears.

  Whoever they were, Achilles had little regard for these archers with their cowardly new weapon that let them shoot from behind their walls. He seized his spear again and hurled it back up at one of the archers, who dived from the wall, turning a half somersault in the air. The helmet fell to the ground during the fall, revealing a woman’s long red hair. Racing to the body, Achilles saw her freckled face.