Warrior's Captive: I, Briseis

by Jackie Rose

  First shamed by a foreign physician and now tricked into killing a woman, Achilles was finally overcome by the day’s events. Falling to his knees beside her, Achilles wept openly.

  How desperate the Trojans must have been to train their women to fight for them is something he never thought of. Knowing only that they had tricked him into shaming himself, he wept, “What have they made me do?”

  His men looked away, sharing his shame. But one of Agamemnon’s followers raced forward. Ugly, bald and misshapen, he naturally envied the beautiful men, but this does not excuse him.

  Pointing his crooked finger at Achilles, who was kneeling beside the woman’s body and sobbing, Thersites shouted out a joke so vile, to describe what Achilles was really doing to that corpse that I will not repeat it, even here among friends. Achilles heard it, leapt up and sliced his head off, but I fear the vile joke remains.

  He was not sorry for killing that disgraceful man, as why should he have been? The other incidents had obviously upset him, as he told his mother and me that evening.

  “That poor woman,” he sighed. “But no, I must not call her that, because she had a name. Pentheselia should have been safe in the women’s hall.”

  The women’s halls in Lyrnessos had not kept us safe, I remembered, but said nothing.

  “And that Ethiopian physician,” he added. ”That’s what I could have been: bringing men back from Hades instead of sending them there. Asklepius used to tell us students that we must fight Zeus himself for men’s lives. That is a worthy battle.”

  “You could fight it,” I assured him, “once this war is over.”

  Once he was married to Polyxena, I thought.

  To my secret regret, he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It has gone on long enough.”

  I could only nod my head to agree.

  “In that case, you must both rejoice,” said Thetis. “Priam has agreed to send his daughter here secretly, so that Achilles may meet his bride.”

  Knowing that this deathblow had been coming, my heart was still torn because it had come so fast. Whenever it came would have been too soon, I knew, but it would also be too late for so many brave men on both sides.

  * * *

  So I stood respectfully behind Thetis in the role of her maidservant when the four Trojan soldiers carried the curtained litter into the great hall. As the princess emerged from behind her litter curtains I bowed my head, not only in respect to her but in acceptance of my own fate. This was, indeed, a princess for a true prince to marry.

  She had not painted her face, in any effort to hide what the sun had done to it as she stood on the wall to watch her army. The sun’s ravages were even more apparent in the gold streaks running through her brown hair, with only a leather band to hold it back from her regal square jaw and high forehead. Her gown was just as simple, with only its purple color showing her royalty. Her jewels had gone towards Hector’s ransom. She had shown her true beauty and royalty by not trying to display either one. They showed only in her queenly bearing, which she had no doubt been trained to show from the moment she took her first steps.

  I saw that Achilles was excited by her elegance, as any man would have been.

  “My lady Polyxena, you are welcome here,” he said.

  Her lips barely parted, as she replied in a steady tone that gave no emotion away, “My lord Achilles, it is my honor to be here.”

  Thetis took my wrist and pulled me forward. I felt like a harlot in the fine, almost transparent pink Egyptian gown, with the deeper pink garnet jewelry, which she had insisted that I wear.

  “This is my servant Briseis,” she said. For the first, time, I realized how grating and brazen her voice really was.

  Polyxena’s thin smile gave no notice that she had ever heard the name before. She bowed as politely as though I had been a captive princess indeed.

  Her words, contrasting with her manner, surprised us all.

  “You are the prince’s famed companion?” she asked.

  “Yes, mistress,” I admitted, ashamed of that fact as I had never been before.

  “Well, then,” she said, with the smile that barely parted her lips, “we will soon be in the same position, you and I.”

  “You will have the honor all to yourself, mistress,” I responded, meeting her gaze. “Once the treaty is signed and the marriage”—I strangled on the word, but forced myself to go on—“and the marriage is formally arranged, I will go away, wherever you like. I am sure that you and your husband will be generous to me. Perhaps he will buy me an island, like the one his mother has. It is little enough for me to do to end this war.”

  It is everything I have to give, I thought, but how could a princess understand that?

  “Why should you go anywhere?” she asked with a show of surprise. “My father has nineteen secondary wives. My husband is entitled to his share.

  “Of course,” she added, just as cordially. “I have heard that you Argive men have secondary wives as well, no matter what they call them. Powerful men always seem to get them, do they not?”

  At that moment, I was more inclined to kiss her than even Achilles could have been. She smiled more warmly at my obvious gratitude. Then her voice hardened, as she went on, in a tone of command that she must have learned from her father, the king.

  “There is only one thing I must demand, though. I must be the one to stand at his side before the people, as my mother stands beside my father. He does not embarrass her by showing his other wives in public. They all stay within the women’s hall, and I trust you will do the same. My husband must show me that much courtesy. If he does, we will all get on very well indeed.”

  “His people will love you as he does,” I assured her. And, I thought, as I almost love her now.

  “But tell me one more thing, princess,” he said, as she turned back towards her litter. When she turned to him again, he asked, in a mocking tone, “Have you always been petted, pampered and spoiled?”

  “I suppose so,” she answered, startled.

  He answered, with his broadest grin, “Me, too. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Things seemed to be going wonderfully well indeed for everyone the following week, when another truce was declared and the men were told that they would assemble on the field the next morning. Knowing what was to be announced there, I knew there was barely time left to make this night even more memorable than any other had been.

  We did not mention Polyxena any further. She would not talk about me to him, and I would not talk about her. That was the secret pact among us. None of us could have imagined how violently the silence would be shattered.

  Lying in bed beside him, then, I bent to reverently kiss his spear and joyously performed the act that Agamemnon had tried to force on me in vain. Now it was Achilles’ turn to writhe beneath me. As my lips and tongue caressed the sculpture of his spear, with its risen pattern of even harder veins, and I tasted its subtle salt, I felt that I knew more pleasure than he. For once, I was almost grateful to the king of kings for telling me this secret. I doubted that Polyxena would ever care to learn it. She was, after all, a royal princess, not a spear-won prize.

  * * *

  I was ashamed of my jealous thoughts the next morning, when the gates of Troy opened wide, for the first time after so many years. Polyxena came forth with the sun rising behind her, and two guards on either side.

  A hush of amazement spread over the field. All eyes turned to watch her, as everyone barely dared to hope what her appearance might mean.

  If anyone glanced up at me now, they doubtless saw only a figure standing silently beside his mother on the wooded platform, as befitted her servant girl.

  Achilles held his arm up, as though to warn off any of his men who might think of seizing the enemy princess. Then he rode forth to meet her in the middle of the field and extended his hand to lift her into his chariot. At that moment, everyone understood, and the field rang with cheering.

  Her remaining brothers, the royal princes, stood a
bove the gate. So did her sister Cassandra—reportedly mad, but brought out for this momentous occasion. Since her madness consisted in claiming to know the future, I found it rather unsettling that she remained stonily silent amidst the celebration. Paris was glowering openly, making it clear what the terms of the treaty had been. Helen would return to Menelaus. Later, I heard that Agamemnon had offered to give her Trojan partner one of his daughters in return and I wondered, with contempt, how a father could use his children as currency. Paris was obviously not satisfied with the exchange.

  Helen herself was tactfully absent. The world would concentrate on the lady who would end the war, not the one who had caused it.

  As Achilles and Polyxena rode around the field together, smiling and waving at both sides impartially, the cheers rang on and on. Even I heard myself cheering, for such a princess beside such a prince and the peace they brought with their union.

  Then the happy clamor started to fade, as the first sign came that something had gone terribly wrong.

  It came when Achilles dropped the reins and slumped over, leaving us all concerned that he might have been taken suddenly ill. Polyxena grasped the reins and tried her best to hold them, until one of her men was able to jump onto the chariot and take them from her hands.

  We still did not know how wrong things had gone until her driver stared hard at Achilles, pushed him out of the chariot and left him lying in the sand. The driver then raced back towards the gates of Troy, with his princess desperately clutching at the chariot rail.

  The royal family was quickly withdrawing from their places above the city gate, but we saw that Paris still held his bow as he fled. Many of Achilles’ soldiers threw their spears at once. Their shafts stuck out of the assassin’s back like the feathers of some fowl shot down in flight. However mad he had been to steal Helen, he must have been even further gone in lunacy to imagine that he could shoot his arrows at Achilles from ambush and escape.

  Achilles’ men were also racing after Polyxena’s chariot. They fell back when the Trojans peppered them with arrows from the walls, to cover the princess’ escape. Paralyzed with terror, I barely noticed Thetis beside me, gripping my hand until the bones were sore. Her grasp grew even harder as we saw Machaon race on to the field and kneel beside my prince. Thetis ran down from the platform, and the soldiers caught her as she fell from the middle rung. I followed as quickly as I could.

  Achilles was unconscious, but his chest still rose and fell. My trained eye raced over his body, looking for the wound, until it reached the heel beneath his sandal strap, and I saw the arrow there. But why should he be unconscious from that glancing wound?

  “Poison,” I whispered.

  Machaon was gazing at the same spot. As our eyes met for one terrified moment, I knew he had reached the same conclusion.

  Then he was on his knees in the sand, pulling out the arrow and then sucking and spitting out the blood. He is fighting Zeus himself for his patient’s life, as his father Asklepius taught him to do, I thought, but my terror told me he was doomed to lose.

  When Achilles still failed to regain consciousness, Machaon ordered his men to carry him to the physician’s house. As they moved forward to obey him, Thetis waved them back. “No, carry him to his own house,” she said. “The physician will care for him there.”

  * * *

  By the time we reached Achilles’ house, the other kings had already gathered: Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus. My terror grew as they took their places around his bed. That gathering told me all too clearly how serious the matter was, but I noted that only Menelaus was weeping.

  “They will pay dearly for this,” Agamemnon muttered, and the others nodded abruptly. “There will be no further truces now.” Without thinking, I found myself nodding agreement.

  The three kings parted to make way for Machaon as he came towards them, carrying his chest of tools and medicines. They brought their strange mixed sweet-and-bitter smell that mingled hope and healing with suffering and death.

  Taking a vial of brown fluid in one hand, he managed to pry Achilles’ mouth open with the other hand as he poured the medicine down his throat. Everyone sighed with relief and new hope as Achilles sputtered and came awake.

  “What happened?” he demanded, in a harsh whisper.

  “You were shot by a poisoned arrow,” Machaon abruptly told him. With a great show of confidence, he added hastily, “I got enough of it out so that we can save you, I am sure of it. I need only get rid of that leg. It must be burning from the poison now.”

  “No,” gasped Achilles. He almost managed to sit up in alarm before falling back again.

  “It’s the only way to save your life,” the chief physician answered, still trying to sound calm. “Otherwise, the burning will keep climbing up until it kills you.”

  “I am sure of that,” Achilles rasped through gritted teeth, his face pale and wet with pain. “I know what that poison does. I am a physician, too.”

  With another great effort, he managed to say, “But I am Achilles, the greatest warrior of all time. Do you think I want to live on as a cripple with one leg?”

  “Please do it,” I wept, as I fell across his chest. “Please do it, my lord and master, master and lord.”

  His hand reached feebly for my hair. With a visible effort, he commanded his failing hands to stroke it.

  “My Briseis,” he said. “I was your war god Aries. You will not have to live with a crippled Hephestos instead.”

  This, at last, is Hephestos' revenge on Aphrodite’s servant, I knew with sickening certainly. But I could think of that for only a moment before I burst into sobbing again.

  “Oh, I will, so willingly,” I pleaded. “You are my daylight, my sunlight, my only hope, my protector.”

  “Then that is how I want you to remember me, my lovely girl.”

  Turning at last from him, I screamed, “Thetis, do something!”

  “Why are you listening to him?” his mother demanded, in a harsh tone that sounded beautiful to me. “Can’t you tell that he is delirious? Stop wasting time, hold him down and cut his leg off.”

  “Mistress, I cannot do that against his will, even for you,” Machaon exclaimed, daring, as few men would have done, to look straight at the cold fury in her eyes.

  She glared at him for a long moment, willing him to obey her, as I prayed she would succeed. At last, she sighed in obvious surrender, dashing my last hopes and hers.

  “Then at least give him something to make him sleep,” she said, in her most ringing priestess voice. “There is no need for him to suffer.”

  “Of course,” the chief physician said.

  “And please give him the very strong medicine that the Ethiopians gave us.”

  “He does not need it,” Machaon assured her. “Our own medicine will dull his pain.”

  “But I do need for him to have it,” she begged him. “Then I will be sure he will not suffer when the end comes.”

  “No!” I wailed, but of course they all ignored me. Menelaus pulled me gently away.

  Achilles looked up at us and said, “Menelaus, you are a kind and generous man. You take care of my Briseis and all my other women, too.” He managed a faint smile as he added, “You are also as rich as Zeus, so you can afford to be generous. And I have seen you looking at my lovely girl. I know that you will enjoy being generous to her. She may even come to love you.”

  “No!” I shouted again, fighting to free myself from Menelaus’ grip. “I never loved any man but you, my lord, and I never will. If you must die, my lord, let me die with you.” I lunged for Machaon’s tool box, hoping to find a sharp knife there, but Menelaus pulled me even further away from it.

  “I will, Prince Achilles,” Menelaus promised. His voice broke as he added, his hands still firm on my shoulder. “It is the least I owe you.”

  Machaon had been rummaging through his box of medicines. Now he produced a dangerous-looking black liquid, as heavy as tar and with the same sinister smell.


  “Drink this, my lord,” he directed.

  He held Achilles up to help him drain the vial, as I fought in vain against Menelaus’ grasp. “You will be getting drowsy soon,” Machaon promised, as he gave him water to help wash down the drug. “Then you’ll sleep, and there will be no more pain.”

  “Sleep well, Achilles,” Menelaus said, in a voice thick with tears.

  “Have you any message for Polyxena?” Odysseus asked.

  It seemed an innocent question, but Odysseus never did anything in innocence. Before I could warn Achilles to speak carefully, he managed a last faint smile and said, “Tell her that I hope we may meet in a better place.”

  They are kind and harmless words of courtesy, I told myself, but a glance at Odysseus’ narrowed eyes told me better. He would never seek a comforting message for anyone else, I was sure, only a weapon that he could use when the time came.

  “But now, you must think of Briseis and your other friends who are here with you,” his mother told him gently, and I wondered how her eyes could still be dry. “It’s time to send them all away. You don’t want them to see you die.”

  “No, you are right,” Achilles answered. “Let me embrace Briseis once more and then take her away from here.”

  “No!” I wailed, but my cries were unheard once again.

  When Menelaus released me, I threw myself across Achilles’ chest. His arms reached out to embrace me, but so feebly that I knew he had summoned all of the little strength he had left in order to do it. Then he slowly nodded to Menelaus, who grasped my shoulders again.

  Achilles’ bright blue eyes were starting to close now. “All of you leave,” he said.

  His orders obviously did not apply to his priestess mother: No one dared drag her away. Again, my struggles were in vain as Menelaus lifted me off the ground and carried me outside.