The Song of Achilles(28)

The trumpet sounded again. We heard the swish of underbrush, tangled by a pair of feet. One man. Perhaps he was lost, perhaps in danger. Achilles took a step towards the sound. As if in answer, the trumpet came again. Then a voice bawled up the mountain, “Prince Achilles!”

We froze.

“Achilles! I am here for Prince Achilles!”

Birds burst from the trees, fleeing the clamor.

“From your father,” I whispered. Only a royal herald would have known where to call for us.

Achilles nodded, but seemed strangely reluctant to answer. I imagined how hard his pulse would be beating; he had been prepared to kill a moment ago.

“We are here!” I shouted into the cupped palms of my hand. The noise stopped for a moment.

“Where?”

“Can you follow my voice?”

He could, though poorly. It was some time before he stepped forward into the clearing. His face was scratched, and he had sweated through his palace tunic. He knelt with ill grace, resentfully. Achilles had lowered the knife, though I saw how tightly he still held it.

“Yes?” His voice was cool.

“Your father summons you. There is urgent business at home.”

I felt myself go still, as still as Achilles had been a moment before. If I stayed still enough, perhaps we would not have to go.

“What sort of business?” Achilles asked.

The man had recovered himself, somewhat. He remembered he was speaking to a prince.

“My lord, your pardon, I do not know all of it. Messengers came to Peleus from Mycenae with news. Your father plans to speak tonight to the people, and wishes you to be there. I have horses for you below.”

There was a moment of silence. Almost, I thought Achilles would decline. But at last he said, “Patroclus and I will need to pack our things.”

On the way back to the cave and Chiron, Achilles and I speculated about the news. Mycenae was far to our south, and its king was Agamemnon, who liked to call himself a lord of men. He was said to have the greatest army of all our kingdoms.

“Whatever it is, we’ll only be gone for a night or two,” Achilles told me. I nodded, grateful to hear him say it. Just a few days.

Chiron was waiting for us. “I heard the shouts,” the centaur said. Achilles and I, knowing him well, recognized the disapproval in his voice. He did not like the peace of his mountain disturbed.

“My father has summoned me home,” Achilles said, “just for tonight. I expect I will be back soon.”

“I see,” Chiron said. He seemed larger than usual, standing there, hooves dull against the bright grass, his chestnut-colored flanks lit by the sun. I wondered if he would be lonely without us. I had never seen him with another centaur. We asked him about them once, and his face had gone stiff. “Barbarians,” he’d said.

We gathered our things. I had almost nothing to bring with me, some tunics, a flute. Achilles had only a few possessions more, his clothes, and some spearheads he had made, and the statue I had carved for him. We placed them in leather bags and went to say our farewells to Chiron. Achilles, always bolder, embraced the centaur, his arms encircling the place where the horse flank gave way to flesh. The messenger, waiting behind me, shifted.

“Achilles,” Chiron said, “do you remember when I asked you what you would do when men wanted you to fight?”

“Yes,” said Achilles.

“You should consider your answer,” Chiron said. A chill went through me, but I did not have time to think on it. Chiron was turning to me.

“Patroclus,” he said, a summons. I walked forward, and he placed his hand, large and warm as the sun, on my head. I breathed in the scent that was his alone, horse and sweat and herbs and forest.

His voice was quiet. “You do not give things up so easily now as you once did,” he said.

I did not know what to say to this, so I said, “Thank you.”

A trace of smile. “Be well.” Then his hand was gone, leaving my head chilled in its absence.

“We will be back soon,” Achilles said, again.

Chiron’s eyes were dark in the slanting afternoon light. “I will look for you,” he said.

We shouldered our bags and left the cave’s clearing. The sun was already past the meridian, and the messenger was impatient. We moved quickly down the hill and climbed on the horses that waited for us. A saddle felt strange after so many years on foot, and the horses unnerved me. I half-expected them to speak, but of course they could not. I twisted in my seat to look back at Pelion. I hoped that I might be able to see the rose-quartz cave, or maybe Chiron himself. But we were too far. I turned to face the road and allowed myself to be led to Phthia.





Chapter Eleven

THE LAST BIT OF SUN WAS FLARING ON THE WESTERN horizon as we passed the boundary stone that marked the palace grounds. We heard the cry go up from the guards, and an answering trumpet. We crested the hill, and the palace lay before us; behind it brooded the sea.

And there on the house’s threshold, sudden as lightning-strike, stood Thetis. Her hair shone black against the white marble of the palace. Her dress was dark, the color of an uneasy ocean, bruising purples mixed with churning grays. Somewhere beside her there were guards, and Peleus, too, but I did not look at them. I saw only her, and the curved knife’s blade of her jaw.

“Your mother,” I whispered to Achilles. I could have sworn her eyes flashed over me as if she had heard. I swallowed and forced myself onward. She will not hurt me; Chiron has said she will not.