The Song of Achilles(33)

The hall was narrow and dim, the air dingy with the smell of old dinners. At the far end two thrones sat empty. A few guards idled at tables, dicing. They looked up.

“Well?” one asked me.

“I am here to see King Lycomedes,” I said. I lifted my chin, so they would know I was a man of some importance. I had worn the finest tunic I could find—one of Achilles’.

“I’ll go,” another one said to his fellows. He dropped his dice with a clatter and slumped out of the hall. Peleus would never have allowed such disaffection; he kept his men well and expected much from them in return. Everything about the room seemed threadbare and gray.

The man reappeared. “Come,” he said. I followed him, and my heart picked up. I had thought long about what I would say. I was ready.

“In here.” He gestured to an open door, then turned to go back to his dice.

I stepped through the doorway. Inside, seated before the wispy remains of a fire, sat a young woman.

“I am the princess Deidameia,” she announced. Her voice was bright and almost childishly loud, startling after the dullness of the hall. She had a tipped-up nose and a sharp face, like a fox. She was pretty, and she knew it.

I summoned my manners and bowed. “I am a stranger, come for a kindness from your father.”

“Why not a kindness from me?” She smiled, tilting her head. She was surprisingly small; I guessed she would barely be up to my chest if she stood. “My father is old and ill. You may address your petition to me, and I will answer it.” She affected a regal pose, carefully positioned so the window lit her from behind.

“I am looking for my friend.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrow lifted. “And who is your friend?”

“A young man,” I said, carefully.

“I see. We do have some of those here.” Her tone was playful, full of itself. Her dark hair fell down her back in thick curls. She tossed her head a little, making it swing, and smiled at me again. “Perhaps you’d like to start with telling me your name?”

“Chironides,” I said. Son of Chiron.

She wrinkled her nose at the name’s strangeness.

“Chironides. And?”

“I am seeking a friend of mine, who would have arrived here perhaps a month ago. He is from Phthia.”

Something flashed in her eyes, or maybe I imagined it did. “And why do you seek him?” she asked. I thought that her tone was not so light as it had been.

“I have a message for him.” I wished very much that I had been led to the old and ill king, rather than her. Her face was like quicksilver, always racing to something new. She unsettled me.

“Hmmm. A message.” She smiled coyly, tapped her chin with a painted fingertip. “A message for a friend. And why should I tell you if I know this young man or not?”

“Because you are a powerful princess, and I am your humble suitor.” I knelt.

This pleased her. “Well, perhaps I do know such a man, and perhaps I do not. I will have to think on it. You will stay for dinner and await my decision. If you are lucky, I may even dance for you, with my women.” She cocked her head, suddenly. “You have heard of Deidameia’s women?”

“I am sorry to say that I have not.”

She made a moue of displeasure. “All the kings send their daughters here for fostering. Everyone knows that but you.”

I bowed my head, sorrowfully. “I have spent my time in the mountains and have not seen much of the world.”

She frowned a little. Then flicked her hand at the door. “Till dinner, Chironides.”

I spent the afternoon in the dusty courtyard grounds. The palace sat on the island’s highest point, held up against the blue of the sky, and the view was pretty, despite the shabbiness. As I sat, I tried to remember all that I had heard of Lycomedes. He was known to be kind enough, but a weak king, of limited resources. Euboia to the west and Ionia to the east had long eyed his lands; soon enough one of them would bring war, despite the inhospitable shoreline. If they heard a woman ruled here, it would be all the sooner.

When the sun had set, I returned to the hall. Torches had been lit, but they only seemed to increase the gloom. Deidameia, a gold circlet gleaming in her hair, led an old man into the room. He was hunched over, and so draped with furs that I could not tell where his body began. She settled him on a throne and gestured grandly to a servant. I stood back, among the guards and a few other men whose function was not immediately apparent. Counselors? Cousins? They had the same worn appearance as everything else in the room. Only Deidameia seemed to escape it, with her blooming cheeks and glossy hair.

A servant motioned to the cracked benches and tables, and I sat. The king and the princess did not join us; they remained on their thrones at the hall’s other end. Food arrived, hearty enough, but my eyes kept returning to the front of the room. I could not tell if I should make myself known. Had she forgotten me?

But then she stood and turned her face towards our tables. “Stranger from Pelion,” she called, “you will never again be able to say that you have not heard of Deidameia’s women.” Another gesture, with a braceleted hand. A group of women entered, perhaps two dozen, speaking softly to each other, their hair covered and bound back in cloth. They stood in the empty central area that I saw now was a dancing circle. A few men took out flutes and drums, one a lyre. Deidameia did not seem to expect a response from me, or even to care if I had heard. She stepped down from the throne’s dais and went to the women, claiming one of the taller ones as a partner.