The Song of Achilles(38)

Anger flashed over her face. “Don’t be an idiot,” she spat at me.

“I wasn’t—”

She slapped me. Her hand was small but carried surprising force. It turned my head to the side roughly. The skin stung, and my lip throbbed sharply where she had caught it with a ring. I had not been struck like this since I was a child. Boys were not usually slapped, but a father might do it to show contempt. Mine had. It shocked me; I could not have spoken even if I had known what to say.

She bared her teeth at me, as if daring me to strike her in return. When she saw I would not, her face twisted with triumph. “Coward. As craven as you are ugly. And half-moron besides, I hear. I do not understand it! It makes no sense that he should—” She stopped abruptly, and the corner of her mouth tugged down, as if caught by a fisherman’s hook. She turned her back to me and was silent. A moment passed. I could hear the sound of her breaths, drawn slowly, so I would not guess she was crying. I knew the trick. I had done it myself.

“I hate you,” she said, but her voice was thick and there was no force in it. A sort of pity rose in me, cooling the heat of my cheeks. I remembered how hard a thing indifference was to bear.

I heard her swallow, and her hand moved swiftly to her face, as if to wipe away tears. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said. “That should make you happy. My father wants me to begin my confinement early. He says it would bring shame upon me for the pregnancy to be seen, before it was known I was married.”

Confinement. I heard the bitterness in her voice when she said it. Some small house, at the edge of Lycomedes’ land. She would not be able to dance or speak with companions there. She would be alone, with a servant and her growing belly.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She did not answer. I watched the soft heaving of her back beneath the white gown. I took a step towards her, then stopped. I had thought to touch her, to smooth her hair in comfort. But it would not be comfort, from me. My hand fell back to my side.

We stood there like that for some time, the sound of our breaths filling the chamber. When she turned, her face was ruddy from crying.

“Achilles does not regard me.” Her voice trembled a little. “Even though I bear his child and am his wife. Do you—know why this is so?”

It was a child’s question, like why the rain falls or why the sea’s motion never ceases. I felt older than her, though I was not.

“I do not know,” I said softly.

Her face twisted. “That’s a lie. You’re the reason. You will sail with him, and I will be left here.”

I knew something of what it was to be alone. Of how another’s good fortune pricked like a goad. But there was nothing I could do.

“I should go,” I said, as gently as I could.

“No!” She moved quickly to block my way. Her words tumbled out. “You cannot. I will call the guards if you try. I will—I will say you attacked me.”

Sorrow for her dragged at me, bearing me down. Even if she called them, even if they believed her, they could not help her. I was the companion of Achilles and invulnerable.

My feelings must have shown on my face; she recoiled from me as if stung, and the heat sparked in her again.

“You were angry that he married me, that he lay with me. You were jealous. You should be.” Her chin lifted, as it used to. “It was not just once.”

It was twice. Achilles had told me. She thought that she had power to drive a wedge between us, but she had nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. I had nothing better to say. He did not love her; he never would.

As if she heard my thought, her face crumpled. Her tears fell on the floor, turning the gray stone black, drop by drop.

“Let me get your father,” I said. “Or one of your women.”

She looked up at me. “Please—” she whispered. “Please do not leave.”

She was shivering, like something just born. Always before, her hurts had been small, and there had been someone to offer her comfort. Now there was only this room, the bare walls and single chair, the closet of her grief.

Almost unwillingly, I stepped towards her. She gave a small sigh, like a sleepy child, and drooped gratefully into the circle of my arms. Her tears bled through my tunic; I held the curves of her waist, felt the warm, soft skin of her arms. He had held her just like this, perhaps. But Achilles seemed a long way off; his brightness had no place in this dull, weary room. Her face, hot as if with fever, pressed against my chest. All I could see of her was the top of her head, the whorl and tangle of her shining dark hair, the pale scalp beneath.

After a time, her sobs subsided, and she drew me closer. I felt her hands stroking my back, the length of her body pressing to mine. At first I did not understand. Then I did.

“You do not want this,” I said. I made to step back, but she held me too tightly.

“I do.” Her eyes had an intensity to them that almost frightened me.

“Deidameia.” I tried to summon the voice I had used to make Peleus yield. “The guards are outside. You must not—”

But she was calm now, and sure. “They will not disturb us.”

I swallowed, my throat dry with panic. “Achilles will be looking for me.”

She smiled sadly. “He will not look here.” She took my hand. “Come,” she said. And drew me through her bedroom’s door.