The Song of Achilles(65)

“Like you,” she said.

“Clumsy, then.”

She did not know the word. I demonstrated, thinking to make her laugh. But she shook her head, vehemently. “No. You are not like that. That is not what I meant.”

I never heard what she meant, for at that moment Achilles crested the hill.

“I thought I’d find you here,” he said. Briseis excused herself, and returned to her tent. Achilles threw himself down on the ground, hand behind his head.

“I’m starving,” he said.

“Here.” I gave him the rest of the cheese we had brought for lunch. He ate it, gratefully.

“What did you talk about with your mother?” I was almost nervous to ask. Those hours with her were not forbidden to me, but they were always separate.

His breath blew out, not quite a sigh. “She is worried about me,” he said.

“Why?” I bristled at the thought of her fretting over him; that was mine to do.

“She says that there is strangeness among the gods, that they are fighting with each other, taking sides in the war. She fears that the gods have promised me fame, but not how much.”

This was a new worry I had not considered. But of course: our stories had many characters. Great Perseus or modest Peleus. Heracles or almost-forgotten Hylas. Some had a whole epic, others just a verse.

He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I think she is afraid that someone else is going to kill Hector. Before me.”

Another new fear. Achilles’ life suddenly cut shorter than it already was. “Who does she mean?”

“I don’t know. Ajax has tried and failed. Diomedes, too. They are the best after me. There is no one else I can think of.”

“What about Menelaus?”

Achilles shook his head. “Never. He is brave and strong, but that is all. He would break against Hector like water on a rock. So. It is me, or no one.”

“You will not do it.” I tried not to let it sound like begging.

“No.” He was quiet a moment. “But I can see it. That’s the strange thing. Like in a dream. I can see myself throwing the spear, see him fall. I walk up to the body and stand over it.”

Dread rose in my chest. I took a breath, forced it away. “And then what?”

“That’s the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief.”

“Do you think it can be prophecy?”

The question seemed to make him self-conscious. He shook his head. “No. I think it is nothing at all. A daydream.”

I forced my voice to match his in lightness. “I’m sure you’re right. After all, Hector hasn’t done anything to you.”

He smiled then, as I had hoped he would. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard that.”

DURING THE LONG HOURS of Achilles’ absence, I began to stray from our camp, seeking company, something to occupy myself. Thetis’ news had disturbed me; quarrels among the gods, Achilles’ mighty fame endangered. I did not know what to make of it, and my questions chased themselves around my head until I was half-crazy. I needed a distraction, something sensible and real. One of the men pointed me towards the white physicians’ tent. “If you’re looking for something to do, they always need help,” he said. I remembered Chiron’s patient hands, the instruments hung on rose-quartz walls. I went.

The tent’s interior was dim, the air dark and sweet and musky, heavy with the metallic scent of blood. In one corner was the physician Machaon, bearded, square-jawed, pragmatically bare-chested, an old tunic tied carelessly around his waist. He was darker than most Greeks, despite the time he spent inside, and his hair was cropped short, practical again, to keep it from his eyes. He bent now over a wounded man’s leg, his finger gently probing an embedded arrow point. On the other side of the tent his brother Podalerius finished strapping on his armor. He tossed an offhand word to Machaon before shouldering past me out the door. It was well known that he preferred the battlefield to the surgeon’s tent, though he served in both.

Machaon did not look up as he spoke: “You can’t be very wounded if you can stand for so long.”

“No,” I said. “I’m here—” I paused as the arrowhead came free in Machaon’s fingers, and the soldier groaned in relief.

“Well?” His voice was business-like but not unkind.

“Do you need help?”

He made a noise I guessed was assent. “Sit down and hold the salves for me,” he said, without looking. I obeyed, gathering up the small bottles strewn on the floor, some rattling with herbs, some heavy with ointment. I sniffed them and remembered: garlic and honey salve against infection, poppy for sedation, and yarrow to make the blood clot. Dozens of herbs that brought the centaur’s patient fingers back to me, the sweet green smell of the rose-colored cave.

I held out the ones he needed and watched his deft application— a pinch of sedative on the man’s upper lip for him to nose and nibble at, a swipe of salve to ward off infection, then dressings to pack and bind and cover. Machaon smoothed the last layer of creamy, scented beeswax over the man’s leg and looked up wearily. “Patroclus, yes? And you studied with Chiron? You are welcome here.”

A clamor outside the tent, raised voices and cries of pain. He nodded towards it. “They’ve brought us another—you take him.”