The Song of Achilles(95)

His face goes flat. “Of course I have not heard of him. He is no one.”

“Yet your father loved him well, and honored him. He would be well pleased to know they were buried together. He had no need of me.”

Pyrrhus stares at her.

“My lord—”

“Silence.” The word cracks over her like a lash. “I will teach you what it means to lie to Aristos Achaion.” He stands. “Come here.” He is only twelve, but he does not look it. He has the body of a man.

Her eyes are wide. “My lord, I am sorry I have displeased you. You may ask anyone, Phoinix or Automedon. They will say I am not lying.”

“I have given you an order.”

She stands, her hands fumbling in the folds of her dress. Run, I whisper. Do not go to him. But she goes.

“My lord, what would you have of me?”

He steps to her, eyes glittering. “Whatever I want.”

I cannot see where the blade comes from. It is in her hand, and then it is swinging down on him. But she has never killed a man before. She does not know how hard you need to drive it, nor with what conviction. And he is quick, twisting away already. The blade splits the skin, scoring it in a jagged line, but does not sink. He smacks her viciously to the ground. She throws the knife at his face and runs.

She erupts from the tent, past the too-slow hands of the guards, down the beach and into the sea. Behind her is Pyrrhus, tunic gashed open, bleeding across his stomach. He stands beside the bewildered guards and calmly takes a spear from one of their hands.

“Throw it,” a guard urges. For she is past the breakers now.

“A moment,” Pyrrhus murmurs.

Her limbs lift into the gray waves like the steady beats of wings. She has always been the strongest swimmer of the three of us. She used to swear she’d gone to Tenedos once, two hours by boat. I feel wild triumph as she pulls farther and farther from shore. The only man whose spear could have reached her is dead. She is free.

The only man but that man’s son.

The spear flies from the top of the beach, soundless and precise. Its point hits her back like a stone tossed onto a floating leaf. The gulp of black water swallows her whole.

Phoinix sends a man out, a diver, to look for her body, but he does not find it. Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest. I would give my life again to make it so.

THE PROPHECY TOLD TRULY. Now that Pyrrhus has come, Troy falls. He does not do it alone, of course. There is the horse, and Odysseus’ plan, and a whole army besides. But he is the one who kills Priam. He is the one who hunts down Hector’s wife, Andromache, hiding in a cellar with her son. He plucks the child from her arms and dashes his head against the stone of the walls, so hard the skull shatters like a rotted fruit. Even Agamemnon blanched when he heard.

The bones of the city are cracked and sucked dry. The Greek kings stuff their holds with its gold columns and princesses. Quicker than I could have imagined possible they pack the camp, all the tents rolled and stowed, the food killed and stored. The beach is stripped clean, like a well-picked carcass.

I haunt their dreams. Do not leave, I beg them. Not until you have given me peace. But if anyone hears, they do not answer.

Pyrrhus wishes a final sacrifice for his father the evening before they sail. The kings gather by the tomb, and Pyrrhus presides, with his royal prisoners at his heels, Andromache and Queen Hecuba and the young princess Polyxena. He trails them everywhere he goes now, in perpetual triumph.

Calchas leads a white heifer to the tomb’s base. But when he reaches for the knife, Pyrrhus stops him. “A single heifer. Is this all? The same you would do for any man? My father was Aristos Achaion. He was the best of you, and his son has proven better still. Yet you stint us?”

Pyrrhus’ hand closes on the shapeless, blowing dress of the princess Polyxena and yanks her towards the altar. “This is what my father’s soul deserves.”

He will not. He dare not.

As if in answer, Pyrrhus smiles. “Achilles is pleased,” he says, and tears open her throat.

I can taste it still, the gush of salt and iron. It seeped into the grass where we are buried, and choked me. The dead are supposed to crave blood, but not like this. Not like this.

THE GREEKS LEAVE TOMORROW, and I am desperate.

Odysseus.

He sleeps lightly, eyelids fluttering.

Odysseus. Listen to me.

He twitches. Even in sleep he is not at rest.

When you came to him for help, I answered you. Will you not answer me now? You know what he was to me. You saw, before you brought us here. Our peace is on your head.

“MY APOLOGIES for bothering you so late, Prince Pyrrhus.” He offers his easiest smile.

“I do not sleep,” Pyrrhus says.

“How convenient. No wonder you get so much more done than the rest of us.”

Pyrrhus watches him with narrowed eyes; he cannot tell if he is being mocked.

“Wine?” Odysseus holds up a skin.

“I suppose.” Pyrrhus jerks his chin at two goblets. “Leave us,” he says to Andromache. While she gathers her clothes, Odysseus pours.

“Well. You must be pleased with all you have done here. Hero by thirteen? Not many men can say so.”

“No other men.” The voice is cold. “What do you want?”

“I’m afraid I have been prompted by a rare stirring of guilt.”