A Thousand Ships(22)

‘He picked the wrong girl,’ the smaller man smiled.

Achilles looked across at him. ‘Of course he did,’ he said. ‘He picked the one on the end. Once the guards had placed her there, he was always going to. As soon as other men had judged her the most beautiful, he followed them. He is a follower of men, in all things. Even women.’

‘I can’t imagine how they ordered the women like that,’ the second man replied. ‘A blind man can see she is the most beautiful woman we have ever captured. Helen herself could not be more perfect.’

Achilles smiled, his face transforming into a sweetness which Briseis knew to be false. ‘You can’t imagine?’ he asked.

The man stopped dead, but Achilles did not, and his friend had to run a few steps to catch him up again.

‘You bribed them!’ he said.

Achilles laughed. ‘Of course I bribed them. You said she was the one you wanted, and I wanted you to have her. I would rather have picked her first, as was my right. But I knew you would prefer me not to argue with Agamemnon about that again. So I rigged his choice in your favour. I knew he wouldn’t realize, because the other one was younger. But you liked this one better.’ The man said nothing. ‘You’re not angry, are you?’ Achilles said, and again Briseis heard the child behind the man.

‘Of course not,’ said his friend, patting the warrior’s arm. ‘I’m surprised. I didn’t think you had such a mind for subterfuge.’

‘It was Nestor’s idea,’ Achilles replied. ‘The wily old man will do anything to keep the peace, you know. Even if it means cheating his king of the first pick.’

‘Agamemnon chose first,’ the second man said. ‘He’ll never be able to say he didn’t.’

‘Imagine his face when he looks at that girl by torchlight tonight, and sees she is scarcely more than a child,’ Achilles said. ‘You should send your girl to collect water as close to his quarters as possible every day, so he can see what he missed out on.’

‘I will,’ the man said. ‘I’ll take her there myself, so I can see his expression and report it back to you in every detail.’

‘That alone would make the bribe cheap,’ Achilles said. And, saying nothing, her eyes on the ground in front of her, Briseis kept walking behind them.

*

Chryseis was sitting on a low stool outside the tent of the Argive commander, gulping in the clean, salt-washed air. Agamemnon’s tent reeked, like a filthy stable. The man seemed unable to discern the thick staleness which caught in her throat. And none of his advisers seemed willing to say anything. They laughed at him behind his back, Chryseis had seen. The short, stocky one with the cunning eyes – Odysseus – and the young one like a stout tree – Diomedes – pulled faces at one another when Agamemnon’s back was turned. They found his personal quarters as disgusting as she did.

But at least Chryseis had the herbs which Briseis had given her. She had followed the older woman’s instructions and dropped a few small leaves in Agamemnon’s wine as soon as the sun began to dip over the sea. Every night, the commander had lurched at her, grabbed whatever of her he could reach, but he had fallen into a deathlike unconsciousness before he could do more than pull ineffectually at her clothing. Chryseis wondered if she was giving him too high a dose. She was not especially worried about poisoning him, though she sensed that she would be in trouble if Agamemnon was found dead with small flecks of foam around his lips. But she looked into the small leather bag every day, trying to calculate when the herbs would run out. Could Briseis supply her with more, or direct her to the plants she needed to find? Or, as seemed more likely, had she brought the mixture with her from Lyrnessus? Chryseis felt a twisting in her stomach at the thought that the bag she was holding contained all there would ever be.

Sitting behind the tents, it took her a moment to notice the flurry of activity at the front of the Argive camp, the sound of men and hooves hastening across damp ground. She heard shouts and muffled whispers and more shouts, and eventually Agamemnon’s voice, demanding to know who was asking for an audience with him.

Chryseis preferred to stay out of sight of the soldiers, keeping herself to the places where other captured women and camp-followers congregated: near the cooking pots and the stream where they washed their clothes. But curiosity overwhelmed her, and she crept round the edge of the tent, holding herself close beside it, in the hope that she wouldn’t be noticed.

Of all the humiliations which had rained down upon her in the last few days – the proprietary hands, the lascivious looks, the mocking laughter – this one was (she thought afterwards) the worst. Because as she looked around the corner of the tent, to see what all the fuss was about, she saw her father, standing in front of the Argive king, his staff in his hand and his ceremonial headdress covering his hair. He was probably a year or two younger than Agamemnon, she thought: he and her mother had tried for many years to have a child, but they had always been unlucky. Chryseis had been their last chance, her mother’s final stroke of luck. But he looked old, and small among these Greeks. A sullen crowd of Argive soldiers had gathered behind him.

Chryseis was almost paralysed with fear and shame. She felt her enslavement more keenly now than she had during the days when she washed and skivvied for the Greek king, and the nights when she drugged him and slept on the furthest side of his tent, on the hard ground. That her father – who had barely seemed to tolerate her – should have come to ransom her. It contradicted everything she had believed of him: he would not come begging to a Greek for anyone, least of all Chryseis. And now he was so close that she could call out to him and apologize for all the mistakes she had made which had led them both to this moment, the father she had believed she would never see again. Her eyes itched with an unfamiliar sensation, and she realized that tears were on the verge of spilling down her face. And at the same time, she felt an acute shame that her father looked so small. In her mind, he was a match for any, for all of the Greeks. But as he stood among them, she could see he was only a man. Only a priest.