by Pat Barker
As he played, the torchlight fell full on his face and I could see the strange markings on his skin. The areas covered by the forehead and cheek irons of his helmet were several shades lighter than the exposed skin around his eyes and mouth, almost as if the helmet had become part of him, had somehow embedded itself in his skin. Perhaps I exaggerate the effect. I remember mentioning it to Iphis and though she knew at once what I meant she said she hadn’t noticed it particularly herself. For me, the tiger-stripes on his skin were the most noticeable thing about him. Somebody once said to me: You never mention his looks. And it’s true, I don’t, I find it difficult. At that time, he was probably the most beautiful man alive, as he was certainly the most violent, but that’s the problem. How do you separate a tiger’s beauty from its ferocity? Or a cheetah’s elegance from the speed of its attack? Achilles was like that—the beauty and the terror were two sides of a single coin.
While Achilles played, Patroclus sat in silence, his chin resting on his clasped hands, sometimes absent-mindedly fondling the ears of his favourite hound, who sat gazing up at him or lay stretched out at his feet. Now and then, the sleeping dog would give a curious little yelp as it chased an imaginary rabbit and then Patroclus would smile and Achilles would look up and laugh, before turning his attention back to the lyre.
The songs were all about deathless glory, heroes dying on the battlefield or (rather less often) returning home in triumph. Many of these songs I remembered from my own childhood. As a small girl at home in my father’s house, I used to creep down to the courtyard when I was supposed to be in bed asleep and listen to the bards playing and singing in the hall. Perhaps, at that age, I thought all the stirring tales of courage and adventure were opening a door into my own future, though a few years later—ten, eleven years old, perhaps—the world began to close in around me and I realized the songs belonged to my brothers, not to me.
The captive girls used to come out of the women’s huts and sit on the veranda steps to hear Achilles sing. His voice carried; they’d be hearing snatches of these songs from end to end of the camp. At last, though, the song faded into stillness and for a moment nobody moved or spoke. Then, in a cascade of sparks, a log would collapse into the hollow fire and Achilles would look across at Patroclus and smile.
That was the signal. We would all rise, Patroclus and Iphis getting ready to leave. I would hear them whispering together in the hall and wonder how it was for her. She’d lost relatives, she’d lost her home, and Patroclus had been part of that. How was it possible for her to love him?
Achilles would then get undressed, but slowly, returning again and again to the lyre. I’d lie with my eyes closed and listen, breathing in the smell of resin from the wall beside me, till I knew from the darkening of my lids that he was scattering ashes on the fire. A moment later, I’d feel the bed sagging under his weight.
I don’t know, perhaps if I’d been able to reach out to him, to speak, things might have been different. Though I think it’s equally likely—more likely—that any reference to what was happening would have produced an explosion of anger. This was an intensely private ritual that had to be carried out in silence, in the dark. And so night after night I lay underneath this man, who was not a man at all but an angry child, and prayed for it to be over quickly. And afterwards, I’d stretch myself out as straight-legged as a corpse on a funeral pyre and wait for the moment when his sleeping breath would free me to turn onto my side and face the wall.
And I prayed for change. Every morning and every night, I prayed for my life to change.
8
I think I may have been the first person in the camp to see the priest.
I’d gone down to the beach, walking along the shoreline until I came to Odysseus’s ships, which were hoisted up on cradles immediately behind the arena. I stopped and looked back the way I’d come, and there he was, the priest, striding towards me, his feet leaving a snail’s trail in the gleaming sand. Grey-haired, travel-stained, he looked exhausted, as if he’d been on the road for days or even weeks. He veered from side to side as he approached, his robes flapping in the wind. At first, I took him for a sailor, but then, as he came closer, I saw that his staff was draped with the scarlet bands of Apollo and his clothes, though dirty and creased, were made of the finest wool.
When he was only a few feet away from me, he hesitated, as if he didn’t know how to address me. I could see the problem. There I was, a young woman, richly dressed, unveiled and out walking alone…If he’d seen me in a city he’d have known exactly what I was. Immediately, I hardened against him, thinking: Well, yes, old man, that’s exactly what I am, but not by choice.
“Daughter,” he began, tentatively, “can you direct me to Agamemnon’s lodging?”
I turned and pointed to my left, but at that moment one of Odysseus’s men came out from between the ships and asked the priest what he was doing there. He’d come, he said, to ask Lord Agamemnon to accept a ransom for his daughter’s return. I guessed he must be Chryseis’s father. The man went into Odysseus’s hut to report and shortly afterwards Odysseus himself appeared.
I ran as fast as I could to Nestor’s compound and found Hecamede in one of the weaving sheds. Gradually, as I told her what I’d seen, loom after loom fell silent and women gathered round us to discuss the priest’s arrival.
“He’ll have to let her go,” Hecamede said.
“Will he hell,” I said. “He’s Agamemnon—he doesn’t have to do anything.”
News of the priest’s arrival spread from hut to hut. By the time I reached the arena, it was all over the camp; a crowd of jostling, gesticulating, excited men had already gathered.
This was the first time I’d been in the arena since the army had awarded me to Achilles and the memories of that day were so terrible I was tempted to turn back, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t the only woman there; I saw Ritsa standing under the statue of Zeus, her brawny arms folded across her chest. I waved to her, but we weren’t close enough to speak. All the time, men were crowding in as news of the priest’s arrival spread, craning their necks to see what was going on and cheering loudly as Agamemnon arrived. All around the arena, the statues of the gods—paint cracked and flaking from the scouring winds that blew in off the sea—gazed down, blank-eyed and pitiless.
I looked around, trying to find a vantage point where I’d be able to see above the heads of the crowds. A movement caught my eye. It was Chryseis, standing right at the top of the dunes in the shadow of a stunted tree that the prevailing winds had bent into an arc. I ran to join her. As I came closer, I saw one side of her face was bright red, the eye on that side watering profusely; she kept raising the corner of her veil to dab at it, but she made no mention of the injury and neither did I. I just put my arms round her—and then we stood together looking down into the arena over the heads of the crowd. She was gripping my arm and whimpered a little as she caught sight of her father waiting near the entrance.
Chryseis’s fingers dug into my arm as the old man, her father, Apollo’s priest, walked into the centre of the arena, holding aloft the staff and scarlet bands of the god. Immediately, the crowd fell silent. A wind was getting up, creating little dust devils in the sand that whirled a second or two then vanished as quickly as they came. A sharper gust lifted the priest’s grey hair as he began to speak. First, he greeted Agamemnon courteously, praying that Apollo and all the gods would grant him victory, that he’d be able to sack Priam’s city and carry the riches of Troy home in his ships…
“Only give me back my daughter.”
After the formality of his opening words, the plea came as a shock. Suddenly, we were in another world, a world where the love of a father for his child mattered more than any amount of plundered wealth. But Agamemnon had sacrificed his own daughter to get a fair wind for Troy. I was afraid for the old man, and for Chryseis. For a long moment, after that, the priest seemed to be overwhelmed with
grief, but then he forced himself to go on. He’d brought a great ransom with him, in the hold of the cargo ship they could all see anchored in the bay. Openly crying now, he begged Agamemnon to accept it.
“Please, Lord Agamemnon, please let me take her home.”
Everybody in the arena was moved by the old man’s tears—and by the size of the ransom he’d brought with him. Sentiment and greed—the Greeks love a sentimental story almost as much as they love gold. “Take it!” they shouted. “Give the poor old sod his daughter!” And then, as an afterthought, “Honour the gods!” Soon the crowd was in an uproar, fighters pushing and shoving and chanting: “Give her back! Give her back!”
After conferring briefly with his advisers, Agamemnon stood up. The hubbub continued for a moment or two, until the people on the fringes of the crowd realized he was on his feet, and then, apart from one or two isolated shouts, the chanting shrivelled into silence.
“Old man,” Agamemnon said—no title, no respect—“old man, take your ransom and go. You’ve got away with your life this time, but if I catch you in the camp again the staff and bands of the god won’t save you.” He looked around the ranks of men—all silent now. “I’m not going to give her back. She’ll spend the rest of her life in my palace, far from her native land, working at the looms by day, sleeping in my bed at night, bearing my children, until she’s an old, old woman without a tooth in her head. Now get out. No more words, just go. Be thankful you’re alive.”
In silence, the priest turned away, letting his staff trail across the sand so that a sharp line followed him all the way to the exit. There, he turned for a last look at Agamemnon and his lips moved, but he was too frightened to speak. Agamemnon had already turned away. He was talking to the men behind him, smiling, even laughing, enjoying his little moment of triumph over a weak, frail, unhappy old man. Reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse, men walking away in groups of two or three, muttering. Nobody liked it. I thought I saw one or two men make the sign against the evil eye.
I almost didn’t dare look at Chryseis, but I knew what she had to do. “Run.” She gawped at me, too shocked to take it in. “Go on, run. Get back to the hut. He might send for you.”
I knew he would. He wouldn’t be able to resist a celebratory fuck. Her grief at the separation from her father would mean nothing to him.
She set off, running like a young hind between the huts, and I began to walk back to Achilles’s compound. All the paths were crowded with men leaving the gathering, so I cut down onto the beach. And there was the priest, trudging across mats of dried-out seaweed, his shuffling feet raising clouds of sandflies that hovered all around him. He was making slow progress, crying and praying to Apollo as he went. I began following him—not intentionally, I was simply walking in the same direction. As he put more distance between himself and Agamemnon, he began to pray in a much louder voice, holding the staff and bands of the god high above his head, almost as if he were back inside his own temple, standing on the altar steps.
Lord of light, hear me!
Lord of the silver bow, hear me!
His chanting grew louder and louder until he was shouting at the sky.
I was moved by the old man, but exasperated too. If calling on the gods achieved anything, Lyrnessus would not have fallen. Goodness knows, no one could have prayed any harder than we did.
But I went on watching and listening as, still chanting prayers, he stumbled along the shore.
Lord of Tenedos, hear me!
Lord of Scylla, hear me!
If ever I sacrificed lambs and goats on your altar,
Revenge your priest!
I’d lost hope of my prayers being answered. No god I know of listens to the prayers of slaves, and yet I was transfixed by this old man. Sky and sea darkened around him and still the chanting went on, though the titles of the god were less familiar to me now.
Smintheus Apollo, hear me!
Lord whose arrows strike from afar, hear me!
Lord of mice, hear me!
Lord of mice? I’d forgotten—if I ever knew—that Apollo is the god of mice. And suddenly, I knew where all these prayers were leading. Apollo isn’t the lord of mice because they’re sweet, furry little creatures and he quite likes them…No, he’s the lord of mice because mice, like rats, carry the plague; and Apollo, the lord of light, the lord of music, the lord of healing, is also the god of plague.
As the priest’s great prayer for vengeance mounted to the skies, I found myself praying with him.
Lord of mice, hear me!
Lord of the silver bow, hear me!
Lord whose arrows strike from afar, hear me!
Until, finally, the forbidden words erupting from my mouth like blood or bile:
God of plague, hear me!
9
Nothing happened. Well, of course nothing happened! Isn’t nothing what generally happens when you pray to the gods?
Next morning, the men mustered as usual before dawn. Amidst a great hammering of swords on shields Achilles sprang into his chariot and gave the signal to move off. After they’d gone, after the shouts and shield-banging had died away, the camp took on its habitual slightly surprised, dishevelled look, abandoned as it was to women and children and the handful of grey-haired men left behind to guard the ships.
I found Chryseis weaving, though she broke off when she saw me and offered me a cup of wine. Watching her move around the hut, I thought she was walking more stiffly than she had been the day before. Poor Chryseis, she knew none of the techniques women like Uza employ to control the appetites of men. I didn’t know many of them, but she knew absolutely nothing, having gone to Agamemnon’s bed a virgin and scarcely more than a child. Though, to be fair, she was managing, helped along by her devotion to Apollo and the occasional dip into the goose-fat jar.
When Ritsa expressed sympathy for Chryseis, Uza snorted with derision. “I’ve no sympathy,” she said. “If a woman knows how to work it’ll be over before he gets his dick anywhere near her.”
“What do you mean, ‘knows how to work’?” Ritsa said. “She’s fifteen!”
“I was twelve.”
Poor Chryseis, Agamemnon couldn’t keep his hands off her. And how many girls, finding themselves loved, or at least lusted after, by the most powerful man in Greece, wouldn’t have been puffed up with pride? Not Chryseis. She was utterly desolate, dreamt only of returning to her father. She told me she wanted to be a priestess, that her father was training her, and she’d have been a good one too. Very devout, prayed four times a day: sunrise, noon, sunset and up again before dawn pleading for the god’s return. Apollo, the slayer of darkness, Apollo, the god of healing—who also happens to be the god of plague. She asked me once to join her in the noon prayers, but I made an excuse to get out of it. I did pray to Apollo—increasingly, I prayed—but mine were not the kind of prayers you share.
Lord of mice, hear me…
I walked back to Achilles’s compound along the strip of hard sand between the cradled ships and the sea.
Lord of light, hear me!
The prayer rang hollow on my lips; I was spiralling down into darkness, too far gone already to be able to praise Apollo as the lord of light. Instead, my clenched fist beat a tattoo on the palm of my hand.
Lord of mice, hear me!
Lord of the silver bow, hear me!
Lord whose arrows strike from afar, hear me!
The sea that day was almost unnaturally flat and calm, with a smooth, milky sheen on the surface like the skin on a blister. The waves bulged against the confines of the bay, before breaking into overlapping arcs of yellowish foam that seethed briefly among the debris before vanishing into the sand. There was something menacing about this stillness, like the last few minutes before a storm. I looked at the cradled ships, at the huts and smouldering fires, a
nd my skin felt bloated with anticipation.
Cutting across the arena, where the blank eyes of the gods followed me, I began walking along a path through the dunes that ran the whole length of the camp, at one point skirting the vast rubbish dump. Hardly the best place to be on a swelteringly hot day, for though the sky remained overcast the heat was increasing hour by hour. The stench, the myriad black, buzzing flies, the sweat trickling down my sides, all combined to produce a shudder of disgust. And yet something in me welcomed the contact with decay and decomposition. I actually thought this was where I belonged; here, among all the other rubbish. At that moment, I didn’t blame Achilles or the Greek army or even the war for what I’d become. I blamed myself.
As I was passing the tip, I noticed a rat running between piles of rotting food. A lot of food got wasted in that camp, because nobody there had worked long hours to grow the crops or tend the cattle. No doubt that accounted for the size of the rats because I’d never seen rats as sleek and well fed as these. You were always catching glimpses of them, but normally they whisked away as you approached. This one didn’t. In fact, it was behaving altogether oddly, staggering round in circles. As I got closer, I could see its fur was spiked and staring, nothing like the usual gleaming black. I walked past, but then something made me turn and look back and at that moment the rat screamed. Blood erupted from its mouth; it fell onto its side, rolled around in agony for a full minute, screamed again and died.
I noticed other rats then, all of them out in the open, none of them running away, and the more I looked, the more I saw. Bloated little corpses were scattered here and there among the rubbish. I nearly trod on one and, looking down, saw maggots busy underneath its skin. These were not recent deaths, the rats must have been dying for some time. I backed away and broke into a run, putting the rubbish tip behind me as fast as I could, gasping the last few hundred yards to the compound gate. I burst into the women’s hut, full of what I’d seen and yet, once inside, told nobody, because, really, what was there to tell? A few dead rats? Not really worth mentioning, is it?