“Silence!” roared Mynes, leaping from his seat. “What right do you have to contradict my father? It is time to fight! We are not cowards who skulk at home like frightened women! I will go to Troy and slaughter Achilles. The Trojans need real warriors.”
Euenos put his free hand on Mynes’s arm, but turned toward her. “Briseis, this is a Council of war. I understand your concern for our men’s lives—your help has been invaluable—but you do not have a place in this decision.”
He faced his son. “No one doubts your willingness to challenge Achilles. Troy has need of heroes like you. But you must serve Lyrnessos. Who will protect our city while I am gone? Who will rule in my absence? You must stay here. Our soldiers need experienced commanders at Troy.”
Mynes lunged at his father and Briseis feared for a moment he would strike Euenos. “Stay here? I am the one who trains our warriors every day. I am going to Troy! Are you afraid that my deeds on the battlefield will outdo yours? You’ve had your time. You stay and rule. I’m going to fight!”
Euenos folded his arms across his chest. Briseis watched him conquer his anger in the shifting lines of tension around his mouth and across his shoulders. He dropped his arms to his sides and stepped closer to his son. When Mynes’s expression did not soften, Euenos placed his hand on Mynes’s arm.
“You don’t mean what you say. There will be battles enough for you in the future. You will understand this after you’ve had a chance to settle yourself. Stay in Lyrnessos where you are needed. I have decided. There will be no more discussion.”
Mynes ripped his arm from his father’s grip and raced from the room. Briseis watched Euenos close his eyes for a moment. He returned to his throne and looked around the Council. “Every noble household must provide at least one warrior of fighting age and his equipment. Those of you with greater obligations know what you must supply. Spread the word. I have ordered the ships prepared in the harbor. At the rising of the sun five days hence, we sail to Troy. You know your duty.”
Mynes had shot her a poisonous look as he stormed out. Her neck and shoulders felt as taut as an archer’s bow. Every young man in Lyrnessos wanted to fight at Troy, but Mynes more than any. He could not take out his disappointment on his father. She had chosen the worst moment to speak up. Mynes would turn his fury against her.
She ate alone in her own hall that evening and went upstairs. Eurome was combing her hair. Mynes entered with his arms crossed, his face hard.
He waived dismissively at Eurome. “Get out!” Eurome gave her a frightened look. Briseis nodded and her nurse went.
Mynes circled her. She could see he savored the anticipation of his revenge for her interference. Fury rose up in her throat—she had only been protecting her people. She breathed slowly to hold back the words. Her outbreak in the Council only offered an excuse.
“I’m sorry your father wishes you to stay here,” she said, “but I know the people will be glad to have your protection and guidance.” He envied the way the people loved her for her healing work, so she hoped this lie would calm him.
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
“What, now?”
“Yes, now.”
With trembling fingers, she took off her tunic and skirt, her underclothes. She fought back the shame and tears she would not allow him to see, hating her helplessness. She could do nothing against him, doubly so since he was both her husband and the ruler. She stood naked and refused to drop her eyes.
Perhaps he saw the hatred and it added fuel to his wrath. With a blow he sent her crashing into a wooden chest. She hit her shoulder and fell to the floor. She bit her lip as pain shot across her torso. He walked over to her, pulling up his tunic and shoving his loincloth to one side.
He yanked her up by the hair, threw her facedown over the chest. She felt the edges dig into her hips and breasts. He thrust himself inside her.
“Like this” he grunted, “I’ll drive my spear into Achilles’ guts.” He grabbed her hair again and pulled her head backwards so that her face was close to his. “I’ll make you feel it. You don’t want me to be the hero—you want a husband who hides at home. So take Achilles’ deathblow.” She cried out in pain. He laughed. “You feel it now, don’t you?” He slapped her face. “Don’t you?”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Hurried Preparations and Divine Silence
The next morning Briseis dragged herself out of bed. Everyone around her except Eurome ignored her bruises and misery. The household whirled with the work needed to ready the expedition. The king had given them only four days. At sunrise on the fifth day, the warriors would set out for Troy. Organizing these efforts absorbed Briseis’s attention and for a portion of the day she buried herself in it to forget what her life had become. Her loathing of her husband’s nightly visits turned to a terror that seeped into her limbs and seized her chest.
The fading light at the day’s end increased her panic—it would not be long before he came to her room. Then Eurome brought the news that Mynes had been sent to guard the loading of the ships at the harbor. He’d stay there until they sailed. Even with this short respite, she felt only an icy chill, a foreboding that the worst had not yet struck her. She tried to pray to Kamrusepa, to find some solace at her loom, but nothing fended off her fear. She stumbled through each of the busy days.
All Lyrnessos focused on preparations: armor, weapons, foodstuffs, cooking pots and tripods, amphorae of wine, the slaves needed to run the camp, along with readying the ships themselves. Euenos had laid the groundwork for this expedition many months ago, but the final ingathering posed a huge task. The frantic pace seemed to her one more reason to delay the departure, but the rest of the community did not share her worries. Once the king announced his decision, Lyrnessos caught the young men’s enthusiasm for war.
She wondered, if she were a man, would she have been as eager to fight in this war? What if she had been born in Troy and had no choice? She wondered how her brothers felt. Euenos had granted her father’s request that they stay. She knew, though her father would never speak of it with her, that they stayed to protect her—a hopeless task. Were they upset about staying home, not the way Mynes was, but still disappointed?
She made private prayers to Kamrusepa and Telipinu during these days. She also entreated them to safeguard the warriors setting out for Troy and the town that was being left without their protection. She overheard men talking of the gods’ enthusiasm, boasting that the Stormgod and Telipinu would run in front of the king in battle, but her prayers received no response and she feared that the soldiers would not have the gods’ support.
To safeguard them she planned a snake divination at the temple to find out if the gods held Lyrnessos responsible for some offense against them. She must identify what offering could be made to soften the divine anger. She would not send Euenos and her father into battle without placating the gods.
Briseis entered the main sanctuary of the Stormgod with its high ceiling supported by brightly painted columns. The air felt even colder inside than out and she pulled her cloak around her. At least the wind no longer whipped at her face. In one corner stood a large ceramic basin, wider than she was tall, filled with water into which the snakes would be released for the divination. Painted on the outside of the waist high wall were dancing women holding snakes. Through the water Briseis could see the words carved into the sides, bottom and stone slabs that protruded irregularly around the basin.
The goddess’s answer would come through the snakes when they touched the words in response to Briseis’s questions: “life,” “temple,” “sin,” “prison,” “oath,” “child and mother,” “house,” “bloody deed” and so on. Some words were favorable, some unfavorable, a form of yes and no.
The priest stepped to the edge of the basin and tipped the tall bowl filled with water and snakes. The first snake’s head appeared in the bowl’s channel. For a moment it resisted following the water that flowed
into the basin. Its green eyes stared at Briseis. Then it glided along with the water. The other snakes followed.
“Kamrusepa, goddess of our safety and well-being, you know all our misdeeds and sins. Has Lyrnessos offended the gods in some way?” Briseis searched for possible misdeeds she could ask about so she could receive a clear answer. “Have we deprived the Stormgod of his proper offerings in our haste to prepare our soldiers?”
Briseis observed the snakes. All but one were out of sight behind or under the stone slabs. She saw the glint of green eyes as one snake swam toward the symbol for “hearth.” Favorable. No, their chief god’s offerings had not been neglected.
She continued her questions for a long time, never able to identify a sin to remedy. Finally the attending priest cleared his throat and murmured, “Perhaps you should not look for a sin when none has been committed. Why do you fear for our warriors?”
She could not tell the priest that she personally heard only silence where she had once felt the presence of two gods—Kamrusepa and Telipinu. He, apparently, did not feel this discomfort and he must be praying for the king and his warriors also. She gave up and declared the divination showed the gods found no fault with Lyrnessos and would support their warriors in the upcoming war. But perhaps Mynes’s violence had made her deaf to anything else. That felt true.
It also felt likely that Kamrusepa, the goddess of childbirth and renewal of the earth, had turned her eyes away from Lyrnessos now that the king had embraced war, but that didn’t explain Telipinu’s withdrawal from her. He savored war and thrived on the battlefield. He had reappeared in her dreams soon after her wedding night and she had found these visions a soothing refuge from her husband’s violence. Now he had disappeared.
The only dream she did have terrified her and left her trembling in bed. The dream contained a warning, but she couldn’t decide what it meant.
In her dream she saw Iatros lifting a sword in the air. She hid behind him, or was it behind something—a thicket? A low wall of some sort? Why did she hide when her brother was in danger? He defended her from something coming toward them. A huge boar with blood-drenched tusks charged him. Then the boar became a man—bigger than any man she’d ever seen. When he swooped down on Iatros, flames consumed both her brother and the warrior. She realized she hid behind a well. She must get water to douse the flames but she found no bucket, no rope to bring it up. Before she could act, they disappeared and left her alone. The flames returned and burned closer.
What a strange and frightening dream. Iatros never hunted, certainly not boar. More importantly, Iatros and her other two brothers, thank the gods, would stay safe at home. She had few blessings, but she had that.
Briseis paused inside the doorway of the great hall. A servant had delivered the king’s summons to speak with him in his megaron hall. As she watched, the king bent his head toward a bearded man with dark skin whom she recognized as the trader charged with preparing the ships. In addition to the warships which the king had built, Euenos had commandeered merchant ships from unlucky traders who had been in the harbor at the wrong moment—and many had chosen their quiet harbor for sheltering out the winter. Their vessels would be returned to them, but only after transporting the king’s supplies in their deep holds, designed to carry long rows of shoulder-high amphorae of oil, wine or grain, stacks of copper ingots and herds of cattle or sheep.
“We can hope no winter storms will prevent our departure—or worse, force us off course on our way, but we must keep careful watch as we sail,” the trader said. “I’ve received word that Achilles and his marauders have attacked towns on the island of Lesbos in recent days. That puts them dangerously close to our course as we head toward Troy.”
“Lesbos?” said the king. “They spread their destruction ever further, the insolent whelps—Achilles most of all. Yet that means, if they’ve already raided towns there, they’ll be sailing back north to Troy with their spoils—ahead of us, out of our way.” Euenos discussed the fleet’s readiness with the trader.
Achilles! That name again. She heard Mynes’s hateful words and closed her eyes. Mynes wished to fight Achilles and kill him, but the reverse was more likely. She put her hands to her temples. She would not think such things. She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought of Achilles the way the bards had described him: the lost young hero, filled with a burning rage left by his mother’s immortal flames, finding peace through the healing skills his teacher Chiron gave him. Now violence and horror followed in the wake of that name.
She leaned against the wall. The island of Lesbos lay not so far away. How could Achilles have come so close?
Achilles’ renown had grown as his destruction spread among the small towns. Briseis wondered what it felt like to be in his presence. Two of the bards’ tales about him actually spoke of Achilles’ mother, Thetis. One described how she had freed Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, when the other immortals tried to overthrow him. Achilles’ mother could withstand the force of all the other gods combined. The second tale said Zeus and his brother Poseidon had vied to marry Thetis, driven by lust for her, but they had instead forced her to marry a mortal man because oracles said she would have a son greater than his father. Neither Zeus nor Poseidon wanted a son who would overthrow them. Perhaps the half-mortal Achilles could not conquer the king of the gods, but now that he fought as Lyrnessos’s foe, Briseis dreaded the strength born into him from such a mother.
“I still think it would be wiser to send some small scouting ships,” said the trader.
“That won’t be necessary.” Euenos dismissed the trader with an abrupt wave of his hand.
Briseis stepped forward.
The corners of the king’s mouth sagged. He no longer held himself as straight and his ruddy complexion had gone pale. He motioned to Briseis to draw a stool close to him.
“Will you pray for us?” he said. “Will you come to the shore tomorrow to bless the warriors and ask Kamrusepa to keep them safe?”
Of course she would. This would be her last chance to be with her father until the fighters returned—if they did.
So, the next morning, just as the sun’s light began to glow in the eastern sky, Briseis accompanied the warriors down to the fleet. She had made this journey with her father many times before when he went to inspect traders’ goods. The cart road wound up and over one of Mount Ida’s foothills through pine forests and then down a deep ravine to a small harbor protected from Aegean storms by a narrow bay.
The early morning air cut through her cloak with its chill. She’d bundled up with several layers, but she didn’t envy the men who would be exposed for days to this cold on the sea. And what when they got to Troy? She hoped the city would have room for them inside as Euenos insisted. Building a camp would be hard in this weather.
The king led in his chariot at the front of the large group going to the harbor. Glaukos had already sent his one chariot and pair of battle horses ahead to be loaded on the ships, so Briseis and her father walked. Slow carts drawn by oxen followed at the back with the last of the supplies to be loaded aboard. When she glanced behind, she saw steam rising from the noses of the hardworking beasts, giving them an odd appearance.
Briseis didn’t speak for fear of letting loose the tears she could barely contain. The road came over the top of the ridge, and she could see a band of blue sea in the distance. The smell of pine trees mixed with a salty breeze. She was grateful to share one more walk with her father.
Mynes supervised the ships. Euenos had finally appointed him commander of the city guard as they protected the fleet during the last four days. She hoped it made him feel important enough to soften the blow of being left behind. Mynes would rule as king once his father left, so Euenos’s gesture seemed as empty as she felt.
She could hear the waterfall before they reached the ravine. When she was little and the weather was considerably warmer, her father had lifted her to his shoulders and climbed close to the falls, letting its spray mist them and showing
her the rainbows that arced in glistening brilliance against the steep rock face. Now, as they both looked at the falls, Glaukos rested his hand on her shoulder. Sadness filled his eyes. What did fate hold for them?
“Keep yourself safe, my daughter.”
She hugged him. “You too, Papa.”
They arrived at the ships with their bows drawn up on the shore and saw grooms loading the horses. Only the richest men in Lyrnessos would fight with the advantage of a chariot, but those who did needed their warhorses. The men had to coax them up wide planks into the recesses of the ships.
Her father was called away and Briseis stood watching the loading of his pair of horses. The big gray cooperated but the black one, always temperamental, snorted and tossed his head, backing away from the plank. She hurried toward him when she recognized her old friend.
“Stand back, Lady Briseis,” cried one of the men. “This horse is a brute.”
“I’ve known this fellow since he was a colt,” said Briseis. She called his name. “Easy there, Diokles.” She put her hand on his withers. He rolled his eye to look at her. “You’ll be fine, big fellow.” He quieted and let her stroke his neck. She scratched behind his ears and watched the alarm soften in his dark eyes. “That’s it, Diokles. You have an important job to do—keep my father safe. Now come along with me. I know this plank looks frightening, but you’re a warhorse. You’ve seen worse, so let’s not get in a muddle about a piece of wood.” She took the halter. “One step and then another. That’s it.” Two men followed the horse down into the hull to a place where straw had been laid between wooden crates—a sort of stall.
“Treat him well,” she told them. “My father will need him in good health.”
The men bowed. “Yes, Lady Briseis.”
As she climbed out, she heard one of the king’s servants call out. Euenos was going to speak.
Hand of Fire Page 13