Hand of Fire

by Judith Starkston

  He bowed his head to Briseis before turning back to Eurome. “Try to get her to eat and drink tonight. Sustenance will do more good than anything. She needs her strength to regain her breath. Be sure to bathe her wounds with the seawater and ground root I brought you. Boil them together.”

  Achilles’ gaze lingered on Briseis and then he pivoted quickly and strode across the camp, except that his movement made no sound on the gravel and the brightness around Briseis and Eurome diminished as soon as he moved away.

  Briseis turned her head from side to side. The pain had receded. She had eaten and drunk as much as she could yesterday evening. She did not want to be an invalid like Hatepa. She breathed in the crisp morning air, but sensed the gentleness of the breeze promised a warm day. She pushed herself up to sit. Her body, stiff from lying in one place for so long, ached all over.

  From a willow tree, a bird with a blue chest and a bright yellow neck peeked down at her. Her father called these birds bee-eaters. She had seen them catch bees and bang them against a branch until the stinger fell out and then they’d eat the insect. A large colony of them lived here where the steep stream banks provided a good place to make their homes, digging holes to lay their eggs. She and Iatros used to watch them kicking out the dirt, their tail feathers poking out amidst the flying rubble.

  How could the day offer such beauty when her brothers had been killed? And her husband, she tried to add, but she could not mourn him. She had felt something sad when Iatros described his slaughter, but Mynes had brought on his own death and caused the death of countless others through his rash desire. The gods would forgive her for being unable to mourn the man who had made her suffer in humiliating helplessness.

  Her heart ached as she pictured the scene Iatros had described to her of her brothers’ deaths. Bienor leading the men, although he must have known the battle was doomed, ill-chosen. His spear hitting its mark, but failing to stop Achilles nonetheless. Adamas standing over his fallen brother, sword threatening, so formidable in his loyal defense that Achilles had stood back. Even that had not been enough to save Adamas. It was something, she supposed, that they had died in a way they would be proud of, but she wanted them here, even in this wretched camp. All of them gone. And Iatros.

  The dream had forewarned of his death, but the warning hadn’t been enough to save him. None of the dreams the gods—or demons—had sent her had done any good. They seemed malicious tricks now, designed to make her a traitor to her people by using her to draw their greatest foe to Lyrnessos. She could not understand the language of the gods, if indeed the gods were speaking to her through her dreams. It was no use being Antiope’s daughter. Listening to her dreams was like lifting a shell to her ear.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kindness and a Pyre

  The women awakened around her. Their subdued motions spoke of their shared despair. Now that Briseis could look steadily without feeling dizzy, she recognized some of them—daughters of noble families she had grown up with, wives of farmers and shopkeepers whom she’d healed or bought things from. As she studied one dejected face, the woman noticed Briseis and smiled.

  “Lady Briseis, it does my heart good to see you sitting up.”

  A smile and kind words—Briseis felt a momentary lightness. She smiled back and voiced her thanks.

  Briseis remembered her as the stonecutter’s wife, a motherly woman with round hips and bosom and striking blue eyes. Her husband, a strong, handsome man, had fetched Briseis when his apprentice was injured, and she’d seen his wife in the doorway of the living quarters behind the open-air work area, surrounded by three small children. She had lost her family, and yet this woman found the strength to speak a kind word.

  Briseis stood. She touched her head, fingering the bandage.

  She took a few steps then leaned against a willow tree. How could so little effort make her short of breath? She saw Eurome coming from the stream with a large water jug. Eurome set down the jug near the banked fire and hurried toward her.

  “Careful now. Not steady on your legs, by the look of it.” Eurome supported her around the waist. “You ate and drank, and see what good that did you. That’s what I always say. Food and drink is what a body needs no matter how bad the body feels. You remember that, Poppy—a little food and drink no matter what.”

  Eurome helped Briseis sit on a blanket. “I’ll stir this fire and make some porridge for you and the rest.”

  Other women gathered. Briseis noticed that some helped Eurome, but others stared without seeing.

  Next to her, on a plank of wood used as a worktable, someone had put out a wine pitcher and cups, a bronze grater, a mortar and pestle, and a square of cheese. The mortar was filled with toasted barley. Someone—Achilles?—had given them the materials needed for the restorative mixture her mother used to make when her father felt exhausted.

  Her father—did he still live, fighting at Troy, unaware for now of the disaster that had befallen his family? The gods might have taken him also, striking him down as he led the men of Lyrnessos into battle. Even if he were alive, she doubted she would ever see him again. She would be slave to some Greek lord.

  Briseis looked at the women’s ashen faces and felt guilty for her self-pity. She was not the only one who had suffered a loss. If the stonecutter’s wife could offer strength to her, she must find a way to support these women. She was their healer.

  She lifted the stopper from the pitcher and sniffed—sweet wine. She poured it into the cups. While she grated some cheese into each of them, a slender, young woman sitting near said, “Let me help,” and took the mortar and pestle to grind the barley.

  Together they sprinkled the barley into the cups and passed them to the women. One left the cup untouched on the ground in front of her. Her gaunt face looked dead.

  Briseis went to her, and bending carefully, she pressed the woman’s hands around the cup and guided it to her lips.

  Briseis noticed movement at the far end of the camp. Achilles, accompanied by Patroklos, carried a covered litter out of sight behind a stand of tamarisk. She turned her attention back to the woman next to her.

  One of the others said, “Do you think they’ll take us down to their ships today?”

  “Waiting for the injured to mend, is what I heard that Patroklos fellow say,” said Eurome. “And then they was saying the hurt soldiers was patched up. So seems like might be so.”

  “I don’t know if it’ll be worse or better,” said another woman, “to be taken away from what we know. I remember washing clothes here by the stream with my sisters. Will it hurt less not to see what I remember?” Her hair, like that of all the other women, was uncombed, and its frizzy curls had matted into a dark mass around her head.

  Eurome, despite her plumpness, squatted comfortably by the fire and stirred the pot of porridge she had set in the coals.

  Briseis set out bowls. “Did any of you see Queen Hatepa among the women they took to the ships—and her maid Maira?”

  The stonecutter’s wife said, “I saw the queen, and there was a girl with her—tall, black haired. I don’t know if her name was Maira. The queen wasn’t nice to her. Acted like the young woman had caused all her troubles. Later, I didn’t see the girl. They held the queen alone.”

  “Did you see her, Eurome?”

  Eurome shook her head. “No, not Maira, nor I didn’t see Queen Hatepa neither. I’ve had ’nough to worry about with you, Poppy. I haven’t never given the queen a thought.” She laughed. “And I’m acertain she hasn’t never thought of me.” Then she frowned. “I do hope for the girl.”

  The women fell back into silence.

  They ate. Briseis lay down again. She heard a man clear his throat and saw Achilles standing a few paces away. He approached. She had the sensation of a current pulling her along a river.

  “You slept well? From the look of you, there’s been a sea change since yesterday. I’m pleased you are recovering.”

  She frowned at him.

  “I
worried that you would slip away from the daylight. You have reason enough to desire Lethe’s oblivion.” He stopped, watching her.

  She wished he would leave her alone. What was Lethe? She thought she remembered it from one of the bards’ tales as a river the Greeks said flowed around the Underworld and made you forget your grief if you drank from it. She didn’t want to forget.

  “Leave me alone.” She turned away.

  “You have every right to scorn me. I killed your brother.” His tone held a hurt that the words denied.

  She turned back to glare at him and wavered for a moment, seeing the tautness of his muscles, the storm that brewed just underneath his courtesy.

  Let him be angry at her scorn. He could at least know the full extent of the harm he had done to her. “My brother? Yes, you killed one of my brothers in that courtyard, but that is not all. In front of Lyrnessos’s walls you cut down my other two brothers. They were brave warriors defending their home and family and you struck them down.”

  Achilles sat down and looked directly at her. That strange rushing sound of waves reverberated in her head again. “I am sorry that you have lost so many, and that I am responsible. We cannot shift our natures. Only with you have I desired to. I wish I had not been a warrior on that day, but at the same time you must recognize that your brothers and I had more in common than your grief is willing to concede. Your family is noble, that is clear, and therefore your brothers were born to be warriors just as I was, and the same loyalties drove them as drive me. With a slight twist of fate, we could have been on the same side. I wish we had been, but fate did not allow it. I am not sure which of the men I fought in front of Lyrnessos were your brothers, but you tell me they were brave warriors, and having witnessed your bravery, I do not doubt that. Can you accept that I had no choice but to slay them because they, great warriors as you say, would have slain me if I had not taken sword and spear against them? Their courage and loyalty to their men matched mine and locked us in a fatal fight. For that I give them my sincerest respect. For you I shed tears for their deaths.”

  Achilles waited, but she stayed silent, not able to acknowledge out loud the truth of what he said. It didn’t matter. Her brothers were dead. He had killed them. Why should she accept this odd apology? He couldn’t know what he had meant to her—or some delusion that appeared in his form. She wanted nothing to do with him. Through her dreams, he had betrayed her even before he’d attacked her city, though she would never tell him that.

  “I have grown disillusioned with Agamemnon,” Achilles said. She wondered why he felt so driven to talk with her, to explain himself, and hoped it did not mean he felt drawn to her. She wanted to shout, Go away.

  “He leads the Greeks in this war and his greed will not stop until he feeds on Troy’s riches, but that does not mean that I can abandon the other warriors. I wish this war would stop, but the only way to accomplish that now is to vanquish Troy. I will strain every measure of my strength toward that goal for the sake of my men. Your brothers would have done the same. On that ill-fated day when I sacked your city, it was to provide for my men both food and the treasure that their fighting courage merits. Only when Troy falls can they return home with their hard-earned bounty to their wives, their aged fathers and mothers. I fight out of loyalty to them and the honor that battle brings us. Isn’t that what drove your brothers? Couldn’t we have fought side by side if fate had not brought us together as enemies?”

  She didn’t want to but she nodded.

  “Fate has given you a cruel portion by my hand. I would change it if I could.”

  His green eyes spoke of a troubled sea within. “Are we ever able to choose our actions to suit ourselves? As it is, we live only for a short time, and then we pass away, barely noticed, as snow melts into the soil. I cannot suffer your grief in your place, but I understand your sorrow. We can only honor the dead with proper service. This morning I went through the ruins of the city and found your brother’s body and brought him to this camp. Patroklos and I washed him and laid him out for you to perform what burial rites you hold dearest. I did not know of your other brothers. Perhaps this one burial can give honor to all three.”

  He paused. Briseis could not speak. Then he said, “Shall I help you walk to the place we have laid him?”

  She shook her head. He walked away and said something to Eurome.

  Why did he care about her feelings and allow her to give Iatros this last honor? Why did he remind her so much of the god of her dreams even while she hated him? She turned her face into the makeshift pillow Eurome had made.

  Eurome came to her and helped her walk to her brother’s body, muttering something under her breath all the while that Briseis didn’t absorb. Laid on a tapestry of deep-hued blues and reds, Iatros’s limbs were arranged as though in quiet sleep. A wide band of linen wrapped his neck.

  She knelt by Iatros’s body. Eurome sat on the ground a few steps back. Despite the warm sunshine, Briseis felt cold. She shook. The flesh on Iatros’s face had sunk inwards, revealing the bones underneath. He looked old. She ran her nails down her cheeks, digging into her flesh, as her keening writhed from her burned lungs.

  Through a blur of tears, she saw his stony white skin. The blood had been washed away. He was dressed in a clean tunic. Only in his dark curls could she see mats of blood.

  She brushed her fingertips against his smooth cheek and a hard knot formed in her chest. How embarrassed he’d been never to have scraped a beard at his age. A small thing, one of many, he would never do. The violence of his death was so unlike his nature. She couldn’t accept it. Her fingertips had left a tinge of red on his cheek. She thought of the animals sacrificed to give the dead strength for their final journey. Let the blood of my grief be your sacrifice, Iatros.

  She grasped his hand, stiff and unresponsive, and remembered how this morning she had wanted to hold her brothers. Was there comfort in this clasp? The bodies of her older brothers and husband must lie in nightmarish piles or abandoned as they fell on the battlefield.

  She turned to Eurome. “How can we mourn only for Iatros, when so many others lie dead, unhonored? How will we find the means to do a proper rite even for him?”

  Eurome came close and put her arm around her. “My little Poppy, we’ll do what we can. Lord Achilles told me they’d made a proper pyre down by the city walls. You know the prayers—make them do for all our poor lost menfolk.”

  She could not perform all the traditional duties for the dead. What had Achilles said—those she held dearest? She could place Iatros’s spirit in his satchel as she had done for her mother. Instead of the family shrine, she would take it with her on a Greek ship to Troy and someday, she supposed, to far away Greece.

  She asked Eurome to bring her both the satchels and some wine for a libation. When Eurome returned, all the women were with her. Why had she brought them here? Weren’t they burdened enough with grief of their own?

  The stonecutter’s wife stepped forward. “Lady Briseis, may we help in the burial rites for Lord Iatros? If we share your grief, it will help us with our own.”

  Briseis bowed her head. “I am honored. I will pray for all of our dead. Our city served as their funeral pyre.”

  Briseis raised Iatros’s satchel and called to his spirit. She kissed the satchel and put the strap over her shoulder and held it close to her side. “Stay with me wherever I go, protecting and comforting me.”

  The women had gathered around her. One by one, they lifted up tokens to serve as shelter for their dead, small objects they could carry with them in their exile: simple rings or amulets they had on them when captured, small leather pouches tied to their belts, handkerchiefs, smooth stones from the riverbed. Even the women who had gazed blank-eyed this morning joined in.

  Briseis held out a humble wooden cup. The stonecutter’s wife filled it with wine. Briseis took a drink and passed the cup on. As she recited the traditional prayers for the dead, each of the women drank from the libation cup. Briseis had to
stop to catch her breath. The women waited each time and listened for the familiar words. She poured more wine to the spirits of all their loved ones and to the Sungoddess of the earth below, to honor them, to accept these rites as complete for all the dead of Lyrnessos.

  When she finished these prayers, without words or plan, four of the women lifted the litter onto their shoulders. They waited for Briseis to lead the procession, Eurome at her side supporting her. The other women followed. Both their sorrow and their strength flowed into Briseis.

  At the pyre the women lifted the litter onto the logs. Briseis wanted to climb up and cling to Iatros one last time, but she held herself back—the other women could not take comfort in that way so she would not either. A small fire burned near the pyre. With a trembling hand, Briseis took a branch from a nearby pile and lit it in the coals. Each of the women followed suit.

  Briseis stepped back from the heat. The flames licked at the tapestry Achilles had laid her brother on, a beautiful one of great value. She couldn’t watch the flames reach Iatros’s body and turned away.

  Ox wagons stood on the road. Achilles and some other men stood waiting. Briseis understood. It was time to leave Lyrnessos.

  Most of the way to the harbor, she slept, huddled against Eurome. To her surprise only one ship remained. The others must have been sent on ahead to Troy as soon as they filled. The soldiers unloaded chests and bundles from the wagons and stowed them on board. The women got down and followed the soldiers’ directions to climb onto the ship.

  Briseis leaned on Eurome as they walked down the rocky shore. Gusts worked the sea into foam-tipped waves. Surges pitched the ship back and forth, causing the boarding plank to shift along the beach. She hated to feel so weak. She had never been afraid of losing her balance until now. Eurome, on the other hand, hadn’t even liked looking down from the upstairs balcony. This passage would petrify her, and Briseis could not even offer her a confident hand. She could feel Eurome quivering.