Hand of Fire

by Judith Starkston

  No one would choose death with that shield in front of them; no one but Achilles. He glanced at it and strapped one greave on his calf, then another. He girt the corslet about his chest and slung the sword over his shoulder. With no hesitation, he lifted the great shield. When he had placed the helmet on his head, she watched him try the armor to see how it fit and moved. It became like skin to him, and he seemed to lift off the ground in it as if he had put on wings and not heavy bronze.

  He took up his spear. It had not been lost because no one else could lift it, not even Patroklos while filled with Achilles’ fury. He vaulted into his chariot and called out to his horses.

  “Xanthos and Balios, bring your charioteer back safely from the fighting this time. Don’t leave him dead on the field as you left Patroklos.”

  Xanthos bowed his head low, sweeping his golden mane upon the ground. Briseis thought this was his acknowledgement of Achilles’ words, but then to her shock, the immortal horse spoke in a deep, resonating voice.

  “We will keep you safe, grave Achilles, for now, but your day of destruction is near. We are not to blame, but a great god and overpowering fate. For not by our slowness or sloth did the Trojans take the armor from Patroklos’s shoulders, but that preeminent god, Apollo. He killed him and gave the glory to Hector. For we two run as fast as the west wind, which they say is the swiftest of all. You also are doomed to be overcome by a god and a man.”

  “I know too well how soon I will die. I am destined to be killed far from the land of my father, but, nonetheless, I will fight. I was not there to defend my companion when he needed me. Now there is nothing for me in life but to kill Hector and lay his dead body before Patroklos.” Nothing at all? wondered Briseis. Had he lost every sense of her? Had his self-loathing stripped him of all else?

  Impatiently he signaled his horses and they leapt forward.

  Briseis took a deep breath. While Achilles had been near, the air felt charged with lightning, too combustible to take in. Now, in contrast, it seemed cool and refreshing. She covered Patroklos with the white mantle again. How soon would she look upon Achilles’ torn body?

  She turned to join the women at Achilles’ cook fires. With alarm she wondered why Eurome hadn’t come to the shore to greet her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Burden of Grief

  Briseis raced into the courtyard and looked at the women working by the cook fire but didn’t see her nurse. She rushed to their hut and pushed open the door.

  Eurome lay on her pallet. Briseis knelt by her. The old woman’s eyes opened slowly, and the wrinkled lines of her face softened.

  “How are you, dear Eurome? Did your cough grow worse?” She put her hand on Eurome’s forehead. It burned. “I should have been here to take care of you. You are hot with a fever. Didn’t anyone make you willow bark tea? I entrusted your care to Patroklos and Achilles. Clearly they did nothing for you.”

  “Now that—” A cough interrupted Eurome’s words. She caught her breath slowly. “Now that my Poppy is here, I’m happy,” she said, and panted with the effort. Briseis placed her ear on Eurome’s chest, listening. The wet rattle worried her.

  Eurome’s condition had grown alarmingly worse in the day and night since her nurse had come to her in Agamemnon’s camp.

  She squeezed Eurome’s hand. “I’ll ask the women to bring me a kettle of water to boil, and then I’ll be right back.”

  She went out to the other captives. “How long has Eurome been sick? Did any of you make her some of the willow bark and licorice tea I gave to her?”

  The women looked puzzled. They didn’t know about any tea, and Eurome hadn’t complained of feeling sick. They’d noticed she had not gotten up yesterday, but they knew she’d gone across the camp in the middle of the night, so they thought she was just tired. Who had noticed anything today except Lord Achilles’ grief? They were eager to help Briseis now that they knew Eurome needed them.

  When Briseis returned to Eurome, the old woman was shaking with chills. Briseis wrapped some blankets and fleeces around her and stirred up the coals in the hearth, feeding kindling into the fire until it could sustain the logs she added. One of the women placed a tripod kettle over the coals, and Briseis brewed a tea of willow bark, mullein, and licorice mixed with honey.

  She propped Eurome up and gave her sips. Gradually Eurome coughed less often.

  “I missed you, Poppy,” said Eurome, her voice a raspy whisper. “Almost as much as Lord Achilles missed you.” Briseis looked sharply at Eurome.

  “I don’t think Achilles missed me at all, Eurome. He did nothing to get me back, and he hasn’t spoken a word to me since I returned.” She ground mustard seed and dried mint leaves to make a plaster for Eurome’s chest, smacking the pestle harder than necessary in the mortar.

  “He were so sad without you. His songs. If you heard ’em you’d weep.”

  “Eurome, I was locked in a dark hut. I did weep every day, and Achilles could have settled his quarrel with Agamemnon and gotten me out. Why are you telling me how sad he was? There’s enough misery right now.”

  “’Cause I know he hurt you. You turn stubborn when you’re sore. You’ll be sure he’s in the wrong because your heart’s aching.” Eurome had to stop to catch her breath. Briseis gave her another sip of tea. “He loves you, and you was happier with him than I ever saw you. Forgive him. He’s so lost he doesn’t know what he’s doing—” Eurome coughed and the wet rattling made Briseis shudder.

  “Eurome, stop talking. It’s making you worse.”

  “I need to speak my mind. He’s lost Patroklos; you’re all he has. You need him. Revenge on Hector’s all he’s thinking now. That’s a man’s way. Wait a bit. He’ll remember you. His love. You think sweet about him, I’ll be quiet.” Eurome looked at her. Briseis nodded and kissed Eurome’s cheek, although she wasn’t persuaded. She had more important things to worry about with Eurome’s illness. Briseis opened Eurome’s tunic and spread the plaster across her chest.

  One of the women brought in a tray of food. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said. Briseis thanked her and laid the tray next to Eurome’s pallet.

  The old woman shook her head at the cheese and bread. “You eat, Poppy. I’m too tired.”

  Briseis looked at the food. She hadn’t felt like eating in days. “I never feel hungry for breakfast anymore, but you should eat to build up your strength. You always say, food is the best thing for getting better. It’s always been good advice.”

  Eurome opened her eyes and studied Briseis. “How long you been sick over breakfast?” she asked.

  Briseis shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

  “You’re the midwife—”

  Briseis took a sudden intake of breath. She put her hand on her stomach. That couldn’t be it. It was the darkness, the misery. Then she remembered that she’d felt sick in the mornings even before Agamemnon took her. She’d been in the middle of fighting the plague. She’d seen so much to make a person nauseous. Had it started before then? She tried to remember, but that seemed a lifetime ago. When had her last cycle of bleeding come? Why hadn’t she noticed its absence?

  Eurome was smiling and watching her. “My Poppy having a baby. Now you two will love.” She sighed contentedly.

  Briseis closed her eyes and put both hands on her belly. A child growing inside her? Achilles had marched out to kill Hector and soon he would lie dead like Patroklos. Her eyes filled with tears and she laid her head next to Eurome, felt the old hand smooth her hair, prayed not to be alone in the world with a child—a child likely to be extraordinary—extraordinarily difficult, she thought with a softness in her heart for Achilles that she had not felt in a long time.

  The rasping and gurgling in Eurome’s chest was worsening. She sat up. “I must find a way to heal you.”

  Eurome patted her hand. “You pray to Kamrusepa—outside where you’ll feel her.”

  Briseis hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Go o
n. Give your old nurse a kiss and then outside. Speak to your goddess. She’ll help you.”

  Briseis gave the wrinkled cheek a kiss. “I love you, Eurome.”

  She walked toward the shore, and the breeze off the blue water refreshed her. She watched the rhythmic movements of the waves. Then she raised her hands. “Kamrusepa, bring your healing strength to Eurome. Clear her breathing and take away her cough. Restore her good health.”

  She added another prayer, this time to Thetis. “No one understands the pain of loss more deeply than you. For the sake of my love for your son, heal Eurome.”

  Her attention returned to the world around her. Across the bay the battle raged. Trojans ran across the plain toward the city walls. Many in their flight had reached the banks of the Scamander River and were trying to make their way across its deep whirling waters. She looked for Achilles but couldn’t find him in the battle. Had he already killed Hector and been struck down?

  His brilliant armor and size should have made him easy to see. She hunted and peered, straining her eyes. Nearby stood the ships, propped upright on the beach with wooden beams. Using one of the beams as a ladder, she climbed to the stern and looked out from its height. Piles of dead warriors lined the banks of the river and clogged its waters, their bodies forming a horrific dam, holding back the strong current in a roiling, turbid nightmare. The water darkened with blood.

  There—she saw a golden flash. Achilles stood in the river surrounded by the dead bodies of his victims. The water crested above him like a lion pouncing on its prey. Boulders and bodies, carried by the water’s force, knocked his feet from under him. Troy’s immortal river itself engaged him in battle. Achilles reached for a branch of an overhanging elm, but the whole tree wrenched from the riverbank, its dense roots dragging the river bluff with them into the water, nearly burying Achilles.

  Surely this was not his fate, to lie folded under mud and stones in the hostile waters of Scamander, but how could even he escape such raw power?

  To reach for Troy he had fought against the city’s gods for so long; she could not tolerate this river god rising against him also and drowning his beauty in its murk, no matter how many dead he had thrown into Scamander’s waters. She strained forward, willing him to escape the river’s hold. A wind rose up, hot and blasting. It caught her hair and pulled it toward the river. When she tried to gather her hair in her hand, it scorched her fingers and escaped her hold.

  The banks of the river burst into flames. The dead burned in a sudden pyre. The water boiled. The fish leapt upon the scorched banks in a vain attempt to flee the flames that had replaced their watery homes. The tamarisks and elms along the river’s edge became monstrous torches.

  In the midst of this inferno, she saw Achilles lift his massive shield and spear in victory. Her heart surged. Not even the divine river could stop him. She heard his shout of joy as he raced across the plain, blasting Trojans like a bolt of lightning. Invincible warrior god, unstoppable fire. He lived, but she no longer knew him. The wonder and terror of him stunned her: his flesh with hers. His child growing inside her. She turned away with a sob, stumbling blindly back to Eurome. Achilles was lost to her now.

  Eurome was dead. Briseis knew the moment she saw her still frame, the peace on her face. She had lost everyone she loved. How many was she destined to consign to the flames? Her mother, her brother, and now her dear nurse. If Achilles was not already dead, he soon would be. She was alone now.

  Eurome had known. Her wise old nurse had made her goodbye. She had died happy in the knowledge of what she’d discovered—her Poppy happily joined with Achilles by the bond of a child. It had released her. Eurome, I need you.

  Briseis wept by Eurome’s side, unable to move until the rumble of chariots alerted her to the warriors’ return from battle. She stumbled down to the shore to see if Achilles had returned alive.

  Achilles stood in his chariot near Patroklos’s bier, his warriors gathered around him. “Let us honor Patroklos by driving our chariots, stained with enemy blood, around his body three times as a proper offering to the dead.”

  They took off at once, swooping in tight formation on the wide beach around Patroklos’s bier, their horses’ long manes flowing back, the bronze armor flashing, the deep-voiced lament of men overlaying the warlike thunder of hooves and wheels. Majestic and fitting for a fallen hero. Then she saw that Achilles dragged something behind his chariot—a corpse. She felt sick.

  The third circle completed, Achilles reined in his horses close to the bier. He stepped from his chariot and laid his hands on his friend’s chest. “Farewell, Patroklos. I salute you even in the land of the dead. Everything that I promised to do in your honor, I have done. I bring you Hector’s body, which I have dragged through the dust to be food for the ravening dogs. I have brought twelve Trojan youths, whom I captured on the battlefield, to sacrifice and burn on your pyre.” Achilles untied the torn and mangled body and flung it facedown in the dirt. Briseis crouched down and threw up. This murderous warrior was the father of her child.

  Briseis left the shore. Near Eurome’s hut, one of the women asked about Eurome. Briseis could barely answer her. She went inside and curled up on the floor.

  Two women entered the hut. She saw them through half-shut eyes. They murmured some comforting words to her, but she didn’t move. They heated water and brought out linen to wash and prepare Eurome’s body. As she watched the women work, she wondered where Eurome was, why she was not helping them. Eurome always took charge at times like this. She began to shake.

  Loneliness and cold filled her. As the women cleansed Eurome’s body, they keened in mourning. She howled with them until she had wailed herself into numbness and the women had laid Eurome’s body on a litter.

  Having seen to the dead, the women gently brought Briseis outside to the cook fire and pressed her to eat. She sat in a blur.

  It had grown dark. The women had gone to bed, leaving her to her grief. She walked around the camp in the gray light of the stars and moon. She saw no one else. The men had fought a long day and must be sleeping. She wished she had thought to send Maira word of Eurome’s death. Perhaps Maira would have found some way to come to her in the current disorder of the whole Greek camp. She doubted Agamemnon’s men wanted to cause trouble with anyone associated with Achilles.

  She walked toward the shore to better hear the soothing sound of the waves. Patroklos’s white shroud hung over his bier and gave off an ethereal gleam in the moonlight. On the ground next to it, lay Hector’s body. It too radiated light and what she saw chilled her. His skin, which had been torn beyond recognition when Achilles had thrown him down beside Patroklos’s bier, was now whole, his face at peace, his wounds gone. Surely this was the work of the gods. She stepped back in fear, but she was glad the gods had given Hector this respect. Grief had driven Achilles mad. Gentle Patroklos would not wish to be honored in this horrific way.

  Closer to the water’s edge there was something else on the sand—shapes that after a moment resolved themselves into the forms of men. One man, larger than the others, lay in their midst, twisted in a tortured sleep. Achilles slept here, unable to leave Patroklos, and his loyal companions stayed near him. She picked her way to him. His men had washed the gore of battle off their own bodies, but Achilles was still covered in it.

  As she stood beside him, he called out Patroklos’s name and his arms reached out. Despite the cruel thing he had said and the violent form of his grief, she longed to hold him, to bear his burden of grief and feel him shoulder hers, but his men were close, and she could not bring herself to touch his body with the blood of Trojans on it. She felt a sob rising up and left the beach. If any of his men keeping watch over their lord had awakened and noticed her, she did not want to speak to them.

  She returned to her hut and curled up near the litter on which the women had laid Eurome. Her exhausted body pursued a restless sleep through which dreams fluttered: her nurse floated in front of her, smiling but silent. Eurome look
ed behind, and from the darkness Patroklos emerged.

  Though his body bore the gruesome marks of his death, his voice was gentle as he knelt beside her. “I have asked Achilles to attend to my pyre quickly, no longer to put off my burial so that I can pass through the gates of the Underworld and mingle with the souls of the dead. His ashes will soon lie with mine. Remember this and forgive what his torment drives him to do. He must honor me as his spirit requires. His grief burns hotter than any funeral pyre, and it must be given room to rage.

  “You have your own sorrow. Tomorrow bid the men who bring wood for my pyre to set some aside, away from the shore where Achilles will burn my body along with many animals and captives that he will sacrifice. Eurome requires no sacrifice but your tears. Tell the men to construct a small pyre. Turn away from my funeral. Leave Achilles to his immortal sorrow for now. Later when you have attended to Eurome’s burial, seek him out as a balm for both your spirits.”

  Patroklos’s image dispersed like fog thinning until she could see him no longer. She awoke and remembered her dream, comforted by his guidance.

  As the dawn turned into day, she sat in the doorway of the hut, keeping vigil for Eurome and waiting for the wagons loaded with wood cut from Mount Ida’s forests. She had heard the men leave early in the morning to cut down trees for Patroklos’s pyre. She had taken out her tapestry and laid it over her lap, a meadow of flowers that gave her solace and courage.

  She would ask one of Achilles’ men to take word of Eurome’s death to Maira after they had finished the pyre. Such messages had been Eurome’s job—now there was no simple way to get word to her friend while her duty to Eurome’s burial held her here. Somehow Maira would find a way to mourn with her.

  When one of the overloaded wagons drew near, she called out to the drivers and asked for their help with the pyre. The two men hesitated.

  “This timber is for Lord Patroklos,” one said. His tone was apologetic.

  “I know,” she answered. “That is why I ask you. Lord Patroklos himself appeared in my dream last night and told me to use a portion of his pyre wood for another, much smaller pyre up there by the spring.” She pointed. The man swallowed visibly and his eyes scanned around her as if Patroklos might still be present.