by Byrne Fone
In fact they have given up the war. We know little of the war here, for we are Trojans and we are forbidden even to mount the walls to see the occasional skirmishes, the larger encounters between the Greeks and Trojans. The war has long been at stalemate; that everyone knows. Though the officers put on a brave face and in our hearing talk arrogantly about victory and how they will pull down those walls and slaughter everyone in sight, yet anyone with eyes can see that all is not well in this camp and with this war.
All you need to do is look around. The tents, probably seeming to be numberless to a lookout from Troy’s wall, are patched and many lack cloth to repair or pine-pitch to secure the mend. They are torn and open to the night. The walls and towers that protect the camp, built with wood despoiled from the surrounding hills, are rimed with sea salt carried in by the incoming wind that rusts the spikes that fasten the planks and rots the rope that secures the timbers of the towers. The Greek ships rest upon the beach, but close examination shows the sails tattered, the ropes waterlogged, the planking beginning to rot. Both towers and ships need urgent repairs, but there is little wood left for that. The hills are barren and what wood there is, is needed to fuel the cooking fires, which as time has gone by have been ordered by the king to be made smaller and to be shared, no longer a fire for each cohort, but one for two or even three. And if there is little wood, it does not matter much since there is little food to cook and rations are strictly controlled.
And now, of course, there is the plague. The Greeks die. Us, we Trojans, live. Among the women it is believed that Chryseis, somehow, protects us. I believe it too. And so everywhere I go, the women say to me: “Ask The Lady to pray for us.” They do not use her name, though all know it. She is just The Lady. The Lady of their sorrows; The Lady, they believe, of their salvation.
I believe that she will, for this she has said to me: “My father will save me. I will see him again. We will all live.”
Chapter 13
Briseis
Chryseis is right. She will be freed. Whatever it is she saw has come to pass. Everyone talks of it. And how quickly is has happened. How quickly our despair has turned to triumph. She will not reveal what her visions told her. And I will not ask for she forbids it. But in my heart I wonder: did she foresee the plague, or cause it? Whatever the answer may be, it has served her well for just this morning as I collected wood for our cooking fire, one of the women who works in the king’s cook tent came up to me. Looking around to make sure no soldier is watching, she says:
“They will let her go. They will let your lady go.”
How? What has happened? How do you know? ”
“I heard it myself, for I was serving up food to the slave boys who serve the king for them to take to his tent. It was just this morning. The king and his officers—Odysseus, his brother Menelaus, and the priest Chalchas, and Achilles. They were arguing. The boy—Calistos is his name-- heard it all for the Greeks pay no attention to Trojan slaves, barely see them at all. Its just like we’ve all been saying. The king shouldn’t have sent that old priest packing – now the king— and us—we’re all paying for it. He’s got to let your lady go, or we’ll all die. That’s what they were saying to the king.”
I hugged the old woman. “Bless you mother.” I said and ran toward our tent. As I ran I suddenly realized she was the same old woman who had been captured and stood with me in line before the king. But she had been saved even though the king had ordered her death. Surely there was the hand of god in that, and now his hand had reached out again to save my mistress.
All around people—mostly slaves and servants--are gathered in tight little groups. I hear snatches of conversation as I hurry to tell my lady the news. I hurry past group after group, from one to another. In one someone is hastily telling what he knows, to another someone breathlessly runs up with yet another rumor.
“The king is to blame for the plague.”
“The priests say that if he does let the woman go that Apollo will kill us all”.
“The king will let her go, they have forced him to do it.”
“ Troy cannot be captured unless they let her go.”
“The king has insulted Achilles.”
“ Achilles has quarreled with the king.”
“Achilles has left the camp; he refuses to fight.”
“The king will let her go, they have forced him to do it.”
I stop in my hurry to get to the tent. I need to know for sure. In the group I recognize the boy, Calistos.
As I approached, he was saying: “I was there. I heard it all. I was pouring wine for the king. He drinks all the time now. Sometimes he hits me if I do not keep his goblet filled. Everyone was shouting at once because the priest Calchas had just said that everyone would die of the king didn’t give the woman back to her father. Then Achilles stepped up and shouted for silence. I could see he had his hand on his sword. He was in a rage.
“Why should we obey this king? he shouted “Have we won any glory in battle? Have any of us gotten treasure? Have we won any battles at all? No, this cowardly king is only interested in filling his treasure house and screwing his women. And look what is brought us. Men are dying. Give the woman back. End this plague! Enough is enough. I am sick of fighting this man’s war and seeing my men die because of your lies and greed. I tell you, it’s over! I’ll take my men and launch my ships for home.”
Then the king jumped up and threw his wine cup on the ground, he too had his hand on his sword. I stated to edge my way out. This looked dangerous. The king saw me and said, “give me that wine cup you little toad,” and then he shrieked at Achilles. “Go you coward. Run. Take your damned ships and your men and go. There are plenty of brave men who can fight as well as you. Listen, boy, all the world knows why you don’t take women like I do. But by the gods I’ll use her. I’ll show you what a real man can do.”
Achilles drew his sword and in a lightening movement leapt directly in front of the king. I was sure that he would kill him then and there. But Odysseus and the guard rushed forward and surrounded Agamemnon, and Menelaus and Achilles’ friend Patroclus held Achilles back. Achilles paused and as if awakening from possession by a god, took a deep-drawn breath, shook himself free, but also sheathed his sword.
Stepping back he looked full at the king and said: “You pitiful drunken sot, I won’t kill you; it would disgrace my sword to shed your blood. I won’t fight a man who cowers behind his guard, letting others to do his dirty work. Go hide in your tent; steal the gold of better men. But you mark my words, king. The day will come when you will desperately need my sword and my strong right arm. But I swear to you by this sacred staff”—here he snatched up the speaker’s staff and its golden studs glittered in the sun—“I swear by this and all the gods that I will watch from my camp as the earth drinks your black blood and I will lift no sword to defend you as you die.” With that he and Patroclus marched out of the tent.
The king seemed to crumple. He fell into his chair, motioned to me for more wine. There was a terrible silence.
Then he said, and we could barely hear him. “I’ll give her back.”
I burst into our tent.
“My lady,” I called. She was sitting quietly, weaving.
“There is news, I said.
She smiled. “I know.”
I knew too that no one here had told her.
“Take me with you,” I beg her.
She gave me a sad, an almost pitying look. I know the answer before she says it.
“I wish more than anything, my Briseis, that you could go with me and share my life in Chrysa with me and my father. As I love you like a sister he would love you like a daughter. But you cannot, for it has long been decided There is a destiny that waits for me and one that waits for you, and I, even I, dare not try to change it. And know this too, my dear, dear friend, we will never see one another again.”
I fell on my knees and kissed her hand and wept—with joy that freedom would soon be given to her, with
bitter sorrow that she would soon be taken from me, with despair at what my lonely fate might be.
“Do not do this,” she said. “Shed no tears for me, or for you,” and she softly touched my hair, in benediction. She stood before me, I kneeling. I looked up at her, and saw what I had never seen before, only felt, Chryseis, daughter of the god indeed, but herself a goddess, terrible in vengeance, but Mother of all Mercies, a young and beautiful woman, but ancient as the stars, standing at the still center of the eternal universe bathed in starlight, all women at one in her.
She raised me up and held me for one last time, saying: “I have promised you and I say it again. You will live.”
Despite her assurances I am sick with fear. What will happen to me? But I know that I must show no fear; give no satisfaction to these men who, seeing the fear in a woman’s eyes, take pleasure in it. I saw that pleasure in the eyes of the man—the men—who raped me; leering down at me as they slaked their lust upon my body. It was not only the brutal sex that upon which they gorged; it was the fear they saw in my eyes that drove them to even more brutality. It was in the cold hard eyes of the last of them, enflamed by the spectacle of the violence his comrades had already inflicted upon me that I still see now in the deepest hours of my sleep. The feral glittering intensity, the sneering, cruel, and contemptuous delight I saw in his eyes as with one last brutal thrust he finished upon me, was surely the reverse image of what he saw in mine, as he, striking me, shouting obscenities at me, worked toward his release. In my nightmares that horror survives. In daylight, wide awake, I am comforted and exhilarated as I remember his pleasure turn to horror as Achilles’ spear ends his life and I am baptized with his blood.
I vow in my Lady’s name never to show fear to any man.
Book Three: Chryseis
Chryseis of the lovely cheeks was put her on board the ship and when everyone was aboard they set out along the highways of the sea to take her home.”
--Iliad Book 1
Chapter 14
Chryseis
“Prepare yourself, lady, it is time,” the young soldier who guarded me said, poking his head through the tent flap. Outside I heard the clatter of armed men. A detachment of soldiers had come to take me. I did not need to be told to be ready. I had long been prepared, for had I not been given a sign in a dream that my freedom would come soon? There was little to prepare. I took only a white linen shift and a long mantle of wool, and bound on sandals. That was all I had come with. It was all I needed to depart. For some reason though, I felt prompted, as an afterthought, to gather a small bag of the aromatics and herbs the healer had given me—sandalwood, anise, thyme, lavender, belladonna--these seemed right. When I emerged into the daylight, I saw that the sky was as thick with smoke as the interior of my tent, and in the distance, near to the beach, plumes of smoke, I supposed from the funeral pyres, rose black against the sun. A small detachment of soldiers stood at attention. The priest Calchas was there as well, and Odysseus, the king’s advisor. A short distance from them stood Nestor, the old king of Pylos. He came forward, carrying a rich woolen cloak, deep blue and embroidered in threads of gold. I saw that it was Trojan work. He draped it carefully over my shoulders and tied it snugly in front, almost as if he were tucking me in bed, just as my father used to do. That small kind gesture brought tears to my eyes. I thought, here is an Achaean who deserves to be remembered as a noble man. He said, “It won’t do, lady, for you to be cold on the voyage.” Then I knew that I was bound for home.
“My lady Chryseis,” Calchas said, with a deep bow, “King Agamemnon has magnanimously decided that you should be granted your freedom and returned to your father.” I noted that the level of deference had markedly changed from when I was known as Agamemnon’s whore.
I pointedly glanced up at the sky to where the plumes of smoke drifted darkly, letting them see that I knew as well as they that magnanimity had little do with this decision. Calchas continued, somewhat uncomfortably now, “The Lord Odysseus will accompany you as a token of honor, and with him he brings worthy sacrifices for the Archer God. The king hopes…we all hope… that you will intercede for us when you return to your father, the Reverend and Noble Lord Chryses.” Not so noble once in this king’s eyes, I thought. I said nothing, only smiled, I hoped, enigmatically. I would give these Achaeans no comfort.
“Honor Guard at the ready,” Odysseus commanded. “Come, Lady, let me take you home.” Nestor gave me an encouraging smile and reached out and patted my hand. “Soon, he said, soon.” My father’s very words, I thought. “Thank you,” I said so only he could hear. I saw why old Nestor had been spared the archer’s arrows.
We walked from the officer’s tents along the broad avenue that bisected the camp, toward the beach. I had expected to find all silent and empty. Silent it was, but it was not empty. Along the way soldiers lined the road, watching as I walked with Odysseus at my side, with six men of the guard preceding us, six men following. Many of the men lining the road were unkempt and hollow eyed; others seemed to be in better health. They stared at me as if I were some marvel. For though all had heard of me, few had seen me, since I was snatched up by the king as soon as I was brought to the camp as a captive. The odor of decay—the same as in my dream--hung over us. The way stretched down to the beach where, in the distance, I could see a ship, black hulled as Achaean ships are, riding at anchor just a short way out in the water. Its mast was raised and its sail was ready to be unfurled. A long pennant with the king’s lion device upon it floated from the mast. The oars rose straight up, ready at the oarsman’s signal to be plunged into the water and with steady strokes to take me home. As I walked between the ranks of men, above the tramp of the guard’s marching feet I could hear voices calling out: “Save us, Lady, save us.” The king was nowhere to be seen.
I stood at the ship’s rail as we got underway. A stiff breeze blew up almost as soon as we pulled in the anchor and we scudded swiftly before it. There seemed to be no need of oars. The further we got away from shore the brighter the sky became. I filled my lungs with the fresh salt air for which I had longed. As I breathed in the cold clear air a weight was lifted from my shoulders, and exhaling, I felt the fear and shame expelled. As we pulled away from the Trojan shore, I looked back at the Achaean camp. Having been a prisoner in it, I had never a chance to see much of it. Now from the ship I could see how large it was, and what a vast force had come to overthrow Troy. But I could also see the evidence of the calamity that had struck it. In the center of the camp was the huge parade ground where I had heard the bard singing, now it seemed so long ago. On this ground too my father had been humiliated before the army, and sent ignominiously home. Now it was filled with heaps of burning corpses. The pyres sent towers of smoke to heaven, like the black columns of some macabre temple. On one side of the parade the tents of the ranks—all uniformly small and grey-- stretched along the length of the beach and seemed almost uncountable; on the other, smaller in number but larger in size were the tents of the kings and officers—flags denoting the headquarters tent of one nation or another; in the center was the huge tent of the king and to the right of it the smaller compound from whence I had so recently come. Ringing it all was the defensive wall. At the far end of the camp the ships, drawn up in neat lines, lay on the beach, prows out. Looking down on it all from its high mountain cliff stood Troy. Its towers caught the morning sunlight and from the ramparts I could just hear, carried across the Achaean camp and to the deck of the ship by some trick of the wind, the silver call of a Trojan trumpet. Did they know that Chryses and his daughter had triumphed over Agamemnon?
The ship was not a large one, thirty oarsmen, fifteen to a side, for it was not a long journey, a day or two at most with good weather. The soldiers bunked on deck among the cattle, three bulls—one of them white-- five sheep and assorted other creatures, all destined as a sacrifice to Apollo to convince him to end the plague. I had a feather pallet under a small canopy rigged in the stern. We had been underway half a day alrea
dy when Odysseus came to the stern where I sat looking at the waves tumble away on either side of the ship, parting and foaming at the prow. I watched the water to see if any dolphins might swim with us. Thus far we sailed alone on the glassy sea.
Odysseus saluted. “Lady, do you require anything?” he asked.
“No, just privacy,” I replied. But he did not leave. Instead he said, almost hesitantly, “I have heard, Lady Chryseis, that you are blessed with the sight? Is that so?”
A dubious blessing, I thought. But I answered, “Yes, I have been blessed, though your king’s vile touch may well have ruined that gift, for few visions have come to me since I became his captive.”
“Yes, but you are free now, Lady, and…well…I am glad of it. It was wrong to take you.” I could see this admission cost him something to say.
“Do you really believe that, my lord, or is it matter of policy that you say so now?” I said coldly. Though I had never encountered Odysseus before, his reputation as a shrewd and wily politician was as great as his prowess as a soldier.
“This is no policy. The king was wrong and we are paying for his arrogance. I know no way to say it other than as I have done. Believe me.”
I did believe him. I know when men tell the truth and when they do not. Serving at the altar at my father’s side and with him comforting supplicants who came to the temple, or sitting next to the bedside of the dying, has taught me to hear the message behind the words, to see the truth behind the masks that people wear. So when he spoke, I heard pain in his voice and saw the truth in his eyes.