by Byrne Fone
“Hear me, god of the Silver Bow,” my father intoned, “Protector of Chrysa, Lord of Tenedos, Smintheus, you heard my prayer when in distress I appealed to you and you granted my request and struck down the Achaeans who had insulted you and your priest. But now I come again, humbly, with rich sacrifice, and pray you to hear me: My daughter Chryseis, who serves your altar, has been restored and so I call upon you, Lord of the Sun, accept this sacrifice and lift the dreadful scourge from the Achaeans, who have come as supplicants and in penance, and who kneel before you and beg you, as do I, to release them from your anger.”
He lay the staff upon the altar before the god, bowed three times and with Ariston and me to aid him, purified the bull with water and grain and then his blood spurted out from the severed jugular, a fountain of forgiveness I was sure, covering me and Odysseus. At the same instant each of the attendants slew their beasts and Odysseus’ priests released the white doves. They fluttered up to the roof the temple and then down again and circled the statue of the god. Then we heard it: first a rustling like dry leaves blown by an autumn breeze, then, around us, from every hidden corner of the temple, mice appeared, white mice, Apollo‘s charges and favored and protected by him. They can be signs of his pleasure-- they were for me so long ago-- or his anger for it is they who bring the plague. They came squeaking and scurrying toward the altar, leapt upon it and in frenzy threw themselves into the altar flame and disappeared into the fire and smoke. Rather than the stench of burning hair and flesh, however an intoxicating sweet perfume rose from the fire and spread around us all, filling the room and wreathing us all in its aroma. It was then, as if to add wonder to wonder, that the late afternoon sun struck the image full on, illuminating it in blaze of white and gold. Was it only I who thought the god smiled down at us. I cried out, “Thank You Lord Apollo.” This was the sign. It meant redemption. The plague was ended. A shout went up from everyone as they all, Odysseus and his men and all the people, threw off their black cloaks, and the last of the afternoon light turned us all into rejoicing figures of the purest gold.
That night we all feasted; slices of beef, goat meat, and lamb, roasted with rosemary served on wooden trenchers went round among us as we all sat together in the temple forecourt. Cheese and apples were passed around, and honeycombs as well. Everyone drank till we were all giddy with wine and delight. Odysseus, my father, Ariston, and I sat at a low table, the Achaean soldiers sat on the ground with Trojan farmers, men and women, and passed the wine jars around. We held hands and danced to a flute that someone played and to a drum that someone found, whirling in a circle beneath the moon, soldier and farmer, Achaean and Trojan, silver dancers on a silver ground.
The next day we trooped down to the shore to bid farewell. The soldiers had boarded the ship. Odysseus stood at the foot of gangplank; my father with him. I between the two. We looked at one another. In Odysseus’ eyes I saw the memory of the night before when, simply as two aging men, he and my father had shared the intimacy of talk and wine. But now that had passed. He was again the general. My father the priest.
Still I said: “Is there no hope for an end to it all? Can we end it?” He knew well what I meant.
He smiled, sadly. “No, Lady, I fear not. This play is already written; we are only the actors in it. We must read our lines, act our parts, and press on to the end.”
I knew in my heart that he was right. And so we sent them back-- back to their war, back to Agamemnon, back to the endless waiting for history to complete its tale. What the finished tale would reveal, not even my visions could foretell.
Book Four: Briseis
Achilles furious about the loss of Briseis whom he had taken from Lyrnessus at his own great peril, confronted Agamemnon and said, "You are obsessed with lust for gold and captive slaves. How can any Achaean follow you into battle? I did not come here because the Trojans had raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut down my harvests on the rich plains of Phthia. I followed you, for your pleasure, not mine--to gain satisfaction from the Trojans for you and for Menelaus. You forget this, and now you threaten to rob me of the gold and captives for which I have toiled. When my Achaeans sack a rich city of the Trojans I never receive as good a prize as you do, though it is my hands that do the fighting and now you take my gold and my captives Chryseis and Briseis. I will not stay here and be insulted and dishonored just to gather gold for you."
--Iliad Book 2
Chapter 16
Briseis
Chryseis is gone and I am alone. I am forgotten also, it seems. I still occupy her large tent; I have not been asked to leave it. No one pays any attention to me as I wander around the camp. I go to the cook tents to make my food or to collect some rations which have not been stopped, even though the woman for whom they were intended has long departed. I wash my clothes with the other women at the washing trough, and at night after they have finished their chores—waiting on a captain, washing a commander’s clothes, cleaning up after a general’s dinner, or if they are pretty, satisfying their master’s lust. I gossip with them in the slave quarters— rows of tents pitched in the middle of the camp around the kitchens and storage rooms and near the edge of the parade ground but far away from the gates, the walls, the ships, or the tents of the soldiers. They are placed in the middle so we cannot easily escape, I suppose. As if we women and boys—there are no old men for they are always killed when women and boys are captured—might late at night launch a ship and sail away to freedom, or in a group scale the high walls and leap over into the no man’s land that surrounds the camp, or overcome the guards and force the gates and run eagerly to the arms of the waiting Trojan forces. The Trojan army—concerned about defending itself and their city has more to do than rescue a rag- tag bunch of runaway slaves and cares no more for us women than our Greek captors do and probably would kill us or enslave us again.
So at night we all sit in front of the meager fire we are allowed and lament our fate. Sometimes some of the women come to my tent and marvel at the luxury in which I still live, borrowed luxury since it was intended for Chryseis, and the tent as boudoir—or shall I say brothel-- for the king’s delight. But as I have told, he almost never came, and certainly never touched her after her father, in terrible retribution for the king’s brutal dismissal and initial refusal to return his daughter to him, terrorized both king and army and called down the wrath of Apollo upon them all.
In the beginning, in the weeks after we had been captured, he did come to her; usually when drunk, and the first time was horror. He burst into the tent two nights after he had first encountered her as she stood proudly before him. I was there; he came in and ignoring me went to her and seizing her by her shoulders said: “Now lady you claim to be scared; you say no man can touch you. Well I am no mere man: I am king. See how you like it.” With that he threw her on the bed. I screamed and rushed to try to stop him. I staggered back from the blow he gave me that sent me reeling into the corner. I fell, weak and dizzy; I tasted blood – my blood, from my lip. I leaned against the corner post of the tent, unable to rise, unable to help her, and too terrified to try.
“Watch, slave,” he shouted at me, as he forced Chryseis back down on the bed. “See how a king takes his pleasure.” The he hit her. I could not watch, but I could hear. He hit her again, and then all I could hear was his heavy breathing and her whimpering cry as he labored above her, grunting as he thrust, and then with an exclamation of release, all was silent. I opened my eyes. He was standing now, adjusting his clothes. He then said:
“Sacred are you, lady? Touched by no man? No I guess you never had been.” Then he looked at me where I still cowered on the ground. “Your turn bitch? he said. “Hardly worth it.” He laughed, and left the tent. I heard him joke to the guard “Tasty meat these Trojan girls.” To his credit the guard did not reply.
I crawled to my lady who still lay silent upon the bed. I found water and a soft cloth and bathed her face. There was blood on her lips, a bruise was beginning to show on her bare s
houlders; blood covered her torn dress as well. I realized suddenly: she is—was-- a virgin. From the goblet by the bedside I gave her wine, cleaned her as best I could and then held her as she sobbed, deep wracking sobs, her head on my shoulder, her beautiful golden hair spread like a halo around her.
She soon fell into sleep, for I gave her a potion to help her do so. She slept all night and most of the next day and woke as the dusk of the next night was settling. I feared that the king would come again. Thank the gods the king did not come that night, nor for many nights thereafter. The guard at our door was kind; he brought food and I could see he was embarrassed and sorry for her, for she had been kind to him.
Late that night, she called to me. I must have drifted off, leaving her sitting by the small smoky fire that burned in a brazier by her bedside.
“Briseis, can you come to me.” I rose up out of sleep—I had been dreaming of what I always dream: the hot sour breath, the distended eyes of my attacker—and came over to her.
“Lady?” I said.
“Here,” she said, “sit across from me, on the other side of the brazier.” Then she began to sing, words that I did not understand, words in the old tongue that no one any longer spoke and that only the priests know. As she sang, I saw that she had put out before her a tray upon which lay small vials of liquid, and a little pot of colored powder, some grain, and in a little cage, a mouse. How had she found these things? I sat across from her, the fire leaping between us, casting our shadows hugely against the tent wall, and etching her face with unearthly light. I could see that though her voice was sweet and hypnotic, yet her eyes were cold and deep and hard. I shivered with fear. She must have seen me blanche.
“Do not be afraid,” she said, “I am with you.”
With that she poured the content of one of the vials on the fire; a sweet perfume filled the tent and colored smoke, like the purple mist of the sea at sunset a rose around us. She gave me the grain.
“Throw it on the fire.”
I did as she bade me. Then she began to speak; I did not understand her words but I knew that it was prayer, perhaps even a spell. More liquid was poured upon the fire upon the grain that was beginning to sizzle; more mists, more perfumes. She took the cage, placed it upon the little shelf at the brazier’s edge and opened the door. The mouse inside it made no move, but seemed to look at her, as if waiting for a sign. She then spoke again. Now I could understand her.
“Lord Apollo, hear my prayer and accept my gifts. Protect your daughter and those she loves”—and here she sprinkled some of the liquid upon me—“and bring down your vengeance upon those who have dishonored me. Apollo, Lord Smintheus, slayer of men, Protector of the Innocent, hear me.” With that she cast the powder upon the flame and it exploded in blinding light and at that moment I saw, or thought I saw, the mouse, leap up and throw himself into of the midst of the fire and into the wreathing smoke. Then the fire suddenly fell and was extinguished. As the smoke cleared I looked to see, but saw no little mouse, no little immolated corpse in the ashes. Chryseis sat across from me and in her face I saw triumph, and also, peace.
“Now indeed, my Briseis,” she said, “we need have no fear.”
The king did come again to her; but now I know that it was she not he who triumphed and left him sobbing in the dust.
And now of course I know, now that she is free, that her power—her magic? Her spells? Or her goodness? —brought it about.
Chapter 17
Briseis
I have not after all, been forgotten. A few days after Chryseis left, a guard came to me. “Follow me,” he said, brusquely.
I thought: Am I to be killed now that I am no longer of use?
We made our way through the camp, from the tents where the slaves and captives were housed, past the parade ground and toward the cluster of larger tents occupied by the officers who served the king.
We came to a tent nearest to the king’s. It was one of the largest of them all, and a royal standard flew before it.
The guard pointed to the entrance. “Go in,” he said.
Inside it was dim and the smoke from a brazier filled the air with sweet blue smoke. At a table at the far end a man sat with his back to me, bent over what seemed to be maps and charts. I came in, stood waiting. Finally he turned. It was Odysseus.
“Lady Briseis,” he said—I noted the “Lady.” What did it mean? He pointed to a low stool near the table. I sat and waited for him to speak.
Odysseus had accompanied my lady back to her father and of the many officers—some of them kings in their own right, who attended the king-- he was said to be the kindest and the most fair and honest.
In our quarters among the slaves and captives we heard stories. Indeed little was unknown to us about our masters-- about the king’s drunken rages and his cruelty to women, something I had experienced first hand. We knew about Menelaus’ greed. We knew that Achilles had no interest in women or in treasure but lived for glory and for his friend Patroclus. Little can be hidden in a camp where the masters are served in such close quarters every day by the enslaved. And so ask any of us to tell a tale of this Greek lord or that, repeat the horror of their rape by one arrogant officer or another, and we could do it. We also heard of Odysseus’ wisdom and wiles, of his craft—and of his kindness. Thus when I came to Odysseus I was not afraid for he had been kind to my mistress. And some said that it was he who saved her. For a few minutes he sat without speaking, looking at me.
Then: “You are a handsome woman, but I see that you are, may I say kindly, no longer in the precise bloom of youth. I am told that you have no kin to ransom you.”
I looked at the ground. That was, all of it, too true.
“And” he want on, “since your mistress is gone you have no lady to serve. Of course I cannot allow you to remain in her tent; it is a bit too sumptuous to house a servant—a former servant—and at the moment you are of no interest to His Majesty, especially if you can bring no ransom. So you are of little value I fear.”
He paused and looked intently at me. Did he want me to answer? Was he going to suggest that I come to his tent as, as what, as a slave for sex?
He must have seen the fear in my eyes, or read my thoughts.
“No Lady Briseis, you are quite safe from me. Unlike many I am faithful to my wife. But I do need something from you. I have a duty and that is to be concerned with the best interests of the king.”
Again a silence. Again that intent stare, seeing through me.
“I am sure you know, for who does not know now, that Achilles and the king have quarreled. Achilles has left the camp and for all practical purposes the war, and set up his camp with his soldiers a few leagues north of here. The king is proud and angers easily. Achilles is also proud and also angers easily. Unhappily for us, he is also our most formidable weapon. The king will not admit it, but without Achilles we are at a severe, even fatal disadvantage. And, unhappily, an angry Achilles is also a danger to the king. And I—we--do not know what Achilles plans as he sits and nurses his wounded pride there in his camp, though it is barely a morning’s march from ours. Will he fight against the Trojans without us, or will he turn and fight against us? Anything is possible.
He paused. “Do you wonder why do I tell you this, you a woman and a slave?”
He did not wait for me to answer.
“Here is why. I have arranged for you to be given to Achilles. This has two advantages, one for you and one for me. The advantage for you is that with Achilles you will be safe. For when the king realizes that you remain after his desire, the lady Chryseis was, in effect, taken from him, he will turn his rage toward you. And no doubt after some sexual adventuring that will surely not be pleasant for you he will quite likely kill you. Thus if you are in the camp of Achilles you will be safe from the king. Achilles, as I am sure you also know, will not touch you or harm you, for he loves his friend almost to frenzy and he is, while an alarmingly bloodthirsty killer, still a gentleman.
The value
for me? Knowledge. You can tell me what passes in Achilles’ camp. You can watch and listen and discover what he intends and I will arrange a way for what you learn to be brought back to me. And thus I do my duty for the king. I believe that you can help. I say ‘you can,’ I probably should be direct and say ‘you must.’ You have no choice. And the fact is neither do I for no man can do it. Achilles would trust no man from the king’s camp. But a woman, a slave, he will ”
I understood all too well why I had no choice—or a choice between death and ending my life as an exhausted slave.
“But, my Lord, I do not understand, why would Achilles want me?”
“He will not, strictly speaking want you as I have already made clear. But honor is the key to this young man. And so I have planted a few seeds among those in the army who love and revere Achilles and who feel that he has been insulted by the king. Soon some men will clamor that because the king has his treasure—kept imprudently in my opinion, from the horde brought by your lady’s father--that Achilles should have his. Seeing that the king chose Chryseis, who by right should have gone to Achilles since he captured her—and you--the army keenly feels--or will shortly feel--the unfairness of Agamemnon’s arrogant appropriation of the treasure and both hostages won by Achilles.