For the Immortal

by Emily Hauser

  ‘Cayster,’ I said, in a low voice. He looked well in his war-dress, there was no denying it, his hair covered with a glittering helmet, the eyes visible as narrow slits beside the nosepiece, his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms accentuated by the fitted breastplate. My heart wrenched within me, as it always did, to see my boy – the boy who, all those long years ago, had told me that he was glad I was returned from Greece – clothed in the raiments of war. My mouth was dry of a sudden, my throat swollen, and I found I could hardly speak.

  ‘I cannot prevent you from fighting,’ I said at last, ‘neither as a queen, as an Amazon, nor as a mother.’ I swallowed. ‘But I beg you, Cayster, have a care on the battlefield, for my sake. Can you swear it to me?’ My voice shook, and I reached a hand to brush his where it lay on the reins of his horse. ‘Will you swear to keep yourself safe?’

  ‘I swear to do as any Amazon does,’ he said, his horse sidling beneath him, sensing his impatience, ‘to fight with honour, to fell as many of the enemy as I can, and never to fail in strength or courage. I cannot promise more.’

  I bowed my head, pressing his fingers between mine, the apprehension that still twisted in my stomach like a knot loosening somewhat. ‘That is enough, then,’ I said. ‘I know I cannot ask more.’

  I kicked my steed forwards to Melanippe and Deiphobus, the crowds of infantry parting before me with a clatter of spears and shields.

  ‘All well?’ I asked them, tightening my grip on the reins as my horse tossed its head.

  Deiphobus bowed. ‘We are ready to fight, my lady, if you are.’

  I thought of my dream, my mother clothed in war urging me to fight, the portent of immortality brought to me by the herald that morning, and righteous battle-fury surged through me. I drew my sword from its sheath over my shoulders and held it glinting to the sky. My horse reared, pawing at the air, and the sunlight flashed from my blade. For a moment, all was quiet but for the swishing of bronze.

  ‘Then let us ride!’ I shouted, and sound came back to the world with a roar from the gathered troops and the creaking of the gates as they were hauled open. The war-trumpets sounded shrill, and the commanders were shouting orders to their troops. My eyes were on the plain that was opening up before us, an expanse of dust ploughed by the feet of a thousand warriors, and beyond it, just visible against the line of the sea, a rampart of wood and the beaks of ships.

  The sense of destiny’s hand at my back set me galloping, and I cried to my Amazons, ‘Oiorpata!’, and the guard followed me first out of the gates of Troy and onto the plain, hoofs pounding: Thermodosa to my left, Melanippe to my right, behind me Polemusa and Derinoe, then Cayster and Evandre, all urging their horses faster. And above all – above the pounding of my heart, the screaming of the war-cry and the thudding of my horse’s hoofs over the hard earth – I heard Andromache’s words ringing in my ears. Avenge him. Avenge my husband …

  I saw, streaming from the coast, like a back-flowing river, the Amazon and Saka forces joining the Trojans behind us. Ahead, the warriors of the Greeks issued from the open gates of their camp, shields locked side by side in a wall of bronze.

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Oiorpata!’ I cried, and raised my sword, charging forwards, my horse’s mane streaming, my vision white and clear.

  And then the battle began.

  My blade whirled over my head. Men were streaming around my horse’s flanks, and I was slicing and cutting, holding the blade two-handed, felling warriors. At a pause in the onslaught, I drew my bow and aimed an arrow at a warrior charging towards one of my Amazons, then whirled around, brought my battle-axe from my belt and crashed it onto an infantryman’s skull as he tried to swipe his sword at my horse. Moments seemed to slow to ages, as if I were truly immortal, as Priam’s gift had proclaimed me, and, like a god invulnerable, I swept through the battle. Parry with my shield, knock aside the blow of a spear – thrust my javelin into a Greek’s shoulder, pushing down till the collarbones crack – turn, knock aside the sword of my attacker and plunge my blade between his ribs—

  The blood pounded in my ears, sweat trickled down my nose. To my left, I saw Clonie slay a son of Greece—

  Slice with the sword-blade as I ride – draw the battle-axe and bring it down on the shield of the one who hides beneath it—

  Time slid out of focus, hours passing with each breath. I could taste dust in my mouth, dry, and the iron tang of blood mixed with the stench of death. Derinoe was fighting a Greek, swords sparking as they clashed, her plait whirling behind her. She slipped, wrong-footed, and the Greek took up his spear and drove it hard between her hips. She shuddered at the impact of the blow, her mouth open, gasping. I screamed and hurled my spear at her attacker, catching his arm and sending him tumbling to the ground. I whirled around, searching for Cayster—

  Recover the spear, cut with the sword, stab, ploughing down men beneath your horse’s hoofs till no Greek dares come near you—

  With a shudder of relief I caught sight of my son, side by side with Evandre and Thermodosa, their steeds plunging, their battle-axes swiping the air and cutting a swathe before them, like a ship’s prow. Behind them the Trojans and their allies were pressing the Greeks back, piling corpses on the earth, and the Greeks were stumbling, some flinging their armour to the earth and fleeing, others sheltering on the ground beneath their shields. Horses were breaking free from chariots, snapping their reins and careering loose, eyes wide with terror as they darted through the battle, trampling the fallen Greeks. Men screamed with agony.

  The wood ramparts of the Greek camp were close now, and as the Greeks stampeded to safety the gate was thick with warriors pushing to get through, some falling as arrows hailed down, others tripping and drowning beneath the mass of fighting bodies. I urged my horse forwards, blazing with war-fury and shouting, ‘To the ships! Burn the ships!’, and I heard the thunder of Amazon hoofs behind me.

  And then I pulled up hard, my mount bucking and tossing his head.

  I had seen five of my finest warriors – Antandre, Polemusa, Antibrote, Hippothoe, Harmothoe – fighting by the ramparts twenty paces distant, the battle clearing around them as they attacked and parried, their axes flashing. They circled a figure, a man, unhelmeted, his breastplate gleaming gold and his sword whirling among them, so quick I could barely see the blade, his fair hair whirling around his head. Though they outnumbered him, I watched as one after another he slew them, slicing till their lifeblood poured out onto the earth and they collapsed like dark poppies, bowing their heads in the rain.

  I let out a cry, and he turned and saw me, seated high on my mount above the Trojan warriors.

  Time stopped.

  I could not breathe.

  I could not move.

  I could hear no sounds, though I was dimly aware of the screams and clamour of battle around me. I could see nothing, though I knew that figures ran before me, swords raised, parrying and blocking and thrusting, and horses cantered and shrieked, their manes swinging.

  There were only his eyes – his black eyes, staring at me across the corpses littered between us – his flaxen hair, the stubble on his chin, no longer fair after all these years … Even the way he held himself, his chin set, his eyes narrowed, just the same …

  ‘Achilles,’ I whispered, half sobbing. It felt strange to say the name, after so long. So long. ‘Achilles.’

  It was the Greek.

  I raised my hand, trembling, to lift my helmet.

  And then I saw him raise his great ashen spear, and I gasped, ‘No! No!’

  And then a whistling through the air, and the spinning point of bronze arrowing towards me, and an explosion of pain above my right breast, so agonizing that all the breath gulped from my lungs and I arched back, my fingers loosening on the reins, my mind reeling at the shock that was lacing outwards from my shoulder. My vision blurred, and I had a dim sensation of wetness drenching my tunic. When I raised my hand to my shoulder it was dark with blood. Strength was draining from me: I could not hold my
sword and felt it slip from my fingers, like the life that was leaking from me with my blood.

  I could hear his voice dimly above the humming that was filling my ears, shouting, vaunting as he ran towards me: ‘And so the mighty warrior is slain! You thought you would see your home again, Trojan?’

  My thighs could no longer grip the horse’s sides, my hands would not move. I felt myself slide sideways, tumbling through the air, and then, with a shuddering jolt that drove the spear-point deeper into my ribs, I collapsed to the earth, gasping, my breathing shallow, tears pouring down my helmet into the dust.

  Through the numbness, I felt pressure on the sides of my head, then blinked as the vault of the sky opened bright above me. Someone had removed my helmet. I saw, as if through a veil of mist, Achilles’ face above me, his eyes locked on mine.

  I heard his cry, felt it pierce my bones as his spear had done.

  ‘Hippolyta.’

  My name. He had said my name. I tried to speak his, as if it were a contract between us of all that we had done, and all that we had failed to do. But my lips were covered with spittle and my tongue would not move.

  And then a tearing agony as he drew the spear from me and I felt myself lifted. I felt his arms around me, and I closed my eyes, letting the tears leak into his skin as he gathered me to him and the pain overtook me, so exquisite that it was almost more than my body could bear, stabbing and rending and tearing at my flesh as my weakening heart thudded the last moments of my life’s blood.

  ‘Hippolyta,’ he whispered, and I saw his eyes dark above me through a haze, felt his tears mingle with mine on my face, ‘Hippolyta.’

  He was walking now, each step sending a jolt of pain through my ribs, and I was dimly aware of the soldiers parting in the battle to allow Achilles and Hippolyta, the Greek and the Amazon, to pass. I shuddered a breath, felt the air tear through me, tried to move my lips again, but I could not. And then I smelt him: the scent of his sweat, branded on my mind, and a flood of memories overtook me with a force and vividness such as I had never dreamt.

  His hand in mine, pulling me under the waves, laughing as the blue salt spray splashes us.

  The heat of the sun searing my skin as he guides my hand on the lyre, the wind blowing from the east through my hair, and the sense of his skin as our fingertips touch on the string.

  My back against the pine-bark, his body pressed against mine and the moon red above us.

  And with that last rush of life I looked into his eyes and opened my mouth, and I said his name, and the name of our son.

  And then I knew no more.

  Ἀδμήτη

  Admete

  Troy, Anatolia

  The Fifth Day of the Month of Ploughing, 1250 BC

  I sank down on the ramparts where I had run to watch the battle, my hands clutching at my breast, nails digging into the skin, unable to believe what I had just seen.

  Hippolyta.

  Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, who welcomed us to her camp so many years ago.

  Hippolyta, who summoned me to her tent and called me her daughter, and told me of my mother, lying dead in the arms of Achilles.

  I let out a low moan and closed my eyes, willing away the memory of Achilles’ spear throw, the way the shaft had spun and then, with deadly accuracy, slashed through her. The way her body had shuddered, and her hands gripped at the reins; as if, even in dying, she would remain seated upright on her mount, a queen to the last.

  I groaned again, shivers prickling my arms. With the impatience of one who longs more than anything to be proved wrong, I turned back towards the plain, taking hold of the wooden posts of the rampart and pulling myself to stand. It cannot be true. Perhaps my mind, feverish with the excitement of the battle, had taken another woman for Hippolyta – another woman who sat astride her horse with the assurance of a queen, who wielded a sword that flashed like fire, who led the Amazon warriors into battle with a proud war-cry on her lips …

  And though in my heart I knew it could be no other, I forced myself to watch, to hope, until I had no other choice but to believe it.

  The fighting had come to a standstill. Everyone, as I, was transfixed by the figure of Achilles walking across the battlefield towards the Greek camp with the dead Amazon queen in his arms, his breastplate stained with her blood. As he approached the gates the warriors stepped back to make a path for them, and I turned to see him pass beneath me, closer now, his head bowed over her and his face dark, though whether with fury or sorrow I could not tell. And then I caught sight of her face against his shoulder, and I gasped, and closed my eyes and opened them, like a child, hoping it was gone: because it was her, of course it was.

  She looked beautiful in death, gorgeous as a goddess sleeping. Her brow, though stained with blood, was uncreased, and there was the faintest smile upon her lips as she seemed, still, to gaze upon Achilles. One arm was draped over Achilles’ shoulder, and I saw a bracelet circling her wrist, knotted and tied at the back. Had she thought, when she tied it absentmindedly, that she would never undo it? That when she pulled on those boots that morning she would never take them off? That her breastplate, dented by the impact of Achilles’ spear, would be dragged off her limp body and taken as spoil?

  I half thought, then, to run after her, into the midst of the warriors, and to take her body myself, though where I did not know. But even as the impulse spread through me I saw a man, the coward Thersites, accosting Achilles. I could not hear his words, though from his tone it seemed to be a kind of taunt. Achilles’ roar of rage echoed over the camp, and then the smack as his fist met Thersites’ jaw, dashing the teeth from his skull. I gasped aloud as he rolled forwards upon his face on the earth, a torrent of blood gushing from his face, moaning and shuddering.

  And then I saw, just visible among the crowd of Greeks now swarming around Achilles and his charge, a man run through the gate carrying the glittering sceptre of a herald – a Trojan – no doubt soliciting Hippolyta’s body for burial. I gripped my fists so tightly that the knuckles whitened, praying with all the strength I possessed that they would grant her this last, most important honour.

  And yet, I thought, would Achilles return such a prize?

  I was too far to hear more than raised voices and to see the gestures made by others in the crowd. I waited, breath held, watching as they conversed, the Greek lords gesticulating to each other, Achilles saying nothing as he listened to what the herald had to say.

  And then, at last, he turned and sent one of his slaves running, returning with a two-horsed chariot. Achilles laid the body of Hippolyta in the chariot, himself, and removed his own cloak, covering her with it. The Trojan herald leapt onto the chariot board and whipped the horses out of the gates and on to Troy.

  I let out a breath and slid to the planks, my hand pressed to my forehead, my breathing fast.

  ‘They did it,’ I whispered. ‘They released her to the Trojans. She will have a proper burial.’ The words began to make sense as I said them. ‘She will have that, at least.’

  I stayed, unable to move, resounding with sorrow and shock. I had not expected so much of Achilles, whose terrible anger with Agamemnon had sent so many souls to their deaths. I watched, long after the crowd of Greeks had dispersed to drag back their dead and tend their wounded, as Achilles stood alone, gazing after the chariot, now nothing but a dustcloud halfway to Troy.

  Then he turned back towards his hut, making his way over the sand to where a woman stood, her white tunic billowing in the breeze, by the doorpost, watching him. They did not exchange any words as he bent beneath the lintel and went inside.

  Days passed before I could summon the courage to attend a feast in King Agamemnon’s tent and hear him boast of Achilles’ defeat of the Amazons, so it was with relief that I saw, as I entered the tent, the bard I had conversed with before, sitting in his same corner upon a stool. He was holding his lyre still on his lap, and his head was tilted towards the noble lords, gathered around a game of dice between Achill
es and Ajax, laying bets, swigging wine from drinking-horns and clapping each other on the back. I moved towards him.

  ‘You are not playing,’ I said, drawing up a stool beside him, its legs catching on the rug.

  He bowed his head. ‘I am not. All I can play these past days is a lament to the fallen Amazon, and there is none here who would wish to hear it.’

  My answer came at once. ‘I would.’

  He gave me a veiled smile. ‘You are kind, daughter of Eurystheus, but I shall uproot myself and my lyre to Troy. The Trojans will have more need of me now, in their grief, than the Greeks in their victory.’

  ‘But I have not yet heard you sing!’

  He considered me. Then he said, ‘The lament for the Amazon, then?’

  I nodded.

  He leant towards me, his fingers just brushing the strings, his voice a breath of sound as he played his song for me alone.

  When early dawn appeared, rosy-fingered,

  the people gathered round the pyre of far-famed Hector.

  And taking the bones they placed them in a golden casket

  covered with downy purple robes,

  laying it in a hollow grave and piling

  stones over it, close-set;

  heaping up the tomb-mound thus they went back

  to feast in the halls of god-born Priam.

  And so they buried Hector; and then came the Amazon,

  the daughter of Ares, the great-hearted man-slayer …

  He stopped, and I felt the echo of the haunting notes resounding within me. His eyes downcast, he set the lyre across his lap. ‘I cannot. Forgive me, daughter of Eurystheus, but my heart is sore grieved for the Trojans.’

  I laid a hand over his. ‘Then you should return to them,’ I said. ‘But it is a most beautiful song. It is sad that none other will have the pleasure of hearing it.’