by Jackie Rose
I will tell Achilles how roughly Menelaus is treating me, I thought wildly. Then Achilles will be angrier with Menelaus than he ever was at his brother. Then I remembered that I would never tell Achilles anything again.
As from a great distance, I heard Odysseus’ gruff voice saying, “He’s dead.” The answering wail from the throng of men ringing the shelter seemed to rise from the depths of my own heart.
Then the world fell away from me, taking with it the knowledge that was too much for me to bear. I felt myself sinking towards the ground and barely felt Menelaus’ hands lifting me up again.
Part II: Menelaus, My Friend
Chapter Eight
Achilles came through the door and climbed into the bath beside me, sending the water splashing in waves over the floor. My arms and legs reached wide to surround him. The warm water enhanced our pleasure, making it slower and more languorous, as his spear swam into my sheath. We were married now, just as Patrocles had predicted.
Over his shoulder, I saw the startled looks of the seven new women who were now my servants. I glared a warning at them, knowing that he would have to leave me if they told him he was dead. I awoke alone, in my new bed in Menelaus’ house, as bitterly disappointed as I always was after dreaming of Achilles.
Now I lived in that bedroom. It was all I could do to reach for the food and water that stood, on Menelaus’ orders, beside my bed. I knew that I needed them so I could live long enough to sleep and dream again. In another bedroom near mine, Iphis lay in her bed the same way, but I could not even get up enough strength to go to her so we could console each other.
I would have managed to rouse myself for Achilles’ funeral but was denied even that comfort. His all-powerful mother had decided to bury him on her White Island. She accordingly sailed home the next day with all her boxes, including the one that held her son. They buried a wooden statue of him instead as a tribute, but I saw no need to go out to see them bury an effigy. Nor would I go to see the simple tomb they had built for him. It could only be a hideous parody, with that wooden image buried within.
“He’s dead,” I told myself, again and again, through my waking hours. “Achilles is dead.” Always, the words brought the same sickening shock. They could not be true, they had no meaning, they had to be some terrible mistake, I knew, even as the waves of truth washed over me and drowned me. Men had died in war, I knew, but not he, not the great Achilles, who had seemed the god of war himself, come down among us.
Menelaus had me carried me to his house, where he directed his men not to let me harm myself. He could not trust Achilles’ soldiers to follow that command: They were so overcome with grief that they seemed half ready to die with him themselves.
Lying in Menelaus’ house, I barely heard the commotion outside, when Odysseus came to claim Achilles’ armor. He had convinced the men to award it to him, he shouted, and Menelaus could not refuse it now.
“I can and I do,” Menelaus answered, in his most regal tones. “Achilles left his possessions in my keeping. Get out and leave us alone, or his men will throw you out.”
With much angry muttering, Odysseus finally shambled off. I was grateful to Menelaus and dragged myself out of bed long enough to tell him so. I would not, as I said, have wanted to see Odysseus preening in Achilles’ beautiful armor.
“Wearing his armor?” Menelaus asked. “Do you mean the decorated bronze? That is not what Odysseus argued for. You, Briseis—you are the armor of Achilles.”
As I gasped out my true gratitude, he told me it was time to repay his kindness. I must return to Machaon’s hall, he said. The wounded men on both sides needed me to tend them, just as I had cared for him when he was wounded. Achilles’ other women were already serving there.
I still could not imagine going out in the world that Achilles had once made so bright with promise when it was now so dark and cold again. “I cannot leave this house now,” I said and returned to my room. He came there long enough to say that he would be back to ask again soon.
The only time he spoke sharply to me was on the night when I awoke and went to his bed. He, too, I thought, was a prince like the one I had lost. As he awakened, I stood silently waiting for him to throw back the bright red woolen covers for me.
Instead, he pulled them closer around himself and demanded, “Briseis? Do you want to close your eyes and pretend I am Achilles?”
When I nodded silently, he replied, “Even the poor cuckold Menelaus has more pride than that. Go back to your own room.”
I fled, my tears of grief now mingling with tears of shame.
* * *
Hating to let Menelaus think that Achilles had given him only a useless harlot to feed, I told him the next morning that I was eager to return to my service in Machaon’s house. The king seemed to have forgotten our humiliating encounter of the night before, as he told me he was sure that my skills were sorely needed there.
As it turned out, I arrived just in time. Hardly had the day’s first wounded arrived than Odysseus poked his head inside and ordered Machaon to take all the wounded to the ships.
Were we really leaving so abruptly? I could hardly believe that the kings had decided to give up so suddenly, but who knew what they had been discussing among themselves.
They all sent their men to help us carry the wounded, their beds and supplies. We were soon back at work on the deck of Achilles’ ships.
I still could not believe it as the ships pulled away. I was more confused than ever when they stopped dead in the water, just over the horizon from Troy. Clearly, we were waiting for something, and I realized that our hasty retreat must have been a ruse to cover an attack.
Odysseus had prevailed, with a secret weapon born of his devious mind.
Pretending to retreat, the Argives left a great wooden horse behind them, apparently as a sacrifice to placate the sea god Poseidon, who was much worshipped in Troy. Granted, out of decency the Trojans should have left it out on the beach for the god to enjoy. Instead, they dragged it into their city, to be the center of their own celebration. It was soon cut short, when the Argives who were hiding within the wooden horse came out and opened the gates to their comrades. The Trojans, who had put their arms away, were now locked with their fully-armed enemies inside the city walls.
We did not all know that at first, because we were too busy tending the men who had been wounded in an honorable fray. The first we heard about the final battle was when a soldier raced aboard our ship, all smiles, shouting that the war was over.
Even the most seriously wounded men cheered. Those who were able jumped out of their beds and hugged every woman in sight. The women were more restrained, and with good reason. Yes, the killing had stopped, but so had their own days of service, dignity, worth. Now they were no longer war’s captives but slaves indeed, often to their masters’ true wives. How could they expect those ladies to treat them kindly?
In particular, I thought of Hecamede. She now had to leave her true lord and lover to return to old Nestor’s home.
Naturally, she said nothing about this to me. Her face as calm as ever, she was helping to hold down a wounded man so Machaon could pack the powder into his wounds. Their eyes never looked up from their patient, but their hands moved in such harmony that they might have been directed by one mind. She glanced up only briefly when she saw old Nestor, with the breeze ruffling his white beard.
“My lord,” she said, “if you will merely allow me to finish this procedure, I am ready to go to your ship so we can go home together.”
“Yes, my dear girl, I know that you have never shirked your duty,” the old man answered gently. “But I still see a problem, because I have a wife at home. My dear Euridice is too old to need a nurse for our children, so I don’t think she would welcome you. No matter what you are willing to do for me, it’s far better that you stay with Machaon and go on serving him. Thetis is building a fine healing temple of Apollo in Argos to thank him for the care he gave Achilles. You can help him with his
healing there.”
“As you will, my lord Nestor,” she answered, keeping her eyes fixed on her patient. “I will do my best to be useful.”
Still busy binding the man’s wound, Machaon seemed not to have heard. When he looked up, his voice was a steady as hers. “I thank you, my lord king,” he said. “Hecamede is sure to be useful to the brave men in my care.”
No doubt she and Machaon were both thinking, in that moment, of a sleeping chamber in that healing temple, with a bed for two. It would be much softer than the table, and they would not have to share it with the medical supplies.
When Nestor had hobbled down the gangplank again, I found a moment to whisper to her, “Do you think he knows?”
Still without looking up from her task, she responded, “If you have nothing to do but ask foolish questions about matters that do not concern you, I can find some work for you.” Ashamed, I turned to walk away until her voice stopped me. “I will, however, give you some coins for a garland,” she said, “to sacrifice to your goddess Aphrodite on my behalf.” Then she returned to her work.
There was work in plenty, but it was no longer the sort I was proud to do. Now women were coming to us, as the only place left to care for them. Too many of them had been raped by our men and beaten for resisting. Too often they brought their children, who had been wounded trying to protect them. They silently accepted Hecamede’s willow and rue, without questioning their purpose, along with her washing and salves.
And they brought even more terrible stories with them. Priam had been murdered at the very shrine of Athena, who was especially sacred to the Argives. Priam’s grandson, the son of Hector, had been hurled off the city walls. Odysseus had committed both crimes.
* * *
At last, unable to bear it, I asked Hecamede to let me go to Agamemnon. He would stop these outrages, I told her, if only because it was his right to distribute the prizes of war. To guard me, she sent two wounded men who had almost recovered, leaving me to realize, once again, how meekly these captors obeyed this captive. Obeying her orders once again, they walked me through the ravaged city, which still stank of burning, and waited outside Agamemnon’s house as he received me.
He was seated beside his own prize, King Priam’s mad daughter Cassandra.
She looked perfectly sane to me. Neither as regal nor as beautiful as her sister Polyxena, she was now dressed far more richly than that true princess had ever been. Strands of gold and pearls spilled down from her neck to her thigh, where Agamemnon rested his hand. Her face was so heavily painted, it could barely be seen through the vivid white and pink, and her fragrant oil made the hot room seem stifling.
I kept glancing towards her, hoping for support, as I described the fates of her former subjects to her new lord.
“We’ve got more than that to worry about,” she said, before he could even answer. “My sister Polyxena. Odysseus is going to kill her.”
“You mean, he will enslave her,” I responded. “Why should he do any more?”
“Because,” she answered patiently, “if she has a child, he could be hailed as the new king of Troy. He could even be hailed as the king of all Argos, if she says Achilles sired him. That is not the reason Odysseus will give, of course, he would never be so honest about anything. He’ll say she betrayed Achilles to her men.”
“That can’t be true!” I gasped.” Even Odysseus is not that cruel.”
“Isn’t he?” she asked, as she fought to keep her voice from trembling. “He has already thrown Hector’s baby son off the walls, because he could have rallied the last Trojan survivors some day. Now he’s scouring the countryside for our last brother, Aeneas. I just pray to the gods that he has gotten away.”
I glanced at Agamemnon for his reaction, expecting an outburst against her or Odysseus or both. Instead, he spoke up proudly, as he squeezed her thigh with an owner’s confident hand, “She predicted all this before it happened!” he exclaimed. “She is a true prophetess. Do you wonder why I have become my captive’s captive?”
He glared a warning at me, to stop me from telling her that I, too, had once earned this precious flattery. His arm left her thigh to encircle her shoulders, displaying this rare possession, which presumably possessed him in turn. In that posture, he could not see the cold hatred suddenly flare in her eyes. Can he imagine, I wondered, that he sees his glory reflected there, as Achilles saw his glory in my eyes?
“But of course, she needs the same thing any woman does, priestess or not,” he said smugly. “And I am giving it to her. Naturally, she gives me what I need, too, believe me. Apollo may open her mouth in prophecy, but his sister opens it wider yet, so that mouth can hold my spear. Then she sucks it hard enough to pull my soul out through the spearpoint.”
I looked away from Cassandra, shocked at his words, but she did not seem to share my feeling. She responded by gazing up at him with a radiant smile, as he clutched her against him briefly.
“To be a sage and a slave girl, both at the same time,” she sighed. “What woman could ask for more?”
“With a master who appreciates them both,” he exclaimed, pressing her to him again. And that, I realized, however reluctantly, made him a master worth having.
“Not that you have so much to appreciate, at least where the prophecies come in,” she said. “I only predict what anyone could have predicted, if he thought about it clearly. That’s what I have always done, from the moment Paris brought Helen to Troy and I said her husband’s armies would follow her. And did it take a prophetess to know that Achilles might be an assassin’s target, riding around and waving that way? Naturally, my predictions are so unpopular that people choose not to believe them. And they do not thank me when my warnings come true. But my lord Agamemnon is proud of them.”
“And I thought Chryseis was clever!” he said, even more proudly. “But tell me, my dear, what do you foresee for the two of us?”
By her prompt answer, I knew she had thought of that before.
“She will not be pleased to see me,” she said. I needed no prophetic powers to know that she spoke about Agamemnon’s queen. He dismissed his wife’s opinions with a flip of his hand.
“But what about those other women and children?” I urged. Agamemnon looked to Cassandra for an answer. This came promptly, too.
“The rapes will stop soon,” she said, with a shrug again. “The men will be ready for a fair distribution. But they were not all rapes, Briseis. There is almost no food left outside of the Argive camp.”
Dismissing that thought with a shudder, I thought then of another woman who had been distributed before. “Is Chryseis here, too?” I asked sharply. He told me that she and her baby were in the women’s hall, where I was welcome to visit her. Clearly, she was no longer half so interesting as this new pet prophetess of his.
I had another question for Cassandra, though. I asked her to see me to the door so I could ask it privately.
“If you knew Troy was doomed, why did you stay there?” I asked. “Were you so eager to feel a king’s spear?” And, in his case, to taste it, too, I thought with a secret smile.
Her answer wiped all smiles from my mind. As coldly as Polyxena could have done, she answered, “I will bring down the house of Atreus. They will kill Polyxena but I will kill them. More, they will all kill each other for my sake.” And once more I saw that hatred burning in her eyes.
Truly, I realized, she must be mad. “But you have no weapon,” I reasoned.
“I have the same weapon you did,” she said, with a crooked smile. “And I let my lord Agamemnon believe that his weapon is winning everything it touches.”
“But how can that bring down your master, who is also the master of all Argos now?” I demanded desperately, praying for a way to break through this latest madness of hers.
She smiled again, in a way that Agamemnon would never see.
“My sister Polyxena said that she would overlook your presence, Briseis,” she answered. “I will make sure that Clytemne
stra cannot overlook mine. I have heard that she is not a very forgiving wife. Did you hear that Agamemnon wants me to replace her as his queen and send her into exile? No, you did not? Well, I didn’t, either. But Clytemnestra will hear it, all right.”
“Then she will kill you, too.”
“Probably,” Cassandra answered, with a shrug. “But the world will know that people here fought to the end.”
“How long do you think the world will remember?” I demanded.
“A war for love and a love for war?” she answered, with her mad smile again. “Fighting and fucking combined? What could be more memorable than that? This war will be remembered for a long time, I think. But for now, are you going to warn Agamemnon? He won’t believe you, you know.”
“I refused to pray against you, even when it made Achilles so angry that he beat me three times,” I told her. “I will not inform against you now. But this is madness!”
“But, Briseis,” she answered, in a sweetly reasonable tone. “Haven’t they told you that I am mad?”
There was only one thing left to say, even though, in the face of her courage, I was ashamed to say it.
“Cassandra, listen to me,” I said. “He is not the worst man in the world. You could be happy with him.”
“I know that,” she answered. “And sucking on that spear of his is not the worst thing to do. But then, I could not have my revenge.”
* * *
That, I knew, would be no consolation to Chryseis. She did not look ripe and inviting now, only drained from having the baby that she now held to her breast. A strand of her limp dark hair fell over its face.
“It was kind of you to come see me,” she said and smiled bitterly, a ghost of her old smile. “Everyone else wants to see the royal prophetess.”
“You need not envy her,” I answered. “She seems quite mad.”