Achilles and Patroclus sat at a small table, looking down the centre of the room towards the outside door. They had their backs to me, but I could see how frequently they glanced at each other. Everybody was in high good humour, boasting about their exploits at Lyrnessus. More songs, including one about Helen, every verse more obscene than the last. It ended in a burst of laughter. In the pause that followed, Achilles pushed his plate away and got to his feet. To begin with, nobody noticed, then, gradually, the hubbub began to die down. He raised his hands and said something in that thick, northern dialect of his—normally, I had no problem understanding Greek, but I found his accent very difficult for the first few days—he was saying something about not wanting to break up the party, but…
He was laughing as he spoke, it was a sort of joke against himself. There was a chorus of jeers and catcalls and then somebody at the back shouted, “We all know why you want an early night!”
They began thumping the tables. Somebody started a song and they bellowed it out in time with the rhythm of their clenched fists.
Why was he born so beautiful?
Why was he born at all?
He’s no fucking use to anyone!
He’s no fucking use at all!
He may be a joy to his mother,
But he’s a pain in the arsehole to me!
And so on. I crept back to the cupboard and closed the door, but then, as the singing went on, I opened it again, just a few inches, enough to be able to see into Achilles’s room. A glimpse of rich tapestries hanging from the walls, a bronze mirror and, pushed well back against the wall, a bed.
A minute or so later, heavy footsteps clumped along the passage. Men’s voices. I drew back, though I knew they couldn’t see me. Patroclus went into the other room, followed almost immediately by Achilles, who threw his arm across his friend’s shoulders, laughing in triumph and relief. Another successful raid, another city destroyed, men and boys killed, women and girls enslaved—all in all, a good day. And there was still the night to come.
They talked about having another drink—Patroclus had his hand on the jug handle ready to pour—but then Achilles nodded to the door where I was standing and flared his eyes.
Patroclus laughed. “Oh yes, she’s there.”
I stepped back and sat down on the narrow bed, pressing my hands together to stop them trembling. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. Seconds later, the door opened and Achilles’s huge shadow blotted out the light. He didn’t speak—perhaps he thought I wouldn’t be able to understand him—just jerked his thumb at the other room. Shaking, I got up and followed him.
4
What can I say? He wasn’t cruel. I waited for it—expected it, even—but there was nothing like that, and at least it was soon over. He fucked as quickly as he killed, and for me it was the same thing. Something in me died that night.
I lay there, hating him, though of course he wasn’t doing anything he didn’t have a perfect right to do. If his prize of honour had been the armour of a great lord he wouldn’t have rested till he’d tried it out: lifted the shield, picked up the sword, assessed its length and weight, slashed it a few times through the air. That’s what he did to me. He tried me out.
I told myself I wouldn’t sleep. I was exhausted, but so tense, so frightened of everything around me and most of all of him that after he’d finished and rolled off me to sleep I just lay there, staring into the darkness, as rigid as a board. Whenever I blinked, my lids scraped painfully across dry eyes. And yet—somehow—I must’ve slept, because when I looked again the lamp had burned low. Achilles was lying with his face only an inch away from mine, snoring softly, his upper lip puckering on every breath. Desperate to escape the furnace heat of his body, I flattened myself against the wall and turned my head away so as not to have to look at him.
After a few minutes, I noticed a sound. Not a new sound—I’d been aware of it even in my half-dreaming state. His breathing, perhaps—but then I thought, No, it’s the sea. Had to be—we were only a few hundred yards away from the shore. I listened and let it soothe me, that ceaseless ebb and flow, the crash of the breaking waves, the grating sigh of its retreat. It was like lying on the chest of somebody who loves you, somebody you know you can trust—though the sea loves nobody and can never be trusted. I was immediately aware of a new desire, to be part of it, to dissolve into it: the sea that feels nothing and can never be hurt.
And then, I suppose, I must have slept again because when I woke up he was gone.
Immediately, I was anxious. Should I have been up before him, getting his breakfast, perhaps? I had no idea how, on this desolate beach, food was prepared or even whether preparing it would be one of my jobs. But then I thought Achilles would have many slaves, all with different functions: weaving, cooking, preparing his bath, washing bedlinen and clothes…I’d be told soon enough what was expected of me. It was possible that very little would be required beyond what I’d already done. When I thought about my father’s young concubine, the one he took after my mother’s death, most of her duties had been discharged on her back.
The bed was cold. Sitting up, I saw he’d left one of the doors open. I was still trying to get my bearings. There were three doors: one leading into the small room—I’d already started thinking of it as the cupboard; another leading down a short passage to the hall; and a third that opened directly onto the veranda and from there onto the beach. Evidently he’d gone out that way, because the door was ajar and creaking on its hinges.
Pulling my mantle close round my shoulders, I went to stand on the threshold. A breeze blowing straight off the sea lifted my hair and cooled the bed-sweat on my skin. It was still dark, though a nail-paring of moon gave just enough light for me to see the huts, hundreds of them it seemed, stretching away into the distance. Between their dark, huddled shapes I caught tormenting glimpses of the sea. Turning my head to look inland, I noticed a faint glow in the sky, which puzzled me at first, until I realized it must be Troy. Troy, whose palaces and temples and even streets are lit all night. Here, the paths between the huts were narrow, blood-black. I felt I’d come to a dreadful place, the exact opposite of a great city, a place where darkness and savagery reigned.
From where I stood, on the threshold of Achilles’s hut, the thunder of breaking waves sounded like a battle, the clash of swords on shields, but then to my exhausted mind everything sounded like a battle, just as there was no colour in the world but red. Cautiously, I ventured out onto the rough wood of the veranda and from there jumped down onto the sand. I stood for a moment, scrunching my toes in the gritty damp, relieved to be able to feel something, anything, after the numbness of the night. And then, barefoot and wearing only my mantle, I set off to find the sea.