Page 43 of The Song of Achilles

Achilles had told me about their nights together when I asked. It had not been awkward for him to do so—nothing was forbidden between us. Her body, he said, was soft and small as a child’s. She had come to his cell at night with his mother and lain beside him on the bed. He had feared he would hurt her; it had been swift, and neither spoke. He floundered as he tried to describe the heavy, thick smell, the wetness between her legs. “Greasy,” he said, “like oil.” When I pressed him further, he shook his head. “I cannot remember, really. It was dark, and I could not see. I wanted it to be over.” He stroked my cheek. “I missed you.”

The door closed behind us, and we were alone in a modest room. The walls were hung with tapestries, and the floor was thick with sheepskin rugs. There was a bed, pushed against the window, to catch the hint of breeze.

She pulled her dress over her head, and dropped it on the floor.

“Do you think I am beautiful?” she asked me.

I was grateful for a simple answer. “Yes,” I said. Her body was small and delicately made, with just the barest rise of belly where the child grew. My eyes were drawn down to what I had never seen before, a small furred area, the dark hairs spreading lightly upwards. She saw me looking. Reaching for my hand she guided me to that place, which radiated heat like the embers of a fire.

The skin that slipped against my fingers was warm and delicate, so fragile I was almost afraid I would tear it with my touch. My other hand reached up to stroke her cheek, to trace the softness beneath her eyes. The look in them was terrible to see: there was no hope or pleasure, only determination.

Almost, I fled. But I could not bear to see her face broken open with more sorrow, more disappointment—another boy who could not give her what she wanted. So I allowed her hands, fumbling a little, to draw me to the bed, to guide me between her thighs, where tender skin parted, weeping slow warm drops. I felt resistance and would have drawn back, but she shook her head sharply. Her small face was tight with concentration, her jaw set as if against pain. It was a relief for us both when at last the skin eased, gave way. When I slipped into that sheathing warmth within her.

I will not say I was not aroused. A slow climbing tension moved through me. It was a strange, drowsy feeling, so different from my sharp, sure desires for Achilles. She seemed hurt by this, my heavy-lidded repose. More indifference . And so I let myself move, made sounds of pleasure, pressed my chest against hers as if in passion, flattening her soft, small breasts beneath me.

She was pleased then, suddenly fierce, pulling and pushing me harder and faster, her eyes lighting in triumph at the changes in my breath. And then, at the slow rising of tide inside me, her legs, light but firm, wrapped around my back, bucking me into her, drawing out the spasm of my pleasure.

Afterwards we lay breathless, side by side but not touching. Her face was shadowed and distant, her posture strangely stiff. My mind was still muddied from climax, but I reached to hold her. I could offer her this, at least.

But she drew away from me and stood, her eyes wary; the skin beneath them was dark as bruises. She turned to dress, and her round heart-shaped buttocks stared at me like a reproach. I did not understand what she had wanted; I only knew I had not given it. I stood and pulled on my tunic. I would have touched her, stroked her face, but her eyes warned me away, sharp and full. She held open the door. Hopelessly, I stepped over the threshold.

“Wait.” Her voice sounded raw. I turned. “Tell him good-bye,” she said. And then closed the door, dark and thick between us.

W HEN I FOUND A CHILLES again, I pressed myself to him in relief at the joy between us, at being released from her sadness and hurt.

Later, I almost convinced myself it had not happened, that it had been a vivid dream, drawn from his descriptions and too much imagination. But that is not the truth.

Chapter Fourteen

D EIDAMEIA LEFT THE NEXT MORNING, AS SHE HAD SAID she would. “She is visiting an aunt,” Lycomedes told the court at breakfast, his voice flat. If there were questions, no one dared to ask them. She would be gone until the child was born, and Achilles could be named as father.

The weeks that passed now felt curiously suspended. Achilles and I spent as much time as possible away from the palace, and our joy, so explosive at our reunion, had been replaced with impatience. We wanted to leave, to return to our lives on Pelion, or in Phthia. We felt furtive and guilty with the princess gone; the court’s eyes on us had sharpened, grown uncomfortable. Lycomedes frowned whenever he saw us.

And then there was the war. Even here, in far-off, forgotten Scyros, news came of it. Helen’s former suitors had honored their vow, and Agamemnon’s army was rich with princely blood. It was said that he had done what no man before him could: united our fractious kingdoms with common cause. I remembered him—a grim-faced shadow, shaggy as a bear. To my nine-year-old self, his brother Menelaus had been much the more memorable of the two, with his red hair and merry voice. But Agamemnon was older, and his armies the larger; he would lead the expedition to Troy.

It was morning, and late winter, though it did not seem it. So far south, the leaves did not fall and no frost pinched the morning air. We lingered in a rock cleft that looked over the span of horizon, watching idly for ships or the gray flash of dolphin back. We hurled pebbles from the cliff, leaning over to watch them skitter down the rock-face. We were high enough that we could not hear the sound of them breaking on the rocks below.

“I wish I had your mother’s lyre,” he said.

“Me too.” But it was in Phthia, left behind with everything else. We were silent a moment, remembering the sweetness of its strings.

He leaned forward. “What is that?”

I squinted. The sun sat differently on the horizon now that it was winter, seeming to slant into my eyes from every angle.

“I cannot tell.” I stared at the haze where the sea vanished into the sky. There was a distant smudge that might have been a ship, or a trick of the sun on the water. “If it’s a ship, there will be news,” I said, with a familiar clutch in my stomach. Each time I feared word would come of a search for the last of Helen’s suitors, the oath-breaker. I was young then; it did not occur to me that no leader would wish it known that some had not obeyed his summons.

“It is a ship, for certain,” Achilles said. The smudge was closer now; the ship must be moving very quickly. The bright colors of the sail resolved themselves moment by moment out of the sea’s blue-gray.

“Not a trader,” Achilles commented. Trading ships used white sails only, practical and cheap; a man needed to be rich indeed to waste his dye on sailcloth. Agamemnon’s messengers had crimson and purple sails, symbols stolen from eastern royalty. This ship’s sails were yellow, whorled with patterns of black.

“Do you know the design?” I asked.

Achilles shook his head.

We watched the ship skirt the narrow mouth of Scyros’ bay and beach itself on the sandy shore. A rough-cut stone anchor was heaved overboard, the gangway lowered. We were too far to see much of the men on its deck, beyond dark heads.

We had stayed longer than we should have. Achilles stood and tucked his wind-loosened hair back beneath its kerchief. My hands busied themselves with the folds of his dress, settling them more gracefully across his shoulders, fastening the belts and laces; it was barely strange anymore to see him in it. When we were finished, Achilles bent towards me for a kiss. His lips on mine were soft, and stirred me. He caught the expression in my eyes and smiled. “Later,” he promised me, then turned and went back down the path to the palace. He would go to the women’s quarters and wait there, amidst the looms and the dresses, until the messenger was gone.