We were so nearly friends.
The journey back was a hard slog. The baskets were heavy, and now we had the wind blowing directly into our faces. I realized looking ahead of me that the wind was invisible on the battlefield: there were no trees to be uprooted; no plants to be flattened. We struggled on across the dead land. I’d misjudged how long it would take and dusk was falling before we were halfway across. The evening roost was just beginning. In the failing light, the birds were almost invisible against the black soil until, late and reluctantly, they moved. I put the baskets down, waving and clapping my hands, but nothing frightened them. They cawed their triumph, the conquerors—and conquerors they certainly were with their crops crammed full of human flesh. We skirted round them as best we could, but it was a relief to reach the trench, to see lights and hear voices. I was so desperate for the warmth and relative safety of the compound that I almost ran the last hundred yards.
17
The hut was dark and silent when I got back. I groped my way into the living quarters, which at first I took to be empty, but then I noticed an oblong of deeper darkness by the bed. With shaking fingers, I lit an oil lamp and Alcimus’s shadow leapt across the floor.
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
“We’re running short of herbs, I—”
“I was worried.”
“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can get you?”
“I’ll have a cup of wine—and pour yourself one too. We need to talk.”
I poured two cups and set them down on the table. We sat facing each other, but despite what he’d just said he didn’t immediately speak. I knew I mustn’t ask questions about Priam’s burial—it might be rash even to express an interest—but I couldn’t help myself. “Did you find Helenus?”
“Yes, he was with his sister.”
I made myself wait.
“He just looked Pyrrhus in the face and said he wished he had buried Priam. He said he was ashamed somebody else had had to do it—it should have been him.”
“Was he…?” Tortured, I wanted to ask. That was my great fear: that somebody else would pay a terrible price for what Amina had done. I forced myself to say the word.
Alcimus was staring down into his cup. “No, no need, he’s a broken man. Once a man breaks like that, betrays everything, there’s no way back.”
Silence. I watched the shadows creating hollows in his cheeks. “What did you want to speak to me about?”
“Oh. Andromache. Pyrrhus wants her to serve wine at dinner tonight.”
“No—she can’t.”
The words were out before I could stop myself. Pyrrhus was entirely within his rights: she was his prize of honour, why shouldn’t he show her off to his men? Not so long ago, Achilles had displayed me at dinner in exactly the same way; but I’d grown used to it, even learnt to value the access to information it gave me. But Andromache, in the state she was in…? I couldn’t see how she’d even begin to cope.
“I thought you might like to do it with her,” Alcimus said. He’d always shown great gentleness to Andromache—he and Automedon had buried her baby son—but nevertheless, I was surprised he was willing to permit this. “If you don’t mind?”
“She can’t do it alone.” I made to stand up. “I’ll go to her, unless there’s something else…?”
He hesitated. “Be careful around Pyrrhus. You know I said Helenus wasn’t tortured? Well, he wasn’t…but Pyrrhus did do something a bit strange. He stuck his dagger into Helenus’s stomach, not very far, just a cut, but he dabbled his fingers in the blood—and I think he enjoyed knowing Helenus was afraid.”
On the scale of the bloodletting in the camp, that seemed absurdly trivial, but evidently it had disturbed Alcimus—a man not easily disturbed. “There was no need for it,” he added. “Helenus was falling over himself to tell us everything he knew—which was nothing!”
I waited, but there was no more. “If that’s all…?”
“Yes, yes, you go.”
I went first to the storeroom and fetched an embroidered tunic from the chest where I kept my clothes, and then to my own room to brush my hair. So long now since I’d done this, though for months, when Achilles was alive, it had been my nightly routine. When I’d finished dressing and brushing my hair, I opened my mouth several times as wide as it would go, hearing the click of my jaws, then stretched my lips in a rictus of a smile. All the old nervousness, the old tension, was back. I let myself out and crossed the short distance to the women’s hut. The men had already begun to gather outside the hall. A smell of roast meat drifted out through the open door; I felt a gush of saliva, but I knew I wouldn’t be eating until much later—if indeed I ate at all.
Inside the hut, I went straight to Andromache’s room. She was up and dressed, but standing rather helplessly beside the bed, her hair still tousled from sleep. The tunic she was wearing wouldn’t do at all. I went back to the living quarters, selected two girls at random and told them to fetch hot water and clean clothes. Under my direction, they helped Andromache to wash—a bath would have been better, but there wasn’t time for that—and brushed her hair until it shone. Much to my surprise, Amina came in carrying a wreath of purple daisies—the kind that grow in abundance at this time of year. She placed it on Andromache’s head, pinned it into position and stood back to admire the effect. The colour suited Andromache, that glowing purple against the darkness of her hair, though there was no escaping the contrast between the freshness of the flowers and her ravaged face. “You’ll be all right,” I said, fiercely, chafing her arms. “I’ll be there—you won’t be on your own—just pour the sodding wine and hope it chokes them.”
She stumbled twice on the short walk from the women’s hut to the hall. As we stepped over the threshold, I felt a blast of hot air open the pores in my skin. Smells of roast beef, spices, warm bread, sweaty men, resin from the walls, tar from the torches—but also, sharper, greener smells from the rushes rustling under our feet. Oh—and the din! Singing—ragged at first, rising to a roar, subsiding into laughter and jeers. Banging of fists on tables, sometimes keeping time with the music, sometimes protesting when the food didn’t arrive fast enough. I took Andromache across to the far corner where there was a sideboard with jugs of wine lined up. I put one in her hands, hoping to god she wouldn’t drop it, then picked one up myself and started to work my way up the nearest table. Andromache kept pace with me on the other side. The Myrmidons greeted me with every sign of affection; one or two of them even patted my stomach. I could never have imagined being touched below the waist by so many men with so little sexual intent. I saw two other women, common women from around the fires, working their way up the other table—and they were being pawed constantly, their breasts and groins grabbed. One of them happened to look across at me and her expression, unhappy, still, and far away, haunts me to this day, though I can’t remember her name.
Until all the men were eating and drinking, I had no leisure even to glance at the top table, where Pyrrhus, Alcimus and Automedon sat. Calchas was there too, in full priestly regalia though the white paint on his face was flaking in the heat. Did he realize he was only here to be interrogated, that the men sitting on either side of him were not his friends? Alcimus was staring down at his plate. Sometimes, when you see somebody you know well from a distance, it sharpens your perception of them. He was thinner than he’d been when I first knew him; older. When he looked up from his plate, his eyes ran up and down the tables, assessing the interactions between the men, alert for the moment when banter turned to real insult and old injuries, chafed raw, resurfaced and demanded revenge. These were men who’d been living on their nerves for years and now, when things should have been easy, they were frustrated because the longed-for journey home was continually postponed. Every day began in hope, every day ended in disappointment. They’d just won a war. How could it be that this victory, the greatest in the history of the world—and it was, there’s no denying it—had started to taste like defeat?