“I don’t know. Of course, I want to see Priam buried…I just wish Calchas hadn’t mixed it up with personal revenge.”
“Personal…? Oh, you mean the horse.” She was staring at me, her yellow eyes brighter than I’d ever seen them. “It’s not enough, not nearly enough—but I’ll take it.”
Ritsa and Hecamede followed us in. Hecamede immediately began bustling around with preparations for dinner. Nestor would be back soon.
I stood up. “I think we should go.”
The crowd was thinning by the time we left the hall, but I decided to walk along the beach anyway. I knew there was no hurry. Alcimus would be in the hall with Pyrrhus and Automedon, trying to pick up the pieces. I didn’t envy him the task. Essentially, Pyrrhus had to be persuaded to obey the gods—and sacrifice the only creature he seemed capable of loving. Except himself. And I wasn’t even sure about the exception.
31
I dawdled along the beach and when I reached the compound went straight to the women’s hut. Most of the girls were in the yard at the back, where Maire was getting ready to give the baby a bath. Free from swaddling bands and nappy, he lay on a blanket, making little contented cooing sounds and kicking his legs. One of the girls was holding up a linen sheet to shield his eyes from the sun. We were so lucky in his temperament: he fell asleep at the breast, woke up, suckled, slept again. He never attracted attention by screaming with colic for hours on end as so many firstborn babies do. Mind you, we were a bit less lucky in his appearance. Most babies you see could be either sex, but not this one: he was a right little bruiser, even his curled fingers looked like fists.
Andromache came out and sat beside me, while I told her what had happened in the arena. We speculated about what Pyrrhus might do, and agreed we’d probably not be required to serve wine at dinner that night. The baby was no more than a few feet away from her, but she never once looked at him and shortly afterwards went back into the hut.
After a while, I lay back, closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun. The black clouds had vanished, though the wind still blew as fiercely as ever; still, it was more sheltered here than anywhere else in the camp. The chattering of the girls faded into the distance; I think I must have drifted off to sleep, but then suddenly I jerked awake, aware of a scrambling all around me as the girls struggled to their feet. Opening my eyes, I saw Pyrrhus towering over me, over everybody. And there was the baby, cooing and gurgling and trying to get his fist into his mouth. Pyrrhus glanced down at him, and I saw his expression change; though I doubt if he really took in what he was seeing—a naked, and very obviously male, child—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t remember it later. This was a disaster. Slowly, I got to my feet. He bowed, and asked if he could have a word. Of course, I agreed, and we went into the hut together. It was cool inside, but somehow that only served to underline how groggy and disoriented I was feeling. I should never have let myself go to sleep.
There were several girls sitting on their beds, talking, one girl brushing another’s hair. They turned as we came in, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Pyrrhus. I jerked my head to one side and they ran outside.
Pyrrhus said: “Alcimus suggested I should talk to you.”
Then: silence. Nothing. I waited, desperately trying to think of something, anything, to distract him from what he’d just seen.
“Shall we go across to the hall?” Pathetic, but the best I could do. “It’s so crowded here.”
That was even less impressive, since we were standing together in an otherwise empty room, but he didn’t seem to question it, just moved automatically towards the door.
We walked across the yard and up the steps of the veranda into the brightly lit hall. Fresh rushes had already been laid and the tables set for dinner. Preparations would have been well advanced by the time Pyrrhus cancelled. He started walking down the middle aisle and, of course, I followed. I expected to be taken through into his living quarters, but at the last moment he seemed to change his mind. Instead, he sat at the top table in Achilles’s chair, curling his fingers into the lions’ snarling mouths. Beside his plate was the Thracian cup with its frieze of horses’ heads with flowing manes. He reached for it, entwining his thick fingers round the stem.
“Alcimus says you were there the night Priam came.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was there.”
He asked the same questions Calchas had asked. I gave the same answers. It was harder this time for me to remain detached, because I was sitting in the room where those events had happened. Then, I’d been standing behind Achilles’s chair—tired, my feet aching, longing for the evening to be over; but Achilles, though he’d given up pretending to eat, still sat slumped in his chair. Nobody could leave until he left, but he seemed almost torpid, as he so often did in the days after Patroclus’s death. Once a day, sometimes twice, he roused himself to fasten Hector’s corpse to his chariot and, yelling his great battle cry, dragged it three times round Patroclus’s burial mound, returning to the camp with lathered horses, his face caked in filth. There, he abandoned the body in the stable yard, flayed, every bone broken, scarcely identifiable as a man. Sometimes, when Achilles staggered back into the hall, his face was disfigured by the same injuries he’d inflicted on Hector. He saw them; I know he did—I watched as he peered into the mirror, lifting his hands uncertainly to touch his skin.
Pyrrhus was listening intently as I came to the end of the story. “Achilles said, ‘Oh, yes, I’d fight. I don’t need a Trojan to teach me my duty to a guest.’ ”
“You’re sure that’s what he said?”
“Exact words.”
“Yes, but do you think he’d really have done that? Fight the other kings—for Priam?”
“I think he would, yes. He wasn’t a man to say one thing and do another.”
“Well, then. I suppose I’ve got to accept it. They were guest-friends.” He was slapping the tabletop with both hands, an oddly restrained gesture that did nothing to conceal the violence within. “I’m just sorry for Ebony. Why does he have to die? He did nothing wrong.”
Did he actually expect me to sympathize with his horse? But the strange thing is, I did sympathize. I never, at any point, wanted to see Ebony destroyed.
“I have to be going,” I said.
He stood up at once. “I’ll see you back to your hut.”
“Oh, no need—it’s still light.”
He stood on the steps and watched me cross the yard. I was glad he hadn’t insisted on escorting me to my door. As it was, I waited for him to go inside and then slipped along to the women’s hut where I found the girls huddled around Maire, who was looking terrified, as well she might. I had a brief urgent conversation with Andromache and Helle. We agreed we had to get the baby out. It was good to talk to them. Left to myself, I think I might have been paralysed by a fear of overreacting, of creating one problem in the course of solving another. By running away, Maire would expose herself to all the punishments visited on runaway slaves—and they were savage. It was a relief to know that the others agreed on the dangers. Pyrrhus was an angry, vengeful man—capable of great generosity, yes, and brave, but brutal, too. Killing Andromache’s baby—that had been done in the immediate aftermath of battle, and under direct orders from Agamemnon. The pressure to comply would have been immense. But Amina…? What excuse was there for that, really? No, we had no reason to trust him. If he was forced to sacrifice Ebony—and I couldn’t see how he was going to get out of it—his reaction would be to spread the pain around to as many people as possible. Having been publicly humiliated, he’d want to stamp his authority on his men—and on the slaves who’d lied to him, again, and defied him, again. I didn’t think we could expect any mercy from him at all. Somehow, we were going to have to get the baby out—and it had to be done tonight while everybody in the compound was preoccupied with the practicalities of burying Priam. So, we agreed and then parted. Helle went to break the news to Maire, and I went back home to wait, since nothing could be done before dark.