32
After watching the woman, Briseis, walk across the yard, Pyrrhus turns back into the hall. Lamps and candles cast circles of light over empty plates…He ought to be hungry by now—in fact, he should be famished, he hasn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast; but he isn’t. If anything, he feels slightly sick. Move, he tells himself, but his feet have taken root. Peeling familiarity from his eyes, he notices shadows struggling in the rafters, the same battle they fight every night, creating a sense of conflict, however convivial the gathering going on below. Not that they always are convivial. He’s thinking these trivial, scum-on-the-surface thoughts so he doesn’t have to think about…
He must be standing almost exactly where Priam stood that night, gazing up the hall at a man who sits slumped in his chair, torpid as a lizard on a cold day. Still dangerous, though: lethargy to murderous rage in seconds. How much courage it must have taken to begin that walk up the aisle between the tables, a wall of muscular backs on either side.
Pyrrhus starts walking in Priam’s footsteps down the hall towards the empty chair at the end, though he doesn’t seem to be moving at all, it’s more as if the chair is coming towards him. He stops in front of it—contemplates the impossibility of kneeling as once Priam had knelt. He’d held Achilles knees—the position of a supplicant—and said: “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.”
And that’s where Pyrrhus loses it. Totally. Up to that point, he thinks he understands. Priam had shown immense courage in driving, alone and unarmed, into the Greek camp—and Achilles would have responded to that. He would always have responded to courage. But are those really the words of a brave man? It sounds more like giving in. And yet, it’s at that point that Achilles’s behaviour begins to change. Suddenly, he’s inviting Priam into his private quarters, bringing out the best wine, waiting on him at dinner, apparently, like a common serving man. Why didn’t he call Alcimus and Automedon into the room—let them do it? It was their job to wait on a royal guest. And there it is, the word “guest.” He wasn’t a guest! He was an interloper—he’d just walked in off the yard. And yet Achilles himself had used the word “guest”…
That was one thing everybody seemed to agree on, that Achilles and Priam had begun the night as enemies and ended it as friends—guest-friends—to the point where Achilles had been prepared to fight his fellow Greeks to defend Priam. How could a single encounter send a man spinning off onto a different path from the one he’d been pursuing, with such undeviating resolution, up till then? Pyrrhus doesn’t get it. He’s talked to Alcimus, to Automedon, and now to Briseis: he knows exactly what happened that night, but he understands none of it. How could his father, who’d been the scourge of the Trojans for the last nine years, have made a friend of Priam? Even offering to help him when Troy fell. In the deepest, darkest corner of Pyrrhus’s mind is the thought that—if he’d lived—Achilles would have defended Priam on the altar steps.
Anyway, where is everybody? He looks round the empty hall, then remembers he cancelled dinner. Just as well…Tonight’s a time to be alone, because tomorrow…Tomorrow…Everybody says it’s what the gods require. No, it fucking isn’t. It’s what Agamemnon requires. Not even that—it’s what Calchas requires. Should’ve killed the bastard, not just kicked his arse. Ah, well, too late now…
The hall with its indecipherable echoes is intolerable, so he goes into his living quarters where, as usual, somebody has set out cheese and wine. He pours himself a cup, gulps it down, reaches for the jug—and feels the mirror stir into life behind him. Refusing to pay it any attention, he pours himself more wine, and—
Boring! Boring!
Slowly, he puts down the cup.
No, go on, go on, do what you always do!
He can’t ignore it any longer. So he turns and walks towards the mirror but, instead of his reflection becoming bigger as he approaches, it dwindles till it’s scarcely more than a point of light. Once, not so long ago either, he used to dress up in Achilles’s armour and stand in front of this mirror, narrowing his eyes until the image in front of him blurred and it was possible to believe the man standing there was Achilles himself. He’s the model of his father; everybody says he is. Now, though, what he sees is a taunting homunculus. He knows perfectly well this isn’t Achilles—or any other manifestation of the afterlife. It’s him—a sheared-off sliver of his own brain.
No running to Daddy now, is there?
There never was.
Oh, it must be tough, being an orphan. Of course, there aren’t any other fatherless children in Greece, are there? God’s sake, man, get a grip.
He stares at it, this gibing homunculus whose face is a caricature of his own. Abruptly, he remembers something horrible—it’s one of the things this creature does best, dredging up memories from the sediment at the bottom of your mind, and they are never good memories. After the first attempt at burying Priam, Helenus had been brought in for questioning. The man had been tortured before, by Odysseus; he was falling over himself to tell them everything he knew—which was nothing. And yet, Pyrrhus had still pulled out his dagger, and turned it thoughtfully over and over, the movement finding a blue light on the blade. He’d noticed—without appearing to notice—the fear on Helenus’s face, the tension in his muscles. There’d been no need to use force, but still he’d pressed the dagger into Helenus’s belly, only a little way in, just far enough to make a thin rivulet of blood trickle down. No real damage, minimal pain—but there’d been no need for it. He’s ashamed of the action now, ashamed of the excitement he’d felt—and feels again, remembering the involuntary sucking-in of Helenus’s breath. A small, mean-spirited thing to do, altogether unworthy of great Achilles’s son.
That’s you all over, though, isn’t it? Nasty little boy pulling wings off flies. Do you remember doing that?…
I don’t have to listen to you.
Oh, but you do listen, don’t you? And you always will.
Summoning up all his strength, he turns his back on the mirror, grabs his cloak and crashes out into the night.
Outside, breathing the cool night air, he pauses. The stables? No, though he craves time with Ebony, he’s too afraid of the pain. Later, perhaps—or tomorrow morning, first thing, then he’ll go, oversee the making of the drugged mash—better still, make it himself—groom Ebony, plait his mane…But not now, not tonight. Tonight, he wants…
What does he want? Punishment. A surprising answer, since he doesn’t know what crime he’s supposed to have committed and doesn’t accept that he’s actually to blame. How was he supposed to know about the guest-friendship between Priam and Achilles? An offence committed in ignorance is still an offence. No excuses, no allowances, no mercy—the gods are nothing if not relentless. Punishment, then. But it should be for him—not for Ebony.