So, instinctively, I began reminiscing about our life in Lyrnessus, reaching out to her through shared memories of a happier past, before Achilles destroyed everything, before we first heard his terrible battle cry ringing round the walls. Even so, the conversation was hard going, guttering like a candle at the end of its life—and I was aware all the time of Amina, avidly listening. After another pause, I said: “Well, I suppose I should be getting back.”
Ritsa nodded at once and pushed her mortar to one side. We hesitated over kissing, making ineffectual pecks and bobs in each other’s direction before finally achieving an awkward bumping of noses. Amina watched. As we set off, she once more lagged deliberately behind. I dropped back, wanting to walk beside her, but the minute I slowed down, she did too, so the distance between us was maintained. I sighed and struggled on against the wind. This girl was on my conscience and I rather resented the fact, because I felt I was doing everything I could. Remembering my own first days in the camp, how much other women had helped me then, I’d tried to reach out to her before, on my visits to the women’s hut, but so far, she’d rejected every overture of friendship. Of course, I was trying to support the other girls too, but Amina particularly, probably because she reminded me so much of myself—the way I’d watched and listened and waited. Friendship’s often based on similarities, the discovery of shared attitudes, shared passions, but the resemblances between Amina and me weren’t having that effect. If anything, they simply increased the doubts I felt about myself. But still, I wanted to make contact. I kept glancing back at her, but she was walking with her head bowed and neatly avoided my gaze.
A group of men had gathered in the arena and were kicking a pig’s bladder around. At least, I hoped it was a pig’s bladder. The day after Troy fell, I’d come across some fighters playing football with a human head. This lot seemed harmless enough, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I turned round, put my hand on Amina’s arm and nodded towards the beach. I was beginning to think Alcimus had been right all along and it was just too dangerous to leave the compound.
The beach was deserted, except for two priests wearing the scarlet bands of Apollo who were whirling bullroarers above their heads, perhaps thinking if they made enough noise, the wind would be cowed into submission. As I watched, a gust caught one of them off balance and dumped him unceremoniously onto the wet sand. After that, they gave up, trailing disconsolately away in the direction of Agamemnon’s compound. All over the camp, priests like these were trying everything they knew to change the weather: examining the entrails of sacrificed animals, watching the flight patterns of birds, interpreting dreams…And still the wind blew.
After the priests had gone, we had the whole vast beach to ourselves, though we had to hold our veils over our faces to be able to breathe at all; talking was impossible. Neither of us could have stood alone against the blast, so we were forced to cling to each other—and those few minutes of shared struggle did more to break down the barriers between us than my offers of friendship had ever done. We staggered about, laughing and giggling. Amina’s cheeks were flushed; I think she was probably amazed to discover that laughter was still possible.
At first, we kept to the edge of the beach, where the cradled ships provided some protection, but I can never resist the pull of the sea—and anyway, I told myself, the wet sand at the water’s edge would be firmer. Easier to stay on our feet. So down the slopes of mixed sand and shingle we went, to find ourselves confronted by a wall of yellowish-grey water that seemed to be intent on gobbling up the land. On the shoreline, there were stinking heaps of bladderwrack studded with dead creatures, thousands of them, more than I’d ever seen before: tiny, grey-green crabs, starfish, several huge jellyfish with dark red centres, almost as if something inside them had burst, and other things whose names I didn’t know—all of them dead. The sea was murdering its children.
Amina turned to look back at the smouldering towers of Troy, her face suddenly tense and wretched. I felt I was failing her and that somebody else, older, more experienced—Ritsa, perhaps—would have been better able to reach out to her. So we walked in silence until we drew level with Pyrrhus’s compound. Once inside the gates I knew we’d be safe, but we weren’t there yet. Hearing a burst of braying laughter, I approached cautiously, keeping to the shadows, trying to work out what lay ahead of us. It wasn’t dark exactly, but in those days the sky was often so overcast that even at midday it was scarcely light.
Immediately outside the gate was a big open space where the Myrmidons used to muster before marching off to war. Here, another group of fighters had gathered, but at the centre of this scrum was a girl. Blindfolded. They were spinning her round the circle, each man sending her careering off into the arms of the next. She didn’t scream or cry for help; probably she knew by now that nobody would come. Amina mustn’t see this. I grabbed her arm and pointed back the way we’d come, but she just stood, transfixed, and so, in the end, I had to drag her away. Stumbling, she followed me along the wall, but still looked back over her shoulder at the spinning girl and the ring of laughing men.
In my first weeks in the camp, when the sea had been both a solace and a temptation—I say “temptation” because I so often wanted to walk into the waves and not turn back—I’d explored every inch of the beach, and that knowledge served me well now. I knew there was a path through the dunes that led to another entrance into the stables, so I headed straight for that. Reaching the first sheltered place, I flopped onto the sand to gather my scattered thoughts and, after a moment’s hesitation, Amina sat beside me, stretched out on her back and stared up at the sky.
Lying down like that, we escaped the full force of the wind, though the sharp blades of marram grass tossed wildly above our heads. I closed my eyes and put my arms across my face. I was afraid Amina would want to talk about the incident we’d just witnessed, and I didn’t know what to say to her. Tell the truth, I suppose—but it was a difficult truth to tell. On my second night in the camp, I’d slept in Achilles’s bed. Less than two days before, I’d seen him kill my husband and my brothers. Lying underneath him as he slept, I’d thought nothing worse could ever happen to me, or to any woman. I thought this was the pit. But later, as I walked around the camp, I began to notice the common women, those who scrabbled for scraps around the cooking fires, who went without food to feed their children, who crawled under the huts at night to sleep. It hadn’t taken me long to realize there were many fates worse than mine. Amina needed to know that, she needed to understand the realities of life in this camp, but I couldn’t face the brutality of telling her. And anyway, I told myself, she’d learn soon enough.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that she was watching some crows which were circling a hundred yards or so further on. I thought she looked puzzled, and after a while she stood up, shielding her eyes to see better. With her black robe flapping around her, she looked like a crow herself. Reluctantly, I got to my feet, wondering how I was going to get her past the spot, because I knew—or rather suspected—what was there. When Pyrrhus had returned in triumph after his exploits in Troy, he’d been dragging a bag of blood and broken bones behind his chariot wheels: Priam. The action was both horrific and drearily predictable. Achilles had dishonoured Hector’s body by dragging it behind his chariot, so obviously Pyrrhus must inflict the same fate on Priam. I remembered Achilles coming back to the camp that day, how he’d stridden into the hall and plunged his head and shoulders into a vat of clean water, surfacing, a minute or so later, dripping wet and blind. The crows had been circling that day too.