I breathed out, though I hadn’t known till then that I was holding my breath. I waited till Pyrrhus was well ahead of us before I stepped out onto the track and, with a carefully expressionless glance at Amina, set off for the camp, aware all the time of her trailing reluctantly behind.
4
Entering the compound via the stable yard, I noticed the Trojan women had been allowed out of their hut. They were sitting in two rows on the veranda steps, looking, in their long black robes, rather like swallows about to migrate—the way they line up on ledges and parapets in the days before they fly away. Except swallows keep up a constant twittering whereas the women were silent. I say “women” but they were girls really, not one of them over seventeen—some a lot younger than that. They clung together, too frightened even to whisper, staring towards Troy where columns of black smoke hung over the citadel, pierced now and then by jets of red and orange flame.
Amina ran to join them. They shuffled along the step to make room for her, but they didn’t greet her.
I walked onto Alcimus’s hut. As I lifted the latch, a fresh gust of wind sent the door crashing against the wall. I wrestled it shut behind me and stood in silence for a moment, gazing around at what was now my home. A table, four chairs, a bed pushed hard against the wall, several rugs and, in the corner, a carved chest containing Alcimus’s clothes. A comfortable room: cushions on the chairs, a tapestry on the wall, lamps, candles—but nothing in it felt as if it belonged to me. I’d come to this hut the day after Achilles died, Alcimus prostrate with grief, the whole camp in turmoil. That was five months ago, and yet the room still felt strange. I forced myself to move, do something, anything, and decided I’d go outside and check on the preparations for dinner.
The cooking fire was at the back of the hut where there was a small enclosed space that gave some shelter from the wind. I had women to help me now, slaves. There’s a saying that the worst mistress a slave can have is an ex-slave. I tried at least to make sure that wasn’t true of me. Alcimus’s slaves had a safe place to sleep and I made sure they were well fed.
Once I was sure the meal was well underway, I went back inside and picked up a basket of raw wool, grey-black, with lumps of dung bulking out the fibres. I don’t suppose teasing wool is anybody’s favourite job; it certainly isn’t mine. Within minutes, my hands were slick with grease, but I persevered, though the monotonous repetition of the task was sucking me into a tunnel of shapeless fears. Once again, I heard Amina say: Be easy to dig, and I shifted a little to stretch my aching back. Of course, she hadn’t meant it; she wouldn’t be mad enough to do anything that dangerous—and anyway, the women’s hut was guarded at night. No, it was all right. There was nothing to worry about.
But then, floating between me and the wool, I saw Priam’s hand, with the gold thumb ring he always wore glinting in the sun. Back, back, I went, hauled back helplessly into the distant past. When I was twelve years old, not long after my mother’s death, my father had sent me to live with my married sister in Troy. Helen, who was—unaccountably—my dumpy sister’s best friend, took a fancy to me. Everybody remarked on it: I was always “Helen’s little friend.” She used to take me with her when she went to the citadel, which was almost every day. She’d lean over the parapet and avidly—there was something unpleasant about the fixity of her gaze—watch the battle raging far below. The first time we went, Priam was there, and in the midst of all his troubles—war going badly, sons quarrelling, coffers emptying, a generation of young men dying—he found time to be kind to me. Taking out a silver coin, he put it on the palm of his hand and, muttering some magic words, passed the other hand rapidly across it—and the coin vanished. I stared at his empty hand, inclined to stand on my twelve-year-old dignity—I was too old for magic tricks—but mesmerized too, because I couldn’t see how it had been done. Priam patted himself all over, pretending to search inside his robes. “Where’s it gone? Oh, I do hope I haven’t lost it. Have you got it?” I shook my head vehemently. Then—of course—he reached across and “discovered” the coin behind my ear. In spite of myself, I laughed. Bowing courteously, he presented the coin to me—and then, I remember, turned aside to watch the battle, his face settling into its lines of habitual sadness.
Now, years later, I remembered that hand—and saw the same hand lying dishonoured on the filthy ground. Pushing my fingers hard into my eyes, I banished the image, letting my head fall back against the chair. No more wool-teasing, I decided, it was too depressing. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I simply sat and listened to the wind.
When, eventually, Alcimus came home, he had Automedon with him. That was no surprise—they often dined together—but then a third man followed them in. Pyrrhus. I bowed deeply and went to fetch cups and wine. Because I knew it would be expected, I selected the best wine and served it undiluted, with only bread and olives as an accompaniment. They sat round the table and talked. Alcimus was keeping pace with Pyrrhus’s drinking, but he had a good head and his speech was no more than slightly slurred. Automedon, though he seemed to drink as much as the others, appeared to be entirely sober. Pyrrhus was unequivocally drunk. I fetched a second jug, set it on the table beside Alcimus and retreated to the shadows round the bed. Nobody so much as glanced at me.
They were talking about Alcimus’s plan to organize games against teams from other compounds. The men had to be found something to do, Alcimus said. Idleness would only breed discontent and already there were rumours flying round the camp that the weather was unnatural, that Agamemnon or one of the other kings must have offended the gods. Fights between rival tribes and factions had begun to break out, and that was dangerous. The Greek kingdoms had a long history of festering border disputes, blood feuds passed down the generations, ceaseless conflict—and now that the Trojans had been defeated, there was nothing left to unite the warring bands. The coalition that had won the war was crumbling, each individual kingdom jockeying for position. The brother kings, Agamemnon and Menelaus, who’d led the expedition, had quarrelled because Menelaus, in defiance of honour, decency and common sense, had taken that bitch Helen back into his bed. Thousands of young men had died so Menelaus could get back to humping his whore. And so, Alcimus went on, they had somehow to seize control of the situation, bring the divided factions together. Pyrrhus said “Yes” and “No” and drank and offered the opinion that what the men really needed was a bit of fun. The games will be fun, Alcimus insisted. “Until they start killing each other over the results,” Automedon said.
They were well into the second jug—and I still didn’t know if Pyrrhus would be staying for dinner. Now very drunk, he began talking—boasting, rather—about the part he’d played in the fall of Troy. I saw Alcimus and Automedon glance at each other. Myrmidons were—are—a stocky, dark-haired, dark-skinned race, as agile as their own mountain goats, deeply sceptical, slow to trust, taciturn to a fault. Neither Alcimus nor Automedon looked comfortable during Pyrrhus’s slurred ramblings; Automedon, in particular, stared into his cup, his sallow, aquiline face expressionless. I wasn’t enjoying it much either. I didn’t want to dwell on what had happened inside Troy; I certainly didn’t want be told what Alcimus had done. I had to spend the rest of my life with this man; it would be easier if I didn’t know. But I needn’t have worried: Pyrrhus’s account featured nobody but himself.