Miller, Madeline - The Song of Achilles

His mother comes. I hear her, the sound of waves breaking on shore. If I disgusted her when I was alive, it is worse to find my corpse in her son’s arms.

“He is dead,” she says, in her flat voice.

“Hector is dead,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

“You have no armor.”

“I do not need any.” His teeth show; it is an effort to speak.

She reaches, pale and cool, to take his hands from me. “He did it to himself,” she says.

“Do not touch me!”

She draws back, watching him cradle me in his arms.

“I will bring you armor,” she says.

IT GOES LIKE THIS, on and on, the tent flap opening, the tentative face. Phoinix, or Automedon, or Machaon. At last Odysseus. “Agamemnon has come to see you, and return the girl.” Achilles does not say, She has already returned . Perhaps he does not know.

The two men face each other in the flickering firelight. Agamemnon clears his throat. “It is time to forget the division between us. I come to bring you the girl, Achilles, unharmed and well.” He pauses, as if expecting a rush of gratitude. There is only silence. “Truly, a god must have snatched our wits from us to set us so at odds. But that is over now, and we are allies once more.” This last is said loudly, for the benefit of the watching men. Achilles does not respond. He is imagining killing Hector. It is all that keeps him standing.

Agamemnon hesitates. “Prince Achilles, I hear you will fight tomorrow?”

“Yes.” The suddenness of his answer startles them.

“Very good, that is very good.” Agamemnon waits another moment. “And you will fight after that, also?”

“If you wish,” Achilles answers. “I do not care. I will be dead soon.”

The watching men exchange glances. Agamemnon recovers.

“Well. We are settled then.” He turns to go, stops. “I was sorry to hear of Patroclus’ death. He fought bravely today. Did you hear he killed Sarpedon?”

Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”

Agamemnon is too shocked to answer. Odysseus steps into the silence. “We will leave you to mourn, Prince Achilles.”

BRISEIS IS KNEELING by my body. She has brought water and cloth, and washes the blood and dirt from my skin. Her hands are gentle, as though she washes a baby, not a dead thing. Achilles opens the tent, and their eyes meet over my body.

“Get away from him,” he says.

“I am almost finished. He does not deserve to lie in filth.”

“I would not have your hands on him.”

Her eyes are sharp with tears. “Do you think you are the only one who loved him?”

“Get out. Get out!”

“You care more for him in death than in life.” Her voice is bitter with grief. “How could you have let him go? You knew he could not fight!”

Achilles screams, and shatters a serving bowl. “Get out!”

Briseis does not flinch. “Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was worth ten of you. Ten! And you sent him to his death!”

The sound that comes from him is hardly human. “I tried to stop him! I told him not to leave the beach!”

“You are the one who made him go.” Briseis steps towards him. “He fought to save you, and your darling reputation. Because he could not bear to see you suffer!”

Achilles buries his face in his hands. But she does not relent. “You have never deserved him. I do not know why he ever loved you. You care only for yourself!”

Achilles’ gaze lifts to meet hers. She is afraid, but does not draw back. “I hope that Hector kills you.”

The breath rasps in his throat. “Do you think I do not hope the same?” he asks.

HE WEEPS as he lifts me onto our bed. My corpse sags; it is warm in the tent, and the smell will come soon. He does not seem to care. He holds me all night long, pressing my cold hands to his mouth.

At dawn, his mother returns with a shield and sword and breastplate, newly minted from still-warm bronze. She watches him arm and does not try to speak to him.

HE DOES NOT WAIT for the Myrmidons, or Automedon. He runs up the beach, past the Greeks who have come out to see. They grab their arms and follow. They do not want to miss it.

“Hector!” he screams. “Hector!” He tears through the advancing Trojan ranks, shattering chests and faces, marking them with the meteor of his fury. He is gone before their bodies hit the ground. The grass, thinned from ten years of warfare, drinks the rich blood of princes and kings.

Yet Hector eludes him, weaving through the chariots and men with the luck of the gods. No one calls it cowardice that he runs. He will not live if he is caught. He is wearing Achilles’ own armor, the unmistakable phoenix breastplate taken from beside my corpse. The men stare as the two pass: it looks, almost, as if Achilles is chasing himself.

Chest heaving, Hector races towards Troy’s wide river, the Scamander. Its water glints a creamy gold, dyed by the stones in its riverbed, the yellow rock for which Troy is known.

The waters are not golden now, but a muddied, churning red, choked with corpses and armor. Hector lunges into the waves and swims, arms cutting through the helmets and rolling bodies. He gains the other shore; Achilles leaps to follow.

A figure rises from the river to bar his way. Filthy water sluices off the muscles of his shoulders, pours from his black beard. He is taller than the tallest mortal, and swollen with strength like creeks in spring. He loves Troy and its people. In summer, they pour wine for him as a sacrifice, and drop garlands to float upon his waters. Most pious of all is Hector, prince of Troy.

Achilles’ face is spattered with blood. “You will not keep me from him.”

The river god Scamander lifts a thick staff, large as a small tree-trunk. He does not need a blade; one strike with this would break bones, snap a neck. Achilles has only a sword. His spears are gone, buried in bodies.

“Is it worth your life?” the god says.

No . Please. But I have no voice to speak. Achilles steps into the river and lifts his sword.

With hands as large as a man’s torso, the river god swings his staff. Achilles ducks and then rolls forward over the returning whistle of a second swing. He gains his feet and strikes, whipping towards the god’s unprotected chest. Easily, almost casually, the god twists away. The sword’s point passes harmlessly, as it has never done before.

The god attacks. His swings force Achilles backwards over the debris lining the river. He uses his staff like a hammer; wide arcs of spray leap from where it smashes against the river’s surface. Achilles must spring away each time. The waters do not seem to drag at him as they might at another man.

Achilles’ sword flashes faster than thought, but he cannot touch the god. Scamander catches every blow with his mighty staff, forcing him to be faster and then faster still. The god is old, old as the first melting of ice from the mountains, and he is wily. He has known every fight that was ever fought on these plains, and there is nothing new to him. Achilles begins to slow, worn out from the strain of holding back the god’s strength with only a thin edge of metal. Chips of wood fly as the weapons meet, but the staff is thick as one of Scamander’s legs; there is no hope that it will break. The god has begun to smile at how often now the man seeks to duck rather than meet his blows. Inexorably, he bears down. Achilles’ face is contorted with effort and focus. He is fighting at the edge, the very edge of his power. He is not, after all, a god.

I see him gathering himself, preparing one final, desperate attack. He begins the pass, sword blurring towards the god’s head. For a fraction of a second, Scamander must lean back to avoid it. That is the moment Achilles needs. I see his muscles tense for that last, single thrust; he leaps.