Through the dim smoke, I felt a steady calm spreading through my body, clearing some of the jangling confusion in my head. I opened my eyes and saw him looking back at me.
‘Have you come to ask what tomorrow holds?’ I said through dry lips, my voice hoarse from lack of use. I had not spoken since my unheard proclamation over the battlefield, when I had seen that it was not Achilles falling under Hector’s sword.
‘Only the gods can know that,’ he answered.
I wondered how his eyes could be so mellow, so contemplative. He surely came to seek from Apollo the knowledge of Achilles’ vengeance. I glanced up at the silent, towering god behind my brother. Finally, I felt the racing blur of my thoughts settle and, piece by piece, they slid together into place. ‘I can see it,’ I whispered.
He had never scorned me or scolded me. To the Greeks, he held death in his hands, a formidable warrior with no mercy or weakness. In Troy, he was our protector, as kind to his raving sister as he was to anyone else. ‘It does not matter what happens to me,’ he said. He knelt beside me, on the floor. ‘That is not what I seek to know.’
‘The man you killed today—’ I began.
‘I killed many men today,’ he said. ‘And every day of this ten-year war. But the man you think of – he who wore Achilles’ armour – his name was Patroklos.’ He glanced at me. ‘Achilles will want my blood for it, that much I know. Patroklos cursed me as he died, warned me of what will come.’
Patroklos. The white was creeping in around the edges of my vision, but I swallowed back the bile that accompanied it and forced my gaze to rest only upon Hector’s face.
‘But Achilles is one man,’ Hector continued, his voice quiet. ‘Before today, we had the Greeks nearly overpowered. We will chase them to their ships, and he can roar and rage against us as he likes. Perhaps his grief will make him careless.’
I reached out my hand and wrapped it around his forearm. It was warm, life pulsing under his skin. By sunset tomorrow, it would be limp and dust-streaked, dragged along the earth behind Achilles’ chariot. I stared at his wrist, traced the pattern of green veins on the tender inside. I saw the inferno coming for him, ready to consume my patient brother.
‘Come,’ he said, making to stand, gently pulling me with him. ‘Do not stay here. Come to the palace and be with us tonight.’
No one else would want me there. His pity only hurt me more. I followed him as he asked, for there would be no more requests from my brother. I cast my eyes back to Apollo as we left, the wine that Hector had poured in his honour gleaming red in a bowl by his feet. Tomorrow night, Troy would mourn more desperately than it had in ten years of war. I walked behind my brother, already grieving him with every step I took.
18
Clytemnestra
‘Go on,’ I urged, leaning forward so eagerly that the wine nearly spilled from my goblet.
He eyed me a little apprehensively. He was a wiry youth, tense and uncertain, though he felt that he was bringing me good news. His worried gaze kept flicking to Aegisthus at my side: Aegisthus, whose narrow shoulders did not fill the broad back of his monstrously gilded and towering chair. I surmised it was this which made the messenger so nervous, for he delivered news of Greek triumphs at Troy to a man sitting in Agamemnon’s throne.
‘They say Achilles fought like a man possessed,’ he went on, stumbling a little over his words. I nodded encouragingly. ‘He . . . he tore through the Trojan lines like a fire tearing through a forest in the driest summer.’
‘Tell me of those he killed,’ I said.
‘He was more lion than man—’
‘Yes, yes, he raged like a fire and roared like a lion, but tell me what he did.’
‘Hector wore Achilles’ own armour, which he had stolen from Patroklos’ body, but Achilles strode forth in armour more magnificent than any that had been seen before – a gift, surely, from his immortal mother and worthy of the craftsmanship of Hephaestus himself.’ The young man caught himself as the irritation flashed across my face. ‘The Trojans were terrified, Queen Clytemnestra, and they fled before his fury. But he pursued them relentlessly.’
I savoured a long sip of wine.
‘Over and over, he hurled his spear, skewering men as they ran. He sprang from his own chariot to drag men from theirs, and if they clasped his knees and begged for their lives, he showed no pity. He hacked apart their bodies, plunged his sword into their livers, severed their heads and trampled his horses across their bodies until his chariot was decorated with the gore that sprayed up from under the churning wheels and thundering hooves.’ He was getting into his stride, realising that this description was just what I desired to hear. ‘He chased the Trojans to the very banks of the river Xanthus, and there he turned the water red with their blood. Only twelve men did he spare—’