The Pearl of Troy

Chapter Six

Briseis pulled back one of the opening flaps to the command tent just far enough to be able to peek through without giving herself away.
Nestor and Ulysses stood around a table spread out with maps. Ulysses rolled up one of the maps while Nestor rested his creaking bones in a comfortable-looking armchair.
"I tell you, Anchises' boy is one to watch," Ulysses said. Anchises' boy, Aeneas. Briseis leaned in closer to hear better. "His laughter-loving mother must have lifted up her protective skirts over him because he fought like a young lion in the thick of the battle, yet he made it out with only a trifling wound on his thigh, which is more than I can say for unlucky bastards who crossed him on the warpath."
Briseis offered a silent prayer of thanks for Aeneas' safe return from his first battle and that the souls of those who fell by his sword would find peace in the underworld. Her pompous, pig-headed big brother had finally grown up.
"Some of the credit must certainly belong to Mars," Nestor said.
Ulysses smirked. "Of course, who do you think Venus lifted her skirts for?"
"Have you seen Achilles?" Nestor reached over to refill his cup from a pitcher on the table. "I didn't catch him at the battle today."
Ulysses rolled up another map. "He was wandering around the dunes at dawn this morning like a lost soul. I've seen him like that twice this week."
Ulysses hadn't been the only one to spot Achilles rambling out on the dunes.
"Your Lord is enthralled to some fey spirit," the Miller had said when Briseis went to the mill yesterday to check on a shipment of grain. "She lures him out there every night to dance with her. Why else would he leave such a lovely maid as you alone in a cold bed."
Briseis had to bite her lip to keep from replying that her bed was warm enough without Achilles.
The brewer had insisted that Achilles went out at night to meet with his mother, the sea nymph, Thetis. "Thetis calls him to come mourn with her for Peleus, her husband and his father."
During one of the countless other times Briseis had listened in on Nestor and Ulysses' conversations, she'd learned that King Peleus was on his deathbed.
Ulysses poured himself a drink from the pitcher on the table. "His father's dying and he'll be king soon. That's what's wrong with him."
"Poor lad." Nestor lowered his grey head. "So much for one so young."
"Make way, make way."
Briseis turned around. A herald was announcing the approach of Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, who was as burly and good-looking as the god Mars, though getting doughy around the neck and waist with age.
What would they do if they caught Briseis lurking outside the command tent? Briseis fluttered away like a startled pigeon before she had to find out.
A pair of broad shoulders stopped her in her tracks.
"I've caught you, little spy," Achilles said. His mouth twitched into a smile that didn't mesh with the grave perfection of his face.
Briseis lowered her eyes. "I was just...."
"Just what?"
"Listening in on Nestor and Ulysses talking." She sounded like a child caught stealing a sweet from the kitchen.
"And what did those two old windbags have to say?" Achilles snorted, a sound as appropriate coming from him as the skirl of a bagpipe from a lute. "Were they complaining about their aching bones? I don't see why a spy would be interested in that."
"Ulysses isn't that old." Nestor could have been Ulysses' father.
Ulysses held open the tent flaps so Agamemnon and Menelaus could enter.
Achilles raised an eyebrow. "If they'd caught you where you're not supposed to be, I'd get reprimanded for letting you wander about...."
So the mighty Achilles was worried about a stern talking to from Agamemnon? It took all of Briseis' willpower not to laugh.
"... and I thought giving you something to do would keep you out of the way."
"There was nothing more to do at the granary," Briseis said. She'd had the new shipments of requisitioned grain sorted by type and saw that the wheat and rye went to the mill to be ground into flour, and the barley and oats went to the brewery to make ale. "You can check the record books if you wish." Each oat and grain of wheat was present and accounted for in oak-gall ink.
"No, that isn't necessary."
Briseis turned to leave. "Good day then."
"Please, wait." Achilles took her hand. His touch sent a jolt through her body as if her fingers had brushed against a flame. "Take a walk with me. There's something I'd like to show you."
"What do you want to show me?" Briseis looked back at him. Where did he want to take her? What would he do to her there? After what happened the last time they were alone together, she had every right to be wary of him.
Achilles gave another of his incongruous smiles. "Then it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"
"What kind of surprise?" A surprise like you forcing a kiss on me that night?
"I promise, I'm not going to kiss you again." Achilles stared at his feet. "And I'm sorry I did that in the first place."
Briseis cracked a smile. He sounded like Aeneas had at five years old when made to apologize for pulling Briseis' hair. She rolled her eyes. "What do you have to show me then?"
Achilles retook her hand. "Come this way."
Achilles led Briseis through the Greek camp, which resembled a large, bustling village, toward the path that opened out into the dunes.
Briseis stopped to empty her shoes of gritty, beige sand. Gulls squawked above her, and brisk, salty air filled her lungs and nostrils. Her heart soared among the gulls. She hadn't seen the sea in years.
The dunes parted, and the blue-green waters of the Hellespont appeared before her.