Thanks so much to those who reviewed my last chapter, it gives me such a pretty feeling. Feel free to boost my self-esteem or just to tell me what you thought...any comments at all are loved like I love oxygen.
soso22 - It takes a really good one to stop me from puking, hopefully you can classify this in that category! Thank you!
Sarah - Yes you WILL, even if I have to continually send you links. Thanks :D
~two~
He was woken the next morning by a splitting headache and a smack of yellow light. It came into his room in floods, yanking him into consciousness like a slap in the face. Patroclus groaned, squeezing his eyes shut tight as gates against an invasion and tried to will his mind back to sleep but to no avail; the morning was persistent as a breeze slipped through the open window and under the thin covers, ruffling his hair and prickling his skin like gooseflesh.
He shivered and wrapped the linen sheets tightly around his body, trying to recall snatches of his dream. He was back at home in his father's palace where the walls were comforting and the faces familiar if not always kind. He was skipping stones across the sea surface, grinning as each one was swallowed by the waves. His mother sat beside him, her face turned into the sun, hands folded in her lap. A picture of perfect serenity. He tried to keep this last one fixed in his mind but it was like cupping water in his hands. The harder he tried to hold on the more it began to slip away until he was left alone in his cold, shadowy room; hating the morning and the promise of the day it brought.
Eventually, when he had run out of excuses for remaining immobile he slid from the mattress, dressed quickly and washed his face. The shameful tunic still lay rumpled and disgraced in the corner. Patroclus' pride forbade giving it to the slaves for washing when just the look on their faces upon his return from last night's feast had been enough to send him running for his room. The king's sympathy he could bare. Servants' pity was another matter entirely. After deeming himself presentable he headed downstairs to the main hall where most of the other boys were already helping themselves to breakfast. Trying hard to ignore their barely suppressed sniggers he took his place next to Deiomachus who smiled wryly at him.
"Made quite an impression last night, didn't you?" he greeted. Patroclus couldn't tell if his tone was pitying or sarcastic.
"I'd rather not talk about it actually," said Patroclus. "Pass me a bowl."
"Oh yeah," said Deiomachus. "You might not want to use that."
"Why not?"
"I think someone pissed in it."
Patroclus stared in disgust. "Are you serious?"
Deiomachus shrugged. "They knew you'd be the last one down."
Patroclus looked round the room to meet a hundred grinning, eager faces. He sighed, ignored the wooden bowls and platters offered him and grabbed an apple. Fruit, at least, could be trusted.
"What's happening today then?" he asked, taking a cautious bite.
"Drills," came the reply. "Drills and training. We're supposed to be on the field in an hour."
Patroclus felt his heart slide a little further down the walls of his chest. He had never been a natural athlete, much to Menoetius' shame and would often content himself with watching the other boys as they raced, leaped and battled across the fields, their feet rising little golden clouds in the dirt as sweat slipped from tensed limbs to the grey earth. He remembered countless occasions where he would attempt to throw a shotput or launch a javelin only to suffer the humiliation of having it land barely a foot before him, or enter a swimming contest only to come back up, spluttering. Personally, he blamed the Gods. It was they who had seen fit to gift him with such weak arms and thin shoulders, they who had bestowed upon him the esteemed title of Perfectly Average…at everything.
"Who will be taking us?" he asked warily.
Deiomachus glanced around the hall and pointed to the high table where the noble lords of Peleus' house sat munching on bread and honey. "There. Ampelius. I hear he has rather high standards."
Patroclus followed his line of vision and settled on a sturdy, thickset man with a voice like a battering ram and rather unruly facial hair. His heart sank a little deeper. Still, he thought, thinking of the coldly beautiful boy who had swept into dinner the previous night, it could be worse.
He finished his breakfast quickly and tried to ignore the mounting sense of dread as he followed the others outside and onto the practice fields. Overhead the sky was a brilliant, cloud-less blue and the grass was damp underfoot, still clinging with the residues of the previous night's rain, the earth itself cool and springy. Patroclus tilted his neck in the direction of the sun as they lined up wordlessly, poised and eager for instruction before Ampelius who stood like an overgrown thorn bush, his ham-like hands clasped behind his back in typical soldier stance.
He needn't have worried. Despite his wild appearance Ampelius showed himself to be pretty reasonable and beamed at the boys with hearty, almost childlike enthusiasm. Inside every boy, he told them in his ground-shaking boom of a voice, there is a man and inside every man there is a warrior. His job was to bring the warrior out of each of them; to chisel away the soft exterior of childhood to reveal a hard and polished core of rock and iron until they could stand and call themselves the Sons of their Fathers. "Think of me as a carpenter," he said. "And these," he raised his giant's hands "Are my tools. With them I shall make fine chairs out of all of you, firm enough for even the most bounteous of backsides."
He threw back his great, shaggy head and laughed, causing little stones to jump up into the air and cartwheel into each other. Patroclus thought he felt the ground beneath his feet vibrate.
They were given practice spears of roughly hewn wood and watched nervously as Ampelius showed them how best to hold and thrust, correcting any untidy technique with a hearty roar of "Not quite lad, not quite." Patroclus held his weapon awkwardly and was silent when his grip was corrected and corrected again. It felt strange, as if it did not rightly belong there and he experienced a momentary settling of relief when it was released from his palms and skimmed the side of the oak tree target with a feeble bump. The boys behind him tittered and Ampelius blew out a slow breath. "And again, son. Only this time try and keep your eyes open."
And so it went for rest of the morning.
It became quickly apparent to everyone, including Ampelius, that this was not a specimen built for the spear. A hundred times Patroclus threw, renewing a desperate hope in his chest as the metal point pierced the sky only to have those hopes come to a crashing thud at his feet, a few centimetres behind the shaft. Beside him Leonides and Deiomachus were hurling their weapons with Olympic accuracy, grinning each time the silver heads shredded the targets and left behind a trail of little wooden splinters while his own fell short, aimed too high or missed the thing completely. Ampelius accepted every dropped weapon and missed target with almost maternal patience but after the first few dozen failed throws Patroclus could sense annoyance.
"Come on now lad," he bellowed, his great hairy eyebrows meeting in a perplexed frown. "Get your body weight behind it. We Achaeans are blessed with the strong backs of a bull's and the thighs of its plough. Show some of your parent's good breeding!"
With that he took the spear from his hands and launched it at the oak tree, back and shoulder muscles rippling like a turning tide. It cut through the air with a faint whistle and struck the bark dead centre. A trickle of sap squeezed its way through the cracks as Ampelius turned to Patroclus and handed him another. Patroclus squinted at the target. He threw. He missed.
At midday the sun burned huge, white and furious. Sweating and covered from head to foot in dust the boys trudged wearily from the field over to where servants waited obediently with bread and water. They collapsed into the shade and began to chatter loudly and boastfully about the day's exercise while Patroclus inched away until he was sat by himself to sip cool water and listen to the crickets chirruping through the grass. His ears burned scarlet with humiliation and he avoided Ampelius' eye for fear that he might again see that ever-familiar shadow of disappointment flicker and settle there.
He raised the water skin to his lips and looked around him with polite curiosity, confused over the sudden quietness. The boorish conversation that had up till now been ringing like clashing swords had come to a stop. All eyes were fixed on something on the other side of the field. Perplexed, Patroclus followed their gaze. He stopped. He saw.
For a moment, he wondered what he was watching. Then, he realised. It was him. The prince. Achilles. The sun had settled on his hair and face so that he seemed to be made entirely of gold and in one hand he held a spear, not one of the practice play things of the past hour but something real and lethal. He thrust and it seemed to Patroclus that the weapon was merely an extension of his arm, as much a part of him as flesh and sinew for he held it so naturally and his movements were all freedom and grace like those of a cat's.
In a haze of dusty light Achilles' feet licked the ground like pink tongues, his body a beam of perfect energy as he struck one and two and three and –
Pause. Aim. Throw.
Like lightening splits the surface of a roaring sea the spear shone ablaze. It struck, with perfect form and accuracy and the target shuddered and collapsed. An impossible throw.
He straightened. Turned. And with the foster sons of Phthia staring the wide-eyed, open-mouthed stares of men who have just witnessed the divine the boy-prince smiled.
Patroclus' breath lodged in his throat.
"LOOK AWAY!" Ampelius' roar tore through the confounded silence like a charging bull at a fair. "LOOK AWAY! NO ONE SEES THE PRINCE FIGHT! TURN AROUND! LOOK AWAY!"
Setting himself between Achilles and the bewildered onlookers Ampelius ushered the boys away, casting an anxious look over his shoulder. Patroclus just caught a glimpse of the boy slip out of sight, taking his spear and splintered target with him. When Ampelius had moved out the way it was as if nothing had ever been there.
"They say his mother is a goddess," came a sudden whisper behind him. He whirled round. Everyone's face bore the same mystified, awe-struck expression as he knew he did.
"Hera herself as I heard it," said another.
"No," Androclides shook his head. "A wood nymph. From Pelion."
"Don't be ridiculous Thales," another scoffed. "How could a wood nymph give birth to a fighter like that? No, he's one of Ares'…or Athena's at the very least."
"Athena's a virgin, genius. Care explaining how a virgin gives birth at all?"
"Well I don't bloody know, she's a goddess, maybe they lay eggs or something…"
Patroclus listened to the excited supposes and presumptions of his peers with only half an ear. He felt hazy, as he often did after too much wine at dinner and was filled with the sudden urge to sit down and make sense of things. He felt addled and confused and suddenly, inexplicably angry although at what he wasn't quite sure. All he knew was that what he had just seen, what he had…witnessed…should not have been possible. No one should have been able to move like that. It wasn't right.
It wasn't fair.
He thought of his own clumsy steps onto the dais, of grazes and scars from tripping over his own feet and landing in an ungainly mess at the king's feet. He thought of the spear in his hands, how uncomfortable he'd felt holding it and of Ampelius' unhappy frown as it landed. Here he was, flailing like a drowning man at the most basic of tasks as he, Achilles, made it look so easy.
Made it look beautiful.
He became aware, after a while, that somebody was watching him. He looked up. It was one of the slaves, observing him sympathetically, a tiny, hateful smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Irritation sparked once again in Patroclus' chest. "What?" he snapped.
The slave shuffled his feet in embarrassment. "Nothing, young master."
"Don't give me that," said Patroclus. "Come on, out with it."
He waited expectantly, frustration mounting steadily until finally the slave spoke again, "There is no point in envying him," he said. "For he is matchless in skill and speed. The God's have yet to make a more perfect fighter, nor have they ever made one before. He will be the best warrior of his generation."
Patroclus stared. The slave's face was unreadable. "How could you know this?" he finally managed to mutter. "How could you possibly know this?"
The young man shrugged. "It is written."
A boy's name was called, the slave made his excuses and walked away, leaving Patroclus to stare stupidly at the space where Achilles had been. If it had seemed empty before it was nothing but a void now, a vast expanse of where once a demi-god had stood and where now there was nothing.