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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Your bird returned. It must have already hunted and finished eating some place else – a nice touch, I really wouldn't enjoy having an eagle tearing away at its bloody prey on my windowsill. Now it's just perching there again, watching me with amber eyes that seem to glow as if they were lit from inside.
But it doesn't try to rush me. It knows I'll fly with it in when I'm ready.
o-o-o
Something had shifted between us. There was an undeniable awkwardness. I had gone back to trying to avoid you, or rather to avoid being alone with you, and you almost seemed to be helping me do it.
It's not easy to see our most painful secrets exposed by someone who wasn't even supposed to know them, let alone lay them all out in the open. I felt that I was uncomfortably transparent to you.
I had seen your bare body from the corner of my eye, you had exposed my bare soul head on. I would take a while to heal from the shock of it all.
But you didn't look quite at ease either. You seemed to be withdrawing into yourself, trying to regain some kind of control. For a man who avoided at all costs showing even a hint of vulnerability, you had opened windows into your own private story that you were now probably regretting.
Things had gotten much too deep much too fast, and I guess none of us knew how to go on from there.
Of course, Iphis sensed something was amiss, but I'd been evading her questions as best I could. To explain properly what was going on, I'd have to tell her about our argument on the beach and I didn't want to talk about my miserable marriage to Mynes with her or anyone else for the time being. Or maybe ever.
Oddly, I realized that if there was someone with whom I might be willing to talk about it, it would be you. Incongruent as that seemed, considering that you were a man and the topic was heavy with my own intimacy, I knew in my bones that I could trust you on that most personal of matters. You had shown sympathy, but not the slightest sign of pity. That was important to me. I had my own fair share of unyielding pride and I hated the idea that I might be pitied. I preferred your anger and the way you had begun by shouting the truth to my face, to a string of pats on the back and murmurs of "poor thing". Besides, my instincts told me that you could understand it on a level nobody else could: albeit indirectly, you knew the same pain. Not in your own body, but from the point of view of a child who'd seen it in his parents. It wasn't exactly the same, but the very anger that had seemed to be tearing you apart proved you had gone through a similar kind of suffering.
Yes, sooner or later I'd have to face the demons my forced marriage had unleashed in my soul and you'd be the confidant I'd ask to help me do it, but not just yet. I was still too raw to brave your diamond-hard edges.
It had been four days and your left arm was still impaired: you couldn't raise your shield and that meant that you were taking an imposed leave from fighting. Since you had to stay back, the Myrmidons didn't march either and, as a result, the whole Achaean army had been pretty much inactive. A few groups went out patrolling the plain around Troy every day, but there had been no real attacks on the city. Nothing could make the full extent to which the entire Greek army depended on you any clearer.
Of course, you were becoming uncontrollably restless. Inaction didn't suit you. Patroclus, who was acting as your physician, was having an increasingly hard time persuading you to stay put. That afternoon, you had taken to racing your chariot at full speed, much to the despair of your long-suffering friend. "The horses need the exercise", you claimed, turning a deaf ear on Patroclus' protests that he had been driving the horses every day and they were fine, unlike you, whose shoulder needed rest. "Rest!", he shouted at your retreating back, while you rolled away at full gallop in a cloud of dust.
But your restlessness and the absence of battles meant that there were no quiet late afternoons in your tent. And despite of the awkwardness that was making me flee from being alone with you, I was now beginning to miss those magically relaxed moments spent together.
Even the suppers had become different. There was enough light general conversation, but the verbal tug of war between the two of us had all but vanished. That was when I really felt that you were avoiding getting too close to me as much as I was avoiding getting too close to you.
And I missed that too. I missed you…
Iphis' cool hand set lightly on mine. "Come on", she said. "Your hair's almost as big a mess as the head it grows on. Let me help you wash it. I promise I'll pretend not to notice how your eyes are all watery for no apparent reason."
She was smiling kindly as ever and I squeezed her hand tight: "I'm sorry, friend. I don't want to shut you out, it's just that… it's complicated."
"It's alright. So long as you know I'll be here if you need me." She rolled her eyes. "Now stop getting all emotional on me! Girl, I can hardly recognize you anymore. Where's the woman who kept her head high and a stiff upper lip come what may? We're friends, being there for each other is what we do. I know you'll do the same for me when I need you." Shaking her head in mock despair, she pulled me behind her into the women's tent. "Let's just get your hair all silky and shiny, and make sure the noble prince of the Myrmidons has a dazzling beauty sitting at his table tonight. The immortals know you're in bad need of a little confidence boost, and as for him, if we don't do something fast he'll drive us all crazy."
"So now I'm just a pretty ornament to distract our stir-crazy prince?", I joked, undoing my braid. But I couldn't prevent a hint of bitterness from slipping into my voice.
Iphis gave me a stern slap on the wrist. "You're much more than just a pretty ornament and that's precisely why you're over half the reason our stir-crazy prince is more unbearable than ever right now."
I glared at her: "He's becoming impatient because he doesn't know how to deal with inaction. It's got nothing to do with me."
Iphis pushed my head back over the basin and poured warm water on my hair, then started working soap into my locks with nimble fingers.
"Inaction is making it worse, but his real problem are you, just as your real problem is him." She rinsed my hair, then picked up a jar of perfumed oil. "Look, I don't know what happened and, like I said, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But it's obvious that something did happen and the two of you are sort of groping in the dark for each other."
"How can you say that? He's been avoiding me."
"As much as you've been avoiding him, yes. But that doesn't mean you're not longing for each other. I mean, even now, you couldn't take your teary eyes off him. There, I just broke my promise to pretend not to notice! Sorry. Anyway, the same thing is going on the other way around. Maybe he's hardly spoken three words in a row to you the past few days, but he's gone back to having trouble sleeping." I looked up questioningly and Iphis explained, without slowing down the rhythmic passing of the comb through my hair to allow the oil to spread into every strand: "Achilles suffers from insomnia. I've always known him like that, but Patroclus says it started halfway through the third year of war. Anyway, last month he was doing better, but now it's gotten worse again." She put down the comb and poured another jar of warm water over my hair to wash off the oil. "Patroclus and I sleep in the main room of his hut, as you know, and we can hear him tossing and turning in bed for the better part of the night." She stuck a warning finger at me: "And don't tell me that's just the surplus energy from too much rest, because Patroclus says it isn't and he knows Achilles better than even Achilles knows himself."
She handed me a towel to dry my hair and went on: "Tonight we want to turn things into a little party. Patroclus is going to persuade Achilles to play for us. So please do me a favour: put a smile on those lips of yours and do your job as our hostess by helping us all to have a good time. It's not just because of Achilles and you. Things have been too sullen around here since the casualties in that ambush and the trial of the other man. It's about time we lighten up the mood."
When we walked into your tent for supper, I noticed that Iphis had been right and Patroclus was working you along the same lines she had been working me: there was a lyre sitting on the table. It was a wonderful instrument, inlaid with silver and with beautifully sculpted wooden parts. I had heard of your musical talent, but I had yet to hear you play.
You were looking wonderful as well, in an intricately embroidered chiton I had only seen folded in your chest. Apparently, you had finally gotten Patroclus to release you of the bandage around your shoulder and you seemed to be enjoying your newfound freedom of movement. You were smiling and chatting animatedly with your guests. The group was a little larger than usually: besides Patroclus, there were Phoenix, Eudorus, Automedon, Alcimedon, Antilocus, who had come to visit, and the son of Boras.
But the awkwardness was still there. I greeted you, flanked by my two faithful companions, and you responded with a small formal bow without looking me in the eye. Throughout supper, while everyone talked merrily with one another, you didn't exchange a single word with me. I was making a huge effort to keep my eyes from becoming all watery, as Iphis had put it, and to hold the smile on my lips.
When we finished eating, Patroclus pushed the lyre across the table to you. "It's been ages since we had a little music. We'd all love it if you'd play something for us, wouldn't we?" As he obviously expected, a chorus of approval rose in unison: "Yes, please Achilles, play us a song!" "Great idea, Achilles, go on please!" "Just one song, don't be a killjoy!" I wanted very much to hear you play and a few days before I'd have freely joined in with the inciting voices, as Iphis and Sophronia did, but not now, with this new awkwardness between us.
You picked up the lyre gingerly, your gestures hesitant as if you didn't know how to hold it. Then you looked up at me, straight in the eyes, and plucked a chord, then another.
It was a sad song. The saddest I had ever heard and yet the most beautiful in its sadness. The strings vibrated in sounds as pure as crystal, weaving into one another in a rich transparent tapestry of music. And then you started to sing. Your voice was deep and warm, both contrasting and blending perfectly with the clear sound of the lyre. But it was much more than just the beauty of the timber or the mastery of the technique. It was the soul. Unlike the blankness you kept using as a mask over your face, you sang with feeling. From the heart.
Where did that sensitivity come from? It was as if I had never really known you at all. I was mesmerized.
And so was everyone else in the room. When you finished your song, there was a spellbound silence, palpable like a physical presence, that no one dared break.
You smiled: "This wasn't probably the best choice for tonight. I'll do a more popular one."
You began playing again, this time an up-tempo tune that called to dancing. "If the ladies could clap the rhythm for me…", you suggested. Iphis and Sophronia complied at once. I stared into your eyes, that had landed on mine again, and a grin broke unbidden on my face. I stood up and started to dance.
It was a signal for everybody else to rise and begin dancing as well. When the song ended, you shoved the lyre into Phoenix's hands: "Take over for me, will you, father Phoenix? I'd like to spin around a little as well."
A different kind of awkwardness gripped my stomach like a vise when you stood in front of me and circled my waist with your arm. I lowered my eyes and we started whirling together to the rhythm of Phoenix's playing.
"So you're not angry with me anymore?", you asked into my hair.
I looked up in surprise:
"I was never angry with you."
"Weren't you? Well, you could have fooled me."
I thought about it for a moment. "There was anger, yes, but not at you", I said at last.
Your hand was warm on my waist.
"I should never have opened that Pandora's box the other day. I'm useless at those kinds of things. I lack tact. I should leave that sort of conversations for Patroclus. He's much better at it than me."
"You were good enough for me", I replied, feeling suddenly bold. "Besides, Patroclus wouldn't know what he was talking about, would he?"
The corners of your mouth arched in a thin-lipped smile: "No, he wouldn't."
I smiled back. Two broken smiles that added up to the complicity of a shared secret. There was a new light in the eyes of us both.
Then I realised Phoenix had finished his tune, but your hand was still resting warmly on my waist.
