xXx As always, thank you for your reviews and feedback xXx
Timon met Achilles when he was a boy.
Timon's father was the palace carpenter, so one day the young prince turned up at the door of his workshop, trailed by his elderly tutor.
"My papa said you can make me a wooden sword," the little blond boy said.
Timon had looked up and looked over the boy with barely disguised distaste.
The king's son was wearing a snow-white chiton, his head a riot of curls. He looked like a girl. Timon, nearly seven, was covered in dust and smudged with charcoal; he was already allowed his own knife to whittle little animals out of wood.
The prince looked like a boy whose nursemaid held the knife for him to cut his peach and apple into tiny, princely chunks.
"Aye, my prince," said Timon's father with the barest of nods. "But you'll have to wait till I'm finished this piece for your mother, my lady queen."
Timon's father was carving a crib for the new baby princess. After so many miscarriages and stillbirths, the queen would not have a crib carved until the baby had been born and lived a three-month. Now the palace carpenter was working day and night, carving and sanding a bed fit for the much-longed-daughter who laughed lustily and waved her fat little arms in the air.
"But I want it now," said the boy. "I want to learn how to fight with a proper sword."
"Then you will have to learn how to wait first," said the carpenter, not even looking at the child.
"But I want it now," the boy repeated, his blue eyes icy.
"Go ask your mother what I should do," the carpenter said, looking up. "Ask her what is more important. If you come back and tell me that she says I should put this aside to make you a sword, I will."
The prince hesitated on the threshold and looked up at his tutor.
The old man looked down at him, his face amused.
"Do you need to ask your mother what is more important?" the old man said.
"No," the prince said sulkily.
"Then you have learned something important here today, haven't you? Thank Master Carpenter for his patience and get back to the palace. It's nearly midday and this man is busy."
The blond boy glanced at Timon, who stood silently beside a pile of wood, knife in hand.
"Thank you, Master Carpenter," he said hollowly, eyeing Timon's knife with naked envy.
The blond boy left the workshop, dragging his feet, and didn't return until his little sister had been installed in her brand-new bed. And when he came back, Timon's father had a wooden sword waiting for him, just like the one he'd made his own son.
The two boys became friends.
When Achilles' lessons were over, he came running down to the workshop yard, swinging his wooden sword. The smith's boy, Eudorus, joined them and the three boys played on the woodpile, made pretend ships out of off-cuts and catapults from tree branches. Achilles was generous to a fault – he had grown up knowing no want for anything, so he shared everything he had with the other boys and gave them anything they admired. More than once Timon's father had to send valuables back to the palace: if Achilles need something to slide down the steep side of the quarry on, he simply took one of his mother's gold platters and let every child in the neighbourhood have a go.
The boy was full of mischief and always had some naughty plan up his sleeve, and he managed to charm most of the palace staff with a shake of his blond curls. The women doted on him, feeding him and his friends apples and honeycakes. Timon had always been a skinny little chap, but after befriending Achilles, his growing frame gained a little padding from all the treats Achilles managed to snag. Although the prince was naturally the group leader, Timon was prone to bucking under the other boy's authority. Eudorus, a year younger, followed his lord without question, but Timon had been born with a stubborn streak and every now and again, he felt compelled to beat the shit out of his friend, just to show him that he would take orders from no-one, especially not a snot-nosed princeling.
"Aren't you going to stop them?" the tutor would ask when he came to collect his charge and found him rolling around in the dust, swinging punches at the carpenter's boy.
"Nah," Timon's father would say. "When he goes out into the big world, he's going to encounter a whole lot of men who'll want to kick his arse. Might as well practise defending himself now."
Then he'd wade in, grab the two boys by the scruff of their necks and throw them apart, aiming a kick at each backside.
"See you tomorrow, Timon!" Achilles would cry cheerfully, scampering up the path to the palace, the fight already forgotten.
As they grew, Eudorus and Timon were allowed to practise with Achilles, to learn how to use the sword, the shield and the spear – the boy needed partners to train with after all, and Achilles found them preferable to the sons of the Phtian lords that his father had lined up for him. The three boys grew into gangly thirteen-year-olds and it quickly became evident that Eudorus and Achilles would be far better warriors than Timon ever could be; not that he minded: he still gave Achilles an arse-kicking every now and again, just to show him what he thought of him.
Then, one day, he noticed that Achilles was outstripping him in strength and speed, and a simple throw that would have once winded the blond boy was now easily countered and blocked.
After that, Timon didn't feel like kicking his arse that much any more.
Other things changed, too.
Achilles was still doted upon by the palace women, but something was different. The serving women were looking at him with new eyes.
One day Timon noticed how one of the maids watched his friend pass, eyes downcast, but as soon as he had walked by, she looked him up and down, her small pink tongue darting out to lick her upper lip. Before, Achilles would have responded with a howl of outrage when they teased him about it, now when Timon told the story, he just shrugged.
"Women," he said in a wordly way that made Timon wish he could still beat the shit out of him.
Then, suddenly, Achilles left.
Without a word, he was gone.
Eudorus said that King Peleus had caught him with a serving girl – the same one? Timon wondered, the one who licked her lips when he passed? – and the boy had been packed off to King Phoenix of the Dolopians, a wise man who would turn the unruly boy into a proper man.
A real warrior. A future king.
And that was the last Timon saw of him, till nearly twelve years later.
He was standing in his father's workshop, bent over the plane, shaving the smooth strait of a piece of wood, when a shadow blocked his light.
"Move it," he growled, "Before I kick your arse."
"You might want to think about that," said an unfamiliar voice. "The last time you tried, it didn't end well for you."
In the doorway stood a blond man, a broad grin on his handsome face, a helmet tucked under his arm.
Behind him, Timon recognised the bright eyes of Eudorus, smiling broadly from ear to ear.
"Come on," Achilles said. "Come with us and have adventures."
Timon straightened up and looked at the other two.
Achilles held out a black helmet and Eudorus gave him a round black shield.
"Come on," Achilles said, as though they were twelve again. "Hurry up, Timon."
xXx
Timon was not the best soldier, not much of a warrior. He had a knee that tended to give way at the most inconvenient times, leaving him hobbling like an old man. Achilles never mentioned it. He seemed to always have something for Timon to do that didn't involve being in the front line of battle. It was never discussed, it just was that way.
Which is probably why, after a day on the battlefield, covered in minor wounds and limping on a swollen knee, Achilles had pulled him aside in the early morning as the Myrmidons were assembling. The prince looked him up and down, clapped a hand on his shoulder and said gruffly,
"You stay here. I've chained the queen to the bed and she's not going to be happy when she wakes."
"You've chained her to the bed?" Timon repeated incredulously. "Why?"
"She wants to make a run for it again," Achilles said brusquely. "She stays here."
Timon rolled his eyes and made no effort to hide it. Achilles frowned at him.
"Did Eudorus tell you about her people?" Timon asked.
"About her people? Eudorus? No," Achilles said, his head whipping around.
"Well, he got talking to a Spartan whose brother-in-law had actually travelled up to the northern isles and this fellow told him all about them – he said that the people up there are wilder than animals. They all wear their hair in those crazy little braids, they paint their faces blue like demons, Achilles."
Achilles began, "What has that got to do with – "
"And the women fight, he said. They ride on their horses with their men into battle. They had queens as powerful as any of our kings – one queen had a whole army of female warriors."
"So? These are tales told around a campfire."
"She's like a wild animal, Achilles. You can't keep her here if she doesn't want to stay. I thought you had learned that already. You already let her go."
"And she came back."
"And she's trying to leave again."
Timon took a deep breath and patted his childhood friend roughly on the shoulder.
Achilles flinched beneath his touch.
"She won't stay, my lord. Let her go. If she really is a she-wolf, you can't keep her as your pet."
"She'll die if I let her go," Achilles said bleakly. "She has nowhere to go – it's here or Troy. So unless you have a better idea, you keep her in that tent until I have time to deal with her."
"But – "
"Timon, I'm not asking you as a friend, I'm telling you as your lord. Make sure that woman does not leave the tent. When she wakes and finds out what I have done, she will be fit to kill. You've been warned."
Achilles turned on his heel and started to walk through the wet sand to where Eudorus stood patiently on the chariot.
"That's an order," he said, pointing a finger at Timon.
xXx
Timon found the queen and her attendant on the floor of the tent, scrabbling in the sand at the foot of the bed. When he entered, they looked up guiltily.
"That bastard prince of yours chained me up," she said, her pale cheeks pink with exertion. They'd been trying to move the heavy bed but hadn't succeeded and she rattled the chain at him accusingly. "Do you have a key to this?"
"No, my lady," he said.
It was strictly true: he didn't have a key but he could have opened it with a pin, however he wasn't going to tell her that.
"Dunni, get me that shawl pin over there. I'll see if I can poke it open."
"No, no," Timon said, swooping in to pick up the shawl pin before the big Gaul woman could grab it. "Leave the lock be, my lady. Achilles said you are to stay here till he comes back and I will see to it that you do."
"I order you to release me!"
"I'm Achilles' man, my lady," he said regretfully. "I do what he tells me."
"Then you're a bastard, too," Relta snapped. "Just come a bit closer so I can smack the back of your head."
Timon declined, laughing.
"I'll be outside if you need me," he said.
Then he found a shady place outside and picked up a piece of soft wood and his whittling knife, trying to ignore the sound of battle that swept down over the dunes in waves.
xXx
By afternoon, the sun was beginning to lower and the men started to return.
"What news?" Timon shouted.
It seemed that they were straggling back, slow-footed and defeated.
"Same as yesterday," one man said dully. "No winner. No loser, either. But we lost more men, those Trojan shits come out for the slaughter and pull back in behind their walls. Agamemnon keeps promising reinforcements. Do you see them on the horizon? No, neither do we."
The man spat blood on the sand.
"And the Myrmidons?" asked Timon. "What of them?"
"Ask 'em yourself," the warrior said gruffly and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Eudorus came thundering down the beach in Achilles' chariot.
Alone.
Behind him, some of the men limped, held each other up. Patroclus came behind him, his face a picture of worry.
"Where's Achilles?" Timon shouted, cold fear gripping his heart.
"He's fine," Eudorus said, slapping the horse's rump as a servant led it away. "It's Odysseus. He shouldn't have fought, took a sword through the leg yesterday. But he said he had to set an example for his men, now he's fucked for sure. Achilles is with him – don't know if he'll make the night."
"You're joking?"
"I wish I were, old friend. He took a sword here –"
Eudorus indicated his gut.
"Bound to happen. The Trojans are toying with us, picking us off, bit by bit."
Timon sighed.
He heard the queen's voice calling him over the din on the beach and made his way slowly to the tent. She sat on the edge of the bed, her face worried and white.
"He's all right," Timon answered her unasked question. "But Odysseus is in a bad way."
The queen covered her mouth with her hands.
"Achilles is with him now, my lady. I don't know when he will return, but I'm sure you understand."
She nodded dumbly.
Two guards appeared in the doorway behind him.
"What do you want?" snapped Timon.
"Her," one of them said.
"Who wants her?"
"The king of kinds," said one of the guards in a sing-song voice. "King Agamemnon requests her presence."
"She's not going. Achilles said she was to stay in the tent."
"Achilles can fuck himself," the first guard said rudely. "If his king tells him to jump, Achilles says 'How high?' Now hand her over. The king doesn't care to wait."
"She's Achilles' woman," Timon said hotly. "I'm not just giving her to Agamemnon."
"Timon, Timon, it's all right," she interrupted. "Agamemnon just wants me to read his runestones."
She jangled a little bag at him, tipped the stones out into her palm for him to see. "That's all. Achilles knows. They discussed it at the banquet last night. Achilles knows, I promise."
"You're not lying, my lady?"
"No, he knows, I swear."
She held her hands up in a gesture of innocence.
Timon came closer and pulled the shawl pin out of his waistband. She tut-tutted as he used it to open the lock.
"My lord Achilles would not let you go if he were here," Timon whispered.
"He would have no choice," she said in a low, firm voice. "He is just as much Agamemnon's servant as you are his."
"Then I'll go with you."
"You stay here and wait till Achilles comes back," she whispered. "I'll take Dunni. She's as tough as any man. She'd have no qualms about boxing Agamemnon's ears if he tries anything untoward."
She looked at him, her eyes serious.
"Stay here, Timon," she said patting his arm.
She stood up and straightened her chiton.
"I need a couple of minutes to get ready," she said. "Timon, call Dunni, will you? And you two can kindly wait outside."
She snapped her fingers and the two guards retreated.
Timon sent a young lad to the serving quarters and he returned with Dunni, shuffling up the beach wrapped tight in a rough cloak against the evening wind.
Men were still returning; the dusky air was filled with the smell of blood and sweat.
The queen emerged wearing a plain chiton and carrying a heavy cloak. In her hand she held a leather pouch.
"All my magic trinkets," she smiled at Timon.
He bowed at her as she began to follow the two guards. After a couple of paces she stopped and walked back to him, her head down, looking at the sand.
When she reached him, she looked up, her blue eyes studying his face for a second or two.
"Tell Achilles ... tell him not to worry about me," she said and squeezed his arm.
Then she turned again and left.
