Wait For Me
By Elysian Dreams
October 10, 2004
References used: The Trojan War, by Bernard Evslin, The Iliad, by Homer, Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy, by Smyrnaeus Quintus, translated by A.S. Way, Greek Lyric IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, and Others, edited by David A. Campbell, and Mythographi Graeci, Vol. I, by Apollodorus, edited by Robin Wagner, and Troy, by Wolfgang Peterson. This story is dedicated to all that have sought to capture the kleas of Troy, in art and words and in whatever forms they can, and to all those after me who will undoubtedly continue to embroider these stories, for this is how legends are born and how they endure.
Summary: Achilles lives out his self-punishment and the guilt of betrayal through his battle against Hector. Some things transcend the mere physical life and death - love is truly of the undying soul.
Author's Note: I do admit that not so long ago, if anyone had suggested that I might write a story containing male love, I would have taken it as an insult. Although I do believe strongly in trying to keep an open mind, it's easier to say it than to put it into action. Morally, I'm just another poor, lost, confused soul. The one thing I have never been able to resist is a challenge, however, especially in the form of writing. When I am blessed by inspiration, I'm not going to refuse the gift. In less than an hour, in the surreal time between midnight and sunrise, this was created...
Background: History shows that the ancient Greeks were often bisexual, and that in fact they considered such bonds as pure, conducive to bravery and military valor, and the epitome of what they saw as true love. For example, Thebes in the 4th century created a special battalion of homosexual lovers, the Sacred Band. It was widespread, commonly accepted: note Sophocles' lost play, The Lovers of Achilles, which describes the relationship between Achilles and his teacher Chiron, and the history of Alexander the Great and Hephaistion. The point is, I didn't write this story from the viewpoint of a modern 20th century reader who has been exposed to debates on the moralities/immoralities of gay marriage. To label this slash, m/m, etc. is in a way demeaning to the purpose of this. I wrote this from the eyes of the ancient Greeks, to whom nothing was more sacred than love—in all its forms.
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"HECTOR!" The cry was ripped out of his throat, cutting across the empty field like a sword cleaving through bone. Again and again, his challenge rang out, demanding, fierce. Though his voice called out the name of a prince of Troy, he heard himself crying to Patroclus, confessing his grief, his anger, his desire for vengeance, a desire born of guilt.
As the sun glinted harshly from the pointed helm of the Trojan warrior riding out to meet him, he saw not a brave man accepting his doom, but instead a killer, the one who had taken the life of the one that had meant the most to him in the world. Then they were circling, circling, like two exotic tigers crouched and ready to spring. If words were exchanged between them, he did not remember what it is they said, but rather the vividness of the scene was etched in his grieving heart.
He saw not a Trojan, but himself, as he charged brutally forward and brought blow upon crushing blow on the black figure before him and felt not the pain of the blows on himself. The man he was battering was a stranger to him, but he fought to keep darkness at bay. He was nothing, so empty and at the same time there was rage and pain and fear...fear of a life lived without what was in the end most important...he had thought that honor and immortal glory, kleas, meant everything. He had never cherished what was truly the essence of life, had never understood what it meant until it had left him.
The blood gleamed dark red under the blinding light of the sun and he saw not the blood of the enemy, but Patroclus' blood, smeared and crusted and dried over his armor until the silver was a dull brown. The glory of his lover's golden hair dimmed, the bright eyes that he had once laughingly compared to jewels, clouded in death. Circling, circling, back to where they had started, wary. In this savage game, he knew already that he would be the victor, knew that the man in front of him was destined to die by his hand, but Achilles did not finish him off. He wanted vengeance, not just death.
His opponent fell to his knees and he saw himself, begging Patroclus to forgive him, that his life had been taken in Achilles' mad quest for empty fame. That he had not been there to protect him, to fight side by side...the body underneath his sword looked like his own, a warrior's figure, the armor hard and the metal cold. He threw the lance with blind accuracy, aiming not for the heart but the shoulder, where the burden of guilt lay inert. The metal-tipped weapon arched through the air gracefully, silent save the whisper of the wind.
The throb of his pulse was in his throat and the sound of his heart was like the distant pounding of drums. His style was not brutal, not killing, but one of dominance, of control. Every leap, to bring the force of his arms down, each blow if not deflected correctly capable of shattering the frail bones of the arm bearing the round shield. All the years of training left him; he fought with a savage, primal instinct, the inner knowledge that guides the predator when it stalks its prey.
He did not know why he did not simply end it, why he tossed his own shield aside and forced his opponent to face him, letting the pressure build. It hung over the two warriors like a shimmering wave of tension, and in the back of his mouth Achilles tasted the bitterness of Fate and Necessity. And then in sudden realization, he understood why there was such heat in his blood, and yet he held himself back, waiting for the other to rise so that he could beat him down again. It was not a fight. It was an execution.
In some ways it was beautiful, this elemental struggle, one fighting for life, one fighting for death. In some part of his heart he acknowledged the valor of his opponent, felt the intimate connection between them, the wolf slashing at the stag's haunches with its fangs during the wild excitement of the chase, where the stakes too were life and death.
There was a weakness to the prince of Troy now, a weariness not yet of the body but of the spirit, the sort that descended over warriors when they stared death in the face and knew it was futile to struggle. The world was filled with two types of people, the cowards and the warriors. Even as he broke the rhythm of the hunting to bring sword against sword in vicious attack, he understood.
At last he thrust his sword in a killing blow, and as the shining metal entered the heart, he felt the same pain—victor or loser mattered not...how could it, when he had lost the one thing that was the best of it all? And the scarlet blood coating his weapons was his own—he could taste the sweet copper of it, thick and cloying in his mouth...
He slashed the ankles of the body, cutting apart the tendons cruelly, and he was dying, his one vulnerability before him, the shame and guilt. Patroclus. Carefully, almost gently, he took the belt—his, a gift from his lover long ago—and tied it securely around the feet, the blood staining the length almost immediately.
What sprawled out before him was not an opponent, dead from honorable and brave combat, though later he would remember it and recall Hector, a prince even unto death, the nobility of his life something that none could take away, even with the desecration of his spiritless corpse.
Achilles drove the horses on with a cruel hand, felt the difference in the once effortless movement of the chariot. A dead weight dragged them so that they slowed, and he stared straight ahead sightlessly, the heaviness in his heart equal to the weight the horses dragged. Three times around the city, before his hands finally gentled in their rigid grasp of the reins. He came off and unbound the body. The horse whickered and he absently stroked a hand down its glossy neck, the cool silky mane drifting against his hand like the caress of his love's hair.
He looked down at last at the crumpled heap at his feet and understood it was himself, his punishment, his atonement, his wish. He knelt beside the body...empty of life and nothing but a husk, a reminder of what once was. With careful fingers he closed the staring eyes, then bowed his head.
Over the fallen form of his enemy he wept at last, all the tears that had not come when he stood dry eyed and silent before the burning funereal pyre. The hot drops of liquid fell onto the armor the prince still wore, and where it fell the metal shown bright silver again, washed of blood and dirt. His sorrow was nameless, a private thing, and yet it was another part of war.
For the first time in his life he felt the need, the desire for death, ease. He saw the stark alternate reality of war, death, and loss. And he understood now that some things broken, like the soul, could not be mended ever again.
Fate was a great tapestry of many interwoven lives, and where one string might end, another might continue. But forever the strands would be intertwined, in this color or the next, in this life or afterward in the land pure with souls. When the spirit finally knows the freedom of death, shedding the profane body and all of this meaningless life, only then can love be, surpassing boundaries that in life it could not pass. For it is of the spirit, and there is nothing more pure than this love.
He closed his eyes and those that witnessed the moment later swore that a golden light seemed to bathe him, until his hair gleamed like burnished gold and his skin took on the hue of sunlight, like the immortal gods the Greeks and Trojans alike worshiped. It was something so intimate to the watchers as to be painful, the moment that love transcended all barriers, through time and space and death itself.
"Wait for me, Patroclus," he whispered over the corpse of Hector, noble prince of Troy. "I will come."
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Please review! Thank you E.D.