Chapter Nine: Damnable Heresies

Eudorus sailed with the morning, back to his lord who rested with friends in Phtia. Knowing lord Achilles as he did, he knew that at this moment his lord was already from bed and discovering the new patterns of sunlight glancing off the waters and the bright shade of blue vaulted above the rocky coastline. He would be fed and dressed while his men were cloistered away with their spouses or lovers in warm, firm beds. Those piercing blue eyes would be cast out to sea, searching, full of yearning for one beautiful, radiant boy beyond his reach.
Poised at the helm, taking his rest after a long turn at the oars, Eudorus wiped the sweat from his brow while his body shivered beneath the chilling memory of a similarly sunny morning, what felt like an age ago. Achilles had been jovial, humorous, and companionable with a ready smile and clever wit for two weeks as they cut through the water to what had become a familiar stretch of pebbled shore. The sand was dark and packed tightly, one had to beware of jagged rocks that hid with wicked-sharp just below the wet sand, but Achilles had jumped from the ship and jogged the miles of country side, fields, and rolling hills as if he were as fleet of foot as Hermes the Messenger. Only Eudorus had taken on the pace with him from the first step. The other men, ten in number had Achilles chosen to accompany him this time, tied the boat and secured the area, as a rule.
When they arrived to news and proof of loss, only Eudorus himself had been witness to the beast-like, destructive, heart-breaking rage that had reverted the proud warrior, man, into a blood thirsty, confused animal.
Achilles swore and threatened the old man and his goats that lived alone in his home that had gone to ruin. A lovely home once shared with a sweet faced boy, the reason for their journey.
"Where is he old man? I mean for you to tell me while you still have a tongue in your head!" His promises and accusations had gotten darker and more graphic from that point forward.
The old man, father of a lost son, only cried without tears as he stared at an empty bed covered by a cold many-times-mended quilt. His silence seemed to incense Achilles to the point of utter insanity. Drawing his sword in a fit of such madness, his muscles straining and his face contorted with the rawness of a pain like he had never known, Achilles sought to drive the polished point into the old bastard's lung. He desired with all the brutal lust in him to watch him die a slow, well-deserved death in a pool of blood and fluid.
It was Eudorus who stayed his hand, throwing himself into Achilles with a cry of mercy to stop him from ending the life of one whose murder would destroy the passionate love that gave strength to such unreasoning anger. Achilles roared like a wounded animal when his body stumbled and his blade swung at air. When those wild, queer blue eyes turned on him, burning out from behind twisted ropes of blond hair, in that face at that moment in time, Eudorus made peace with his life. No weapon in battle or storm at sea had ever come so close to killing him dead as that look in his lord's eyes.
A weak, raspy murmur drew them both back from the very edge.
Achilles was before the man in a heartbeat. Leaning over him, his strong arms on either side of the slumped form in the chair, the greatest warrior in the world, the son of a goddess and a king, leader of men, abased himself to beg. There was silence for a time. Eudorus held his breath. Then came… "Alexandros. My poor boy."
The man began to weep again, and in earnest. Achilles reached out and shook him hard. "What about him? What about Alexandros?" He pleaded through clenched teeth, his tormented heart in his voice. Eudorus did not know what outcome to pray for, what explanation to expect, only that if the old fathers answer should be death, neither of them would survive Achilles's grief. Nor would his lord, he predicted.
"They took him away," the man shook his head in disbelief, his lidless brown eyes rolling frantically. "They took him back, away from me. Gave him no choice, did they." His pale, skeletal face seemed to focus on Achilles briefly before wandering away again. "My poor boy!"
"Who took him away? Does he live?"
"My Alexandros is all alone in that big city. So many people, so very many. He knows no one there. My wife is gone and my boy is lost to me. My poor boy. Away in Troy, they've stolen him. Thieves," he hissed suddenly, shrinking back in chair. "Thieves, are they! The king and all his brood- curse them, say's I, the lot of them! They left him on the hill, all alone on the hill, crying he was, but I saved him, my wife and I. Now they've claimed him back. My poor, poor boy."
Achilles sat down heavily at the old mans feet, staring up at him with a look that might have been horror if he hadn't been so exhausted.
"The foundling prince? Alexandros?" Eudorus whispered strangely, uncertain his own ears could be trusted.
Achilles himself was staring about the modest hut as if he'd never seen it before. He crawled on his knees to the deserted bed and pressed his cheek to the soft blanket, breathing deeply the scent of his absent beloved. A single dull tear streaked down the lofty golden cheek before disappearing into his hair. The old man continued to moan and remember and they listened speechless to the tale.
Alexandros had been born before the gods as Prince Paris of Troy, youngest son of King Priam and Queen Hecabe. Seers, namely the king's middle daughter Cassandra, had sworn by Apollo that the princling would bring about the downfall of Troy. They demanded that the babe be done away with- his life meant the death of them all. Only in his end could their salvation be assured. So the innocent infant prince was abandoned to the elements and animals on Mount Ida. Paris –Alexandros- had been sacrificed on the word of a girl-child. Priam had given his son to the slaughter. Only he didn't die. He was found and taken in by this broken old man and his wife, raised from then on to be a good, honorable, loving boy. It was such a boy that went to the festivities in Troy one year, not so long ago, to demand the return of his family's prized bull that had been wrongfully taken by soldiers as the prize for the games. It was there, before all, that Alexandros was revealed to be none other than the dead babe Prince, grown into a man.
Eudorus understood now the decay the house had fallen into and the despair this shattered man could not escape. His son had been taken by Troy and its politics and his wife was buried beneath the willow by the river. Alexandros was in Troy, now as Paris, Prince and brother to Hector, son of Priam. It was all surreal enough to numb Eudorus to its divine tragedy.
On the floor by the bed, a man was reborn with new purpose. Achilles had come to take his lover away to Larisa as he'd promised, to his fathers palace and his own home by the water, but he'd come too late. Fate had had its way with them both.
With dry eyes, straightened shoulders, and a clenched jaw, Achilles son of Peleus stood to meet his lieutenant's wary eyes. "Go to Troy. Find him. Then come to me in Phtia. I want to know of his health, his friends, his family, I want to know his enemies and the way he spends his days. Everything you can gather is of importance. Make contact with him, but he discreet. Do not be seen."
Achilles sheathed his sword and turned back to the bed, lifting the blanket and shook it of dust and mites. Moving with that familiar controlled grace once more, a comfort to Eudorus's peace of mind it was to see it, Achilles spread the blanket across the fragile, brittle-boned old man, tucking it in around him. "I will find him well or ruin all the world in his memory. Hold to this and find yourself again, old Shepard. Love cannot be commanded by kings, nor can I."
Behind his lord, they both left the cottage for the boats.
Now, on his return, he wondered seriously if heaven and earth would survive the news of what Eudorus had witnessed just before his departure.

TBC…
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