Non, ego poscenti quod sum cito tradita regi, culpa tua est
Insofar as I was quickly surrendered to the demanding king, it is not your fault.
Trojan beach, nightfall
Agamemnon's tent glittered with intrigue. Here, the vultures had gathered to preen their feathers and cackle over their spoils. Here, the noble ideals the conquerors had spouted became unwrapped as greed, pure and simple, with each loathsome smile that bedecked Agamemnon's smug features. Everywhere, jewels shone on fingers plump with fat, and whores rested on laps hard with desire. Even the kingliest of them all, clasping fine gifts for their leader in thievery, watched the nighttime outside with irises that were hungry with avarice. There was no morality here; there was no decency and no fineness of manner. All that was honorable had been left in Achilles' lair, with that vengeful lion out padding through the night now, a predator come to pay homage to a kitten.
Agamemnon himself was beaming. Yet, make no mistake, gentle reader. His smile was not the sunny beam of the innocent child, or the incredulous joy of a twirling lover. Rather, his beam was predatory and arresting, sickly and dark, as though the condescending light was meant to bend all present to his majestic will. His beam, in fact, was nothing so much as a smirk. The patronizing words dripped from his tongue, and his perfume fouled the air around him. As kings knelt at his feet, his grin became ever wider, and his mouth panted with an appetite ever increasing. Then Achilles arrived, and his appetite was piqued. Visage visibly darkening, he prepared himself to sup.
When Achilles stepped inside, the time around them paused. Deeply, filled with engrossed deliberation, the king watched the silhouette of the warrior who won him this night's victory, and he considered his form with perfect loathing. IAchilles/I
Achilles, for his part, saw him from the tent opening and sent back a mirrored frown. Hatred stared at its twin in Achilles' dry, composed eyes, and perfect disgust circled warily around honest malevolence to find a chance to strike.
Golden fingers touched lips shiny with grease, and traced the peeling skin with thoughtful fingers. Almost belatedly, whitened heads flipped back and forth to stare at the two combatants, but it was without avail.
Achilles and Agamemnon only had eyes for each other.
Leather armor groaned as it shifted backwards with every movement of a muscled back. But, otherwise, silence reigned. Odysseus was the only one to move, and he did so in frenzied movements as he hurried to intercept the battle-lust between his king and his friend. His hand clapped Achilles on the back, jerking his gaze from the king of king's. And, in the sudden clap of sound, the link was broken.
Startled, Agamemnon turned away to those still kneeling at his feet and began to answer their compliments. Equally surprised, Achilles turned to the noble Odysseus to listen to his words. Time regained its footing, and the denizens erupted in chatter for the mere sake of filling up the silence.
Life regained its pace. For the moment, the great battle was forestalled.
Odysseus spoke quietly into Achilles' ear, only showcasing his need by the urgency of the manner in which he gripped the warrior's arm. But there was more to him that the oiled ease of the words he murmured, than the carefully coiffed expression he wore on a conciliatory face.
"Odysseus, do you come as a diplomat or a friend?" Achilles queried restlessly. With feet that would not stop their pacing, he turned and disappeared, momentarily vanquished by the shadows from the night sky.
Odysseus sent him a cautious look but said nothing. For, in that moment, he was worried that his frustration would give vent to an anger that would serve to exacerbate the problem at hand. A single deep breath, a moment of silent reflection- he was solidly with Achilles again, ready to soothe the warrior's mussed feathers. And though anger bubbled inside of him with the notion that he might be here for naught- that the squabbling of two men, filled with pride and temper, might rob him of his greatest victory, he was able to swallow his distaste. Though born a king, Odysseus was foremost a diplomat, cunning and sly. He spoke now in this guise, and his fast, hard words fell on waiting ears.
"War is young men dying and old men talking. Achilles, you know this. Ignore the politics, my friend. Achilles," the hand he had clapped on his shoulder was poignant with meaning, and he leaned closer to arrest his companion's attention. Urgency filtered through his voice, and it was conveyed in the tightness of his touch. "Listen to me, my friend. Have I ever steered you wrong? Listen to me, Achilles, and listen not to him." But as he faded into the background, relinquishing his right to interfere, he wondered. Achilles, he found, listened to naught, whether uttered by friend or foe.
Soon, the only sound to be heard in the chamber was the fawning adoration of the kneeled kings and the booming response of Agamemnon's pride, already stuffed near to bursting. The king spoke in hearty tones, loud with mirth and self-congratulation. Achilles, for his part, rested against the crowd with nary an admirer, nary a piece of gold to mark his form as majestic. Yet, in his lazy way, he appeared every inch the leader: Achilles, not Agamemnon, had taken the beach that afternoon. Achilles, not Agamemnon, stood now with eyes resting warily on him, flicking back and forth in inspect him and judge his body as real.
Achilles, not Agamemnon, was the stuff of legends.
Agamemnon felt it, and his gaze narrowed.
With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the men gathered there, hidden so deftly by the flickering shadow. "Achilles," Odysseus mouthed one last time as he headed for the tent opening. In the dusky opening, he was blurred and indistinct, and his mouthed approbation even more so. "Achilles."
The warrior did not turn around.
Raucous cries were uttered outside, the ready companion to any bevy of soldiers and the swirling smoke of fires, but silence reigned inside the tent. When the blue eyes of one finally challenged the darkened orbs of another, the clanging of blades could be heard, swift and poignant, throughout the chill evening air. Fight me, Achilles seemed to taunt, with a gaze that glittered in the opaque glory of the tent. I have not yet lost.
He watched Agamemnon and he watched as Agamemnon, after a long moment, turned his face away to deny him. More infuriated that relieved, Achilles' heartbeat quickened. He longed to end this now. Battle-lust, perhaps, still rose in his veins to intensify the galloping beat of his pulse. Watching closely, hesaw as Agamemnon fingered a long-stemmed goblet, as he traced the ornate edge of a particular vase, sliding a wet finger along the jewels. But nonchalance is intrinsically defined as uncaring, as the supple ability to rest on one's laurels with unease and unaffected grace. Agamemnon had none of that. His eyes moved too quickly away from Achilles, and his body twitched too often when Achilles ventured close. Indifference? Nay. The hungriness of his appetite was shown in every look, in every breath, in every movement he made. And the loose smirk Achilles wore, insolent and bold, served to exacerbate the tension. It was without regret that Agamemnon abandoned his tactic of uncaringfor a more effective ruse.
With a single raised finger, Agamemnon ordered all servants gone from his presence. Save one. Achilles still stood before him, and their eyes finally met.
"Apparently you have won some great victory," was Achilles' unconcerned beginning of the discussion. Agamemnon answered quickly in his eagerness, sensing weakness, searching for weakness, and seeking to sup on the anger of the statement.
"Ah, perhaps you did not notice. The Trojan beach belonged to Priam in the morning. It belongs to Agamemnon in the afternoon."
"Is that so," Achilles breathed softly, tracing the handle of his sword.
Their eyes connected, and Achilles began to smile his infuriating smile.
Agamemnon's smirk grew heated.
"Be careful, son of Peleus," was the quiet murmur as Agamemnon breathed heavily through his mouth in anticipation. "Even you can lose something you will regret."
But even now, in the quiet of the tent, Achilles was a warrior: he moved without compromise, without heed of warning, and without thought. It was in his thoughtlessness that he was at his best. Indeed, this would be the first time that he had failed because of his rashness of action.
Leaning forward in his chair, the golden kingspoke harshly into the silence.
"No kings knelt to pay homage to you tonight. No kings knelt to Achilles!"
"Was this before or after you took the beach, great king?" Achilles requested solemly, voice quirked in warning. "I do not remember your blood being spilled along with that of my men."
"The spoils of war belong to me!" was his answering hiss. In that moment, Agamemnon was desperate. His eyes bulged from his face, protruding like that of a fish, gasping for breath. His bulbous cheeks protruded as well, reddened with ire, and he stood to better make his point.
"You want the treasure?" Achilles hid a laugh, but it resounded inside of him, both cheeky and disdainful. Agamemnon shuddered as though he had been struck, and his breathing deepened.
"Take it, my king. Take all of it. It is my gift for you, in honor of your great victory."
The knell of doom sounded. For one long moment, Achilles and Agamemnon held each other's gaze. Indeed, it was only as Agamemnon began to chuckle that Achilles realized his misstep. The tent opening swayed in the breeze, pulling his attention there, and he saw the shadows. His shock, his desperate outrage, kept the first sound from erupting from his throat. Indeed, when Briseis was dragged into the chamber, he was stupefied and trussed as easily as she, for his shock had rendered him useless.
But fury soon burned away his ties. The shout of utter rage, helpless rage; the frothing of unadulterated fury soon spouted up, burning through hisskin as a force that was uncontainable. His fingers, the fingers that were shaking with absolute desperation, clawed for the hilt of his blade, and the ringing of the crystal in the air split the silence. Agamemnon stood, wreathed with uncaring. Now, he was the epitome of nonchalance. Despite the metal clutched in Achilles' fingers, he was the one with the upper hand. He had found his enemy's weakness. Accompanied by a sudden flush in his cheeks, his beam returned.
"How," he whispered as he sauntered down his dais to run a hand along the breadth of her hair, "I love to win."
Achilles was cornered. Like the feral beast, he spun to strike, but no enemy was forthcoming. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes tore open his competitors, at once slicing them without twitching his blade. When he did pull it forth, eyes all around him widened. Soon, the only sound in the chamber was his breathing, hot and incoherent, and the soft, entrancing sound of sweat hitting the floor in rythmic pings. Rolling down the faces of the guards, they struggled to meet the gaze of Achilles and failed. There was nothing as hard to encounter as thewrath of a god enraged.
He traced the lovely line of Briseis' cheek carelessly, aware that he was putting dirty fingerprints on priceless marble. But he thrilled in the ability to coarsen her. He thrilled in knowing that every touch placed on her would aggravate Achilles, and thus, he ran knowing fingers along her cheek in slow rapture. She spun from him and fought. He merely laughed.
Laughter, Achilles later realized, would always be the sound of defeat for him. Nothing had ever pierced his armor like the sound of the cries of the simple slave girl, untried and uncared for, who stood now between two great men. His answering cry was formed on his lips, though it was never uttered. Pain shone in his eyes. He had lost.
"I warn you, brothers," he panted, though his voice was precise and controlled. "I have no quarrel with you. But if you do not release her, you will not live this day."
He crouched there, wondering at this sensation aflutter in his heart- was this panic, this sensation of wonderous pain? He only knew that for the first time, as he pointed the tip of his sword, it quavered.
Through it all, Agamemnon's laughter continued to sound.