A/N: This is chapter eighteen, the glamorous and long awaited chapter eighteen. I know I'm being stupid by not writing sooner but I can't explain it. I have been away for a great deal of the last month and a half so that's my excuse. Now I will try to write faster but I can't guarantee anything because I am working hard on getting the ending how I want it. I can guarantee that I will finish the story but not right now, I took one too many vacations from this story and I will make it my first priority from now on.
Chapter 18 - When Tears aren't Enough
"Briseis, I am glad you have returned to court. I know how hard it must be for you to move on from your brother's death. I lost my bother early in the war and it was crushing. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a twin." Many people with such intentions had approached her that night. She spoke little in such conversations and Hector could see she would rather not have them at all.
She granted him a fleeting glance and nodded, muttering a reply he could not hear the words of. She smiled a polite farewell and walked towards her elder brother, touching his arm lightly and leaning into him. "I am very tired...speak in the morning...not as simple as I remembered..." Hector strained to hear more of their conversation as Melanon nodded and kissed her forehead softly.
Another quick look in his direction and she left the hall deftly. He met Andromanche's eyes but she did not seem weary and surely intended on celebrating longer. A drunken nobleman who appeared suddenly in front of him shed his thoughts of Briseis until later that night.
Andromanche had watched him and their son play with wooden animals all night before she bade him goodnight and he wandered down to the gardens.
"Briseis?" He asked as he caught sight of his friend. She shushed him quietly. She stood up straight and roamed around the green space until he saw them. Hentayol and Cartanye, taut and obviously afraid of their sister catching them.
"I wonder where my brothers went, could they be...here." She said, turning quickly and pulling apart the leaves of two plants. Her look of crestfallen determination was clearly a rouse but the two young boys didn't seem to notice. She tried again. "Or here." Another bush felt her wrath. "Oh, well if they aren't there they have to be here." She said turning on her brothers. Cartanye and Hentayol came out of their hiding place. "Now it's your turn to catch me." She ordered, eyeing the prince. "And Prince Hector will hide as well."
The boys noticed him for the first time. They bowed and begged him to play. He resisted for as long as he could but succumbed to their pressure and stalked off into the plants with Briseis.
"Okay we have to hide and they get to hunt for us. Do you understand?" He nodded and ducked with her in the underbrush until her brothers came. The game was less a hide and seek but more making a great show when the boys found them, which they did quite easily since Briseis didn't think it necessary to hide very well.
"Well done but it is much too late for little boys to be awake." She said sternly, herding her youngest brothers off in the direction of the palace. They begged her to let them play with her and Hector for longer.
"Please, only for another game." Cartanye pleaded.
She placed her hands on her hips. "Do not think I do not know what you will do then. I grew up with the boys who practically invented that, don't forget it." She scolded before kissing each of them on the forehead. "Now go and get some rest. You'll need it for all the games we play tomorrow. We might even be able to get Melanon to play with us." She said in a dramatic whisper. They exchanged looks of glee and raced to their chambers.
"Melanon will never play." He said once the children were out of range of hearing.
"I know that. But they don't." She said slyly. "I assume you came here to speak with me. Discuss the heavens and the earth? The sand and the sea?" She smiled and stared at him, arms crossed.
"Actually, I came across you by chance. I was enjoying a pleasant walk in the garden until it was interrupted by your game." She stared up at the wall before them.
"Shall we go up there, for memorial purposes only?" She asked, he answered wordlessly and they began the trek up the winding stairs. "It's beautiful." She said, giving a sideward glance towards the sea. He could have sworn she gazed longingly for a second at the dying fires of the Grecian camps.
"You never told me what happened." He said as she stared blankly out from the wall.
His words seemed to shake her from a trance. She looked down and felt the fabric of her gown idly. "I would rather not, perhaps later but now I need time." He nodded but he could sense that she wasn't telling him everything.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the salt-tinged air. Her dark hair had been troubling her while they were hiding so she had let it down. He had not noticed in the garden but a servant had secured tiny black jewels into her locks. They glittered and shone in the moonlight, held fast by silver threads. As she opened her crystalline eyes she craned her head to look at the moon. For a moment she was Artemis, come down from Olympus and shining like a beacon over Troy.
"I wish," She said watching clouds dull the moonlight overhead. "That none of this had ever happened. That Helen had never come. I wish that had that power to stop this, to stop all these men dying. But I don't."
"Only the Gods have that power, Briseis." He replied assuredly. He looked at her. "Is there something bothering you? You seem so distant."
"Do I? My apologies." She smiled bitterly. "I wish I could tell you. That would be such a relief."
"Then why don't you? We've always been able to share things before. Why is this so different?" He asked, curbing his growing curiosity.
"Because I can't. That would destroy you, I can't let that happen. It should have never happened in the first place." She admitted quietly.
"I cannot understand a single thing you mean. You're being cryptic." Hector accused.
"Believe me it's for your own good." She said and made to walk down the stairs.
"Wait, so you won't tell me what you mean. If you don't think I need to know, I don't. If you don't think I need to know, I don't." She turned to face him again. "Just, there's a reason I need to talk to you."
"Couldn't you tell Andromanche? Hector, she's your wife but I know more about your life than she does." She said quietly. The watchtower guards were a long way off but sound could carry.
"I told her what she needed to know. But she doesn't know anything about what I need to find out. You do." Her eyebrows arched in confusion. "I need to know about a boy named Patroclus."
Her heart stopped as he uttered the name. A torrent of memories returned. She swallowed her heart that had risen to her throat and nodded for him to continue.
"We fought the Greeks today again and out of nowhere a man in golden armor appeared. We all thought it was Achilles." He paused in his story but she wished he hadn't. "We fought each other. He moved like a cat, you could never expect what he would do next." He shook his head slowly. "But I slit his throat. The Greeks were shocked. A myrmidon, he...he took his leaders helmet off but it wasn't Achilles like we all thought. Someone said the name Patroclus; I assumed it meant that that name belonged to the boy. Who is he?"
She swayed for a moment and looked over the wall. It would be a long way down.
"He-He's the..." She stuttered, unable to speak. "He's the cousin of Achilles. There's nothing more to say about him." She ignored the voice in her head. "I never actually met the boy. I was told stories but..." She looked down helpless against the prince's intense glare. "But there was nothing else."
"I'm sorry." He said suddenly. "You don't need to tell me anything about it. Not if you don't want to. This is...I'm sorry. You already told me how you felt." He said and she thanked him quietly. "But I can't stop it. Every time I think of what they did to you. I-I want to slaughter them all for what they did to you." She nodded in meek acceptance.
Those had been some of the best months of her life. Now she just felt dead inside.
"You'll get your revenge Hector. You'll drive these people away from Troy." She felt like adding. "If not you, then who?" But she bit her tongue. "And everything will be exactly as it was. And we'll be happy."
He smiled at her. "I will get my revenge Briseis." She pulled away in confusion. "And everything will be as you say. You will be happy again."
She sat on the cold stone of the wall and pressed her knees to her chest. "But how?" He reeled in bewilderment. "How will I be happy? It's draining just to rise from bed each morning. How can I live like that for the rest of my life? I was just saying those things to give you hope."
"I will get my revenge for you." He reassured. "I will kill each one of them." She stared at him. "Achilles will fight me tomorrow. He will want to avenge his cousin. Briseis, we will spill the blood of all the Greeks on our sands. Things will be just as they were."
'I don't want things to be as they were.' She wanted to say but she didn't she simply, she smiled as she felt her heart break.
A/N: You have no idea how sorry I am, words can't even explain.