Lauren, ChrissyKat, almythea – Thank you all as ever for your reviews. I really treasure them.

Thanks to The First Blue for your words of encouragement as well.

As always, thank you also to those who faved and are following this story. And, of course, thank you to all my readers. I wouldn't be able to go on doing this without you.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was a marvellous evening. We danced and sang – even I did, Apollo forgive me for the insult to his art! – we joked and ate and drank. Drinking is probably the operative word here: I don't think you'd have managed to talk me into performing that traditional song from Lyrnessus if I weren't already a little over my limit. The wine must have been stronger than usual that evening… or so I'd like to believe.

But more inebriating than any wine was the physical closeness to you when we danced. And dance we did, repeatedly, gladly, our feet so light it felt like we were gliding above the ground. Your arm was steady around my waist, your body was warm and firm, and I felt like leaning against it and just let you lead me where you would. When our eyes met, it was as though we had stepped into a bubble and were the only living souls left in the whole wide world. Sweet Aphrodite, halfway through every dance I imagined you were about to kiss me and I'd kiss you right back!

Then, of course, I'd slap myself mentally, break the eye contact and burst that bubble of togetherness before I lost myself forever in it. Because one thing that was becoming increasingly clear to me with every moment was that I was falling for you, fast, hard and irreversibly. And of the many dangerous things I could do as your captive, falling for you might well prove to be the most dangerous of all.

I could be a bit tipsy on the wine and downright drunk on you, but I was still clear-minded enough to realise the magnitude of the risk that implied. Objectively, you were a king and I was a slave. What future could a relationship between us possibly have? Your marriage, when the time came, would be a political matter, not an affair of the heart. And that was assuming I had any part of your heart at all, which was by no means a certainty. Yes, you had given me reason to believe that you cared for me, that you were probably more than a little infatuated with me. But caring and infatuation only go so far. They're not enough to forge a lifelong bond, particularly when that bond would pose a challenge to the established social order. That would be fine if all I felt for you was desire, but it would become a fatal trap if my feelings were deeper. I could not forget that although you had freely admitted to wanting me, you had never used the word love. I knew enough about life to know that what was left unsaid meant as much as what was put into words. Getting involved with you could very well become a one-way road at the end of which I would be left without even my self-respect.

But then we'd dance again and I'd find myself back in the bubble, gliding above the ground with you, intoxicated with the warmth of your body and the firmness of your arms, imagining kisses I rationally knew I should never experience…

When the guests filed out after bidding their farewells and thanking you for the wonderful evening, you turned to me and said: "It's a beautiful night. Are you too sleepy to go for a stroll?"

It was the wine, had to be the wine making me take leave of my senses, because I answered happily: "Not sleepy at all. Let's go." The words were barely out of my mouth and I was already wishing to hit myself: going for a stroll with you in the moonlight was definitely asking for trouble.

Sure enough, the trouble began as soon as we passed the rows of ships and stepped out onto the beach. You put your arm around me and I froze. You withdrew, looking a little hurt, then resumed walking.

"Are you afraid of men, Briseis?", you asked suddenly.

I pondered the question. "I don't think so", I said at last. "I'm afraid of you, though."

You stopped on your tracks, flabbergasted. "Afraid of me? Why on earth? I'm pretty sure I never gave you any reason to fear me in any way."

I shook my head. "Not in that sense, no. It's just…" My voice trailed off.

"Just what?", you pressed, sounding rather put off.

"What exactly do you feel for me, Achilles? I mean, I know you want me, you made no secret whatsoever in that respect. But then what? What am I to become when your desire's sated?"

You stared at me in obvious disbelief. But the turmoil in my brain, perhaps amplified by that evening's wine and the giddiness of dancing with you, had erupted into a volcano that would not be stopped. I went on:

"You're a predator. That's so obvious even a blind can see it. Your seemingly lasting interest in me is probably just a product of the fact that I originally rejected you. That taunted the predator in you and from then on you focused on the chase. But what will happen once you get your prey?"

Your face became suddenly inscrutable again. "Is that what you think this is? A mere chase?"

"I don't know what this is! That's exactly the problem. You seem to be able to see right through me, you figured out my whole life just by hearing the stories I told you, but you remain completely impenetrable to me. That inscrutable face of yours is maddening! When I think about it, I realise I know next to nothing about you and your life, except for what tiny morsels you see fit to share with me." I paused, breathing hard. "Your son, for instance. You told me you weren't married and joked that it's not necessary for people to be married to have children. Fine. But I know the boy is your heir, with full firstborn rights. That means he has legitimate status. That could be achieved simply by a public acknowledgment from you that the kid was yours, but somehow I have trouble believing you'd get a princess pregnant and then dump her without further consideration. There must have been some kind of agreement, some bond. What do you plan to do when you go back home, Achilles? You're a prince, I'm a war captive. What place will I have in your life when the war is over? Am I to become a forgotten lover, forced to serve your free, royal-born wife as a slave in your house?"

You whipped around to face me, your eyes like burning coals, your features chalk white, and I realised I had never seen you truly furious before. I stepped back instinctively.

"Is that what you think of me? That I would do that to a woman I had loved?" There it was, the word love, but spit out in rage, almost like an insult, not spoken the way I'd have wished for, not meaning what I would have liked to hear in it. "What kind of man do you take me for?"

You were shaking in anger, but so was I.

"My life is in your hands already", I shouted back, unrestrained. "If I give you my heart, you'll have all of me and I'll still have nothing of you except for some unclear feelings and your alleged moral compass. I'll depend entirely on your ethical sense not to end up broken and abandoned, with no hope and no future. Would you take that kind of risk on someone else?"

"Life is a risk! Future is the definition of unknown! You ask what my plans are. They're non-existing. I make no plans. I don't know whether there will be a future for me at all. For all I know, tomorrow may be my dying day." Time froze for a moment. I stared at you, wide-eyed in the shock of revelation, you stared blankly back. "So, if what you want from me are promises and guarantees, forget it. I'm not giving you either. I can only give you my present and that I already gave, without asking you for anything in return. Taking a risk on someone else! What the fuck do you think I've been doing with you for the last couple of months? And believe me, two months is a very long time for a man who doesn't know if he'll live to try again another day."

I opened my mouth to speak, but you were on a roll. "Fuck, Briseis! There is only one thing you can take for granted and you should know that by now without needing me to say it: I will not harm you in any way. I would never crush you the way you suggested, I would never use and discard you like an old tunic. I would never insult you, or my supposed wife, by having a former lover serve in my household like a common slave. That is… I never expected something like that from you." You started walking again, away from me, in wide, angry strides. I ran to catch up with you.

"I didn't really think you would do that deliberately. But it could happen, it could…"

"No, it couldn't. If I make it and take you back home with me, it's because I'll be sticking with you for the long run. If you don't want to go, I won't drag you kicking and screaming; you'll be free. If I don't make it, you'll be likewise free. I've already arranged that with Patroclus. He's my plan for the future, the only one I have." I looked up at you questioningly. You explained, your voice still cold and hard as iron: "If I die, he'll take over for me. He'll go get my son and bring him to Phtia, oversee his education and make sure the boy receives his inheritance. He'll help my father and protect his old age. And he'll act as a foster brother to you, take you in as his sister and help you sort out your life as you see fit. It's all been set between me and him."

I was choking with the conflicting emotions raging inside me, but I managed to ask:

"What if you make it, but just get tired of me?"

You turned again to look me straight in the eyes:

"What if it's you who gets tired of me?"

"That's not the way it works. You know it isn't."

"Isn't it? Don't women get tired of their men? Then why did Helen abandon her husband and daughter to elope with Paris? Why are the wives of many of my fellow kings having very public affairs with other men back home?" You must have noticed my look of surprise, because you elaborated: "News travel far on merchant ships. Much of it is just gossip, granted, but some of it has the unmistakable taste of truth. Many of my allies won't have a kingdom to go back to. This war has been lasting too long. Feelings fade and change, yes, and it's not just the men's. Women's feelings change as well."

You looked out at the sea. "You asked about Deidamia. My son's mother. Yes, there was a bond. A betrothal. I didn't do it just in order to legitimate the boy, I did it sincerely, because I was in love with her at the time. But I was fourteen and she wasn't much older than me. I went back to Phtia to prepare for the war and then I came here. Five years later, that's two years ago, we were raiding the isles in the area, so I decided to sail over to Skyrus to meet my son. I had only seen him as a newborn and I wanted to at least know his face and have him know mine." Your voice softened. "He looks like a miniature version of me." There was a short pause, then the dreamy smile disappeared from your lips and you went on: "I saw Deidamia as well, of course. We had nothing left in common, except for the child. I used to be a boy when we were together, but in the meantime I had become a man, she used to be a girl but had become a woman. We had grown separately, in different directions, and neither of us felt anything whatsoever for the other. There was a kind of tenderness for old times' sake, but that was all. It might have been different if we had stayed together, if we had grown side by side, but it just didn't happen that way."

You turned back to me. "You say I see through you while remaining impenetrable to your eyes. I don't see through you, I just pay attention to what you say. A lot of attention. I'm not a man of words, Briseis, so don't expect a lot of those from me under normal circumstances. But if you paid just a bit of attention to what I do, you'd know not to think me capable of doing the kind of things you suggested. And you wouldn't need to be wondering about the exact nature of my feelings for you either."

I was completely sober by then. Sober, shaken and feeling terrible. I stepped up to you, but you placed a hand on my shoulder and held me literally at arm's length.

"No. I don't want you to have me out of sympathy, because it just dawned on you that I may not last long. I don't want you to have me as a favour, while struggling with anguish and doubt. I don't take that kind of favours. I don't want you to have me out of gratitude either. I want you to have me because you want me as much as I want you, or not at all. You have all the time in the world, Briseis." You dropped your hand and turned on your heel. "Come, I'll walk you back to the women's hut."

You led the way between the ships, your steps silent and elastic, your back straight and your head held high. Proud, untamed, untameable. Unyielding. A rather-break-than-bend, all-or-nothing kind of guy.

I wanted you alright. As much as you wanted me, maybe even more. But I'd have to want you enough to take you the way you were – and that would not be easy. You would never be easy.