ParfaitCherie, Chrissykat, Modern Kassandra, almythea – As always, thank you for your reviews. Modern Kassandra, I'm afraid the interaction with Achilles on this chapter isn't what you'd wish for yet, but I'll be making up for that on the next one. I mean, I have to get Briseis longing for him, right? Unfortunately, that implies making him a bit elusive for my readers as well…

Thanks also to everyone reading this. Your support is what keeps me going.

Sorry I took so long to update this time, but like I said, work was seriously catching up with me. Now I've finally got a chance to breathe again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

So I had made up my mind. Now it was a matter of finding a way to let you know where my heart was without humiliating myself in the process. I was certainly not about to go up to you and just say it. I was the woman, after all, you were the man. You were the one who was supposed to do the chasing, or so I believed.

But you were still angry with me and quite clearly not intending to make things easy for me in any way. I was beginning to suspect it wasn't so much you having taken offense at my words, as you feeling I hadn't paid enough attention to your behaviour toward me. It seemed you were making a point of showing me what that behaviour would have been if you didn't care for me.

Whatever the case, it was painful and didn't make you exactly approachable.

Still, I walked out of the women's hut and wandered around the camp, trying to act as casual as possible. I didn't want anybody – and most especially you – to realize straight away it was you I was looking for.

I found you near the limit of the camp with Patroclus, both vigorously brushing your horses. Your shoulder was doing visibly better and I felt a pang of anxiety at the thought you might be going back to battle soon.

I stopped at a distance, watching you. I didn't dare come closer, not only because of my fear of horses – and your nervous and powerful stallions were scary even for a seasoned rider – but also because your attitude in the past couple of days hadn't been particularly encouraging.

So I stood and waited for you to either wave me over or come to me. You did pause and stare at me for a while, but then turned back to Xanthus, finished brushing it, jumped on its back without even bothering to saddle it and began running it in wide circles at a slow trot.

I felt utterly rejected. I was sure you knew why I was there – you had always been able to see through me, after all – and you were perfectly aware that I was afraid of horses. Did you really expect me to go to you while you were on horseback?

To make things worse, a small group of serving girls passing by stopped to watch you as well. They were admiring you unashamedly, giggling and pointing and whispering to one another. The whole thing was already getting mightily on my nerves when you decided to deliver the killer blow: you cantered up to them, stopped and leaned over, suggesting something. One of the girls nodded eagerly, throwing her black serpent of a braid seductively over her shoulder, you held out your hand to her, she took it and you pulled her onto the horse with you. And resumed cantering happily away without so much as a glance in my direction.

I swear to mighty Olympus, if only I had any kind of weapon on me, I would have killed you right then and there!

I turned on my heel, furious, and marched back the way I had come from. Halfway down the path, I caved to the unshakable feeling that your eyes were boring into my back and turned briefly. You were indeed looking at me, with an expression of pure defiance splattered all over your face.

Sweet Hera, how I hated your arrogant guts!

I slipped back into the women's hut, fighting both the urge to kick every single one of the nearest objects into the ceiling, and the endless stream of tears welling up behind my eyes. For once, I managed to win both fights: I didn't kick anything and I didn't shed one tear. I just sat on my pallet, dry-eyed, staring blankly ahead.

And that was exactly where Iphis and Sophronia found me what seemed like a lifetime later, when they walked in to dress up for supper.

"What are you doing there in the dark?" Iphis asked. "The sun has long set, we're supposed to be getting ready."

I looked up at them: "You two go on and please convey my excuses to the son of Peleus. I'm not feeling very well, I'll have to miss supper tonight."

Sophronia felt my forehead with gentle fingers, then creased her brow in worry: "There doesn't seem to be a fever. Where are you aching?"

I shook my head. "It's not an ache, I'm just feeling unwell in general. Sick, you know." Sophronia nodded in understanding: "Then you'd better lay down and rest. Iphis will go to Achilles to explain, won't you, Iphis?"

Iphis studied me silently for a while, then walked out without a word. Sophronia left as well, to make me some herbal tea which was supposed to help with a vast array of ailments. I stretched back on my pallet, relieved. All I wanted was to be alone and, above all, not to have to face you again anytime soon.

A little later a man's voice sounded at the door: "May I?"

It was Patroclus. Damn Iphis, she had called him to come see me! I sat up again, straightened my skirt and gave the only possible answer: "Sure, come in."

He walked up to the pallet, looked me over briefly, then pulled up a low bench and sat down in front of me.

"Don't do this", he said. "Don't pretend to be sick to avoid Achilles tonight."

I stared at him. I was sorely tempted to lie, but decided against it:

"I don't want to see him. What's the point? It's not like he's in dire need of my company anyway."

Patroclus smiled: "You're jealous."

I shook my head vehemently: "No, I'm not. I have neither reason nor right to be jealous. Nothing ever happened between us, he's never made me any promises. He's free to do as he wishes. It's really none of my business. I just don't feel like playing hostess at his table when there's others he happens to be more keen on right now."

Patroclus' smile deepened. Sometimes he could be almost as annoying as you.

"You are jealous. Very much so, as a matter of fact." He raised a hand to stop my protests. "Which only shows Achilles got exactly the effect he was aiming for."

I felt a rush of boiling, angry blood rise to my head.

"Oh, was that what he wanted? To make me jealous? Well, I'm sorry but I have to insist that you're wrong and he failed completely. Why on earth would I be jealous of a man who is nothing to me but the master I work for?"

"And now you're lying", Patroclus stated calmly. He waited a little for my response, but when I said nothing, he added: "He's much more to you than a master, just as you're much more to him than a prize." He paused again, prompting me to say something, but I remained silent. The truth was I couldn't speak for fear my voice would crack and my tears would spill, exposing the true measure of the hurt I was feeling.

Patroclus sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and his chin on his hands. "You know, Briseis, this is slowly becoming tiresome. The two of you seem to be stuck in a maddening dance around the obvious: for each step forward, there's two steps back. And then pride just keeps either one of you from making the necessary move. Right now, all it would take was for you to go to him. Believe me, he'd run to you so fast he'd put lightning itself to shame. And I suppose that if he came to you, you'd probably run to him just as fast. But no. No, there's no way either of you will choose to do something that simple. It's much better for him to have spent the last three days biting his nails and wondering whether you'd go to him or not, and for you to be sitting here pretending to be sick so that you won't have to talk to him."

"I did go to him this afternoon", I whispered, the confession burning my throat raw. "I went to him and he didn't exactly come running to meet me half way. Quite the opposite, he made it very clear he couldn't care less that I was there." A stubborn tear rolled down my nose. "You saw what happened, you know I'm right."

Patroclus frowned: "You were looking for him? It seemed that you had simply wandered that way by accident and that you had stopped casually to watch us handle the horses." He smiled a little. "A lot of girls tend to do that, as you obviously noticed."

I stared at him in disbelief: "Now it's you who's lying! Don't even try to tell me Achilles didn't realize why I was there."

"I never lie!" There was a sudden edge to Patroclus' voice that reminded me uncannily of yours. "If I'm telling you it looked as though you were there by accident, then that's exactly what it looked like. And that was precisely what pissed Achilles off. He was very hopeful when he saw you walk up the path, then became terribly disappointed when you just stopped there watching the show, without so much as a smile, or a nod, or a wave to let him know you were there for him."

Albeit reluctantly, I had to admit he had a point: I had done nothing to show I wanted to talk to you. On the contrary, I had made a deliberate effort to look as casual as I could. Apparently, for once in my life I had managed to be a good actress – just at the most inconvenient moment.

Still…

"That doesn't change the fact that he took off with another girl", I said, my voice choked by a combination of hurt feelings and hurt pride.

Patroclus shrugged dismissively: "He only took her for a very short ride along the shoreline. He didn't even go far enough to be out of our sight."

"He did it only to humiliate me, then."

"No, he did it to taunt you. To try to get some kind of reaction from you, because you were driving him mad, just standing there." Patroclus paused for a moment. "Listen, Achilles hasn't as much as looked twice at any other girl since the day he invited you to eat with him. That's how I knew he was really serious about you. Before, he rarely ever slept alone at all. Don't be shocked: it's pretty normal with guys who live on the edge of death. There's a sort of hunger for life that takes that form. We all did it, one way or the other, throughout our time here. After some years of that, we tend to look for a woman we can build something more solid with. Up to now, Achilles had shown no sign of wishing for anything steady, but that's changed after your arrival."

I found myself drinking Patroclus' words like a traveller dying of thirst after a desert crossing. Why couldn't you have told me all that yourself? I'm not a man of words, Briseis, so don't expect a lot of those from me, your voice sounded in my head. But there are things a woman really needs to hear, I countered mentally, as if I was talking to you.

Patroclus went on: "That's why it came as no surprise to me when he paid me a bride price for you and told me I was to give it to you as your dowry if something should happen to him."

"A bride price?", I asked, stunned.

Patroclus nodded. "Yes, to be used as your dowry should the need arise. When Achilles told me that, I said it would be your dowry when he married you upon our return home." He paused again, smiling tauntingly. Eventually, I caved:

"And what did he have to say to that?"

Patroclus stretched the pause until I was dangling on the edge of madness, the grin spreading across his face.

"He didn't say no."

Time froze. I stared at him, looking for signs that he was showing some hitherto unknown dark side of his personality and that the whole thing was no more than a cruel joke. But, of course, Patroclus would never be cruel. Grin or no grin, he was absolutely serious.

I cleared my throat, tried to speak, failed, cleared it again and finally succeeded in murmuring:

"But he didn't say yes either."

"You know Achilles well enough by now to realize that when he doesn't want something, he says so in no uncertain terms."

It was true, of course. I kept staring at him, at a loss for words.

"I'm obviously assuming that marriage would please you. Am I right?"

I found myself nodding before I had even taken the time to think. Patroclus' already impossibly wide grin became even wider.

"Well then. It seems I'll be arranging for a beautiful wedding party when we get back to Phtia. That is, of course, if the two of you manage not to ruin a perfectly good thing before it even has a chance to start." He frowned sternly all of a sudden: "So my advice is that you put your pride aside at least this once, slip on a decent dress and show up for supper as usual. Achilles has been trying very hard to win you all this time and I believe now he needs a clear sign from you that you do reciprocate his feelings. He may not be what you'd call lacking in self-confidence, but even he has a breaking point. It's your turn to let him know you want him."

He rose and reached the door before I could begin bombarding him with the million questions fighting for supremacy in my mind. But there was one I needed the answer to.

"When?", I almost shouted at his back.

He turned to me, raising his eyebrows: "When, what?"

"When did he pay you the bride price?"

"The day of your first argument on the beach. After he got injured and you helped him bathe." He bowed his head slightly in farewell. "See you at supper."