Chrissykat and Annemone Lee: Thank you both so much for your kind reviews. A special thanks to Annemone Lee for your perceptive comment regarding the use of "shell-shocked". You were right, of course, and I've already changed it. :)

As always, thank you to everyone reading, following and favouriting this story. If at all possible, please also leave a little feedback. It does mean the world to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Spring started typically enough, with the usual series of raids against Troy's allies. The first one had been against Cilician Thebe, one of the more important of those allies. So important, in fact, that the wife of Troy's own crown prince, Hector, was daughter to the Cilician king. Apparently, the battle had been brutal, resulting in the death of the king himself and all of his seven sons. Rumour had it that they were all felled by you in single combat, and that you had admired the king's courage enough that you buried him in full armour, as you had once done with Mynes, in a tomb built by your own men.

After hearing the story of your origins and early childhood, I had begun to understand a great many things about you a lot better. The way you behaved with women, for one – it wasn't hard to imagine that the moment you heard a woman screaming and struggling to free herself from an unwanted man, you'd be hearing your own mother in your mind. It was the kind of thing that would drive anyone crazy.

But your story also gave me a new insight into that anger, which always seemed about to boil and spill right from under your skin, and into the violence I rarely witnessed personally, but that I knew you were capable of. And it also explained the somewhat distant benevolence you showed toward middle-aged women who were mothers themselves. Including – or maybe particularly – the mothers of the warriors you had fought and killed.

It was precisely the case at the moment: among the several captives you had brought back from Cilician Thebe was the king's widow, that is, the mother of those seven dead princes and of Andromache of Troy. As with my own mother, you had kept her unharmed and sent a message to her brother, informing him that she was in your camp. I had asked you why not try contacting Prince Hector – after all, the lady was his mother-in-law and Troy was much nearer – but you had explained that there was a ban on any negotiations with Trojan royalty that did not include the returning of Helen.

That had been over a month ago. Now the brother had arrived, along with a few other Cilicians intending to ransom family members from captivity, and you had received him in your tent to negotiate the terms of the lady's release. She was a high-value prisoner, so the amount was high, but in the meantime I had realized that you had been right when you told me, back in Lyrnessus, that setting a low value for a captive was in fact humiliating for the captive in question. In any case, it was clear that the ransom had been specified beforehand, or was somehow standard for the widow of a reasonably important king, so the negotiation was more of a formality than anything else.

The former Cilician queen was in an even worse shape than my mother. From her crazed ramblings I gathered she had witnessed the death of a few of her sons and she had lost her mind, perhaps irreversibly. You seemed to understand that, as you had asked me to take care of her during her stay with us, and I noticed you were careful to avoid imposing your presence on her in any way.

A quick agreement had just been reached when one of Agamemnon's heralds arrived to request your presence for an audience the high king was granting to a priest of Apollo, who was part of the group of Cilicians. You nodded curtly and turned to me.

"Go get the captive, Briseis, please", you said.

I rose to do what you were asking. I had already made sure the lady was clean and properly dressed to be freed into her brother's care, so it didn't take long for me to bring her to your hut. She cringed visibly when you held her wrist, in the traditional gesture to lead a captive, but your grip was firm and you didn't let go. You pulled her gently toward her brother, placed her hand in his and released her with the ritual words, "Go. You're free."

Once the visitor and his charge had taken their leave, you exchanged an amused glance with Patroclus: "So let's go contribute to the magnificence of Agamemnon's court, shall we? Trust the man to turn the simplest audience with a foreigner into a spectacle of pomp and circumstance." Patroclus laughed and the two of you left, joking animatedly at the expense of the Mycenaean king.

You were no longer joking when you returned, though. Quite the contrary, you were both wearing long, upset faces.

"Why did the audience take so long?", I asked. "I thought these people had come only to negotiate the release of some of the captives."

"And so they had", you replied dryly.

"Then what could possibly take so long? Who was that Apollo's priest coming for?", I insisted.

Both you and Patroclus sat down and poured yourselves some wine before Patroclus answered:

"He's the father of that girl Agamemnon chose for himself. Chryseis, I think she's called."

I glanced from him to you, completely lost. Why would Patroclus make that sound like some kind of unsurmountable problem? He sighed heavily and elaborated:

"Agamemnon has been very infatuated with her…"

"He's always very infatuated with whichever new captive he has at the moment", you cut in sarcastically.

"… so he didn't react very well to her father's request", Patroclus finished, unfazed by your interruption.

"That's a bit of an euphemism, isn't it?", you said. "Telling a man that his daughter is going to spend her life withering away on a distant country across the sea, pining for her lost homeland and serving her master both in and out of bed, goes way beyond 'not reacting very well' to that man's request."

My jaw went slack: "He didn't say that to the girl's father!"

"Unfortunately, he did", Patroclus confirmed. "Against everybody's wishes. The priest had been very polite and respectful, and he offered a worthy ransom, so everyone was in favour of returning the girl. I suppose that's what made Agamemnon even angrier. Feeling that his own allies were siding with a foreigner instead of supporting him."

"That's ludicrous", you said. "Nobody was taking sides, it was simply a matter of doing what was right. You can't deny a request for ransom, unless the value offered is shameful both for the victor and the captive. Which was not the case at all."

"True", Patroclus agreed, "but I don't think that's how Agamemnon saw it."

"Anyway", you picked up the tale, "not content with insulting the priest, who was carrying his sacred insignia and wearing his formal attire, which meant he was there not only in his own name, but also in Apollo's…"

"Making the insult to the man also an insult to the god", I commented softly.

"Precisely. Not content with that, he ordered the man to leave and threatened to kill him if he'd try coming back. The priest left understandably furious and cursed, not only Agamemnon, but all of us. We heard him pray against us the moment he was out the door."

"It was an altogether nasty affair", Patroclus admitted, pouring more wine for the both of you.

I decided to try and lighten up the mood: "What if my uncle suddenly made up his mind to come and ransom me? What would you do?", I asked jokingly.

You smiled. "I'd ask him for your hand in marriage. Then I'd give him so many presents, by way of bride price, that he'd be more than happy to leave you with me."

I nearly opened my mouth to ask 'what if I didn't want to marry you?', but then I realized that would be bordering on cruelty in your particular case, so I held my tongue. Besides, there was such a warmth in your eyes that I couldn't help myself: I broke our tacit restraint regarding public displays of affection, threw my arms around your neck and kissed you full on the mouth. I heard Patroclus' not entirely comfortable laughter and felt myself blush.

But you pulled me in tighter and kissed me back. Deeply.

O – O – O

Not long after that, the deaths started. First it was the cattle that provided meat for the warriors: a couple oxen one day, a couple sheep the next, then a couple pigs, then back to the oxen. Soon the animals were dying by the scores. Then the plague spread to the men, slowly at first, but quickly becoming rampant.

The Myrmidons were the least affected. Maybe because your camp was the farthest out in the direction of the sea, maybe because as soon as it became clear that there was something wrong with the cattle, you gave strict orders for everyone in your camp to use solely the water of the Scamander, staying well clear of wells and cisterns. You obviously thought that the plague could have come from Apollo, but there could also be a human hand involved. Wells and cisterns were easy to poison, the river, not so much. I heard you say to Patroclus that Agamemnon had obviously forgotten there were priests in the Achaean camp, some of which came from conquered cities, and that the gross mistreatment of one of their own was bound to have stirred the latent enmity they surely still felt for their conquerors.

Whatever the origin of the illness, less than a month later men were dying by the dozens. There was a continuous string of burning pyres, to the point that the smoke made it hard to breathe.

"This can't go on", you said one evening, during supper. "Why on earth isn't Agamemnon doing something about it?"

"He's afraid the plague is Apollo's doing, a punishment for the way he treated the priest", Patroclus replied.

"Well, if that's the case, then he must make amends. If not, he must find out who the responsible person or persons are and take appropriate measures. Otherwise, we'll all be dead soon."

"There have been few deaths in our camp", Phoenix chimed in. "Apollo must not be as angry with us as with the others."

"Or we have managed to avoid successfully the source of illness. Or been just plain lucky", you stated curtly. "But I don't enjoy relying on sheer luck too much. We may still be stricken, nobody can consider themselves safe until we know where the problem is coming from."

"But what can we do about it, other than what we have already done?", Patroclus asked. "It's Agamemnon who must call an investigation. If some of our own priests are involved… it's complicated."

You gazed pensively at him. "Any king has the right to call a council", you said slowly.

I was instantly on full alert. I was always extremely careful not to interfere when you were discussing Achaean politics with your friends, but now I couldn't hold back.

"Are you considering calling a council yourself?", I asked, the trembling in my voice patent for everyone to hear.

All eyes focused on me, making me feel terribly uncomfortable. "Why not?", you said. "It seems like the only possible course of action."

To my relief, Patroclus frowned. "It's a bit risky", he ventured.

You frowned back at him: "Why? It is well within the rights of any of the allied kings. And if there ever were justifying circumstances…"

"Yes, but Agamemnon will take it as a sign of defiance", Patroclus argued. "You can't deny that there has been tension between the two of you for a while now."

"Of course there's tension!", you blurted out, suddenly angry. "I keep going out to fight, and raid, and take cities for him. I do my job, not without pain and sacrifice, as you know better than anyone. All he has to do is keep a tight siege on Troy. But what keeps happening? There are so many holes in his goddamn' net that Troy never fails to receive whatever supplies and reinforcements they need!" You rose and started pacing furiously. "It's been nine years, Patroclus! Nine years we've been rotting in this hellhole, with no hope of settling this, once and for all, anytime in the foreseeable future. And now the men are dying from an unknown plague and our bloody high king does nothing but sit back and wait for some bloody miracle to happen!"

"You could go to him as an advisor", Phoenix suggested, "and plead with him to call the council himself."

You stared sombrely at your old companion. "Plead? No. I'm not his advisor, I'm his ally. He must hear me when I do have something to say."

"Don't be arrogant, son", Phoenix pressed. "It's true you're allies, but his power supersedes yours. Not to mention that he's older than you. For that reason alone, you must show him due respect."

You huffed. "I give people the respect they've earned. And let me tell you, father Phoenix, that our dashing king of Mycenae is not very deserving of respect in my eyes right now. He knows damn well he's messed up badly, and is doing absolutely nothing to fix his own mess."

"At least talk to Ajax first", said Patroclus. "And maybe to Odysseus. Try to gain their support before risking something Agamemnon is sure to regard as a challenge to his position. You know we can't fight him, should things go wrong. We're better soldiers, but we'd be too heavily outnumbered."

You were silent for a while. "That's true", you said at last. "Though I don't believe he would actually turn on us. We're by far the best warriors in this army, and he's bound to know he doesn't stand a chance to win Troy without us."

"Still", Patroclus insisted, "you know how it goes: better safe than sorry."

"Very well", you relented. "I'll visit Ajax tomorrow. You talk to Odysseus. But then I'm calling the council, and Agamemnon's sensitivities be damned."