Sorry this one took so long. Sometimes real life just gets mightily in the way of fiction :(

Thank you all for your patience and support. And please bear with me just a little longer – I will see this story through to the end, even if it takes a while to get there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Dawn had barely broken when the Trojans resumed their attack. Soon after, a terrible racket, followed by a shift in the shouting of the fighting men – that suddenly became louder, shriller – told me that Hector and his cavalry had managed to breach the makeshift wall the Achaeans had scrambled to build over the past few days.

What little organization was left in the Achaean camp had now crumbled completely. People were running every which way – some to join the fight, some to get as far away from it as possible, some limping, crawling and dragging themselves or their comrades back to their own tents, since the hospital tent had been all but abandoned in the absence of Machaon.

I admit the first thing I did was go down to the beach to check whether your ships were still there. In spite of all of Odysseus' reassurances, I wasn't entirely sure you wouldn't just up and leave, in the bitterness of your anger against both your allies and myself.

Much to my relief, the ships remained beached and there seemed to be no preparations underway for any imminent departure. A tiny sliver of hope grew back in my heart. You were still there. You weren't leaving. Perhaps, as Odysseus had hoped, you really couldn't find it in yourself to completely desert your people. Or me. Or both.

I was making my way back up to the tents when I saw Nestor's chariot dart past, carrying what seemed to be a wounded man lying in it. Nestor himself was sort of slumped, holding on hard to the rail to steady himself. He must be hurt as well. I ran after them.

But of course the galloping horses were too fast for me to keep up with, so I was soon left trailing behind. However, they seemed to be going straight to Nestor's own tent, so I took to jogging steadily in that direction. All the Achaeans were too busy trying to fend off the Trojans or mending their wounds, so no-one was really minding the captives, leaving us to our own devices to try and find cover wherever we could.

I finally got to Nestor's tent and stopped for a moment at the doorway, panting from the effort. I was still catching my breath when someone walked up behind me. I looked up and froze.

It was Patroclus.

He froze as well when he saw me, then his features became hard as granite and his eyes glittered in pure, unadulterated contempt. He looked actually frightening. I took a step back and raised my hands.

"Patroclus…"

"Get out of my way."

"Patroclus, please, I need to tell you…"

"Get the hell out of my way, now!"

Frightening didn't quite cover it: he looked terrifying. In those years I had shared your tent, there were occasions when I had seen him get angry, of course, but I had never seen him quite this furious. He reminded me uncannily of you after that accursed council that ruined everything. I took another step back instinctively and he strode past me to Nestor's door.

An icy despair gripped me. If Patroclus was hating me this much, I could only imagine the depth of your own anger and hatred toward me. I grabbed his arm.

He whipped around and jerked his arm away so hard that I lost my balance and stumbled backward.

"I told you he'd get you out", he growled through clenched teeth. "I know I said you should do whatever it took to stay alive and we both knew what I was implying with that, but we both also knew I was not referring to your treacherous little heart. It never even crossed my mind you could possibly trade Achilles for Agamemnon. How could you? Was it really all a matter of going for the highest ranking man available? Is that what you're truly about, Briseis?"

I shook my head desperately, choking on the words I couldn't get past my throat. Patroclus made an utterly disgusted face and turned on his heel toward the door.

A scream tore unbidden from my lips. "No! It was a lie! I lied to Antilochus!"

He stopped, turned around again slowly to face me. "Excuse me?"

My chest felt like it was being squeezed in an iron belt. I gulped for air. I gulped again. Patroclus was waiting, his eyebrows knitted in a frown.

"The message I sent through Antilochus was a lie", I managed finally, in a raw voice that was little more than a whisper. "I couldn't stand seeing all those men being injured and killed because of Achilles' refusal to fight. I was tending the wounded at the hospital tent and I couldn't stand the idea that it was all because of me. So I figured… I figured maybe if he thought I wasn't worth it after all, he might turn back to his quest for glory and… and…" My voice trailed off.

There was a silence. Patroclus seemed to be digesting my words, his eyes now evaluating, studying me. Finally, his expression softened a little. "You lied?" I nodded wordlessly. He breathed in long, then let the air back out in a low whistle. "Oh, Briseis! You're crazy."

"It only made everything worse, didn't it? Made him angrier."

"It broke him", Patroclus said, his voice both sad and very serious. I looked up at him, startled. He carried on, explaining: "It was the final straw. People always think of Achilles as unbreakable, even invulnerable. Admittedly, he created that image himself. But it's not true, as you know as well as I do. He can and does break. The whole thing, you know, the sense of betrayal by his fellow kings and of having been object of a blatant injustice from the man who, as high king, was supposed to be the ultimate guarantee of justice for everyone… it somehow got him to question the whole system, the very meaning of honour itself. It was all eating away at him and his withdrawal from fighting didn't help. He is a warrior after all."

"To the bone", I interjected, remembering the way Iphis had tried to sum you up for me all those years ago. Patroclus nodded:

"Precisely. Sitting in his tent, knowing he was abandoning the men in the battlefield, didn't do him any good at all. All this coupled with the loss of you… with the sense that he had let you down, that he was responsible for whatever was happening to you…" It was Patroclus' turn to stumble on his words and lower his eyes in shared shame. "To make a long story short, it all pushed him to the point where he was barely hanging on. I had never seen him drink so heavily before. As short-tempered as he's always been, I had never seen him loose it so often, so quickly and so viciously. Not ever." He paused, shaking his head. "Then he got that message from you. And he broke. He became… different. He believes in nothing anymore."

I felt like I should be crying, I wanted to cry, but not a tear dropped from my eyes. It was odd.

"I should have thought things through before acting on them", I said in a low voice. "I guess I didn't think at all. I just hoped it would somehow make him furious with me and drive him back to the fighting. Afterward, when things were back to normal, I would explain everything to him and…" My voice trailed off again. There was a pause.

"I will tell him", Patroclus said at last. "When I get back to our camp, I'll explain it all to him."

A huge weight suddenly lifted off my chest. I felt like I could really breathe for the first time in days.

"Please do." I hesitated, on the brink of adding a more encompassing message, but then I decided against it. "Thank you."

We exchanged a thin smile, still not completely at ease with each other, then Patroclus nodded and pushed the door into Nestor's tent.

Why didn't I tell him that nothing terrible had happened to me, that Agamemnon had never really touched me? To be entirely honest, I had been glad to hear that you felt responsible. That you felt guilty. I did want to make everything right with you again, but I didn't quite want to release you from that guilt just yet. However valid your reasons might have been, the fact was that you had chosen your men over me. The ache of knowing that made me want you to suffer because of it as well.

It was true that I loved you and wanted to get back with you. It was most definitely true that I did not want to break you. But it was equally true that I hadn't completely forgiven you.

I would tell you the truth eventually, but first there were a great many things that needed to be clarified between us. The fact that I loved you didn't mean I was not angry – extremely angry - with you.

As Iphis once said, you and I had more in common than met the eye.

I didn't want to walk into Nestor's tent with Patroclus – I had just dealt with all the explanations I could deal with for the moment – so I retraced my steps back to the centre of the camp, only to find that Agamemnon himself had been wounded. Speaking of broken men, he definitely was one. He was seriously talking about sounding retreat, hopping on the ships and fleeing back to Greece.

I can't deny there was reason for panic: some of Ajax's ships, the first from the side of the breached wall, were already on fire. Unless the Trojans were stopped quickly, soon the Achaeans would be trapped on that beach with no means of escape. There was little hope that Hector would show mercy, after nine years of a relentless siege on his city, so the possibility of an all-out massacre was looming large on everybody's minds.

Still, Odysseus and Diomedes, who had also been wounded and were also there, joined forces to calm Agamemnon down and get him to wait. Soon after that, Nestor arrived, again in his chariot, and told them something that clearly helped lift their mood. I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but knowing that Patroclus had gone to visit the old man, I had a good idea what Nestor's news might be.

We didn't have to wait long before the ground vibrated with the sound of the even marching steps of a mighty fighting force. Odysseus exchanged a fiery look of triumph with Nestor and jumped up on his good foot. Everybody rushed forward and I ran with them.

For a moment, I thought it was you leading the Myrmidons. Your armour was glittering in the sun, your unmistakable helmet shining so brightly it momentarily blinded anyone looking straight at it.

But when they came closer I realized it was indeed your armour, your helmet, your chariot and your horses, but it was Patroclus leading your men.

You had relented, but only in part: you had sent reinforcements to save your countrymen, but you hadn't come yourself. Still, as Odysseus had put it, fresh reinforcements of Myrmidon class warriors would make all the difference in the world.

And, sure enough, the tide of battle changed: the Myrmidons began forcing the Trojans back, step by step, until the fighting retreated from the cramped beach back to the open plain. The Achaean leaders who were still unscathed led the rest of the army in their wake.

After the racket and the chaos of the morning, the Achaean camp became eerily quiet. Agamemnon, Odysseus, Nestor and the other injured kings who could still walk went over to the wall, to try and keep up with what was happening in the battlefield.

I didn't follow them. I was overwhelmed by a sudden exhaustion that made me collapse on the sand by the sea, utterly drained of the last shred of energy.

I couldn't help wondering what you might be doing. You had never sent your army out without you – how would you be feeling right now? Worried? Scared for them? For Patroclus? Or simply confident in their unquestionable ability and experience?

Had Patroclus given you my message? Did it have any influence in your decision to send your men? I had no illusions that you might be thinking of me – you'd be too wired because of the battle being fought in your absence. At best, I'd be a sort of waiting presence in the back of your mind.

"While you're foremost in mine", I muttered to myself somewhat bitterly. "So what else is new?"

I shook my head hard. As difficult as it was, I had to get rid of that bitterness. You had sent help when the Achaeans needed it most. The enemy, that had been on the verge of destroying the very ships the lives of the men depended on, was now retreating. There was no way in Hades that Agamemnon would not restore me to you.

Soon we'd have our chance to talk things over, explain ourselves, yes, maybe even argue and fight and yell at each other – Olympus knew I badly wanted to yell at you – but I was sure in the end we'd find a way to forgive and accept and find each other again.

It was all I really wanted.