Paris flinches as Helen, using needle and thread, stitches his leg wound. His face is bruised, his eyes red.

"You think I am a coward."

Helen, concentrating on her stitching, says nothing. Paris flinches as the needle pierces his skin.

"I am a coward. I knew he would kill me. I knew it. You were watching, and my father, my brother, all of Troy, it didn't matter. The shame didn't matter. I gave up my pride, my honor. Just to live."

"You challenged a great warrior. That took courage."

"I betrayed you."

Helen inspects her work. The black stitches are a little ragged, but they seem secure.

"Menelaus was brave. He lived for fighting. And I hated him from the day I married him until the day he died."

Helen leans forward until her lips are inches from Paris.

"I don't want a hero, my love. I want a man to grow old with."

She kisses him and there is great tenderness in her kiss. A knock on the door. Helen looks up. Another knock.

"Come in."

Hector enters the room. He examines Paris's leg.

"Well stitched. You have a talented woman. I thank the gods you're alive, little brother."

"I wanted to make you proud of me."

Hector grips Paris' shouder.

"You will."

Thousands of campfires constellate the beach. Tens of thousands of exhausted soldiers stare into the flames. In Agamemnon's tent, Nestor sits at a table, poring over the map of Troy. Odysseus lies in a hammock strung between two of the tent poles, eating olives and spitting out the pits. Agamemnon paces the rugs that floor the tent. His usual air of supreme confidence is gone, replaced by agitation.

"They're laughing at me in Troy. Old Priam and the others, drunk on victory. They think I'll quit these shores, sail home at first light."

"Maybe we should."

Agamemnon spins and glares at Odysseus.

"Flee? Like a whipped dog?!"

"The men believe we came for Menelaus' wife. He won't be needing his wife anymore."

"My brother's blood still wets the grass and you dare insult him?!"

"It is no insult to say a dead man is dead."

"If we leave now we lose all credibility. If the Trojans can beat us so easily, how long before the Hittites invade?"

"You're right. But if we stay, we stay for the right reasons. We stay to protect Greece, not your pride. Your private battle with Achilles is destroying us."

"Achilles is one man! What good could he.-"

"Hector is one man! Look what he did to us today."

"Hector fights for his country. Achilles fights only for himself."

"I don't care about the man's patriotism. I care about his ability to win battles."

"He's right. The men's morale is weak."

"Weak? They're ready to swim home."

"Even if I wanted to make peace with Achilles, the man won't listen. He's just as likely to spear me as speak with me."

"I'll talk to him in the morning."

Agamemnon thinks about it for a moment and then nods.

"He'll want the girl back."

"He can have that damned girl."

Nestor and Odysseus glance at each other, worried that Agamemnon might infuriate Achilles more.

"I haven't touched her."

"Where is she?"

"I gave her to the men. They needed some amusement after today."

Odysseus and Nestor exchange worried looks. Achilles' battle with Agamemnon has barely begun.

A band of battle-weary, drunken soldiers stand by a campfire. They are exhausted, caked with dirt and their comrades' blood. They shove Briseis back and forth between them. Each man she bounces into tears off a strip of her robes, which are now filthy rags barely covering her body. Her face seems to have shut down. She has a bruise below one eye and her hair is wet with wine. The soldiers stare at her with a mix of hostility and lust.

"Come on! Give the bitch to me! You Trojan whore!"

"We should kill her now, keep her from breeding any more Trojan bastards."

"No, she's Agamemnon's property."

"What's this? A virgin's robe?"

"She won't be needing that for much longer."

Eudorus, who had just caught some fresh fish, drops his catch and runs to Achilles' tent when he sees Briseis being tosed around by Agamemnon's men.

"My lord Achilles!"

"What is it now, Eudorus?"

"The girl! Agamemnon's soldiers have her. They're tossing her around like an animal!"

Achilles runs out of his tent with Eudorus leading him to a certain campire.

Haemon squats by the fire, holding an iron in the flames. He pulls out a branding iron in the shape of Agamemnon's seal, a white-hot alpha. He carries it toward Briseis.

"Hold her down!"

Briseis sees the hot iron and begins to struggle, screaming and kicking at the men. Four of the soldiers pin her down.

"Why are you kicking, girl?! Better to be a Spartan slave than a Trojan priestess!"

Briseis claws Haemon in the face. He growls and punches her.

"Come on! Hold her down!"

The soldiers hold her in the sand. Haemon steadies the hot brand and searches for the best place to mark her.

"Achilles!"

When the brand is inches from her arm, Achilles grabs the iron, pulls it out of Haemon's hands and then brands Haemon instead. Haemon collapses. Achilles stands alone, unarmed save for the branding iron. By firelight he looks ferocious. Echepolus stumbles spits in the sand. He draws his sword.

"There's one of him and ten of us!"

Achilles swings the iron, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Aphaereus's face collapses. He falls to the beach.

"Nine."

The other soldiers run. Achilles picks up Briseis and carries her to his tent. More gently than we would have believed possible, Achilles brushes the sand from her face and hair. Eudorus and Patroclus are waiting when Achilles and Briseis get to the tent.

"Get me food and water. And a new robe."

Eudorus bows. Patroclus watches Achilles and Briseis enter the tent. He then heads into his own tent to tell Chryseis about her cousin.

"Chryseis."

"Yes?"

"Your cousin Briseis. Achilles just rescued her from Agamemnon's men."

"Where is she now?"

"She's in Achilles' tent."

Chryseis bolts from Patroclus' tent and into Achilles', with Patroclus behind her.

"Briseis, you're alive!"

"Chryseis!"

Achilles was not bothered by Chryseis' enterance. He knew she had good intentions.

"You are safe in my tent, Chryseis as you are in Patroclus'."

"Thank you, Lord Achilles. Briseis, I thought Agamemnon was going to kill you."

Briseis glares up at Achilles, and he glares back at her. There is nothing he can say to her. He promised her safety, and she ended up beaten down.

"Only Agamemnon's men hurt me. He himself didn't touch me."

"Thank the gods for that, cousin. If he had, Hector would swear vengeance on Agamemnon for sure."

Eudorus arrives at thent with more food and a new robe for Briseis.

"My lord, this robe is all I could find. It's not much, but-."

"It will do for her, I'm sure. Thank you, Eudorus."

"Of course, my lord."

"Lord Achilles, is there any way you can bring a healer for Briseis' wounds? She may need medicine."

"I am certain that at the moment, the healers are tending to the wounded soldiers still."

"What about Cassandra?"

"Cassandra?"

"Our other cousin. The priestess you gave to Ajax. She is exceptionally skilled in healing herbs."

"I will send for her then. Eudorus, go down to Ajax's tent and see if he will let Casandra come back with you."

"Yes, my lord."

"If he won't let you walk her back here, tell him he can come with her."

"I will."

As Eudorus walks to Ajax's tent, Achilles sits outside his own, guarding it. Patroclus sits down next to him.

"Why did you rescue her, cousin?"

"Have you gotten to know your own captive?"

"Yes. Though I don't see her as such."

"And now you know why I rescued her. Agamemnon said she was his slave. I told him she is not a slave. She challenges me, more so than any man ever has on the battlefield, and I like the challenge she gives."

Eudorus arrives, with Ajax and Cassandra in tow. Cassandra rushes inside.

"Your wounds look well tended to, Ajax."

"They are. It seems the priests of Troy always train their priestesses in medicine. And I found something out, Achilles."

"What is it?"

"Cassandra is the daughter of Priam."

"And it seems the three girls are cousins. At least, that is what I gather from Chryseis."

Ajax is having a hard time looking Achilles in the face, with good reason.

"Ajax, I am sorry I left you and your men defenseless on the battlefield."

"Oh, what does it matter, Achilles? I am alive."

"I don't want to fight for a king who won't recognise the efforts of soldiers. Agamemnon is that king. But you my friend, you are a king that fights with his men. How long has it been since Agamemnon stuck a man down in battle?"

"Too long."

Cassandra walks out of Achilles tent with Chryseis behind her.

"Her wounds are clean now, Great Achilles."

Achilles knows it was a jab at him, and Ajax smirks at her words, but he could care less. He only wanted to know the well being of Briseis.

"Thank you, priestess."

Achilles did not call her princess, knowing that if any Hellene soldiers knew about the princesses, the princesses would be no more. Cassandra follows Ajax to his tent, and Chryseis goes with Patroclus to his. Achilles goes into his tent to check on Briseis.

"How are you, Briseis?"

"Cassandra did her best. But as Chryseis said, thank the gods that the damage Agamemnon's men did was only trivial."

"I wouldn't say it was trivial. They could have killed you."

"But they didn't. Why did you rescue me?"

Achilles does not answer her. He just looks down at the ground.

"You should eat. But I saw you fight them. You have courage."

"To fight back when people attack me? A dog has that kind of courage."

"I like dogs more than people."

Briseis stares into Achilles' eyes. He's not used to people meeting his gaze. He stares back at the girl, intrigued.

"Why did you choose this life?"

"What life?"

"This. To be a great warrior?"

"I chose nothing. I was born, and this is what I am."

"But you must enjoy it?"

"Does the scorpion feel joy when he stings the beetle? I doubt it. I doubt he feels anything at all."

"But you're not a scorpion. You're a man."

"And you're a woman in love with a god. Where was Apollo when those bastards tried to scar you?"

"Do you enjoy provoking me?"

"Yes."

They watch each other, Achilles smiling, Briseis angry.

"You've dedicated your life to the gods, yes?"

Briseis, glaring at him, does not answer.

"Zeus, God of Thunder. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. You serve them?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

"And Aries, God of War, who blankets his bed with the skins of men he's killed?"

Briseis pauses, caught in the trap.

"All the gods are to be feared and respected."

For a long beat they are silent, staring at each other. The air between them is charged with more than mere contention.

"What do you want here in Troy? You didn't come for the Spartan Queen?"

"I want what all men want. I just want it more."

Achilles takes an apple and unsheathes a dagger. He tosses the apple in his hand. On the third toss he whips his knife-hand up and across and neatly catches four apple quarters. He offers a quarter to Briseis. Stunned, she slowly shakes her head. Achilles shrugs and eats the sliced apple.

"I'll tell you a secret. Something they didn't teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because every moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed."

He stares at her with such intensity she must look away.

"You will never be lovelier than you are right now. And we will never be here again."

Briseis is quiet for a moment. She rubs the ripe purple grapes on the platter beside her.

"I thought you were a dumb brute. I could have forgiven a dumb brute."

It is quiet now. Only a few campfires burn under a full moon.

Achilles lies on his back on a deer skin, sleeping. Briseis kneels beside him. In the candlelight we see the glint of a bronze blade. She holds the knife near his throat. Achilles open his eyes.

"Do it."

Briseis holds the blade against his skin.

"Nothing is easier."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Every mortal dies. Today or fifty years from now, what does it matter in the face of eternity?"

"You'll kill more men if I don't kill you."

"Many of them."

For several seconds she holds the knife to his throat. Achilles grabs her by the shoulders and flips her underneath him. She still holds the knife to his throat. His face is mere inches away from hers. Achilles slowly closes the gap between them, and before Briseis can move away, he kisses her lips. The knife falls from her hands.

"May Apollo forgive me."

He slowly slides the robe off her shoulders. Briseis, eyes closed, lips parted, trembles as Achilles unveils her. For a moment she hesitates but soon hesitation evaporates and she presses her body against his, kissing his throat, his chest, his hands. Their hunger for each other is stronger than gods and nations.