Chapter Text
I remember, first, this: two birds, one dead, one dying.
I found them on the forest ground, in that first week at King Peleus' palace, during which I spent most of my time running away from what would become my new life. They were lying, side by side, by the foot of a tree – fallen out of their nest, in all likelihood. They looked young in that hideous way birds do before they become graceful: gangly and unevenly feathered. One of them wasn't moving at all – dead; but the other one twitched its wings every now and then, opened its beak to small sounds of agony – dying. I stopped in my tracks and crouched down beside them. Had I been a seer, I might have looked at their entrails, read the future in their blood and quickly prevented everything that would follow from unfolding; but unfortunately, I was not so wise as that. Vulturous flies were already drawing close circles around us.
“You should kill it,” a voice said, sudden and nearby.
I looked up. A boy had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, twelve years old at most, his face twisted into smug assessment and his arms confidently crossed, as though he were both used to telling strangers what to do, and to said strangers' immediate compliance. I frowned, annoyed that he would speak down to me like that even though I was clearly older than him.
“Why would I do that?” I challenged.
The boy's face scrunched up. “To put it out of its misery, obviously. It clearly wants to die.”
“You can't know what the bird wants,” I pointed out. “Maybe it wants to live. You're just baselessly assuming things.”
His face scrunched up even further; he must have been unused to being questioned by his peers. “It's not baseless. It's common sense.”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you saying you would want to die? If you were in a lot of pain?”
We both knew I had trapped him, then, as saying yes would make him sound weak, but saying no would make him sound childish.
“Well, I'm not a bird,” he eventually said, visibly proud of his answer. Then he prodded the dying bird with his bare foot, right at the juncture of its neck and its broken wing. It gave an agonized screech, and that was the last straw for me.
“What's wrong with you?” I snarled, batting his foot away from the animal. He stepped back so quickly that I barely grazed him. “You're making it worse!”
He looked at me with wide, baffled eyes. “It's just a bird. Why are you so upset?”
“That's none of your business,” I said.
The boy stared at me, eyes growing more curious by the second. “So what are you going to do? If you won't kill it. Nothing?”
I didn't owe him an answer, obviously, but I figured he wouldn't leave without one, and I didn't want to be pestered on my last afternoon of freedom, before the king's fabled son would come home.
I looked at the birds. One dead, one dying.
“I'll keep vigil,” I decided. “Until they're both dead, and no longer without the other.”
The boy tilted his head. Without the smugness, his face looked almost sweet, and some of my annoyance drained away.
“Suit yourself,” he said, eventually, and left.
The boy was you, of course, though I only learned that later in the evening, when your father formally welcomed you back during the evening feast in the great hall. You had been off training with some mythical creature or other, learning all sorts of mystical fighting arts us regular mortals could only dream of (though, as I would have ample opportunity to learn, not the art of being patient when things did not go your way). You caught my eye across the hall and looked delighted, which annoyed me again, thinking you would take the chance to torment me, now that I knew your station and couldn't talk back to you.
That is not what happened. I spent a few days successfully avoiding the boy – you – Achilleus – while dutifully following the training regimen with the other young men at the palace: various noblemen's sons, mostly, keen on both the opportunity to be educated in the house of the great King Peleus himself, and to ingratiate themselves to his son. Now that Achilleus was back, Peleus kept a closer eye on us all, carefully observing – picking out future leaders of his army, no doubt. I kept my head down. I had no interest in leadership, and even if I did, I could not imagine a king's disowned second son rising through the ranks in any significant way, no matter how good of a friend that king was.
That is, until Achilleus cornered me one day when I was the last one left on the practice field, appearing as quietly and abruptly as he had in the forest.
“You,” he said. “Patroclos, right? Menoitios' son. I've been looking for you.”
I cast my eyes down, as I had been told to do in the presence of royalty, now that I was no longer truly part of it.
“I'm at your service, your Highness,” I said, hoping that I sounded convincing.
Achilleus crossed his arms. “There has been an argument between two of your peers, Polydeikes and Epeigeus. Polydeikes claims that Epeigeus attacked him unprovoked during practice yesterday, slicing into his arm with a practice spear, but Epeigeus says Polydeikes was the one to attack first, and he only acted in self-defense. You will tell me what really happened.”
A simple enough request, and yet I didn't want to talk about my peers behind their back, and to the prince no less.
“I don't know that my judgment of the situation would be better than yours, your Highness,” I deflected.
“Stop talking like that.”
I looked up at his face, confused; it had started to scrunch up like it had in the forest. “I'm sorry if I've offended you – ”
It was the wrong thing to say. His face twisted even further, and he stomped his foot in anger. It looked ridiculous, more than anything. “You're offending me right now! You spoke to me honestly when you didn't know who I was, and yet now it's all 'your Highness' this, 'your Highness' that, like the rest of them.” And then, childishly, he added, “I should have known better than to expect anything other than cowardice from someone like you.”
I don't know what exactly he meant by that – someone who was cast out of his kingdom for manslaughter? Someone who wouldn't kill a dying bird? – but it made me angry. He wanted honesty; he would have it.
“I'm not going to tell on either of my peers,” I said, viciously, “just so you can run to the king like a lapdog and have the one with the less influential parents thrown out of the palace in disgrace.”
After that remark, of course, I was the one who should have been thrown out; and yet a wide smile erupted across the boys' face.
“That's better!” he exclaimed, eyes sparkling with the same delight as when he spotted me in the great hall after out sylvan encounter. “And I'm no lapdog, I'll have you know, nor am I going to run to the king. If I'm going to command an army one day, I need to learn to solve these kinds of scuffles on my own.”
I was so surprised by this good-natured response that it only startled me into more boldness. (It was, I would much later realize, only the beginning of my addiction to talking back to you.) “On your own, you say, and yet you come to me and demand I help you, with no politeness or courtesy at all?”
The smile stretched even wider. “Fine. Son of Menoitios, I require your counsel. You have my word that I won't go to my father, but settle the dispute myself. Will you be so kind and tell me what happened, please?”
There was the beginning of mockery in his voice, but it was amused, not malicious, and the request was sincere enough to spur me into an equally honest answer.
“Epeigeus struck first, but it wasn't unprovoked. Polydeikes had spent much of the morning riling him up and mocking the members of his family, his sister in particular, who was born with a disfigurement and was therefore unlikely to marry. He said they should have killed her, as a child.”
The smile vanished from Achilleus' face; he became serious, and looked much older. Suddenly, his earlier claim of wanting to command an army one day was not at all difficult to imagine. “Hephaistos is disfigured and walks with a limp, and yet he is a venerated god with unparalleled skill. Polydeikes' remark is an offense to him, and a cruel thing to say about someone's sister besides, and requires satisfaction. But does it justify a jab with a practice spear? What do you think?”
I don't remember what I replied, nor how the dispute was ultimately settled. But I remember your keen eyes when you listened to my answer, and the way you would, from that day forward, take me aside every now and then and ask my opinion on this matter or that, sometimes trivial, sometimes not. At first I thought it was the novelty of having someone far beneath your station fearlessly speak their mind to you, and that you would soon grow tired of your new toy, but that wasn't the case. I remember the envious eyes that started following me around, too, once the other boys in my group caught wind of your favoritism, and I had half a mind to tell you to stop lest I find myself with a jealous sword lodged in my back after practice.
I didn't, though. I found that for all of your occasional brashness and entitlement, I did not grow tired of your attention, either.
One such time, we were, again, on the empty practice field after everyone else had left – Achilleus was instructed separately from us, for everyone said his skill was vastly superior, but he would sometimes stop by to watch us fight, or to speak to me afterwards, as he did now. He asked something idle first – wanted to know who was stronger: a lion or a boar, and we argued for a while (would it make a difference if the lion ate the boar's children? If the boar injured the lion's friend?), until we grew bored with it.
Then, after a brief silence, he eventually said, “Is it true that you killed someone? My father said that's why you're here.”
I was startled by the sharp turn of the conversation, as it was not something I liked to think about. I tried to deflect. “If your father said it, it must be true. Why would he lie to you?”
Achilleus snorted out some air through his nose. “He lies to me all the time, as a test to see if I catch it. A good leader should not be duped by tricks, and some of the other kings are particularly tricky. I'd like to hear it from you.”
It was a very polite request, by his standards, and so I found that I had no reason not to tell him. “It's true. I killed a boy.”
Achilleus nodded. “He must have attacked you, or gravely insulted you.”
I swallowed; this was the more difficult part to admit, but I did not want to leave him with a half-truth. “He didn't. We were friends, actually – we were playing dice. He was losing; he got angry; I got angry; we tussled, not thinking much about it; he hit his head on a rock. It was an accident.”
The prince looked surprised at that admission. “You were banished for an accident?”
“He was the son of influential nobles, and they would have taken revenge if I had stayed. I have an older brother, who is first in line to the throne and more skilled with the sword than I am besides, so it was no great loss for my parents to send me away.”
My answer didn't seem to satisfy him. “Still. It was through no fault of your own. If anything, he shouldn't have been a sore loser.”
This irritated me – him speaking like he knew the story better than me, like he knew better what punishment I deserved than I did.
“I left him there,” I snapped. “After he was hurt, he was still alive, though the rocks around him were already red with blood. I left to get help, and when I came back, he was dead. He died because of an accident, but he died alone because of me. I can't think of a worse crime.”
Achilleus looked at me keenly, and at once I knew that he was thinking about the birds in the forest, and I was embarrassed that he should look through me so easily. But he didn't mock me for it.
“You tried to save his life,” he insisted. “You did everything you could.”
I was glad he thought so, even though I felt that he still didn't understand. After a moment of silence, my own curiosity got the better of me. He was only twelve, but he was rumored to be the best fighter in a generation, and that his name would be spoken in the same breath as that of other heroes. “Have you killed anyone?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I'm going to, though, when I have a good reason.”
That got me more curious. “What's a good reason to kill someone?”
He considered it for a moment. “War. Retribution. Revenge, I think.”
“Many common people die in wars,” I pointed out, just to be contrarian.
He rolled his eyes. “I'm not killing an unarmed man, obviously, or one who is begging for his life. There's no glory in that.”
“And glory is what matters?”
“But of course,” he said, smiling and with all the casual surety of a twelve-year-old hero. “What else would there be?”
A few months into my stay, the king said to me, “Son of Menoitios. Your parents are coming to visit.”
It was not a grand affair. They arrived with a small following, stayed for the night and left again the next morning. My father wanted to know if I had made any progress with the sword and the shield and the spear, and watched one of our practice lessons; my mother wanted to know if I was behaving well, and watched over me at the evening meal. They said their goodbyes and turned their back on Phthia, smiling and satisfied.
I went to the olive tree yard, afterwards, as far as I could go without leaving the palace grounds, and sat on the grass, and cried.
It wasn't long before Achilleus found me. He had developed a real talent for finding me, by then. He crouched down on the grass next to me, ever the busybody. “Patroclos? What's wrong? Why are you out here crying, all by yourself?”
Immediately I felt ashamed of my weakness. I wanted him to leave, and would have told him so, but the thought of being alone again made me cry even more, and made me feel even more ashamed.
“I'm not telling you,” I said, childishly. I was nearing my fifteenth year, and yet in so many ways I was a child, still. “You'll only make fun of me.”
He frowned, looking genuinely hurt. “Why would you think that? Have I not, so far, treated your words and thoughts with due consideration?”
I realized, then, that he had, and that I was being unfair. “You have.”
“Then speak, and don't hide anything, so that we may both know it.”
I swallowed, wiping at my eyes, trying to find an answer that wouldn't make me sound weak, and failing.
“I miss my family,” I said, eventually. “I want to go home.”
It was an embarrassing admission to make to a boy two years younger than me, who was, I had heard, regularly away from home for months at a time and had seen far more of the world than I had. And yet Achilleus kept his word. He did not laugh, but sat for a moment, thinking what to say, while I further tried to dry my tears.
“Of course you do,” he finally said, jumping to his feet, then dragging me along with him before I could protest. “You've been here for months, yet you know nothing about this place. Has anyone even bothered to explain anything about Phthia? How this beautiful country of ours came to be? I bet nobody has. But I will, and you'll see that it will feel like home in no time.”
And he steered us back towards the palace until we were in his rooms, where, after making all of the servants leave, he sat on his cushions, motioning me to sit as well, and took a beautifully carved lyre from its stand. And then he sang.
I was determined, on principle, to wallow in my sadness some more. I could not. He presented me with the most ridiculous, unbelievable songs about the creation of his country, one more vividly absurd than the other, until I was doubled over in laughter.
“You're making these up on the spot,” I said in between breaths.
“You dare accuse the prince of lying?” he said, and grinned, and kept singing, and I forgot all about my sorrow.
That – and I need you to know this, Achilleus, for it is, in all likelihood, not what the world at large will remember you for – but that is how I think of you, always. You looked at my sadness and you made me laugh. You were kind to me. You were caring.
The next day, Achilleus asked me to sit at the table with him and his father at dinner. It embarrassed me, at first, and I told him he didn't need to coddle me like that just because he'd seen me sad once.
“What are you talking about? It's not for your benefit,” he said, dismissive. “You'll be there to entertain me. I swear, my father can be so boring sometimes. Besides,” he added with a smug smile, “I already asked him, and he says it's alright.”
He had tricked me into accepting his invitation without embarrassment: after all, if I refused now, it would be an insult to the king.
And indeed, the king accepted my presence easily enough, even though he was clearly curious as to his son's choice of companion. I could feel his sharp wrinkled eyes linger on me sometimes, considering, assessing. To this day I don't know what he truly thought of me, how far ahead he was thinking. He was nice enough to me, and to his son, and that, I thought then, was what mattered.
It was around that time that I first saw Achilleus' mother. I had heard she was a goddess of the sea, living at the bottom of the ocean with her old father, and did not know what that meant until she appeared in the great hall during dinner once, her long hair dark and wet, her feet glistening with silver scales, trailing a thick white fog behind her that smelled of salt. I put my hand to it while no one was looking, and my skin came away damp as though I had dipped it into water.
Achilleus' face broke into a wide smile when he saw her, and they talked free of care while everyone else was silent with awe, even though, I later learned, it was not a particularly rare occurrence for her to appear like this. I remember wondering, then, why she barely took notice of her husband, left with hardly a glance at him, but I stopped wondering right away. After all, why would I presume to understand the thoughts of the gods?
Piety was always of the utmost importance to you: you had been made to understand that you were fated to be a hero, but that it would not happen without the gods' approval, and besides your mother was one of them, and you did not want to disgrace her. You said prayers and gave offerings in front of the entire palace, all with a confident humility that you never displayed otherwise. You kept a chalice in your room that you only used for offerings to Zeus, and only for the most important prayers to him; but the goddess you prayed to most often, of course, was always Pallas Athenaia.
“She appears to me sometimes,” you once told me in confidence. I did not question this as I questioned some of your other stories; gods were known to show themselves to mortals, as your mother frequently did. “I think she favors me.”
It sounded like a blessing, at the time: surely, if you were favored by a god, they would protect you from harm. I have grown wiser, since then. A god may love you, and they may protect you; do not assume that therefore, they will save you.
It wasn't long before Achilleus was off to another one of his mysterious training journeys, his first one since we had become something like friends. I found myself missing his company: his easy smiles, his teasing, his lyre-playing; his careful consideration, his seriousness; even his brashness and his petulance. The palace felt emptier without him.
I realized, quickly, that my peers were not quite of the same opinion.
“Finally some freedom,” one of the boys said after practice, “nobody watching over our shoulder all the time. I swear the king and the guards are so much more strict when the prince is around!”
“Don't talk too loudly,” another boy said, with a sideways glance at me. “He has a watchdog right here, after all. Doesn't he, son of Menoitios?”
It was not too difficult to ignore him, as I knew that he spoke out of jealousy, and that I had done nothing wrong.
What was difficult to ignore was their treatment of Phylacos.
Phylacos was not the youngest of our group, yet the smallest and least skilled with weaponry. His father was rumored to pay a lot of money for his son's training, more than the other parents for their children, and he ended up getting hurt during practice quite often. The other boys mocked him for it, usually with words, and got much more vicious with it while Achilleus was gone.
I remember one such occasion where we were just finishing up – putting away our practice weapons – when Phylacos tripped and fell to the ground, scratching his arm open on a wooden but sharpened spearhead. Some of the boys laughed at him as usual, and I paid it no mind at first, but grew worried when I saw a circle form around him. I made my way over and saw Polydeikes, the trouble-maker, kick the boy in his ribcage while he was down. He was not being forceful, but the gesture of humiliation was enough.
“Who taught you your manners?” I said, getting angry. “Kicking a man while he's down, and through no fault of his own?”
Polydeikes sneered at me. “A man? He is the weakest among us, and may as well be walking with no legs with how often he trips over them. He's not a man, he's a liability. He shouldn't even be here; I'm doing us a favor, weeding out the weak. I'll treat him how I want.”
He made to kick Phylacos again, but I blocked his way. “Don't presume to know who is weak,” I said, recalling Achilleus' words from a while ago. “Hephaistos walks with a limp, and yet he is a venerated god with unparalleled skill. Your remark is an offense to him, and to the king, for he gets to decide who is worthy of training.”
With that, I helped Phylacos up from where he was sprawled on the ground and took him to the infirmary before my anger could get the better of me. I hated this kind of short-sightedness; there was so much more to strength than just fighting. For what was a warrior without a blacksmith to make and mend his armor? Without a farmer and a cook to feed him, a healer to bandage his wounds, a family or friends to come home to?
Then I remembered how much Achilleus cared about glory. I did not know if he would look down on those who did not seek it; I wondered if that would be a point of disagreement between us. I wondered if he would agree with my earlier words, or with Polydeikes'.
I was going to leave Phylacos in the infirmary, but he held me back. “Patroclos. Thank you for standing up for me, and for what you said about the god Hephaistos.”
“It was nothing,” I said. “Polydeikes likes to cause trouble and speak out of turn.”
“But he wasn't wrong,” Phylacos said. “I am weak. I have no place on the battlefield.”
“Then you will find a place somewhere else,” I assured him.
As I left, I thought about what I had just said. I was not the strongest of the group, either, not by far. Was my place the battlefield? Was it somewhere else? I had already been exiled once from what I thought was my rightful place – would I ever find another?
I wondered about these questions for a long time that day, and for much of the following weeks. But then Achilleus came back, and they did not weigh on my mind so much.
You came back many times, from many different expeditions, always with a head full of new tales to spin into songs, which you then made me listen to, though I don't know if I believed even half of them. Your returns always made me anxious, far more than your departures. I was not worried you would come back hurt – I had come to believe everyone who said what a great fighter you were, and the vulnerability of your body was not something that crossed my mind much, back then – but the more I came to know you, the more I worried you would come back different. I worried that I would feel the time of your absence in a gesture, a speech pattern, a twist in your face that was unfamiliar to me – that you, Achilleus, would be unfamiliar to me. I never much needled you with questions for that very reason, for fear of uncovering a way in which you had changed. I grew covetous of you, every part of you.
I should speak of the serving girls. It was a big topic amongst the group of young men: marriage was still far from everyone's minds, and every day, someone boasted of having caught the eye of a serving girl, of having seen her blush at him and look away quickly, just waiting to be bedded. I felt somewhat excluded, and envious – even though I did not think of myself as particularly ugly and was well into my fifteenth year by then, I had never noticed a serving girl blush at me, or look away, or straighten her skirts, or swipe back her hair, or what other secret signals there were. I tried looking a little more closely and still came up with nothing.
“They're so easy though,” said Oileus one afternoon, without me having asked. “For example, that one girl, Aglaia – you know the one, she always carries the laundry – she's been making eyes at me for a while now.” He grinned. “I might just have her tonight.”
I rolled my eyes and forgot about it until later in the evening, when I was walking around the palace grounds alone. Achilleus was away on another one of his journeys, or else I would have been with him: we often walked together in the evenings. I made my way past a row of dense hedges when a dark figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Aglaia.
“Is it you, Patroclos, son of Menoitios?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, surprised to see her.
“Good.” She looked around – to see if we were alone, I quickly understood – and walked right into my arms, pressing her lips to mine.
“What are you doing?” I said once she drew back – not a smart question, for I knew what she was doing, but not why.
“Please have me,” she said.
Her straightforwardness startled me. “I have not once looked at you.” Or had I? She was beautiful, that much I could see even in the low light of the evening. Her face crumpled a little, as though she was losing her determination by the second.
“I know,” she sighed. “It's Oileus who has been looking at me, but he scares me. I have only heard bad things about him. You – I heard how you defended the weakest of your peers from the others. You're fearless, and the prince likes you. If Oileus thought you wanted me, he would leave me alone, and it wouldn't be so bad.”
Her words gave me pause. I had heard the boys boast about their conquests and never much thought about what it would be like for the girls. I knew that it was not a woman's place to choose a man, but the serving girls had no mother or father or brother who might protect them from a bad match, one who would treat them cruelly or carelessly. It seemed, then, that Aglaia had decided to put me in that role instead. I found myself appreciating the cleverness of her plan, for she was right: Oileus wanted no quarrel with me, and even if he did, Achilleus' influence shielded me from it.
“You might have just told me that right away,” I pointed out.
She looked at me hopefully. “So you'll play along?”
“If it helps you.”
Her fingers were still bunched in the front of my tunic, and she did not take them away. “I don't expect you to do it for free, you know. I meant what I said, and you've already shown your kindness. You can have me, if you'd like.”
It struck me, then, that she was older than me, and really very beautiful, and that I knew little. “I don't need payment,” I still said, for I did not want her to think that she would have to barter for my help.
“And I don't need a debt,” she replied, and I understood that perhaps, she preferred to.
She kissed me again, more confidently this time, and steered us behind the hedges.
“I have never had a girl,” I said at some point; she had called me kind, and now I was worried to disappoint her.
“Only boys?” she said with a teasing smile.
I swallowed. “No,” I managed, “nobody.”
It was no problem, in the end; she was very sweet and patient, and as we lay together in the grass, I thought I might like to do it again, some time. I knew I could ask her, make her protection from Oileus conditional on it, but that would defeat the purpose of her plan and waste her efforts, and I did not want that. We parted with a kiss, and I resolved to be grateful for the one night and put her out of my mind.
The next time I saw Oileus, I made sure to mention to him that I had my eye on her. He looked put out by that, and I was sure he would not bother her. And yet a few days later, he was already talking of a different girl.
“Oh, that's old news,” he said, when I asked what had happened to his desire for Aglaia. “Don't you see? They're all making eyes.”
His remark puzzled me, and I looked yet more closely, and finally understood that I had it right the very first time: none of the girls were doing anything in particular. It was the boys who stared on, hungry.
“You've been very popular with the serving girls lately,” Achilleus observed, shortly after his return. We were sitting in the shade of the olive trees; practice had ended early, for it was too hot to continue, and my group was not skilled enough to be worth pushing to our limits yet. He was just done telling me a grand tale about the centaur who taught him in the mountains, which I told him I didn't believe until I saw the horse-man myself, which made him shove me in the grass with mock indignation. He almost made me fall over on the day of his return as well, when he ran at me and, with easy force, threw his arms around me in greeting. He was well past thirteen now and had grown since his departure, in height, in strength and in confidence (which I had not thought possible). Surreptitiously, I tried to catalogue the changes, but they were too subtle, and I too greedy. Covetous, even then.
“I suppose,” I said, non-committal, dusting myself off.
There had been a few serving girls, after Aglaia, who came to me with very similar designs to hers; she must have told them that I had agreed to help her. I did not mind the encounters, nor did I think I minded the odd reputation it had gained me, but now that Achilleus had noticed, I found that I did mind. We had not talked about girls before, and I liked that we didn't. I liked that we were enough to ourselves.
He looked at me with his keen eyes and the beginning of a frown. “You should be more careful. The other boys will think you're showing off.”
I frowned back. “Why should I care what they think?”
“They will get jealous of you, and you will be a target for them.”
“They're already jealous of me,” I pointed out. “They all think I'm your favorite.”
“All the more reason to be careful then. It will reflect badly on me if you suddenly have fifty sons running around.”
I flinched, hurt by the implication that I would ever make him look bad. “Not fifty!”
He glared at me and leaned closer. “How many then?”
I didn't understand why he was like this. “That's none of your business!”
We looked at each other angrily for a moment. There was color on his face and bright sparks of wrath in his eyes, and for a moment, I thought he might shove me again. But in an instant, the fight went out of him, and his head dropped heavily against my shoulder.
“Achilleus?” I prompted, when he did not speak.
“Do what you want,” he mumbled into the fabric of my tunic. Then he added, “I'm tired. Wake me when it's time for dinner. Don't get married in the meantime.”
All the tension faded from my bones. “What a child you are,” I said, and savored the familiar weight of his head on my shoulder.
I should have seen it for what it was, then: your first display of jealousy. You were jealous over me back then, in a way I never was over you. It would have been ludicrous – everybody wanted you, everybody needed you, and I did not even dream of keeping you all to myself. I was covetous, and took anything I could get; you were jealous and wanted everything at once. And I wish I could see that boy of thirteen now that you were, and hold him, and tell him: you can have it. You can have everything.
I did not think anything would change after our half-hearted argument, but it did: where we had enjoyed each other's frequent company before, we now spent every waking moment together. I might say that you made me spend every waking moment with you, but I was the most eager accomplice imaginable. The moments that were not waking, we also spent together more often than not, falling asleep on the soft furs in your room after an evening of lyre and laughter, or on the prickly grass under the stars after chasing each other around all night. (You always slowed your pace when running from me, so I would not feel too bad.) I had no time nor thought for anyone else, which I now suspect was your design all along; but at the time, I was so thrilled about it that I did not yet quite see through you.
You had other obligations still, of course. You wheedled your father into allowing me to watch your private fighting lessons, scoffing at the idea that your skill level must be kept secret from me lest I pass information along to an enemy of the kingdom. I scoffed, too: I was far too greedy to tell anyone else a single thing about you. Watching you fight was glorious, not for your strength or speed but for the exhilaration on your face, and I rested easy having seen proof that you would not be bested in battle anytime soon.
But even amongst all of the fun we had, there was something that unsettled me.
“What are you going to do, once you're the greatest warrior in the world?” I asked him one day, after his lesson, when his teacher had already left and I helped him put away the weapons. “Are you going to conquer other kingdoms? Challenge magical beasts?”
I meant it as an idle question, an opportunity to daydream about his future and see if I could, somehow, insinuate myself in it. But he paused in his movements and hesitated, looking around to see if we were really alone.
“I will tell you a secret,” he said, looking at me with his sparkling eyes. I leaned closer.
“What is it?”
A broad smile spread all across his face. “I'm going to die young.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“It was a prophecy told to my mother. I would earn lots of glory in battle, and fight side by side with many other great heroes and kill even greater ones, and then I would die. Well,” he amended, “either that, or I would live a long life in obscurity, with no glory at all. But who wants that?”
I did not know what to say.
“Is that why you're away to train so often?” I asked, for lack of something else.
“Exactly,” he confirmed, glad that I was catching on. “You see, already, the water is running through the clepsydra.”
His mother appeared for his fourteenth birthday feast, turning the great hall into a misty cavern and sending sparkling drops of water through the air. He enjoyed the show immensely, and even I could not be scared of her when she made her silver-footed arrival look so beautiful. That is, at least, until he pointed me out to her.
“Mother,” he said, “this is Patroclos, son of Menoitios, the dearest of my companions.”
The phrasing was half in jest, as I was his only true companion and therefore dearest by default, but hearing it still sent a thrill through me. So did his mother's stare on me a moment later, though of a very different nature. She considered me, much like her husband often did, with her eyes round and fathomless instead of light and wrinkly, but just as assessing.
The mist thickened around us, suddenly, and I knew that whatever she would tell me next, nobody else would hear.
“I did not want this union,” she said, startling me. Her voice rushed through my ears like sea foam. “Being tied to a mortal, bearing his child – disgraceful, humiliating. But my son is the best amongst mortals, and he will bring me the glory I am owed.” She blinked her round eyes, a slow, kind, toothy smile stretching across her face. “And you will help him.”
It was not a question, yet she expected a reply, and it was obvious which one.
“Yes,” I said, because I would be a fool to contradict a goddess, “of course. I promise.”
I did not know what she meant, then, how I was going to help you on your path to glory; and had I, Achilleus, I swear I would have spat in her face and taken the punishment just to spare you so much pain later down the line. As it was, I suspected nothing; and still in my heart, I made a different oath.
I could not put it into words then, but that was the moment I felt it for the first time, keenly, there in the goddess' cold sea mist: how much of a means to an end you were. How everything in your life pointed you towards the battlefield, towards the pursuit of strength and glory and certain death, and how neither your mother nor your father nor yourself would spare a thought for the person who would be lost through all of it, the person who cared for his people and got angry at the slightest provocation and did his best to become a fair leader and made me laugh when I was sad. And I swore then, to me and to you, that I would do it. I would be there each step of the way and remind you who of you are, instead of who you would be. I would never think about what I could gain from you, what end I might use you for. I would not falter; I would not leave you; I would be right there with you. Your name would be spoken in the same breath as that of other heroes, but I would do everything in my power so that the name Patroclos would not be spoken at all, unless it was preceded by the words: Achilleus and.
So I swore in my heart. And then your mother drew away from me, and the mist lifted a little, and you were next to me, smiling at something your father said, and I knew what my place in your story would be.
Or so I thought, at least; you know, of course, which pieces are missing.
One of them fell into place not long after. You had been away on yet another training journey: a mercifully short one, only two weeks' worth of absence, and yet when you returned I was more anxious than ever. I had grown used to your constant presence, and every second away from you seemed like an irretrievable loss.
Truly, I do not know why it took me so long to see.
You skipped up the palace steps a few at a time, right towards me, leaving everyone else far behind you. Each movement made the fabric of your tunic shift like quicksilver. Golden sunlight tangled in your hair.
“Patroclos!” you said, and gripped my arms and smiled at me just like you had countless times before, and that was when I realized that I wanted you.
I did not say anything, evidently. I had just sworn to myself that I would never think about what I could gain from you, and Achilleus, I stood so much to gain.
I was getting ready with the rest of my group for practice when a sudden hush fell over all of us: the king himself had stepped out onto the field.
“There has been word of bandits terrorizing the villages on Phthia's borders,” he said with no preamble. “I will send a small group of men to deal with the problem. Leadership of this group will be left to Eurytos, who has served me for a long time and has much experience. But I want a few of you to join their number.” He looked across the group. “Epeigeus, son of Agaclees. Polydeikes, son of Agapenor. Patroclos, son of Menoitios. This is the chance to prove yourself.”
His eyes caught onto mine, and at once I knew he had chosen me because he wanted to see if I was worthy of being his son's companion, or if I would only weigh him down. I looked back steadily; I would not fail.
He smiled. “Do your best. Most important of all, come back alive. I expect the matter to be solved within the week.”
I knew that Achilleus was gone off training once more, but he was meant to return in a few days. This would be the first time where he would come back, and I would be gone instead. The idea didn't sit well with me, yet I was not a wife waiting for her husband to return from war, no matter how much sympathy I have recently developed for that position (come home, come home, come home). So I ignored Epeigeus and Polydeikes glaring daggers at each other, went to Eurytos and followed his instructions on what to pack, and before the sun was at its highest point, we were on our way.
I do not remember much of the bandits; they do not matter. None of it matters, save for that which came afterwards. I remember that it took a while to find them; I remember fearing for my life, for the first time, but being fortified by the hopeful looks on the villagers' faces.
I remember, crucially, Polydeikes receiving an arrow into his thigh while we were chasing after two of the bandits. I knew about medicine only what we were taught during our training, but from the amount of blood that poured out, even I could see that something important had been hit, and the wound might well be fatal. I remember barely hesitating before stopping in my tracks and doubling back to him, ignoring the fleeing criminals.
“They're getting away,” Polydeikes said weakly, already pale from blood loss.
“So are you,” I said, tying off his leg so that he would not bleed to death and casting around for yarrow to help the wound close over.
I remember, after a brief stay in the village until Polydeikes was no longer at imminent risk of dying, walking back into the palace and telling the king right away that two of the bandits had escaped because of me, as I did not want Eurytos to be chastised for my mistake. I remember Eurytos telling the king to disregard my self-accusation, that I had shown exceptional judgment, and that Polydeikes was alive only because of me. I remember Polydeikes corroborating this, while glancing at me with uncharacteristic gratitude. I remember the king smiling, pleased, maybe even a little impressed.
I remember you, Achilleus, standing beside your father, furious.
As soon as the king was done congratulating us on our success and dismissed us to talk to Eurytos some more, Achilleus grabbed my arm and dragged me over to his own private practice field, away from all eyes. I was tired to the bone, exhausted from our journey and from worrying whether Polydeikes would live even though I did not even like him much, and I had only just had a chance to take off my armor. Yet Achilleus pulled me along with his divine strength, right into the middle of the field, and shoved a sword into my hand.
“Defend yourself,” he snapped.
Then he took a sword of his own, and attacked me.
It was only sheer habit that allowed me to block his first blow. “What is wrong with you?” I yelled, as soon as I had my senses back.
“I'm doing you a favor,” Achilleus snarled, anger twisting his face, sword raining down on mine in blows that became increasingly difficult, though not yet impossible, to parry. “You need more training, much more. You're a terrible fighter. They were just some bandits! And you let two of them escape, and one of your comrades was gravely wounded besides. Just a few feet off, and the arrow that hit Polydeikes would have hit you!”
“You're mad!” I snarled back, but then his blade slid off of mine and grazed my arm, slicing through the skin. I hissed, more from surprise than pain: the cut was shallow, and very little blood trickled out. After barely a moment of assessing the wound, I looked back to Achilleus.
All of the fury had left his face at once. His eyes were wide, startled, and more terrified than I had ever thought they could be. His sword lay by his feet in the dust; he must have dropped it, right after grazing me.
“I – I – ” he stammered. I let my sword fall to the ground, as well, and he rushed to me, tearing a strip of cloth off his tunic, far too well-made to be treated with such carelessness.
“It's only shallow,” I said, trying to reassure him, but he ignored my words and started bandaging my arm.
Honesty demands I point out here that you were not great at bandaging wounds, Achilleus, and would never grow much better at it either, but this was exceptionally terrible work even for you. Your hands were shaking. I had never known your hands to shake.
It's that, I think, which finally made me understand what you were doing. What you were trying to tell me.
I covered your shaking hands with my steady one, pressed them to the bloodied skin of my arm.
“Achilleus,” I said, and you heard me, and you ran one of your still-shaking hands into my hair and kissed me.
In truth, when I imagined this moment – and I did imagine it – I thought you might be brash, forceful even, like a forest fire, like an overflowing river tearing down cities in its wake. But by the gods, you were so tender. You kissed me on the mouth, and then all over my face, and you sighed when I touched you, and you pressed your face into my shoulder. I made short work of clothes, while you steered us somewhere we would not be seen by anyone – we have always been good collaborators, you and I, and this was no different – and we touched each other some more, until there was nothing left untouched.
Eventually, one of your hands found its way to my temple, your thumb resting at the corner of my eye. I remember that – the past days' and hours' exhaustion was catching up to me quickly, but you wanted my eyes open for what you had to say.
“Do not leave me again,” you said. “Do not follow anyone but me. Do not put yourself in danger without me. Will you swear this?”
A question I considered trivial, then. I had already sworn so many silent oaths to you. What was one more, out loud?
“I swear it,” I said, and meant it, and did not know that I would fail to keep my word.