Eulises
The wine flows freely here, and they are more than content with my tale. I drink and eat nothing, casually switching out my glasses for their empty ones. I don't trust the food and no matter how drunk they become I fail to relax. Dozens of faces before me with names I cannot bring myself to commit to memory. I live with the names too many dead to learn new ones. They are content enough with my tale and laugh in parts where they should not which only soothes me in that the words I speak are not true. I use true names which is a mistake. And I put Circe in it because she is there, along with the dead, though I regret that for then they speak of her and mispronounce her name, even if the she of my tale is not the she that held me for a year.
The people are seemingly friendly. With loose smiles, loose laughter, looser purses, and considerable jewelry loose on their wrists and fingers. All of which gets looser the drunker they get. The girl comes and tries to speak to me. I smile at her for she is small and not the worst thing that has touched me.
The evening grows late and I make remarks about leaving. Of course, I am pretending I've drunk as well even though my mouth is dry from speaking and drinking nothing.
"If you're a soldier, come fence with us," one of the drunk, I'm quite sure, boys says.
"I've been adrift at sea and marooned before that, I'm not of fighting shape," I say, idly, looking around at them in the candle light, "And I am a soldier, the best of the Acheneans." If only by default for few others live.
"Then you're not afraid surely?"
And without my mind's actual consent, my mouth speaks the words, "No man calls me a coward. I'll best two of you at once, come who thinks himself the quickest?"
That sounds like a stupid thing to say, maybe. But my last combat experience is was sparring with the Myodians on the shores. I'd rally my men, who in retrospect didn't benefit from it as I did, find the son of Peleus with whatever lover he'd crawled off with. Gods above that boy. I couldn't stay cross with his idiot smiling face either as he complained and rubbed his eyes like a rotten child, simpering and smiling at me pathetically.
Anyway, I'd rouse my men and his, and early in the mornings make them spar on the shore. Of course, none could take the son of Peleus. The great Achilles, swift footed, lion hearted. It irked me the speed with which he could disarm me, tripping around me in the soft sand, a grin on his face, showing this was all sport and easy as dancing to him.
"You're fast Ithaca," he laugh, twisting and stretching in the early sun, "But nobody is fast as I."
"It's true," his man, Patroclus, lounging in the soft sand to watch us. He'd already bested two of my men who I could see waiting to complain to me about it. All the others had long since ended their games. Only the son of Peleus and I continued, determined to best the other.
"Do you ever get tired?" I asked, standing, he'd again forced me to the ground.
"Not really," he shrugged, innocently, "Come again. With no tricks."
"I can best you without tricks," I said.
"That's false," Patroclus, his mouthful, he was eating by then.
"Did you contract him to contradict me?" I asked, annoyed.
"In a manner. I and Briseis have a wager as to how many lies you tell a day, and what number they come to and we're having him count," Achilles laughed, spinning his sword in his hand.
"I don't need tricks to best you," I said. I knew then I did.
"To be clear, kicking sand in his face is a trick."
"It is not, that's fair," I said. Fainting at the lowly sergeant, his boyfriend, was a trick I'd employed twice to distract him and it had worked.
"It's not, but we'll not count it because I think I'm winning."
"You're not," checking his notes, "Bri's already won, we're over two hundred."
"What reallyâHow----,"
"He doesn't actually stop talking ever as it happens."
"You'll be the death of me, the pair of you," I said.
And I was the death of both of them.
I watched Patroclus go into battle and be destroyed by a god. And I watched Achilles then destroy himself, more than that I helped him destroy himself. That was mercy in the end I think, but I don't even know. I don't know. What was I supposed to do with him? He couldn't live, but it was so hard to watch him die.
"Well?" one of these stupid men, they're holding swords I don't recall walking here. Of course my own weapon is long since lost to the waves. I take one, checking the balance, before glancing at them. My legs are sore and my arms more so. I swam here the night before and now this. Also I've eaten nothing. How is it I'm even standing and why would my tongue agree to this?
"Go on then," I say, raising the sword, lazily, as is my custom. It is heavy in my hands and my wrist hurts from it already.
But when they come towards me, however sluggishly, that all slips away. An inexplicable clashing of swords and shouts of men drums in my ears. My body forgets its own weariness and my steps are as smooth and sure as if I were still on that beach. Watching his feet twist elegantly in the sand. I stole his movements long ago. No man could replicate him in grace or quickness. But his general style suited me. Never afraid to change position smooth as a dancer, and no man trained hard in sword play expects his opponent to simply leap over his blade.
By some miracle, my feet and legs do obey me and are as sure as ever, my arms I know will ache later, but this is staying alive now it doesn't matter. I block and parry, driving them backward and closer together to ease my attacks. They are strong and young, but nothing like quick or clever.
One succeeds in pinning my arm. He's cross this is going on and he's being bested by an old man. He seizes my right arm and twists it, his sword going to my throat while his friend comes in from the other side.
I toss my sword to my left hand, in time to not only delay the other attack but after a brief spar to flip his sword from his hand. Then I twist my right arm free and smack the one who was holding it right in the chin. He falls while I snatch up the other sword in my right hand, spinning them before setting them at the throats, metal piercing flesh.
But not to cut.
Because I am not at war.
I am standing in a hall and these people are not attacking me it was a game nothing more.
It was a game.
I drop both swords, my hands shaking violently. I was seconds from ending them. I feel the heat of the room and everyone's gaze.
The boys leap up, laughing, having no idea how close they were to losing their lives.
"That was fantastic, grandfather," they laugh.
"How ever can you fence with either hand?"
"And hold two swords at once, tell us--- the Prince Achilles the poets say, could wield two weapons."
More people are talking not just those two as they close in on me.
"Tales were he slew enough men to clog a river."
"Didn't you say you fought with him?"
"Where did you learn to fence like that?"
Tears are streaming down my face and I barely have the mind to turn and walk away. It's all I can do to flee the room.
"Is it sharp?" my father was putting a knife in my hands.
"It is, you must never use it on anything living, promise me now. You can cut branches and wood with it, that's all. Keep away from the dogs, and the cats, and any forest creatures you might see. And don't ever play with it around people, you understand?" he said, seriously.
"Yes, sir," I nodded, happy to have a weapon. I was only six.
"I'm trusting you now, to be smart with it. That's a very dangerous thing," he said.
"But people hunt," I said, quietly.
"Real men, don't hurt innocent things, you understand me, boy?"
"Yes, father."
Crashing. Smoke everywhere. I couldn't breath. I couldn't see.
"Peleus---Achillesâ," I fell at his side, even knowing he was dead. Face down, in the dust and soot of the ruined city.
"Not for this world, were you beautiful one?" I asked, quietly, tugging him into my arms, heavy with death. Blood draining from uncountable wounds. But a smile, almost, on his soft face. Soft and smooth like a boy's, the godly rage now drained out of his princely eyes.
"I'm sure he was waiting for you at the shore," I said, stroking the blood from his face with my own---bloody hand. Both of us. Soaked with our own and others blood. Just warriors nothing more. Not even men.
"He's dead?" Diomedes, standing above me, gods knew how long.
"Yes," my voice was cracking. I stroked his hair once more, for his father would never do that again. My own father always fussing with my curls, fascinated by them they came not from my mother or him of course. What did Peleus do with his immortal, crazy child? Did he carry him on his back and teach him quiet things like wood working and how to train the hunting dogs?
"I didn't think anything could kill that bastard," Diomedes said, pausing then at my countenance, "Are you well, Ithaca?"
"What are we even doing here?" still screaming, fires everywhere. I didn't know where my men were, I hadn't for hours.
"Winning a war. The day is won, we're going home," Diomedes said, clapping my back, "Come, I'll carry him. We'll bury him at the shore."
"With Patroclus," I said, numbly surrendering the body to his arms. Achilles' head slumped, and Diomedes moved to cradle it against his chest.
"Yes, we'll take you to him, swift one," Diomedes said, with a small smile, "You told us enough what to do---say what became of that girl he was lying with?"
"I don't knowâI know nothing right now," I said, raising a hand to my bloody face. My hands, shaking, "Where, where are my men?"
"I've no idea where my men are, it's bedlam, Mycenea was whining his brother is dead, remains to be seen if that's true. Come, you don't look well are you sure you're not injured?"
"I am not," I lied.
I lied because I didn't know what was wrong I didn't know that everyone had stopped screaming hours ago I didn't know that every time I closed my eyes I would see it. I didn't know that Achilles' sleeping face, almost in a smile, would haunt me. Haunt me because I wanted to know how he got off being happy in all that chaos. He'd achieved it somehow what did he know? Just something beyond the bounds of this life? I didn't know. And I wanted desperately to follow him there.
"Sir? Are you well," a hand on my shoulder, gently. I am standing in this place and I am alive and there is no blood on my hands. No blood on my hands.
"I've told them to stop talking of war, come and eat with us," it's the one I socked in the jaw.
"You're not hurt?" I ask, quietly, turning my eyes upon him.
"I'm fine! My brother does worse, come, I told them, you're like my father. The soldiers can't abide talk of war. I'm sorry I called you a coward, I didn't mean it, you're clearly the best of the Achaeans."
"I am," a coward.
"There you go, come they enjoyed your tales, Naucisa wants to hear more, I dare say she fancies you," he says, arm around my shoulders to guide me back. I all but knock it off.