Ransom

by David Malouf

Somewhere in the depths of sleep his spirit had made a crossing and not come back,

Patroclus had simply appeared one afternoon in his father’s court, a boy three years older than himself and nearly a head taller. Thin-jawed, intense, with the hands and feet, already disproportionately large, of the man he was growing into. Achilles had been hunting in one of the ravines beyond the palace. He had killed a hare. Great whoops of triumph preceding him, he had come bounding up the steps into the courtyard to show his father what he had got. Ten years old. Long-haired, wiry, burnt black by the Phthian sun. Still half-wild. His soul not yet settled in him.

Patroclus was to be his adoptive brother, and the world, for Achilles, reassembled itself around a new centre. His true spirit leapt forth and declared itself. It was as if he had all along needed this other before he could become fully himself.

‘Just a little longer, Patroclus,’ he whispers. ‘Can you hear me? Soon, now. Soon.’

Meanwhile, day after day, he rages, shames himself, calls silently on a spirit that does not answer, and sleeps.

‘There were seven of us, seven sons. Only four are still living, of whom your servant here,’ and he swept the bonnet from his head in an elegant flourish, ‘is the youngest.

Priam distrusted charm, especially when it took a physical form. He had learned a hard lesson on this point from his son Paris.

If he really was the celestial joker – messenger, thief, trickster, escort of souls to the underworld – where were they heading? Had they drowned back there, when he had led them so cheerfully to his chosen crossing place? Were they already disembodied souls on their way to the afterlife?

The fact is, he resents Automedon. His presence is both a reminder and a rebuke. When the helmet was struck from Patroclus’ head and he went reeling, hot blood gushing from his mouth, it was this man, Automedon, who ran to lift him up, and holding him close in his arms, watched the light that moved cloudlike across his gaze as the bright world dimmed, and crying out and leaning closer, caught the last breath at his lips. It was Automedon who stood astride the body and, blinded by tears, fought the Trojan jackals off. Him, Achilles tells himself bitterly, not me. In his arms, not mine.