The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

Only my eyes felt like my own, larger and darker than his. He kissed me, catching me up in a soft, opened warmth that breathed sweetness into my throat. Then he took my hand and we went outside to the Myrmidons.

Behind me, he spoke a moment to the Myrmidons, waving a hand over his shoulder at the smoking decks of ships, the black ash that swarmed upwards to the sky, and the roiling mass of bodies that tussled at their hulls. “Bring him back to me,” he told them.

I took a last look at Achilles, standing by the side of the chariot, almost forlorn. I reached for his hand, and he gripped it. “Be careful,” he said. “I will.” There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that. He let go of my hand.

He cannot kill me. He must not. Achilles will not let him live if he does. And Hector must live, always; he must never die, not even when he is old, not even when he is so withered that his bones slide beneath his skin like loose rocks in a stream. He must live, because his life, I think as I scrape backwards over the grass, is the final dam before Achilles’ own blood will flow.

The last thing I think is: Achilles.

They will be happy again. But he cannot feel it. There is a numbness in him. The writhing field is like a gorgon’s face, turning him slowly to stone. The snakes twist and twist before him, gathering into a dark knot at the base of Troy. A king has fallen, or a prince, and they are fighting for the body. Who? He shields his eyes, but no more is revealed. Patroclus will be able to tell him.

He sees the thing in pieces. Men, coming down the beach towards the camp. Odysseus, limping beside the other kings. Menelaus has something in his arms. A grass-stained foot hangs loose. Locks of tousled hair have slipped from the makeshift shroud. The numbness now is merciful. A last few moments of it. Then, the fall.

“And you will fight after that, also?” “If you wish,” Achilles answers. “I do not care. I will be dead soon.” The watching men exchange glances. Agamemnon recovers. “Well. We are settled then.” He turns to go, stops. “I was sorry to hear of Patroclus’ death. He fought bravely today. Did you hear he killed Sarpedon?” Achilles’ eyes lift. They are bloodshot and dead. “I wish he had let you all die.”

“Get away from him,” he says. “I am almost finished. He does not deserve to lie in filth.” “I would not have your hands on him.” Her eyes are sharp with tears. “Do you think you are the only one who loved him?” “Get out. Get out!” “You care more for him in death than in life.” Her voice is bitter with grief. “How could you have let him go? You knew he could not fight!” Achilles screams, and shatters a serving bowl. “Get out!” Briseis does not flinch. “Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was worth ten of you. Ten! And you sent him to his death!” The sound that comes from him is hardly human. “I tried to stop him! I told him not to leave the beach!” “You are the one who made him go.” Briseis steps towards him. “He fought to save you, and your darling reputation. Because he could not bear to see you suffer!” Achilles buries his face in his hands. But she does not relent. “You have never deserved him. I do not know why he ever loved you. You care only for yourself!” Achilles’ gaze lifts to meet hers. She is afraid, but does not draw back. “I hope that Hector kills you.” The breath rasps in his throat. “Do you think I do not hope the same?” he asks.

He collects my ashes himself, though this is a woman’s duty. He puts them in a golden urn, the finest in our camp, and turns to the watching Greeks. “When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

The only man whose spear could have reached her is dead. She is free. The only man but that man’s son. The spear flies from the top of the beach, soundless and precise. Its point hits her back like a stone tossed onto a floating leaf. The gulp of black water swallows her whole. Phoinix sends a man out, a diver, to look for her body, but he does not find it. Maybe her gods are kinder than ours, and she will find rest. I would give my life again to make it so.

Odysseus inclines his head. “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.” He spread his broad hands. “We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?” He smiles. “Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.” “I doubt it.”

I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms. The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.