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“You are destroying yourself. You will not be loved for this, you will be hated, and cursed. Please, if you—” “Patroclus.” The word was sharp, as he had never spoken it. His eyes bore down on me, his voice like the judge’s sentence. “I will not do this. Do not ask again.”
I knelt, and pressed his hands to my face. My cheeks flowed with tears unending, like water over dark rock. “For me then,” I said. “Save them for me. I know what I am asking of you. But I ask it. For me.”
“Anything else,” he said. “Anything. But not this. I cannot.” I looked at the stone of his beautiful face, and despaired. “If you love me—” “No!” His face was stiff with tension. “I cannot!
Send me in your place. Put me in your armor,
He held up his hand. “Swear to me,” he said. “Swear to me that if you go, you will not fight them. You will stay with Automedon in the chariot and let the Myrmidons go in front of you.”
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.
“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.
The last thing I think is: Achilles.
He snatches for his sword to slash his throat. It is only when his hand comes up empty that he remembers: he gave the sword to me. Then Antilochus is seizing his wrists, and the men are all talking. All he can see is the bloodstained cloth. With a roar he throws Antilochus from him, knocks down Menelaus. He falls on the body. The knowledge rushes up in him, choking off breath. A scream comes, tearing its way out. And then another, and another. He seizes his hair in his hands and yanks it from his head. Golden strands fall onto the bloody corpse. Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over
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ACHILLES WEEPS. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name. I see his face as if through water, as a fish sees the sun. His tears fall, but I cannot wipe them away. This is my element now, the half-life of the unburied spirit.
“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!”
“I tried to stop him! I told him not to leave the beach!”
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 WEEPS as he lifts me onto our bed. My corpse sags; it is warm in the tent, and the smell will come soon. He does not seem to care. He holds me all night long, pressing my cold hands to his mouth. At dawn, his mother returns with a shield and sword and breastplate, newly minted from still-warm bronze. She watches him arm and does not try to speak to him.
Achilles. I cannot bear to see you grieving. His limbs twitch and shudder. Give us both peace. Burn me and bury me. I will wait for you among the shades. I will— But already he is waking. “Patroclus! Wait! I am here!” He shakes the body beside him. When I do not answer, he weeps again.
His chest heaves. “Then who is it, Mother? Am I not famous enough? I killed Hector. And who else? Send them before me. I will kill them all!”
“Philtatos,” Achilles says, sharply. Most beloved.“Best of men, and slaughtered by your son.”
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.”
SERVANT GIRLS ARE SENT to collect the ashes; they carry them to the golden urn where I rest. Will I feel his ashes as they fall against mine? I think of the snowflakes on Pelion, cold on our red cheeks. The yearning for him is like hunger, hollowing me. Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. His ashes settle among mine, and I feel nothing.
“On the hill,” Odysseus says. Menelaus nods. “A fitting place for them.” “Them?” There is a slight pause. “Your father and his companion. Patroclus.”
“It was your father’s wish, Prince Neoptolemus, that their ashes be placed together. We cannot bury one without the other.”
Do not let it be so. Do not leave me here without him.
She hesitates. “My lord, have you heard of the man who is buried with your father?” His face goes flat. “Of course I have not heard of him. He is no one.” “Yet your father loved him well, and honored him. He would be well pleased to know they were buried together. He had no need of me.”
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.
I haunt their dreams. Do not leave, I beg them. Not until you have given me peace. But if anyone hears, they do not answer.
When you came to him for help, I answered you. Will you not answer me now? You know what he was to me. You saw, before you brought us here. Our peace is on your head.
Pyrrhus stiffens. “Did he say so?” “He asked that their ashes be placed together, he asked that they be buried as one. In the spirit of this, I think we can say he wished it.” For the first time, I am grateful for his cleverness.
“My consolation is that we will be together in the underworld. That we will meet again there, if not in this life. I would not wish to be there without her.” “My father had no such wife,” Pyrrhus says. Odysseus looks at the young man’s implacable face. “I have done my best,” he says. “Let it be remembered I tried.” I remember.
THE GREEKS SAIL, and take my hope with them. I cannot follow. I am tied to this earth where my ashes lie. I curl myself around the stone obelisk of his tomb. Perhaps it is cool to the touch; perhaps warm. I cannot tell. A C H I L L E S, it says, and nothing more. He has gone to the underworld, and I am here.
You said that Chiron ruined him. You are a goddess, and cold, and know nothing. You are the one who ruined him. Look at how he will be remembered now. Killing Hector, killing Troilus. For things he did cruelly in his grief.
At first it is strange. I am used to keeping him from her, to hoarding him for myself. But the memories well up like springwater, faster than I can hold them back. They do not come as words, but like dreams, rising as scent from the rain-wet earth. This, I say. This and this. The way his hair looked in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyes, solemn as an owl at lessons. This and this and this. So many moments of happiness, crowding forward. She closes her eyes. The skin over them is the color of sand in winter. She listens, and she too remembers. She remembers standing on a beach, hair
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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.
“I have done it,” she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS. “Go,” she says. “He waits for you.”
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 of the sun.
