The Song of Achilles(8)

With a toss of his wrist, he flicked the figs into the air, one, two, three, juggling them so lightly that their delicate skins did not bruise. He added a fourth, then a fifth. The boys hooted and clapped. More, more!

The fruits flew, colors blurring, so fast they seemed not to touch his hands, to tumble of their own accord. Juggling was a trick of low mummers and beggars, but he made it something else, a living pattern painted on the air, so beautiful even I could not pretend disinterest.

His gaze, which had been following the circling fruit, flickered to mine. I did not have time to look away before he said, softly but distinctly, “Catch.” A fig leapt from the pattern in a graceful arc towards me. It fell into the cup of my palms, soft and slightly warm. I was aware of the boys cheering.

One by one, Achilles caught the remaining fruits, returned them to the table with a performer’s flourish. Except for the last, which he ate, the dark flesh parting to pink seeds under his teeth. The fruit was perfectly ripe, the juice brimming. Without thinking, I brought the one he had thrown me to my lips. Its burst of grainy sweetness filled my mouth; the skin was downy on my tongue. I had loved figs, once.

He stood, and the boys chorused their farewells. I thought he might look at me again. But he only turned and vanished back to his room on the other side of the palace.

THE NEXT DAY Peleus returned to the palace and I was brought before him in his throne room, smoky and sharp from a yew-wood fire. Duly I knelt, saluted, received his famously charitable smile. “Patroclus,” I told him, when he asked. I was almost accustomed to it now, the bareness of my name, without my father’s behind it. Peleus nodded. He seemed old to me, bent over, but he was no more than fifty, my father’s age. He did not look like a man who could have conquered a goddess, or produced such a child as Achilles.

“You are here because you killed a boy. You understand this?”

This was the cruelty of adults. Do you understand?

“Yes,” I told him. I could have told him more, of the dreams that left me bleary and bloodshot, the almost-screams that scraped my throat as I swallowed them down. The way the stars turned and turned through the night above my unsleeping eyes.

“You are welcome here. You may still make a good man.” He meant it as comfort.

LATER THAT DAY, perhaps from him, perhaps from a listening servant, the boys learned at last of the reason for my exile. I should have expected it. I had heard them gossip of others often enough; rumors were the only coin the boys had to trade in. Still, it took me by surprise to see the sudden change in them, the fear and fascination blooming on their faces as I passed. Now even the boldest of them would whisper a prayer if he brushed against me: bad luck could be caught, and the Erinyes, our hissing spirits of vengeance, were not always particular. The boys watched from a safe distance, enthralled. Will they drink his blood, do you think?

Their whispers choked me, turned the food in my mouth to ash. I pushed away my plate and sought out corners and spare halls where I might sit undisturbed, except for the occasional passing servant. My narrow world narrowed further: to the cracks in the floor, the carved whorls in the stone walls. They rasped softly as I traced them with my fingertip.

“I HEARD YOU WERE HERE.” A clear voice, like ice-melted streams.

My head jerked up. I was in a storeroom, my knees against my chest, wedged between jars of thick-pressed olive oil. I had been dreaming myself a fish, silvered by sun as it leapt from the sea. The waves dissolved, became amphorae and grain sacks again.

It was Achilles, standing over me. His face was serious, the green of his eyes steady as he regarded me. I prickled with guilt. I was not supposed to be there and I knew it.

“I have been looking for you,” he said. The words were expressionless; they carried no hint of anything I could read. “You have not been going to morning drills.”

My face went red. Behind the guilt, anger rose slow and dull. It was his right to chastise me, but I hated him for it.

“How do you know? You aren’t there.”

“The master noticed, and spoke to my father.”

“And he sent you.” I wanted to make him feel ugly for his tale-bearing.

“No, I came on my own.” Achilles’ voice was cool, but I saw his jaw tighten, just a little. “I overheard them speaking. I have come to see if you are ill.”

I did not answer. He studied me a moment.

“My father is considering punishment,” he said.

We knew what this meant. Punishment was corporal, and usually public. A prince would never be whipped, but I was no longer a prince.

“You are not ill,” he said.

“No,” I answered, dully.

“Then that will not serve as your excuse.”

“What?” In my fear I could not follow him.

“Your excuse for where you have been.” His voice was patient. “So you will not be punished. What will you say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must say something.”

His insistence sparked anger in me. “You are the prince,” I snapped.

That surprised him. He tilted his head a little, like a curious bird. “So?”

“So speak to your father, and say I was with you. He will excuse it.” I said this more confidently than I felt. If I had spoken to my father for another boy, he would have been whipped out of spite. But I was not Achilles.