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“Water?” Achilles asked. “Wine?”
“Wine, please,” she said. He stroked her cheek once before standing. He found a clay jug and poured wine into a rough clay cup and passed it to her. She sipped the sweet wine, then passed the cup back to him. He took it from her and remained standing.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“Palace born and bred,” he said as he filled the cup again. “I killed your husband today, made you my concubine and you thank me for a sip of wine.”
“You did me a favor,” she said.
“You did not love your husband?”
“No.” He loomed over her, but she didn’t look up at him when she replied.
“Was he cruel to you?”
“He is dead. I will not speak ill of him anymore.”
“Hewascruel to you. You should know I killed your brothers, as well. All three of them. And your father. Will you still say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to me now?”
“My father forced me to marry. My brothers served as my husband’s lapdogs. If you wish me to shed tears for them, I’ll require a sharp knife and a fresh onion.”
He laughed.
“I seem to amuse you, sir,” she said.
“You delight me,” he said. “Briseis.”
She shivered as he spoke her name. His Greek tongue made the syllables into music—Briss-eee-uss...
“Achilles,” she replied.
He nodded. “Do you know who I am?”
“The world knows who you are.”
He smiled, pleased. He squatted in front of her, his powerful thighs holding him still as a statue as he looked long at her face.
“You are very beautiful,” he said as he took the cord from her braid. “But young.”
“This is my twentieth summer,” she said.
He ran his fingers through the plaits of her braid and loosed it into soft waves.
“Too young to be a widow,” he said.
“But the proper age to be a concubine?”
“I think you might be. Though I won’t force you to stay with me against your will.”
“You would set me free?” she asked, heart racing with hope.
“No, but if you despise my attentions, I can send you to the laundresses. Though I think you will prefer my tent to scrubbing Spartan seed off woolen bedrolls.”
“Is Spartan seed worse somehow than Athenian seed?” she asked.
“It puts up much more of a fight.”
A jest. The great warrior Achilles had made a jest. She smiled, almost laughed.
