the-song-books.yossr

Chapter Eighteen
I WOKE THAT NIGHT GASPING. I WAS SWEAT-SOAKED, AND THE tent felt
oppressivelyy warm. Beside me Achilles slept, his skin as damp as mine.
I stepped outside, eager for a breeze off the water. But here, too, the air
was heavyy and humid. It was quiet, strangelyy so. I heard no flapping of
canvas, no jingle of an unsecured harness. Even the sea was silent, as if the
waves had ceased to fall against the shore. Out beyyond the breakers it was
flat as a polished bronze mirror.
There was no wind, I realized. That was the strangeness. The air that
hung around me did not stir, even with the faintest whisper of current. I
remember thinking: if it keeps up like this we won’t be able to sail
tomorrow.
I washed myy face, glad of the water’s coolness, then returned to Achilles
and restless, turning sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING is the same. I wake in a pool of sweat, myy skin puckered
and parched. Gratefullyy I gulp the water that Automedon brings us. Achilles
wakes, draws a hand over his soaked forehead. He frowns, goes outside,
returns.
“There is no wind.”
I nod.
“We will not leave todayy.” Our men are strong oarsmen, but even theyy
cannot power a full dayy’s journeyy. We need the wind to take us to Troyy.
It does not come. Not that dayy, or that night, or the next dayy either.
Agamemnon is forced to stand in the marketplace and announce further
delayy. As soon as the wind returns, we will leave, he promises us.
But the wind does not return. We are hot all the time, and the air feels
like the blasts off a fire, scorching our lungs. We had never noticed how
scalding the sand could be, how scratchyy our blankets. Tempers frayy, and
fights break out. Achilles and I spend all our time in the sea, seeking the
meager comfort it offers.
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