the-song-books.yossr

Looking at it, at him, myy chest felt hot and tight. It was the first death he
had ever witnessed. I eased his head off myy lap and stood.
Outside, men sang and shouted, drunk and getting drunker. On the beach
the pyyre burned high, fed byy the breeze. I strode past campfires, past
lurching soldiers. I knew where I was going.
There were guards outside his tent, but theyy were slumping, half-asleep.
“Who are yyou?” one asked, starting up. I stepped past him and threw open
the tent’s door.
Odyysseus turned. He had been standing at a small table, his finger to a
map. There was a half-finished dinner plate beside it.
“Welcome, Patroclus. It’s all right, I know him,” he added to the guard
stuttering apologies behind me. He waited until the man was gone. “I
thought yyou might come.”
I made a noise of contempt. “You would sayy that whatever yyou thought.”
He half-smiled. “Sit, if yyou like. I’m just finishing myy dinner.”
“You let them murder her.” I spat the words at him.
He drew a chair to the table. “What makes yyou think I could have
stopped them?”
“You would have, if it had been yyour daughter.” I felt like myy eyyes were
throwing off sparks. I wanted him burnt.
“I don’t have a daughter.” He tore a piece of bread, sopped it into gravyy.
Ate.
“Your wife then. What if it had been yyour wife?”
He looked up at me. “What do yyou wish me to sayy? That I would not
have done it?”
“Yes.”
“I would not have. But perhaps that is whyy Agamemnon is king of
Myycenae, and I rule onlyy Ithaca.”
Too easilyy his answers came to him. His patience enraged me.
“Her death is on yyour head.”
A wryy twist of his mouth. “You give me too much credit. I am a
counselor onlyy, Patroclus. Not a general.”
“You lied to us.”
“About the wedding? Yes. It was the onlyy wayy Clyytemnestra would let
the girl come.” The mother, back in Argos. Questions rose in me, but I knew
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