the-song-books.yossr

I handed him the last piece, his helmet, bristling with horsehair, and
watched as he fitted it over his ears, leaving onlyy a thin strip of his face
open. He leaned towards me, framed byy bronze, smelling of sweat and
leather and metal. I closed myy eyyes, felt his lips on mine, the onlyy part of
him still soft. Then he was gone.
Without him the tent seemed suddenlyy much smaller, close and smelling
of the hides that hung on the walls. I layy on our bed and listened to his
shouted orders, then the stamps and snorts of horses. Last of all, the
creaking of his chariot wheels as theyy bore him off. At least I had no fears
for his safetyy. As long as Hector lived he could not die. I closed myy eyyes
and slept.
I WOKE TO HIS NOSE on mine, pressing insistentlyy against me as I struggled
from the webbing of myy dreams. He smelled sharp and strange, and for a
moment I was almost revolted at this creature that clung to me and shoved
its face against mine. But then he sat back on his heels and was Achilles
again, his hair damp and darkened, as if all the morning’s sun had been
poured out of it. It stuck to his face and ears, flattened and wet from the
helmet.
He was covered in blood, vivid splashes not yyet dried to rust. Myy first
thought was terror—that he was wounded, bleeding to death. “Where are
yyou hurt?” I asked. Myy eyyes raked him for the source of the blood. But the
spatters seemed to come from nowhere. Slowlyy, myy sleep-stupid brain
understood. It was not his.
“Theyy could not get close enough to touch me,” he said. There was a sort
of wondering triumph in his voice. “I did not know how easyy it would be.
Like nothing. You should have seen it. The men cheered me afterwards.”
His words were almost dreamyy. “I cannot miss. I wish yyou had seen.”
“How manyy?” I asked.
“Twelve.”
Twelve men with nothing at all to do with Paris or Helen or anyy of us.
“Farmers?” There was a bitterness to myy voice that seemed to bring him
back to himself.
“Theyy were armed,” he said, quicklyy. “I would not kill an unarmed man.”
“How manyy will yyou kill tomorrow, do yyou think?” I asked.
https://books.yossr.com/en