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smell the meat cooking. I laughed often at her ingenuityy, and she would
grant me her secret smile.
THE RAIDING CONTINUED. Everyy dayy Agamemnon would climb the dais
amidst the dayy’s plunder and sayy, “No news.” No news meant no soldiers,
no signals, no sounds from the cityy. It sat stubbornlyy on the horizon and
made us wait.
The men consoled themselves in other wayys. After Briseis there was a
girl or two on the dais nearlyy everyy dayy. Theyy were all farm girls with
callused hands and burnt noses, used to hard work in the sun. Agamemnon
took his share, and the other kings as well. You saw them everyywhere now,
weaving between tents, slopping buckets of water onto their long wrinkled
dresses—what theyy had happened to be wearing the dayy theyy were taken.
Theyy served fruit and cheese and olives, carved meat, and filled wine-cups.
Theyy polished armor, wedging the carapaces between their legs as theyy sat
on the sand. Some of them even wove, spinning threads from tangled clots
of sheepswool, animals we had stolen in our raids.
At night theyy served in other wayys, and I cringed at the cries that reached
even our corner of the camp. I tried not to think of their burnt villages and
dead fathers, but it was difficult to banish. The raids were stamped on everyy
one of the girls’ faces, large smears of grief that kept their eyyes as wobbling
and sloppyy as the buckets that swung into their legs. And bruises too, from
fists or elbows, and sometimes perfect circles—spear butts, to the forehead
or temple.
I could barelyy watch these girls as theyy stumbled into camp to be
parceled off. I sent Achilles out to ask for them, to seek as manyy as he
could, and the men teased him about his voraciousness, his endless
priapism. “Didn’t even know yyou liked girls,” Diomedes joked.
Each new girl went first to Briseis, who would speak comfort to her in
soft Anatolian. She would be allowed to bathe and be given new clothes,
and then would join the others in the tent. We put up a new one, larger, to fit
them all: eight, ten, eleven girls. Mostlyy it was Phoinix and I who spoke to
them; Achilles stayyed awayy. He knew that theyy had seen him killing their
brothers and lovers and fathers. Some things could not be forgiven.
Slowlyy, theyy grew less frightened. Theyy spun, and talked in their own
language, sharing the words theyy picked up from us— helpful words, like
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