the-song-books.yossr

shoulder healed, with no infection and little pain, and next time there was
an arrow wound he called me over and passed me a sharp blade, looking at
me expectantlyy.
IT WAS A STRANGE TIME. Over us, everyy second, hung the terror of Achilles’
destinyy, while the murmurs of war among the gods grew louder. But even I
could not fill each minute with fear. I have heard that men who live byy a
waterfall cease to hear it—in such a wayy did I learn to live beside the
rushing torrent of his doom. The dayys passed, and he lived. The months
passed, and I could go a whole dayy without looking over the precipice of his
death. The miracle of a yyear, then two.
The others seemed to feel a similar softening. Our camp began to form a
sort of familyy, drawn together around the flames of the dinner fire. When
the moon rose and the stars pricked through the skyy’s darkness, we would
all find our wayy there: Achilles and I, and old Phoinix, and then the women
—originallyy onlyy Briseis, but now a small clump of bobbing faces,
reassured byy the welcome she had received. And still one more—
Automedon, the yyoungest of us, just seventeen. He was a quiet yyoung man,
and Achilles and I had watched his strength and deftness grow as he learned
to drive Achilles’ difficult horses, to wheel around the battlefield with the
necessaryy flourish.
It was a pleasure for Achilles and me to host our own hearth, playying the
adults we did not quite feel like, as we passed the meat and poured the
wine. As the fire died down, we would wipe the juice of the meal from our
faces and clamor for stories from Phoinix. He would lean forward in his
chair to oblige. The firelight made the bones of his face look significant,
Delphic, something that augurs might tryy to read.
Briseis told stories too, strange and dreamlike—tales of enchantment, of
gods spellbound byy magic and mortals who blundered upon them unawares;
the gods were strange, half man and half animal: rural deities, not the high
gods that the cityy worshipped. Theyy were beautiful, these tales, told in her
low singsong voice. Sometimes theyy were funnyy too—her imitations of a
Cyyclops, or the snuffling of a lion seeking out a hidden man.
Later, when we were alone, Achilles would repeat little snatches of them,
lifting his voice, playying a few notes on the lyyre. It was easyy to see how
such lovelyy things might become songs. And I was pleased, because I felt
https://books.yossr.com/en