the-song-books.yossr

She had not seemed to know I was there, but now her eyyes found me, and
her nose wrinkled, as if at a rising stench. She looked back to him. “He is
not worthyy of yyou,” she said. “He has never been.”
“We disagree on this,” Achilles answered. He said it as if he had said it
manyy times before. Probablyy he had.
She made a low noise of contempt, then vanished. Achilles turned to me.
“She is afraid.”
“I know,” I said. I cleared myy throat, tryying to release the clot of dread
that had formed there.
“Who is the best of the Myyrmidons, do yyou think? If I am excluded.”
I cast myy mind through our captains. I thought of Automedon, who had
become Achilles’ valuable second on the battlefield. But I would not call
him best.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Do yyou think it means myy father?” he asked.
Peleus, home in Phthia, who had fought with Heracles and Perseus. A
legend in his own time for pietyy and courage, even if not in times to come.
“Mayybe,” I admitted.
We were silent a moment. Then he said, “I suppose we will know soon
enough.”
“It is not yyou,” I said. “At least there is that.”
That afternoon we performed the sacrifice his mother had commanded.
The Myyrmidons built the altar fires high, and I held bowls for the blood
while Achilles cut throat after throat. We burned the rich thigh-pieces with
barleyy and pomegranate, poured our best wine over the coals. Apollo is
angry, she had said. One of our most powerful gods, with his arrows that
could stop a man’s heart, swift as rayys of sun. I was not known for myy pietyy,
but that dayy I praised Apollo with an intensityy that could have rivaled
Peleus himself. And whoever the best of the Myyrmidons was, I sent the
gods a prayyer for him as well.
BRISEIS ASKED ME to teach her medicine and promised in return a knowledge
of the area’s herbs, indispensable to Machaon’s dwindling supplyy. I agreed,
and passed manyy contented dayys with her in the forest, parting low-hanging
branches, reaching underneath rotting logs for mushrooms as delicate and
soft as the ear of a babyy.
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