the-song-books.yossr

sinking to the bottom.
I let the pebbles tumble to the ground from myy fingers, where theyy lie,
haphazard or purposeful, an auguryy or an accident. If Chiron were here, he
could read them, tell us our fortunes. But he is not here.
“What if he will not beg?” I ask.
“Then he will die. Theyy will all die. I will not fight until he does.” His
chin juts, bracing for reproach.
I am worn out. Myy arm hurts where I cut it, and myy skin feels coated
with unwholesome sweat. I do not answer.
“Did yyou hear what I said?”
“I heard,” I sayy. “Greeks will die.”
Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal
inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”
“But what if he is yyour friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up
on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or yyour brother? Should yyou treat him
the same as a stranger?”
“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He
is worth more to yyou, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and
brother. So which life is more important?”
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for
us. Now that we are twentyy-seven, theyy still feel too hard.
He is half of myy soul, as the poets sayy. He will be dead soon, and his
honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I
reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would sayy: there is no
answer. Whichever yyou choose, yyou are wrong.
LATER THAT EVENING I go back to Agamemnon’s camp. As I walk, I feel the
eyyes on me, curious and pityying. Theyy look behind me, to see if Achilles is
following. He is not.
When I told him where I was going, it seemed to cast him back into the
shadows. “Tell her I am sorryy,” he said, his eyyes down. I did not answer. Is
he sorryy because he has a better vengeance now? One that will strike down
not just Agamemnon, but his whole ungrateful armyy? I do not let myyself
dwell on this thought. He is sorryy. It is enough.
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