For Blink's Contest
Peace.
Quiet for the city, rest for the soldiers, a chance to breathe easily for the first time in ten years.
There was a time when she would have said she would pay anything for twelve days of peace. A time when she would even have followed that through. Now she had discovered though, that there were worse things than war.
Because, of course, it wasn’t peaceful and it wasn’t quiet. For nine days, wails had slithered down the streets, echoed up the walls. As a whole, the people took shivering breaths, spilt precious water as salty tears, gulped down sobs instead of food. Peace gave them food and drink.
Grief meant they didn’t need them.
In comparison, her son had barely cried at all. He had the first night his father hadn’t come home. Twenty one days ago. But for more than half that time, the city had only watched in horror, and she had too, as he was dragged around the walls, his head pulled along through the dirt and dust and ground still caked in blood and sweat.
To say the least, it hadn’t been pretty. But it felt as if she had spent all her weeping then. She was empty now, empty of tears to shed, empty of him. She could see the city women staring at her, wondering Why don’t you cry?
She had her reasons, she said to them silently. She was a princess, a leader, someone whom they had, in the past years, looked to for guidance and strength. Her husband had been the bravest, kindest, most noble man the city had ever seen. She was strong and he had known that, had loved and respected it. She did not need to cry anymore. The city did not need to see her cry again, not during the peace. Once the truce was over, he would be gone forever and the war would continue and then, perhaps, it would be time to cry, though she knew she wouldn’t then either.
On the other side of the walls, the pyre was set. At last. She wrapped her shawl around her, kissed her son’s head. The wind played with her as it danced over the camps from the sea, blew past her into the city. Her city. His city.
“Andromache? I think… I think they want you to come. If you’re ready, that is.”
She looked to see Helen, her blue eyes damp, biting a perfect lip. Some of her sisters in law had complained endlessly of Helen, but Andromache couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She had no friends in the women of the city, the men lusted over her to madness, and Paris had grown bored of her, sick of the trouble his actions had caused. Weren’t they all sick of the consequences. But Helen herself, behind the gold hair and ridiculous beauty, tried. She tried so hard it made Andromache ashamed, because she had never had to try to be loved or included or listened to. To be admired, perhaps. Helen had no trouble at that. Somehow the two had become friends. Now, watching her husband’s funeral pyre, she nodded and linked arms with the most beautiful woman in the world and went down to it.
She was sometimes amazed at just how large his family was, how many different branches there were, but she herself clung to those most familiar- the children of Hecuba. There was Paris, his once handsome face drawn and ruined by what he had brought onto his city and now this last blow. Cassandra, her hair somewhat tamed but her eyes still wild, Polyxena, the perfect image of a good sister under a black shawl, her big eyes damp, her mouth pursed. They processed down the streets solemnly together, the keeners behind them.
“It’s foolish,” she heard one of the brothers behind her mutter, “that so much wood should be wasted. We shall need it when the Greeks come back.”
Unable to contain herself, she spun round, lifted one hand from beneath her mantle and pressed it against his chest. He stared, shocked, his black eyes (so like her husband’s) widening.
“You would not dare say that if he still lived,” she said darkly, aware that everybody had stopped to look at her. “You would not dare insult the greatest man who ever set foot in this city if he was here to listen to you. And you will not, ever again, in my presence.”
He obeyed.
“It is huge,” Helen breathed, looked upwards to where the pyre teetered over them.
“It’s perfect,” she replied, shutting her eyes, imagining the only thing that could be more perfect than this final honour to him- his never needing the honour at all.
“Andromache.” Paris came up behind them, put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Do you want a moment, or shall we light it?”
She took a deep breath, breathed in everything that had been her husband. Not only the warrior, the hero, the man that some people called a god. But the way he looked when he had just woken up, the special laughs he reserved, one for her, one for their son. Even the smell of his feet after a hard day in battle almost appealed to her now.
There he was, with a coin in his mouth for the ferryman, lying on the largest funeral pyre she had ever seen. That any of them have. Fit for a king, even one who was never crowned.
“I’m ready,” she told Paris.
The flames licked the wood, tasting it, before devouring it, multiplying and climbing. The keeners continued. Dark fell. Somebody put her son in her arms, her sisters in law sat around her, the city heaved behind them.
She suddenly noticed something else. There, on the other side of the pyre, was a row of people. People whom she could name now as easily as her own family. Huge Ajax, whose girdle her husband was still wearing, his head bowed. Wiry Odysseus, his eyes roaming over the Trojans, over the walls, then back to the pyre. With a gasp for Helen, she saw Menelaus, whose eyes were fixed intently on the golden haired woman.
And there, a little in front of them all, still as arrogant as he ever had been, almost glowing in the dark. He looked different with no armour to speak of, a clean tunic, his hair combed, his sandals carefully laced.
Achilles met her eye.
Had it been any other time, any other place, she would have dropped her son, gone and hit him. She would have screamed and shouted at him, pulled at his hair, gouged at his eyes. For how dare he? How dare he kill the greatest man in all of Troy, the best father, the most wonderful husband the world had ever seen? Who was he, to do such a terrible thing?
But it was a truce. Tomorrow they would bury the ashes. The day after they would fight. Vengeance would be delivered. Glancing around, she could see it in the eyes of her people. Her family. They had lost too many. He would pay- whether by Deiphobus’ sword or Helenus’ spear or Paris’ arrow.
But not tonight. She looked back at the golden warrior once more, and for a moment, she thought they understood one another. She thought she saw guilt, perhaps grief, in that gaze. A sense of foreboding, of his own death. He seemed to realise he would repay this debt he owed to Troy, to Andromache.
For now, though, she stayed still, hugged her son tight. It was for another day, another time. Another world. One more world before the Underworld where, perhaps, she might see him once again.
She cast her eyes away from the Greek, and instead turned them upwards to where the flames crackled and burst, sent the smell of woodsmoke to mingle in that of sweat and unwashed bodies. She watched the figure- so small now compared to how large he seemed in life as he gave orders and grins- as they at last reached him, tugged at his finery. He had always hated that tunic, she thought.
And then, to the amazement of all, she smiled, just a little bit, as the stars shone and the city cried and the fire consumed all that was left of Prince Hector.
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Roots taken from the end of Homer's Iliad.
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