7. Odette

7

Odette

“… b

y Hades, I’ll drag you to the river and hold you under until the mud dissolves … I will not sleep in the same room as a corpse.”

Those two statements had lingered in my mind, haunting me. The thought of failing to avenge Alcander and Lykas, and being found unworthy by the Judges of the Dead because I had not fulfilled my vow, was a torment I could not escape. The fear of the punishment awaiting me in the Underworld dragged me to the depths of my despair and longing. But those words … They were enough to remind me of the world beyond my tormenting dreams. It seemed that the vow was the only thread of life keeping me tethered to this world.

A sort of madness had taken over me. As if the oppression and subjugation, anger and resentment, had all bundled up inside my body like a rolling thunderstorm, desperate for an outlet. Desperate for someone to acknowledge the suffering being inflicted on me internally, day after day, the longer I continued to live this farce of a life. I had no other way to justify what I did with the sand crabs.

And then Odysseus had stumbled into the tent, naked.

I tried not to think of that moment since, and so, naturally, it was the only thing I was able to think about. That moment shattered any illusion that I was no longer part of this world.

He had stood there, unadorned and unabashed, every line of his body outlining his harsh life as a warrior. His chest was broad, covered in thick, dark hair. As my eyes had travelled down, they had caught on the nicks and scars mapped out across his skin, muscles taut from years of wielding sword and shield. And I, traitorously, found my eyes lingering … all the way down, until warmth bloomed deep within me.

The horror of that moment caused something to snap, and immediately I prayed that I had not severed the tie to my husband.

I had deliberately and rationally attempted to empty myself of all selfish emotions, as widows were expected to do, aiming to remain as ghost-like as possible so that I could stay close to them . To Alcander and Lykas. Yet here, that emptiness had been filled with warmth for the very man who had torn my world apart. To find any semblance of desire for him was shameful. I deserved to be sentenced to a punishment befitting my crime by the Judges of the Dead.

Was this normal? When you lost all that you loved, to teeter between the two worlds?

I had already tried to kill myself once; would Hera really intervene a second time? I did not care if they would forgive “the coward’s way out” as it was known. What did I want with their forgiveness? They weren’t capable of it as far as I was concerned. My husband would understand, should we find each other, provided I cleared this stain on my soul, this vow, as I made my way to the Underworld. Little Lykas would be there too, and we would be reunited. All I had to do was reach the river, Styx. If I could get there, then once I passed Charon’s crossing, I could ask Hades to allow me to fulfill my vow in death. Surely that would sate their appetite for divine retribution, wouldn’t it? Then, I needed only to ask for my family’s forgiveness as I completed my sacred obligation in a corporal form. They would understand.

It had been my first clear thought in days. The rest of what had happened was a shrouded haze in my mind, as if I had watched it unfold from outside my own body. But this, this , I was certain of.

So I decided, once again, to die.

I waited until the Greeks had set out for the day. Then, I donned the oversized chiton that belonged to Odysseus, leaving my own dirty one along with a bunch of soiled towels, rags, and other garments in a basket, that I could take down to the river under the guise of doing washing. Exiting the tent, I followed the path that Τ?ιλορ?α had laid out for me the day she’d shown me around.

At least, I thought it was the path. There were many well-worn trails trodden daily by the women in the camp. They were always slightly narrower than the soldiers’ tracks. My feet wandered around the tents and makeshift structures, the ground still damp with dew, as I tried to avoid the more frequented areas where the soldiers gathered. Like that first night.

I kept my eyes downcast, a shield against the stares of any others. I didn’t want them to see me, to stop me. I needed to get to the river. It was a lifeline to the besieged city of Troy and the great Grecian Army alike. It would be to me, too. Once I reached there, I could find a deep enough area in the weeds for the river gods to take me down to Hades’ world.

Reaching the edge of the camp, I descended a gentle slope that led to the water. I slipped off my buskins and left them discarded on the hard earth, before the spurts of mud and grass gave way to sinking sands, as I found my bare feet wading into the golden-green reeds. The river flowed quietly here, the occasional soft ripple gently distorting the reflections in the water.

I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror of the river. I didn’t want to be alive; I wanted this to be the afterlife it felt like. As if I truly had died that night after drinking hemlock and this was what happened when you didn’t have the coins to cross Styx – that you wandered the earth as if you were still alive. Playing out what would have happened if you lived. That was the only way my brain could make sense of how I was still functioning without my little Lykas in the world. Perhaps it was a small mercy that still kept me numb.

I could see other slaves, mostly women, at other points along the riverbank. They all had spaces carved out for themselves to set about their work. Some were talking to one another, some were minding their own business.

None of them were paying attention to me.

I placed the basket on the bank behind me and knelt in the shallow water, making a show of beating the clothes against the stones. It was a practised movement I’d done so many times back in my village, the thwacking sound mixing with the gentle lap of the water. I would dunk each swathe of fabric in the water, dragging it and myself deeper into the river. Leaning down to grapple with the material that got heavier with every passing second, my fingers skimmed the edge of the riverbed, searching for rocks large enough to hold the folds of this chiton down.

In the rhythm of washing, as I scrubbed each stain and wrung out the fabric, the water rippling with and against the turns of my body, I forgot where I was. It was quiet here. There were no sounds of soldiers or battle. The quiet hum of women chatting felt like a sound I’d heard a thousand times before and would a thousand times again.

For a moment I forgot my purpose, and then it was torn from me forever as Τ?ιλορ?α’s eyes locked onto mine.

“There you are, little duckling. What are you doing so deep in the reeds?”

The look on her face said she knew exactly what I was trying to do, and that she wasn’t going to let me do it. No, Τ?ιλορ?α struck me as a woman who would wade in after me and drag me out kicking and spluttering.

“Why do you care?” I asked quietly.

She didn’t pretend not to understand. “You wouldn’t be the first, and it never does any good.”

“I don’t understand how you can all stand it.”

Τ?ιλορ?α shrugged one shoulder, her other arm holding a washing basket of her own, balanced on her hip. “Like I said, it is not so bad once you get used to it.”

The look on my face must have conveyed what I thought of that sentiment.

Τ?ιλορ?α just smiled sadly. “It is war, little duck. The men pick the battles and the women pick up the rest.”

I scoffed. It had not been like that between Alcander and myself.

At that moment, another spear-wife approached Τ?ιλορ?α. In the basket on her hip were three dead rabbits lying on a bed of herbs and other plants she had picked, I assumed, from the forest on the other edge of the river.

“Shamera.” Τ?ιλορ?α greeted her, then gave a nod towards her belly. “You’re looking well.”

Shamera turned, and then I saw the bump her basket had been hiding. She stroked the rounded mound of her stomach and smiled at Τ?ιλορ?α. Given the size of her belly, I guessed she was perhaps two months away from giving birth. She looked … happy.

I stared at her, mouth agape.

“This is Odette,” Τ?ιλορ?α said, with a nod towards me, still thick in the reeds.

“Ah,” Shamera murmured, her eyes cutting toward me, as if she were fully aware of exactly what I was up to.

“You’re pregnant.” It was all I could think to say.

Shamera smiled, her hand once again stroking her belly. “Yes.”

“And you’re happy about it?”

Shamera’s smile spread, her eyes crinkling with knowing kindness. “Yes.”

She turned back towards Τ?ιλορ?α. “One of these rabbits is for Diomedes, if you could manage to get me one of the better jugs of sweet wine for tonight. Not that bitter stuff they keep passing around.” She pulled a face.

Τ?ιλορ?α grabbed one of the rabbits by the arms and held it up. “Ah, this should do nicely. Diomedes will happily part with one of his bottles for this.”

I continued to gape at them, at the business of it all. As if this was simply an exchange at the marketplace. As if sensing my bewilderment, both of them turned towards me.

“You’ll catch a cold if you stay in there much longer, duckling,” Τ?ιλορ?α warned.

“Who’s her pairing?” Shamera asked, as she continued to peer at me.

“Odysseus.”

“Really …”

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at the sound she had made that was more a statement than a question.

Shamera shrugged one of her shoulders in turn, swapping the basket to her other hip as she did so. “To be paired with one of the generals is no easy thing. They are often demanding, in more …” She seemed to be searching for the word, though we all spoke in Thracian. “ Strenuous ways than the other soldiers.”

“How so?”

“The other soldiers want sex. They want taking care of. Then, you’ll find they want mothering, loving, someone to make this place more tolerable. If you’re paired with one who loses his male companion, like I was, you quickly find your circumstances change for the better.” Shamera rubbed her belly again, and the action was not lost on me with her words. “But generals have other demands. Harsher. Their reputations are more closely watched, their authority more likely to be questioned. To be a spear-wife to a general is to be able to hold your own.”

I shook my head. “We are all just slaves to them, nothing more.”

“We might be slaves to them, but we are women to ourselves and each other.”

I cocked my head at Shamera, desperate to know more but loathe to ask.

She seemed to sense it, but it was Τ?ιλορ?α that answered this time.

“If you wish to remain a victim, little duck, then by all means, carry on as you are. We have all been where you are; some have even drowned in that very spot you have chosen. But those of us who chose to live? We keep ourselves busy so we do not get sucked into that endless despair. Stay there, and you’ll die, while the world continues turning. The war will continue, you will be forgotten, and nothing good will come of it. But if you stay, perhaps Tyche might find you yet, weaving her thread into the Fates’ cruel design. Some good could still come of you.”

I shook my head. “You have no idea what I have done.”

“As you have no idea what I have,” Τ?ιλορ?α countered.

There was a pause, where only the wind nymphs seemed to rustle through the reeds and grass.

Then Shamera gazed into the distance as though recalling something long buried in memory. She started speaking, her voice breathy but loud enough to drift on the air. “Men are the masters of death, because they can never bring forth life. They can never hold and know the power we can, so they had to create their own. Their own pain, their own suffering. Theirs exists outside their body, while ours all happens within. Such is the nature of the world and has been long before we were here, and will be long after we are gone. If you choose death, if you choose to die, you let them win. Or, you can choose to live . Take the hand the Fates have dealt you and show them who you are .”

She blinked, then turned her focus back on me until I felt uncomfortable under the weight of it and found my feet, of their own volition, wading out of the water.

“Smarter than you look,” Τ?ιλορ?α muttered.

I cast her a withering glare that was patently ignored.

“Here,” Τ?ιλορ?α said, taking the second rabbit from Shamera’s basket along with a bunch of the herbs, wrapping it in a fresh towel of her own and handing it over to me. “Take this back to Odysseus this evening. Have a good meal. Try to find the good moments, however fleeting. Focus on them. Trust us – those moments matter more than you know. They can be everything, if you remember to notice them.”

Despite the words of the fellow Trojan women still ringing in my ear, I could not bring myself to play the obedient servant once again to the man who held me captive. Instead, the hours stretched on and I remained rooted to my spot in the corner pallet again, the food untouched, my mind desperately searching for a tether to pull me back to life.

My solitude felt short-lived, even though hours must have passed, when the boar entered the tent again. He glanced at the unprepared food on the pallet between us.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to play these rebellion games of yours anymore,” he murmured. “Are you really back to being silent and stubborn? Does your fire diminish so quickly?”

His words hung heavily between us, a challenge that demanded a response.

“No, you said no more surprises.” My voice was dull, even to my own ears.

Odysseus frowned as he pulled his armour off. “I said I liked spirit and wit, but you must know, Odette, that even I cannot suffer insubordination forever. If you complete your duties willingly, life here could be amenable at the very least.”

I don’t care .

He sighed as if he’d heard my thought. I watched him wash swiftly, as if he hadn’t much time, before he threw a tunic and cloak on. “Come with me.” He took two strides towards me, yanking me up from under my armpits and dragging me towards the tent opening.

“Where are we going?” I asked him the moment we were outside.

Soldiers bustled past us, hurrying quickly towards the centre of the camps, in good humour, laughing and jostling with one another. Some spear-wives and bed-slaves followed behind more demurely, their heads bowed. I looked around for Τ?ιλορ?α or the new acquaintance I met today, Shamera. One of them would have told me what was going on, but I didn’t see either of them.

“Keep walking,” Odysseus muttered in my ear, pushing me forward with his palm on my lower back.

Eventually, we arrived at the very dais Odysseus and I had first touched.

Again, the rug, woven with rich reds and golds, lay across the grass and sand. At each corner of the square rug stood a column where the tent was strung with rope, fire torches adorning each point. The throne was still there, King Agamemnon still seated on it, his red-face more beetroot this time.

The only difference was that this time, a new group of girls huddled on the dais. The soldiers, just as they had when I’d been standing in the same place, laughed and jeered, hollered and pointed. I could hear the ones on either side of me debate who was prettier, who looked like they would spread their legs the soonest, who would take the longest to break in. I wanted to throw them an evil glare, but Odysseus chose that moment to curve his hand around my hip and flush my back against his chest.

The body heat was alarming.

“Do I need to choose another, Odette?” he murmured, his words a cruel taunt as he used his other hand to keep my chin in place so that I could not look away from the scene in front of me. “Someone less … useless?”

I flinched at his words, the sting of his contempt roaring against every instinct in me to just do as he said, to be a good girl, to go along with his wants and needs. The dark voice in my head whispered that it could be worse, that it would be worse if he traded me in for another woman and I was handed off to someone else. The voice equally deflated me back into that pit of despair, the thread of my vow thinning in my mind as I fought internally to find my footing.

A part of me was grateful for Odysseus’ patience with me, that he had spared me a fate that awaited so many others in my position. I had seen the spear-wives and bed-slaves who sported black and blue skin daily. I still heard the screams that woke me from my slumbers. But that knowledge offered little solace when I knew that his patience could wear thin at any moment. That the only way to maintain my position was to go back to a way of being I had sworn I would no longer participate in. It was a bitter reminder of my own worthlessness, as a woman and a slave.

“I do not want to have to make this unpleasant between us. You must shake this persistent despair you seem to be cloaking yourself in or I will be forced to intervene,” he continued murmuring against the shell of my ear.

“Is that a promise or a threat?”

I felt the length of him begin to harden against me after the words had fallen from my lips. It was clearly something neither of us wanted to acknowledge because he moved to create an inch of space between us.

Instead of speaking, we both continued to watch the new arrivals on the dais, clustered together in a group, their faces drawn and pale. Some clung to each other for support, as our group had done, and the realisation hit me that I had not searched for the familiar faces of my village ever since I arrived. Too caught up in my own despair.

The thought eradicated what little good was left in my soul.

I could remember being one of those on the dais, fingers intertwined in a desperate bid for comfort amidst unfamiliar surroundings. Their attire bore the unmistakable signs of their newfound status as slaves, the once vibrant colours of their garments already faded with dust from their journey. Tattered shawls draped over weary shoulders, their edges frayed and worn from a day or more spent on the road, and I wondered which village they’d come from.

Each of their faces held a tale of loss and displacement. Others wore expressions of resignation, their eyes dulled. I wondered what mine looked like. But my thoughts were interrupted by what appeared to be a skirmish happening at the centre of the dais. The tension rippled out across the crowd until I felt even Odysseus’ muscles tense. He pushed us closer to the dais, soldiers turning to berate us until they saw who stood behind me. Then, they shifted like wind through tall grass, until we were standing at one side of the rug, watching what had caused the ruckus.

In the centre of it all stood Achilles and Agamemnon. The two could not be more different. The king was a pig of a man, his skin weathered and worn from sun and wine, his face framed by the weight that bore countless burdens and yet more indulgences, and draped in robes of richly embroidered fabric. He seemed to have an air of authority about him that demanded attention but not reverence, though I suspected he thought they were the same thing. Achilles, tall and lean, stood toe-to-toe against him. But where Agamemnon was stout, Achilles was broad-shouldered, sculpted with sinewy muscle and sun-kissed skin that stretched taut over chiselled features. His jawline was sharp, his hair a thick mane of gold that cascaded to his shoulders and kissed the golden armour, which was weaved with intricate designs of mythic beasts and still spattered with the blood of the men he had killed today.

“You have no right to claim her as your prize!” he thundered at Agamemnon. “She is not yours to take.”

But Agamemnon, his face contorted with rage, refused to back down. “She is mine by right of conquest,” he spat, his voice dripping with contempt. “I will not be swayed by your petty protests.”

On the dais, a beautiful woman stood between them. Her form was slender and elegant, her chestnut hair flowing in soft waves around her shoulders, accentuating the delicate lines of her face and the flawless porcelain of her skin. High cheekbones and a sculpted nose gave her a regal air, but I suspected it was her fuller figure that had the two men fighting. I noticed her eyes flickered between the two, while her hands trembled at her sides.

“Why her?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper against the backdrop of their argument, but Odysseus heard it.

“Briseis is a princess of Lyrnessus. Achilles believes she belongs to him, given that he is the one that captured her, but Agamemnon refuses to relinquish his claim.”

“Why?”

Odysseus hesitated. “She is more than just a prize of war,” he explained, his voice heavy with the weight of uncertainty. “She is a symbol of power and prestige. That is why they both believe she belongs to them.”

I looked beyond, to the girl who was standing beside the throne with her wrists tied. Agamemnon’s current prize, no doubt. Her skin sported angry welts that stood out in stark relief against the pallor of her flesh, itself an unsightly sickly colour. Deep bruises marred the delicate curve of her jawline, her hair hung limp and lifeless around her shoulders, and dark circles ringed her eyes. That was what becoming Agamemnon’s ‘prize’ did to you.

“No,” I said, quietly.

“No?” Odysseus whispered back, and I thought I caught a slight bemusement in his tone.

“No, you do not need to choose another.”

I could see all too well the human cost of war and the consequences of male ambition and pride. Though I might now be a mere slave to the Greeks, I understood the fragile balance of power that governed their world.

Τ?ιλορ?α and Shamera had been right – it was up to me to decide how I played the hand I had been dealt. Not the men nor the whims of the Fates that had brought me to this point. Dying would not absolve me of this helpless feeling. The vow I had made was nothing more than a bargain designed by my mind to keep me tethered to this world. The petulant demands of my behaviour had not changed my circumstance, nor would my longing for death. None of it made any difference.

Alcander and Lykas were not coming back.

I was not joining them.

Odette, the woman who had always tried to do right, was gone.

And now I stood in her place.