Song-of-Achilles-chapter-3.pdf, Study notes of Voice

Download Song-of-Achilles-chapter-3.pdf and more Study notes Voice in PDF only on Docsity! 15 Chapter Three I STOOD IN THE fi eld. In my hands were two pairs of dice, a gift. Not from my father, who’d never think of it. Not from my mother, who sometimes did not know me. I could not remember who had given them to me. A visiting king? A favour-currying noble? They were carved from ivory, inset with onyx, smooth under my thumb. It was late summer, and I was panting with my run from the palace. Since the day of the races I had been appointed a man to train me in all our athletic arts: boxing, sword-and-spear, discus. But I had escaped him, and glowed with the giddy lightness of solitude. It was the fi rst time I had been alone in weeks. Then the boy appeared. His name was Clysonymus and he was the son of a nobleman who was often at the palace. Older, larger and unpleasantly fl eshy. His eyes had caught the fl ash of the dice in my palm. He leered at me, held out his hand. ‘Let me see them.’ ‘No.’ I did not want his fi ngers on them, grubby and thick. And I was the prince, however small. Did I not even have this right? But these noble sons were used to me doing what they wished. They knew my father would not intervene. 721g The Song of Achilles (final).indd 15 28/02/2012 09:13:16 16 ‘I want them.’ He didn’t bother to threaten me, yet. I hated him for it. I should be worth threatening. ‘No.’ He stepped forward. ‘Let me have them.’ ‘They’re mine.’ I grew teeth. I snapped like the dogs who fi ght for our table scraps. He reached to take them, and I shoved him backwards. He stumbled, and I was glad. He would not get what was mine. ‘Hey!’ He was angry. I was so small; I was rumoured to be simple. If he backed down now, it would be a dishonour. He advanced on me, face red. Without meaning to, I stepped back. He smirked then. ‘Coward.’ ‘I am no coward.’ My voice rose, and my skin went hot. ‘Your father thinks you are.’ His words were deliberate, as if he were savouring them. ‘I heard him tell my father so.’ ‘He did not.’ But I knew he had. The boy stepped closer. He lifted a fi st. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ I knew that he would hit me now. He was just waiting for an excuse. I could imagine the way my father would have said it. Coward. I planted my hands on his chest and shoved, as hard as I could. Our land was one of grass, and wheat. Tumbles should not hurt. I am making excuses. It was also a land of rocks. His head thudded dully against stone, and I saw the surprised pop of his eyes. The ground around him began to bleed. I stared, my throat closing in horror at what I had done. I had not seen the death of a human before. Yes, the bulls, and the goats, even the bloodless gasping of fi sh. And I had seen it in paintings, tapestries, the black fi gures burned on to our platters. But I had not seen this: the rattle of it, the choke and scrabble. The smell of the fl ux. I fl ed. 721g The Song of Achilles (final).indd 16 28/02/2012 09:13:16 19 her sentence was fi nished, she ran out of the house and dived back into the sea. She would return only to visit the boy, never for any other reason, and never for long. The rest of the time the child was raised by tutors and nurses, and overseen by Phoinix, Peleus’ most trusted counsellor. Did Peleus ever regret the gods’ gift to him? An ordinary wife would have counted herself lucky to fi nd a husband with Peleus’ mildness, his smile-lined face. But for the sea-nymph Thetis nothing could ever eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal, mediocrity. I was led through the palace by a servant whose name I had not caught. Perhaps he had not said it. The halls were smaller than at home, as if restrained by the modesty of the kingdom they governed. The walls and fl oors were local marble, whiter than was found in the south. My feet were dark against its pallor. I had nothing with me. My few belongings were being carried to my room, and the gold my father sent was on its way to the treasury. I had felt a strange panic as I was parted from it. It had been my companion for the weeks of travel, a reminder of my worth. I knew its contents by heart now: the fi ve goblets with engraved stems, a heavy knobbed sceptre, a beaten-gold necklace, two ornamental statues of birds, and a carved lyre, gilded at its tips. This last, I knew, was cheating. Wood was cheap and plentiful and heavy, and took up space that should have been used for gold. Yet the lyre was so beautiful no one could object to it; it had been a piece of my mother’s dowry. As we rode, I would reach back into my saddle-bags to stroke the polished wood. I guessed that I was being led to the throne room, where I would kneel and pour out my gratitude. But the servant stopped 721g The Song of Achilles (final).indd 19 28/02/2012 09:13:16 20 suddenly at a side door. King Peleus was absent, he told me, so I would present myself before his son instead. I was unnerved. This was not what I had prepared myself for, the dutiful words I’d practised on donkeyback. Peleus’ son. I could still remember the dark wreath against his bright hair, the way his pink soles had fl ashed along the track. That is what a son should be. He was lying on his back on a wide, pillowed bench, balanc- ing a lyre on his stomach. Idly, he plucked at it. He did not hear me enter, or he did not choose to look. This is how I fi rst began to understand my place here. Until this moment I had been a prince, expected and announced. Now I was negligible. I took another step forward, scuffi ng my feet, and his head lolled to the side to regard me. In the fi ve years since I had seen him, he had outgrown his babyish roundness. I gaped at the cold shock of his beauty, deep-green eyes, features fi ne as a girl’s. It struck from me a sudden, springing dislike. I had not changed so much, nor so well. He yawned, his eyes heavy-lidded. ‘What’s your name?’ His kingdom was half, a quarter, an eighth the size of my father’s, and I had killed a boy and been exiled and still he did not know me. I ground my jaw shut and would not speak. He asked again, louder: ‘What’s your name?’ My silence was excusable the fi rst time; perhaps I had not heard him. Now it was not. ‘Patroclus.’ It was the name my father had given me, hope- fully but injudiciously, at my birth, and it tasted of bitterness on my tongue. ‘Honour of the father,’ it meant. I waited for him to make a joke out of it, some witty jape about my disgrace. He did not. Perhaps, I thought, he is too stupid to. He rolled on to his side to face me. A st ray lock of gold fell half into his eyes; he blew it away. ‘My name is Achilles.’ 721g The Song of Achilles (final).indd 20 28/02/2012 09:13:16 21 I jerked my chin up, an inch, in bare acknowledgement. We regarded each other for a moment. Then he blinked and yawned again, his mouth cracked wide as a cat’s. ‘Welcome to Phthia.’ I had been raised in a court and knew dismissal when I heard it. I discovered that afternoon that I was not the only foster child of Peleus. The modest king turned out to be rich in cast-off sons. He had once been a runaway himself, it was rumoured, and had a reputation for charity towards exiles. My bed was a pallet in a long barracks-style room, fi lled with other boys tussling and lounging. A servant showed me where my things had been put. A few boys lifted their heads, stared. I am sure one of them spoke to me, asked my name. I am sure I gave it. They returned to their games. No one important. I walked stiff-legged to my pallet and waited for dinner. We were summoned to eat at dusk by a bell, bronze struck from deep in the palace’s turnings. The boys dropped their games and tumbled out into the hallway. The complex was built like a rabbit warren, full of twisting corridors and sudden inner rooms. I nearly tripped over the heels of the boy in front of me, fearful of being left behind and lost. The room for meals was a long hall at the front of the palace, its windows opening on to Mount Othrys’ foothills. It was large enough to feed all of us, many times over; Peleus was a king who liked to host and entertain. We sat on its oakwood benches, at tables that were scratched from years of clattering plates. The food was simple but plentiful – salted fi sh, and thick bread served with herbed cheese. There was no fl esh here, of goats or bulls. That was only for royalty, or festival days. Across the room I caught the fl ash of bright hair in lamplight. Achilles. He sat with a group of boys whose mouths were wide with laughter at 721g The Song of Achilles (final).indd 21 28/02/2012 09:13:16