‘You’ll see him again in the spring, and the time between now and then will fly. There will be no chance to be idle, and it is idleness which breeds discontent, mischief, malice, pranks.’

He drew a breath. ‘What must I learn, Chiron? What do I need to know to be a great king?’

‘Too much to detail, Achilles. A great king is a fountain of knowledge. Any king is the best man, but a great king understands that he is the representative of his people before the God.’

‘Then learning cannot come too soon.’

Ajax came back with the lyre in his hand, holding it off the ground carefully; it was a big instrument more akin to the harps the Egyptians play, formed from a huge tortoise carapace which glowed all browns and ambers, and it had golden pegs. I laid it across my knee and stroked the strings with a feather touch which produced a pretty sound, not a melody.

‘You must play the lyre and learn the songs of your people. The greatest sin is to appear uncultured or uncouth. You will commit to heart the history and the geography of the world, all the wonders in nature, all the treasures beneath the lap of Mother Kubaba, who is the Earth. I will teach you to hunt, to kill, to fight with all manner of weapons, to make your own weapons. I will show you the herbs curing sicknesses and wounds, teach you to distil them for medicines, school you in splinting broken limbs. A great king sets more store by life than death.’

‘Oratory?’ asked Achilles.

‘Yes, of course. After learning from me, your oratory will draw the hearts of your listeners out of their breasts in joy or sorrow. And I will show you how to judge what men are, how to frame laws and execute them. I will teach you what the God expects of you because you are Chosen.’ I smiled. ‘And that is just the beginning!’

I took up the lyre then and set its base upon the ground, drew my hand across its heartstrings. For a few moments only I played, the notes increasing in power, then, on the climax, as the last chord died away into stillness, I began to sing.

‘He was alone, at every turn was enmity.

Queen Here brooding spread her hands,

And Olympos shook its golden rafters

As she turned restless to watch him.

Implacable her divine rage! King Zeus

Powerless in all the reaches of his sky

Because he promised glorious Here this,

His son into groaning bondage on earth.

Eurystheus her minion cold and pitiless,

Smiling as he counted those runnels,

His sweat that Herakles gave in payment.

For the children of the Gods must atone

Because the Gods are above retribution,

And that is the difference between men

And the Gods who prey on them as victims.

Bastard child without that drop of ichor,

Herakles took up the price of passion.

In agony and degradation did he pay,

While Here laughed to see mighty Zeus weep…’

It was the Lay of Herakles, not dead so many years, and as I sang I watched them both. Ajax listened intently, Achilles with his body tensed, leaning forward with his chin propped on his hands, both elbows on the arm of my chair, his eyes only a thread away from my face. When at last I put the lyre from me he dropped his hands with a sigh, exhausted.

So it began, and so it went on as the years rolled by. Achilles forged ahead in everything, Ajax plodded doggedly through his assignments. Yet Telamon’s son was not a fool. He had a courage and a determination that any king mighty envy, and he always managed to keep up. But Achilles was my boy, my joy. Every single thing I told him was stored up with jealous care – to be used when he was a great king, he would say with a smile. He loved learning and excelled in all its branches, as good with his hands as he was with his mind. Even now I have some of his clay bowls and little drawings.

But above all scholarship, Achilles was born to action, to war and to mighty deeds. Even in the physical sense he outstripped his cousin, for he was quicksilver on his feet and took to handling weapons like a greedy woman to a casket of jewels. His aim with a spear was unerring, nor could I see the sword once he drew it. Swish, slash, chop. Oh yes, he was born to command! He understood the art of war without effort, by instinct. A natural hunter, he would come back to my cave dragging a wild boar too heavy to carry, and he could run down a deer. Only once did I see him in trouble, when, after his quarry at full tilt, he came crashing down so hard that it was some time before he recovered his full senses. His right foot, he explained, had given way.

Ajax could flare into violent rage, but I never saw Achilles lose his temper. Neither shy nor withdrawn, he yet possessed an inner quiet and restraint. The thinking warrior. How rare. In only one respect did that gash of a mouth reveal the other side of his nature; when something did not suit his sense of fitness he could be as cold and unbending as the north wind bearing snow.

I enjoyed those seven years more than all the rest of my life put together, thanks not only to Achilles, but to Ajax too. The contrast between the first cousins was so marked and their excellences so great that welding them into men became a task filled with love. Of all the boys I have taught, I loved Achilles most. When he drove away for the last time I wept, and for many moons afterwards my will to live was a gnat as persistent as the one which tormented Io. It was a long time before I could look out from my chair and see the golden trim on the roof of the palace shining in the sun without a mist hovering before my eyes that made the gilding and the tile dissolve one into the other like ore in a crucible.

4

NARRATED BY

Helen

Xanthippe gave me a rough tussle; I came from the field panting and exhausted. We had gathered a large audience, and I gave the circle of admiring faces my most radiant smile. No man was interested in congratulating Xanthippe for winning the bout. They were there to see me. Crowding about me, they sang my praises, used any excuse to touch my hand or my shoulder, a few of the bolder ones jokingly offering to wrestle with me anytime. It was no effort to dodge their sallies; crude, unsubtle stuff.

In years I was still counted a child, but their eyes denied that; their eyes told me things about myself that I already knew, for there were mirrors of polished copper in my rooms, and I too had eyes. Though they were all nobles of the Court, none of them was of great import in the scheme of things. I shook them off like water after a bath, snatched a linen towel from my woman and wrapped it about my bare, sweating limbs amid a chorus of protests.

Then I saw my father at the back of the crowd. Father had watched? How extraordinary! He never came to see the women play at their parodies of masculine sport! My expression caused some of the barons to turn; in an instant they had all melted away. I went to my father and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Do you always have such an enthusiastic audience, child?’ he asked, frowning.

‘Yes, Father.’ I preened. ‘I am much admired, you know.’

‘So I see. I must be getting old, losing my powers of observation. Luckily your elder brother is neither old nor blind. He told me this morning that it might be prudent for me to drop in on the women’s sports.’

I bristled. ‘Why should Kastor bother with me?’

‘A poor state of affairs if he did not!’

We reached the door to the Throne Room.

‘Wash off your dirt, Helen, dress, and then return to me.’

His face told me nothing, so I shrugged and ran off.

Neste waited for me in my rooms, clucking and scolding. I let her unwrap me, looking forward to the warm bath, the tingle of the scraper on my skin. Chattering away, she threw the towel into a corner and undid the strings of my loincloth. But I was not listening. Skipping across the cold flags, I leaped into the bath and splashed merrily. Such a delicious sensation to feel the water lap around me, caress me, cloud enough to permit me to caress myself without Neste’s beady eyes detecting it. And how pleasant afterwards to stand while she rubbed me with a fragrant oil, rub a little of it in myself. There could not be too many moments in one day to caress, to rub, to give myself those shocks and thrills girls like Xanthippe seemed not to care about nearly as much as I did. Perhaps that was because they had not had a Theseus to teach them.