‘You are my son, the one Peleus denied immortality.’

‘I am he.’

‘Did he send you to seek me?’

‘No. I came by chance,’ I said, leaning feebly on old Pelion.

What ought a man to feel when he meets his mother for the first time? Oedipoas had felt lust, had taken her as his wife and queen, bred by her. But I, it seemed, had no Oedipoas in me, for I felt no pang of lust, no flicker of admiration for her beauty or her apparent youth. Perhaps what I felt is best summed up as wonder, as discomfort, as – yes, rejection. This odd little woman had murdered my six brothers and betrayed my father, whom I loved.

‘You hate me!’ she said, sounding outraged.

‘Not hate. Dislike,’ I said.

‘What did Peleus name you?’

‘Achilles.’

She eyed my mouth, nodded contemptuously. ‘Very appropriate! Even fish have lips, but you have none. Lack of them turns your face from a thing of beauty to a thing unfinished. A bag with a slit in it.’

She was right. I did hate her.

‘What are you doing on Skyros? Is Peleus with you?’

‘No. I come alone each year for six moons. I am the son-in-law of King Lykomedes.’

‘Married already?’ she asked, nastily.

‘I’ve been married since I was thirteen years old – I am almost twenty now. My son is six.’

‘What a fiasco! And your wife? Is she a child too?’

‘Her name is Deidamia and she is older than me.’

‘Well, it’s all very convenient for Lykomedes. Peleus too. They harnessed you, and quite painlessly.’

Finding nothing to answer, I said nothing. Nor did she. The silence stretched interminably. I, so well trained by my father and Chiron always to defer to my elders, would not break it because I could not break it politely. Pehaps she was truly a goddess, though my father denied it each time the wine got the better of him.

‘You should have been immortal,’ she said finally.

That made me laugh. ‘I want no immortality! I am a warrior, I enjoy the things of men. I do homage to the Gods, but I’ve never hungered to be one of them.’

‘Then you haven’t thought on what mortality entails.’

‘What can it entail, except that I must die?’

‘Exactly,’ she said softly. ‘You must die, Achilles. And doesn’t the thought of death frighten you? You say you’re a man, a warrior. But warriors die early, before men of peace.’

I shrugged. ‘Whichever way it goes, death is my lot. I’d rather die young and gloriously than old and ignominiously.’

For a moment her eyes became misty blue and her face took on a sadness I had not thought her capable of feeling. A tear trickled down her translucent cheek, but she wiped it away impatiently and became again a creature devoid of pity. ‘It’s too late to argue the point, my son. You must die. But I can offer you a choice, because I can see into the future. I know your fate. Soon men will come to ask you to join in a great war. But if you go, you’ll die. If you don’t go, you’ll live to be very old and enjoy much happiness. Young and gloriously, or old and ignominiously. The choice is yours.’

I blinked, laughed. ‘What kind of choice is that? None! I elect to die young and gloriously.’

‘Why not think on death a little first?’ she asked.

Her words sank into me barbed with venom. I stared down into her eyes to see them swim and dissolve, to see her face become shapeless, the sky above her melt and flow beneath her tiny feet. When she grew in height until her head penetrated the clouds I knew the Spell was upon me again – and who cast it. Brine spilled from the corners of my mouth, the stench of corruption filled my nostrils, terror and loneliness drove me to my knees before her. My left hand began to jerk, the left side of my face to twitch. But this time she took her Spell further. I lost consciousness.

When I woke she was beside me on the ground, rubbing sweetly scented herbs between her palms.

‘Stand up,’ she commanded.

Unable to order my thoughts, enfeebled in body as well as in mind, I got up slowly.

‘Achilles, listen to me!’ she barked. ‘Listen to me! You are going to swear an oath of the Old Religion, and that is a far worse oath than any under the New. To Nereus, my father, the Old Man of the Sea – to the Mother, for she bears us all – to Kore, queen of horror – to the rulers of Tartaros, place of torment – and to me in my Godhead. You will swear it now, understanding that it cannot be broken. If you do break it, you will go mad for ever and ever, and Skyros will sink below the waves just as Thera did after the great sacrilege.’ She shook my arm, her grip hard. ‘Do you hear me, Achilles? Do you?’

‘Yes,’ I mumbled.

‘I have to save you from yourself,’ she said, breaking open a leathery old egg upon greasy blood and letting the blood splatter over the altar. Then she took my right hand and squashed it down upon the mess, held it there firmly. ‘Now swear!’

I repeated the words she dictated. ‘I, Achilles, son of Peleus, grandson of Aiakos and great-grandson of Zeus, do swear that I will return at once to the palace of King Lykomedes and assume the dress of a woman. I will remain within the palace for the space of one year, always dressed as a woman. Whenever any persons come asking to see Achilles, I will hide in the harem and have no contact with them, even through intermediaries. I will let King Lykomedes speak for me in everything and abide by what he says without argument. And all this I do swear by Nereus, by the Mother, by Kore, by the rulers of Tartaros and by Thetis, who is a Goddess.’

The moment those awful words were finished, my confusion lifted; the world resumed its true colours and contours, and I could think clearly again. But too late. No man could take such a terrible oath and forswear it. My mother had bound me hand and foot to her will.

‘I curse you!’ I cried, beginning to weep. ‘I curse you! You’ve made me into a woman!’

‘There is woman in all men,’ she smirked.

‘You’ve stripped me of my honour!’

‘I’ve prevented your going to an early death,’ she answered, and gave me a push. ‘Now return to Lykomedes. You won’t need to explain anything to him. By the time you get to the palace, he’ll know it all.’ Her eyes went blue again. ‘I do this out of love, my poor, lipless son. I am your mother.’

I said not one word to Patrokles when I found him, simply picked up my share of our gear and started back to the palace. And he, attuned as always to my mind, did not ask me one single question. Or perhaps he already knew what Lykomedes certainly knew when he came through the gates into the courtyard. He was waiting there, looking shrunken and defeated.

‘I’ve had a message from Thetis,’ he said.

‘Then you know what is required of us.’

‘Yes.’

My wife was sitting at the window when I came into her room. At the sound of the door she turned her head and opened her arms wide, smiling sleepily. I kissed her on the cheek and stared out the window, down on the harbour and the little town.

‘Is that all the welcome you have for me?’ she asked, but not indignantly; Deidamia was never put out.

‘You surely know what everyone knows,’ I said, sighing.

‘That you have to dress as a woman and hide in Father’s harem,’ she said, nodding. ‘But only when there are strangers here, and that won’t be often.’

The shutter under my hand began to splinter, so great was my anguish. ‘How can I do it, Deidamia? The humiliation! What a perfect way to be revenged! She mocks my manhood, the cow!’

My wife shivered, put up her right hand in the sign which wards off the Evil Eye. ‘Achilles, don’t anger her further! She’s a Goddess! Speak of her with respect.’

‘Never!’ I said between my teeth. ‘She has no respect for me, for my manhood. How everyone will laugh!’

This time Deidamia shuddered. ‘It is not a laughing matter,’ she said.