Sacrifice

Chapter IX: “Expectations”

In the royal palace of Damascus, the banquet in honor of the foreign guests was in full swing. The festivities took place in a courtyard, specially designed for such events and which resembled an inner garden, due to its numerous small trees, shrubs, flowers and hanging plants that adorned the walls and columns.

There were many entrances to the dinning hall, including one that led directly into the throne room. On the opposite side of the room there were some stairs, leading to a higher platform –a balcony of some sort–, from where the sovereign would address the people gathered in the square below, right in front of the main entrance to the palace.

Inside the dinning hall there were two long wooden tables and small, wooden chairs, adorned with red cushions, arranged on either side of the pathway connecting the entrance to the throne room to the staircase leading to the balcony. Both the tables and the chairs were of equal height and closer to the ground, very different from what the Greeks were accustomed to.

But this made no difference at all as soon as the tables were laden with food, the wine started pouring and the scantily clad dancing girls –a real shock from what the Greeks were used to– started moving their bodies in the rhythm of the music in sensual ways like they had never seen before.

To the Syrians however, such things were more than common and to a certain extent even boring, especially for Enehy, who was sitting at the royal table, a third, smaller table but of normal height, situated to the right, next to the entrance to the throne room. From there she was surveying the scene, especially the Greeks, who felt no shame at all in displaying a rather grotesque behavior, regardless of the amount of alcohol they had poured down their throats.

She watched Menelaus with a disdainful stare, seeing how he was swinging from one woman to the other, always laughing soundly and holding a cup of wine in one hand. Enehy thought of his pour wife, since she was not present at the party –neither was Briseis, the Trojan princess– and she wondered what she might be doing.


Helen was sitting in the balcony of the room she had been forced to share with Menelaus, gazing at the peaceful night sky, thinking back at the little time she had spent with the man she so ardently came to love, a man whom she now feared she may never see again.

Paris had done so many courageous deeds because of her –some of them foolish, but nonetheless courageous–, he had been willing even to abandon his home and his family for her sake and because of that, her imagination was now running wild, envisioning all sorts of scenarios of how he would come and rescue her.

This gave her hope and the necessary strength to erase from her memory Menelaus’ physical and verbal abuses and his constant reminder of how he would make her lover suffer.

Unlike Helen, whom her husband treated like a prisoner, ordering two of his soldiers to guard the door and not allow her to go anywhere, Briseis was free to go anywhere she pleased, or at least that was what she assumed, since she had not been given any set of rules she ought to follow.

The handmaidens who had led her to her chambers also prepared a bath for her and afterwards dressed her in beautiful robes, giving her the same royal treatment she had been accustomed to as a princess. She was given jewelry and perfumes and other servants brought her delicious meals, but Briseis could not bring herself to fully enjoy all of this.

She had been told that Achilles was dead and that the Trojans who had managed to escape the massacre disappeared without a trace, but something inside of her did not allow her to accept all of this and begin a new life in this foreign city. She could not deny that she enjoyed the conditions, which were much more lavishing than those in Troy, but if she was to really start a new life, she first had to clear all of her doubts.

Once she was left alone in her new chambers, the daring priestess slowly opened the large entrance door and, seeing how there was no one in sight, she stepped outside, gently closed the door behind her and ventured along the corridor, hopping she would be lucky enough to come across Helen’s chamber, for at the moment she was the only one to which she felt close, the single friend she had.


The banquet had barely started but Enehy felt like she had been there for hours, staring at the disgusting foreigners whose presence she would have to endure for many months to come, and even years, as a result of her bonding with their king. She stared and stared until she could not stand it any longer. Forgetting how hungry she was, she left untouched the dishes that had been brought before her and stood up from the table, making her way toward the archway behind her that led out of the dinning hall and into another hallway. Following the hallway, Enehy reached a staircase leading to an upper level of the palace. She climbed it and then followed the hallway stretching before her at the end of the staircase, until she came across her cousin, Nerita, who was standing in a small balcony that offered a full view of the dinning hall below.

“So, what do you think of my brother-in-law?” Enehy asked precisely because she saw the way her cousin was looking down at Menelaus and the other Greeks.

“Please tell me Agamemnon is not like him,” Nerita turned to her cousin with an almost pleading look.

“Oh, no, not at all,” the older cousin responded, pretending to be serious. She approached Nerita, and starring down at Menelaus and the others she responded on a sad, but resigned tone. “He is much, much worse …… in every way.”

Nerita regarded her with a compassionate look and put one arm around her cousin’s back, while resting her head on her shoulder.

“I feel so sorry for you.”

“It’s all right. I’ll live,” Enehy smiled to hide her sorrow and embraced her cousin. “But I am concerned about you. The Greeks are very lustful men and you are young and too beautiful. From now on I want you to cover your hair and wear priestly robes. If anyone asks, you tell them you have dedicated your life to serving the gods.”

“You want me to dress like a virgin?” Nerita protested.

“Well, aren’t you a virgin? Or don’t tell me you …… “

“No! Of course not, but I don’t want to be a virgin all my life, either.”

“I didn’t say that, but for now it is best to make them believe you do want that, because otherwise they will think they can have their way with you whenever they please.”

“All right, so I will be a priestess from now on,” Nerita giggled.


Wandering through the intricate corridors of the palace, Briseis felt like she was trapped inside a giant maze. She walked and walked, but no matter how many turns she took or how many staircases she climbed or descended –sometimes to avoid guards or servants– she always had the impression that she ended up back from where she had stared.

Much to her surprise, but also misfortune, her theory proved wrong when she found herself on a small terrace, from where she barely recognized, somewhere in the distance, on the opposite wing of the palace and at about a ten story distance below, the balcony of the room she had been given.

She sighed deeply, wondering whether she would be able to find the right way back, and at the same time gazing at the sleeping city, with the torches that illuminated the streets looking like shinning stars on the night sky, from where she was standing. Turning back, Briseis came face to face with two guards who were advancing towards her, speaking to her in a language she could not understand.

“What are you doing? Assaulting my guests?”

Briseis saw the Syrian queen appear behind them and speaking the same language.

“Pardon, your majesty, we did not know,” the guards answered in unison and bowed their heads, keeping them that way.

All this was very confusing to the Trojan princess, who had never heard that language before and could not tell what exactly had happened. However, she understood perfectly when the queen spoke to her in Greek.

“Come with me,” she told her smiling, on a mild tone.

Briseis descended the stairs and followed the Syrian queen, passing between the two guards who still kept their heads bowed.


Too long had passed since they had left the Trojan shores and it seemed like they would never reach land again. Such thoughts swirled inside Achilles’ mind as he gazed at the infinite, blue desert, stretching everywhere around, meeting no obstacle in its way, before blending with the unclouded sky in the horizon.

They had been at see for a few weeks now and at all times Achilles stood on deck, in the exact same spot, starring into the distance, hoping to finally see the shores of Syria. He and Paris, who spent most of the time below deck, as to not draw too much attention upon himself, had spoken very little to each other, most of the times Paris being the one to start the conversation, while Achilles would rapidly cut him off.

Having been told they would reach land in less than three days, time seemed to have stopped for Achilles and the hours appeared to pass slower than years. The ship he had boarded was that of Odysseus, the only one who was aware of Paris’ true identity and of the real reason for which Achilles was sailing to such distant places. Odysseus was his friend and one of the few men he truly respected, but even so, it would have been much better if he had had the support of his own men, his Myrmidons.

Little did Achilles know that a few weeks from then he and his Myrmidons would be fighting once again side by side, in Syria. Whether it was the hand of faith or a simple coincidence, Patroclus and Hector boarded a ship from the same Greek port and on the same day that the Myrmidon ship returned from Troy. Eudorus, Achille’s second in command, was very startled to see Patroclus board a ship that sailed back to the other shores of the Aegean, since everyone knew he had gone missing and assumed he had found his death somewhere, probably at the hands of a Trojan soldier. Another reason for which Eudorus decided to take the men on a quest in search of Achilles’ cousin was the cloaked figure whom he saw accompanying Patroclus. He did not know that was Hector or whether he was a friend or a foe to Patroclus.