Favorite Son

“Do you see this?” I growl at Paris, shaking the bow in his face. “You were ordered to cease! And yet you fired directly into the thick of the battle. How many times must you be told something before you learn it?” I hurl the bow from me. It is all I can do not to hurl it at Paris.

Paris says no word, but glowers at me, his arms crossed tightly and his brows drawn together. A brave yet foolhardy stance, for surely he knows he has done wrong, else why would he be hiding here in the bowels of the city, in the storehouse dug deep into the rock? It took me a great while to find him, and that did nothing to diminish my wrath.

Yet here he stands, defiant. As though I have done wrong.

“Lycaon lives, does he not?” he nearly snarls.

“Ah, I see. Then it is your belief that he would be dead now had you not disobeyed my direct orders?”

“He would be dead! You know it as well as I.”

“That does not exonerate the willful disobedience of a warrior!”

In truth, Lycaon is badly wounded but he will live to fight again. Not an hour earlier I saw to his comfort in the healing house, where he himself begged me not to chastise Paris. And yet my parents have placed the burden of teaching Paris upon my shoulders, not Lycaon’s, and I will not have it said that I am remiss in my filial duties. It is evil enough that the whole city knows how Paris has the king and queen eating from his hands. I cannot bear the thought that the people think the same of me, although it is undeniably true and a cause of great shame to me.

Paris remains tense and rebellious, standing his ground between stacks of cloth bolts on one side and tanned hides on the other. I take a step forward and he, a step backward.

”You are envious because you could not save him,” he says suddenly.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask darkly.

“You are jealous because I am the one who saved him,” he charges on. “You do not want me to have even a little glory. You want all the glory for yourself.”

He could not have startled me more if he had plunged a knife into my entrails. “How dare you say such a thing to me!” I roar, lunging forward and grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him as though he were a child’s rattle. “After what I have done, standing by while you usurp my place in the hearts of my parents, saving you from your own stupidity again and again and—“

“You want everything to belong to you,” he pants, his teeth knocking slightly from the shaking. “You know it as well as I! You are already perfect – why must you resent someone like myself?”

“I do not resent anyone!” I shove him against the bolts of cloth and press against him so that he cannot move. My own body is trembling with rage, and my flesh is consumed with heat.

“Yes, you do,” he continues boldly. “You treat me like a child because of—“

“Because you behave like a child!”

He struggles against my hold, but in vain. “Let me be, Hector.”

“Leave you be, is it? Listen, little brother, I wish the world might leave me be. Yet I have no freedom. Why should you? If you wanted to be free you should have stayed on your little mountain with your sheep and your village and your family and the men whom you allowed to bed you and—“ I am so enraged that I cannot bring myself to say it. That he would permit a man other than myself to do with him what I have done – almost I feel a physical pain when I think such thoughts.

Thus I am caught entirely off my guard when he brings up his knee hard into my groin, and I stumble backwards onto the rough stone floor, curling into a ball and moaning like a virgin. If I felt I was on fire before, it is nothing compared to what I suffer now. It was foolish to have left such an opening, but I am appalled that he would have taken advantage in this cowardly manner.

And yet he is not through humiliating me, it would seem. He kneels upon the floor over my prostrate body.

“Do not touch me!” I bellow. “Gods, have you not done enough already?”

“You will live,” he says, undeterred. He lifts my kilt. “I do not think it is hurt,” he says calmly, looking down.

I raise my head and look down as well. It does not appear to be broken in any way, and yet it certainly hurts still. Groaning, I let my head fall back to the floor with a weary thump. I wish to look no more upon this unspeakable scene, and my eyes flutter closed. The edge of the kilt drops, and even that small motion provokes a wince of pain that I cannot suppress. He murmurs some small apology.

The pain seems to have cleared my wits somewhat. I understand now that Paris possesses my soul. This, and not some spear wielded by a doughty warrior, is my doom. A corollary of my doom, it would seem, is that I must do my best to keep this knowledge from him, lest it doom us both. For even in the midst of my deepest rages, I know that I will protect him whatever the cost.

Paris is silent now, sitting back upon my legs and trailing his fingertips along my arms and my hands, which appear to have gripped his thighs without my conscious knowledge or permission. The world drops away and I seem to be floating. The storehouse is quiet, the only sounds a rat scuttling in a corner, and above us, the city bustling with activity which can be heard only dimly. Helenus is still outside the walls, chasing the remnants of the enemy as far as he thinks wise. Some of the people are preparing funeral pyres for our fallen warriors while others are in the temples, thanking the gods for their succor. Our parents are no doubt in the healing house, bringing cheer and aid not merely to Lycaon, but to all who have been wounded in the service of Troy.

Paris lays his hand flat upon my exposed belly, where my breastplate has ridden up. “I want to obey you,” he says quietly. “I mean to obey you. But I could not stop myself when I saw the man behind Lycaon raising his sword. The shot was clear – I knew I could strike him down.”

I tire of explaining to him over and over, and yet who will do it if not I? “That is not at issue, Paris. A warrior cannot choose for himself, or all would be chaos.”

“I know that. I do know, and yet… are you not glad that Lycaon lives?” He pauses but I make no answer. “I am sorry for what I said to you.”

He should be sorry. And yet he was also partly in the right, but I refuse to say as much. To do so would only encourage his headstrong foolishness.

“Am I forgiven?” he asks.

Only Paris could say such a thing to me. No other has such temerity.

“Say that you will obey me henceforth.”

“I will obey you.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” He sounds sincere. It is the best he can do, and I must needs accept it. “Hector, you must understand that I worship the very ground upon which you walk,” he continues.

“You do?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Do you think me a good brother?”

“Yes.”

“Say that I am a good brother,” I command.

“You are the best brother in the world.”

“Say that I am the bravest warrior in the world.”

“You are the bravest warrior in the world.”

“Say that you can deny me nothing.”

“Nothing. I can deny you nothing, Hector.”

His hands lie warm upon my own, which still caress his thighs. I am trembling again, but no longer from rage. My eyes open and I see that he is gazing down at me with great solemnity. “Say that I am your master,” I tell him, no longer so commanding.

“You are my master.”

“Say that I may do whatever I will with you.”

“You may do what you will with me.” He is smiling softly now. He is teasing me, but I am in deadly earnest.

“Say that you love me,” I beg, my voice and my heart breaking.

He leans down and kisses me gently. “I do not owe you my love,” he murmurs. “I owe my allegiance to you, yes: I owe you respect and obedience. I owe repentance for having disobeyed you. All these I owe to you for all you have done when you had no good reason to care for me or to believe that I was your brother.”

I squeeze my eyes closed and will myself not to weep. How he can make me feel so raw and wounded, I cannot fathom.

“My love,” he says, as though the words were only now newly created, “I give to you freely.”

* * *

Such a long and difficult day it has been. I have lost friends; I have comforted their wives and children. My body blooms with fresh and unhealed battle scars, and no less so my heart. Yet this night when Paris lies beside me and whispers, “Do you love me, Hector?” I find I cannot answer him in words, but only by pulling his head to my shoulder and tenderly enfolding him in my arms.

There is more than one kind of cowardice in the world.