That night, Athena traveled to Odysseus and appeared to him in the privacy of his tent to discuss matters.
“What the hell?” Odysseus said, “I haven’t heard a word from you for three years!”
“My plans required time to mature, and you bought me that time. But now, things must proceed very quickly. My brother, Zeus’s son, Ares, is now dead. After ten years of war between the gods, this will almost certainly spur Zeus into action. This will quickly bring a close to the Trojan War.”
“Well, do we win?” Odysseus asked.
“If you do as I ask,” Athena said, “Remember when Poseidon demanded you build a tribute to him, to bring the seas back?”
“Sure, sure,” Odysseus said, “But he said only to do that if we were ready to leave.”
“Soon the Seas will return and your fleet will sail again. If you raise the tribute to Poseidon before that happens…”
“Then the Trojans will think we are finally leaving.”
“Exactly. You may sail your ships out of sight of Troy, and then return when it suits you, without fear of Poseidon punishing your deception as sacrilege. The Trojans are starving – the moment they believe you are gone they will open their gates and disgorge their people. Time your return well, take advantage of darkness, or leave behind a contingent of troops, and you may be able to rush Troy’s gates when they let their defenses down.”
“Right, but... even with Ares dead, things aren’t looking bad for us. Do you really think the Trojans will believe we’ve suddenly given up?”
“Luck has been at your side for many years now,” Athena said, “But I’m afraid I must take that from you now.” She reached out and snatched the lucky coin that hung from a leather thong around Odysseus’s neck. “There will be losses, soon. Prepare yourself for some pain. But get the tribute to Poseidon built. Make it happen, regardless of what unfolds on the fields of Troa.”
Athena disappeared in a blur, leaving Odysseus wondering what she meant by ‘pain’. They’d had a fair bit of that already. Odysseus didn’t try to persuade Agamemnon to help him with the tribute, so he simply set his own men on the task. That night, he had two of his ships brought ashore and dismantled, intending to rebuild them into a stunning sculpture of a stallion, Poseidon’s sacred beast. Odysseus didn’t know if it would have impressed Poseidon in reality, but apparently that didn’t matter. The seas would return either way, and the sculpture’s purpose was simply to confuse the Trojans.
Odysseus was sitting in his tent, considering various ways of exploiting the situation Athena had described, and had finally settled on something exceptionally far-fetched when people started shouting outside.
Patroclus rushed in, “We have a problem.”
“You’re going to have to narrow your field there,” Odysseus said.
“Menelaus and I brought Ares back to the shore, intending to cremate his remains and bury his bones out on the old sea floor with the other men we’ve lost.”
“That’s very decent of you, Patroclus. Do you need help?”
“That’s not the problem. We’d just started building the pyre when Menelaus realized we’d lost Ares’ helmet somewhere. We had to leave his axes behind because they were too heavy to lift, but we decided that he should have his helmet – especially since his face was… well, pretty bad. So I ran back up to the battlefield to look for it, and the Trojans are already headed back down.
“What?!” Odysseus had expected – everyone had expected – that the Trojans would want a respite from the battle. Time to treat their wounded, rest, and eat something.
“You saw the men they put on the field today,” Patroclus said, “They’re desperate. They know their situation won’t improve sitting around and waiting, and it’s a full moon, so…”
“Artemis will be there backing them up,” Odysseus nodded, “She hasn’t been throwing her weight around like she used to, but under the moonlight she’ll be dangerous enough.”
“My men are raising the alarm, but everyone’s still rattled from the battle today – some men had already started hitting the wine, and no one was expecting a night attack.”
“We need Achilles,” Odysseus said as he donned his armor.
“He still refuses to fight until Briseis is released.”
“Well, keep trying,” Odysseus said, “You’re the only man among us who has a chance of persuading him.”
Odysseus rounded up his men and led them to join Ajax the Great outside of the camp's wooden gate. Patroclus headed to Achilles tent, rousting the Myrmidons and telling them to prepare. Even if Achilles refused to lead them to the battle, there was a good chance the battle would come to them.
When Patroclus entered the tent, he was surprised to see that Achilles’s mother was sitting with him.
“Queen Thetis,” Patroclus bowed, “How…?”
“My people can traverse the seas much more easily than yours can, child.”
“Well… It’s so nice that you could come. So nice that Achilles gets to have his mother here to hold his hand while his friends die.”
“Patroclus!” Achilles shouted.
“It’s the end, Achilles. If we don’t fight now, the camp will be broken up. The men will flee every direction they can to escape the Trojan’s arrows. The boats will be burned, and those of us who survive will be stranded here in Troa without supplies. Likely taken as slaves. Well, except for you, of course. No one would want Achilles for a slave. All he does is sit around drinking and weeping about his beard.” Patroclus was being cruel, he knew it, but something inside him was compelling him to be more aggressive.
Achilles stood up and pounded his fist on the table, snapping it in two, “You are… so far out of line.”
“Oh please? Refusing to fight over Briseis? The only woman you’ve ever cared enough about to do such a thing is sitting right here. You only kept Briseis around because you wanted the men to think you were like them, and not like me.”
“That’s not true! Briseis is my friend!”
“You never gave Briseis the choice to leave, did you? You kept her as a slave – who keeps their friends as slaves? She’d be free now if you’d let her go from the start. All these years of suffering at Agamemnon’s hands… she would have been spared all of that if you’d freed her right away.”
“Freed her to do what, Patroclus? Get captured by someone else? Someone worse than me?”
“You mean someone like Agamemnon? Good job there, Achilles.”
The men stared at each other coldly for a moment.
“It was give up Briseis, or kill Agamemnon. Killing Agamemnon would have doomed the army.”
“The army is doomed if you don’t fight!”
Achilles shrugged and sat down again, “Agamemnon said he didn’t need me.”
“Oh my gods; is that why you’ve chosen this as the altar to sacrifice us all on? Because a man you hate doesn’t appreciate you enough?”
“My son signed his own death warrant when he set sail with the Greek fleet ten years ago,” Thetis said, “He knew that he would not survive the war, and yet he came anyway. His sacrifice should at least be appreciated by you mortals.”
“Sacrifice? What sacrifice? At this rate, your son will outlive all of us!”
“Are you disappointed?” Achilles glared.
“No! I…” Patroclus took a breath, “I wanted to do what we talked about. Go east. See Asia. Take Briseis, even. But not this way. Not dragging the bones of a thousand dead Achaeans.” Patroclus turned and stormed out. Surprisingly, it was Thetis who followed him.
“Wait, wait!” she cried, “I… I asked Zeus to give Agamemnon an epiphany. To tip the scales in Troy’s favor for a while so that Agamemnon would see that he needs Achilles.”
“Tip the scales? How?”
“The Trojans will fight far more tenaciously than you have ever seen them fight, many Achaeans will die, but I now fear that Agamemnon would rather watch his men burn than back down from Achilles.”
“He and your son are very similar in that regard.”
Thetis opened her hands in an apologetic gesture, “My son is difficult, but not intractable. He wants Agamemnon to eat crow and release Briseis, but I know he would settle for her not being in Agamemnon’s possession anymore. If she were to… escape? Amidst all of this chaos? I’m sure Achilles would raise arms again. In fact, I’d guarantee it.”
It wasn’t a bad plan, “Right – thank you Thetis.”
“He's a good man and you make him a better one - please don't give up on him," Thetis said, "Now Go! Hurry!” Thetis shouted as Patroclus ran to Agamemnon’s tent.
Patroclus saw Agamemnon leave his tent, headed to the imminent battle, so Patroclus didn’t hesitate. He burst in and found Briseis naked, chained to the bed, and very pregnant.
“Holy shit,” Patroclus was struck speechless. None of them had seen Briseis in months. When the deal was first struck, Agamemnon had dragged her everywhere he went in camp, leading her by a leash of all things, as a constant insult to Achilles. But then Agamemnon had confined her to his tent, and Patroclus had wondered if she was even still alive.
“Patroclus?” Briseis asked wearily, “You’re alive. That’s good. Agamemnon doesn’t tell me anything, and his other servants are forbidden to talk to me.”
Patroclus embraced her, “I’m so sorry we brought this on you.”
“Is Achilles still refusing to fight until I’m released?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good.”
“I don’t think Agamemnon will cave, though,” Patroclus said passing her some water that had been placed out of her reach.
“I doubt he will,” she nodded, “He’s a proud man.”
“That’s why we’re going to just say, enough is enough, and get you out of here,” Patroclus began trying to find the lock on the chains to see what sort of key held the shackles closed, but Briseis yanked her hands away. “What are you doing?!” Patroclus shouted, “We need to get you out of here!”
“No,” Briseis said, “This is where I belong.”
Patroclus looked at her in shock, “What… what did Agamemnon do to make you believe that?”
“I’ve known it since the day Achilles traded me away,” Briseis said, “I’m just a woman. A rich man’s daughter. I can’t fight Greek soldiers, let alone kill them, so when Achilles came to our boat in Adramytium, I surrendered. But then, then he vowed not to fight so long as I remained in Agamemnon’s possession. Greece’s deadliest warrior – removed from the fight so long as I endured Agamemnon’s abuses. So, I’ve suffered,” she looked down at her swollen abdomen, “And I know I will suffer more. But the tears I’ve shed have saved Trojan lives. Every day Achilles has sat in his tent, was a day he didn’t kill a score of our countrymen.”
Patroclus looked at her in shock, “I thought you were our friend.”
“Though the past few years have strained our relationship, I think we were friends, once. But we were never allies, Patroclus.”
Patroclus sat in silence for a moment. A quiet voice in his mind urged him to simply kill the woman, hide the body, and tell Achilles she’d escaped – or better, that the Trojans had made it into the camp and had killed her. But then, nothing she’d said was unreasonable. Her loyalty to her countrymen was commendable, and the sacrifice she’d made for their sake – the sacrifice they would never know about – was the stuff of legend.
Patroclus stood up, drew his sword, and used it to break the chain binding Briseis, “I’m going to make sure the Trojans see Achilles on the battlefield tonight. Your sacrifices have been noble, but your game’s played out. You should run while you have the opportunity.”
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