Page 28 of Odette's Vow

The silence was thick now, charged with possibility.

“Come, what say you? Will you fight just one more day?”

“Buy them time,” Odette whispered in my head. “Buy us time.”

Jarring words, for she would almost certainly never say them.

Regardless, whatever I’d said had worked as the men began the battlecry wave towards us. I turned to find Agamemnon standing beside me, a grin on his face that suggested the words were his own. His slap on my back confirmed it.

“To war!” he cried.

“TO WAR!” every man cried back.

Despite the resolve I placed in the men, our steadfastness slipped between us like quicksand. Ares fought alongside Hector. Even my bloodthirsty friend Diomedes sent me a look of fear that paled his face when we watched Tlepolemus slaughtered in front of us. I responded in kind, slaughtering an entire line of Trojans in my wake. A second. A third. But I was no match for Hector.

The Trojans pushed us back and back and back, until we were almost at our own moat. We had lost today’s battle miserably.

The men looked to us at the front – myself, Diomedes, the other kings, Agamemnon – for signs of what to do. I waited for Athena, or Odette, to appear in my head, to tell me what to say, when Agamemnon began weeping.

“The war truly is a failure. I was right this morning. We should leave for Greece.”

Incredible. Even in defeat, he maintained he was right. This man knew no shame.

Frowning, I considered my reply, when Diomedes beat me to it. “I will stay and fight, for I know the words Odysseus spoke this morning were true.” He looked each of the men in the eye, studying each of them just long enough to make sure they were listening. A clever trick I had taught him long ago, when he became king of his own lands. “The prophecy stated that Troy was fated to fall. We may have lost today, but this was just one day of many. Eventually, even a rock relentlessly beaten by the ocean turns to sand.”

“He is right,” Nestor, another of our generals, urged. At the men’s skeptical looks, he made another suggestion. “Perhaps, my Lord and King Agamemnon, we should look to reconcile with Achilles.”

Agamemnon looked up from his place of weeping, where he’d collapsed on the ground. “Yes,” he said, rising. “Perhaps you are right. I will offer Achilles a great stockpile of gifts, so long as he should return to the frontlines of battle. Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix – go tell him the good news.”

I returnedto the tent to wash and gather what I needed for the walk across the long expanse of beach to get to where Achilles and his men had camped, high up on the hill.

To my surprise, Odette was in the tent upon my return. Ever since our altercation, she had taken to being out when I returned, volunteering extra hours to help prep the food, tend to the bonfires, wash rags and the like. We had barely spoken, beyond the day-to-day operations we had to discuss. I had tried to engage her in discussions, suggesting that we go back to our Greek lessons. She had replied in almost fluent Greek where I could ‘stick’ my saviour-like intentions.

I let out a small, throaty sound.

She glanced up from her place where she was folding blankets and pinned me with a stare a lesser man would wither under. She pushed boundaries far too often, yet even that was a thousand times better than the hollow, despondent shell she'd been when I first brought her here.

“I must speak with Achilles tonight,” I began, my focus fixed on her, searching for her understanding. “I’ll need food andwater for the walk over, something to gift him, and a fresh cloak.”

I wanted her to ask why, but she merely nodded, stood, and began to gather the things as requested.

“Agamemnon finally wants to fix his insult of Achilles,” I told her.

“What a surprise,” she muttered sarcastically, yet in Greek, and for some reason pride swelled in my chest.

“I doubt it will do any good,” I continued. “Rumour has it that even when Achilles’ men have asked him, he says he intends to return to Phthia so that he might live a long, ordinary life rather than the short, glorious one he was fated to have should he stay, according to his mother.”

“Strange.”

My chin lifted in surprise at her response. “What is?”

“A Grecian man choosing the ordinary over glory.”

I was silent for a moment, contemplating if I should share a little more of myself with this woman. “I do not blame him. I would choose an ordinary life, too.”

Odette snorted, and I had to grit my teeth to stop myself closing the space between us again and shaking her. It would only lead us back to what got us here in the first place.

Instead, I said, “Achilles is young and foolish. He cares too much for his pride. I think he has simply been biding his time in this war. But I am a tired old man, and I would like to go home.”

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