No One But You

Chapter Ten : Goodbye My Lover

Slumped against the base of the wall beside the doorway was the mutilated body of the Trojan guard that kept a constant watch by her room. Briseis straightened up, wiping her mouth and deliberately keeping her gaze away from the body. This was no time for hysterics at the sight of the dead.

She took a few paces down he hall, and then paused, torn for a moment. Suddenly, in one fluid motion, she turned back, and, grabbing a knife from the belt of the dead man, spun back around before her stomach could protest again. She slipped the knife up her sleeve before continuing down the passageway.

She didn't entirely know why she had taken the dead man's knife, only that the weight of the metal in her hand was faintly reassuring, and though she did not doubt that she had little chance against fully armed soldiers, she felt very slightly safer with it.

She ran down the dark passageways, lit up only by the glow of the burning city, all the time cursing the material of her dress, which got caught around her legs, slowing her down. Men, women, and children ran in a panicked chaos around her, all intent on saving their own lives from the merciless invaders that were coming.

Briseis skidded to a halt outside the door of Paris' and Helen's rooms, but the door was wide open and the room was empty, apart from a sobbing servant, cowering in the corner. Briseis felt her gut twist in fear. She had been counting on Paris being here to save her.

The former priestess stood immobile as people swarmed around her, filled with a feeling of utter helplessness. There was nowhere to turn to, no one to run to and shelter behind. Briseis drew a steep breath, and counted out three long seconds. When she reached the end she pulled herself together: she had given herself three seconds to panic, and now she had to think calmly. Cowering in a corner would not save her, she doubted that anything would save her, but moving had to be better than staying, waiting to be discovered.

Filled with a resolve that she didn't know she possessed, Briseis moved off down the corridors once more, seeking a place that she had been outcasted from: a place dedicated to something she no longer believed in, a place that she had been dragged screaming and fighting from several weeks ago.

And in the temple, Briseis found some peace. Peace in the knowledge that the end was coming: the waiting would soon be over and she would know her fate. Peace, even through the frantic prayers to the gods that she was not sure even existed. Peace in the knowledge that noting mattered anymore: not love, not her pregnancy, not her shame. Soon, it would end, and she would be free.

Achilles ran through the city streets, his heart pounding and his mouth dry, only one thought in his mind: a desperate, urgent need to find Briseis and protect her. Nothing mattered anymore to him. He knew he would die this night, and as long as he saved her in doing it, then he could accept death. Everything was planned for after his death, everything was worked out, and he knew that he could welcome death in the knowledge that he was leaving nothing behind him undone.
And then he saw her: she was in front of the temple alter, her body pressed up close to Agamemnon's, his thick, fat hand wrapped around her neck. Achilles felt a wave of fear wash through him, followed by one of anger. He had vowed once that before the war was over, he would stand over Agamemnon's body and smile, but that victory would be nothing but bitter if his own lover's body lay there too.

He was running towards Briseis when he saw one slender hand come up and a brief flash as light caught the metal, before Briseis buried the knife in the king's neck with a force born from fear.

Even as she plunged the knife into Agamemnon's neck, Briseis felt her stomach heave with disgust and panic, and she was running as soon as the king hit the ground. Not soon enough though, for moments later she felt herself captured by strong hands as the two guards grabbed hold of her, and she was suddenly facing death head on.