Bitter feeling had replaced the blood in his veins for many years of his life. Such was better left in youth, in adolescent angst. In this day and age, stirrings of resentment made better kindling to a flame. Indeed, he could not deny a disappointment in the race’s result, but these were early days. They could portent, they could be fluke. It hardly mattered at this stage.
Familiarity kept the guard at Agamemnon’s back rather than in Patroclus’ face. Quietly, the heads of soldier and king both turned to regard them, the former’s with only passing curiosity, the latter’s with more pressing regard. It was so clearly study, disapproval, without the usual glaze of performative warmth.
“Have you come to gloat?” Scepticism brought a cold tone to an otherwise smooth voice.
“You waste your breath, soldier. I am not at odds with any of these men, least of all your own.” Elbows rested on the wooden frame of the stands, his back slouched over them. Lackadaisical.
This was the truth. There was no begrudgement for Achilles or any other. Indeed, if there had been, he was less than inclined to speak to Patroclus on the matter. Not when stronger messages could be delivered in the dead of night. Yet, they were a far shot from such things as of yet.
Surprise washes over him, not so much a downpour but a light drizzle. He feels its droplets heavy on his brow, sneaking past his lips with a scalding sensation. They don’t taste like anything particular; they don’t taste like anything he hasn’t felt before.
Scorn ? No, rather its lesser counterpart, its unborn twin: dismissal. At the present moment of their covenant, Patroclus is no less than a footman for the Mycenaen king. Well, that is only a little galling. He’s heard worse ; he heard paiderastês. He heard hetairos. Things one cannot bite their tongue at, cannot withhold the blow— a man lets them go unanswered once, and then answers forever on their altar of shame.
The crux of the matter is this: Patroclus is schooled in underestimation like prodromoi are trained into hunger, into thoughtless obeisance. He knows how it arises, how it settles in place, the snug manner of habit; he knows how it can be uprooted, or culled, or demolished in its entirety, leaving only the cadaver of a man’s last mistake. Like an archer’s thumbprint, his soul is calloused to it. He brushes over Agamemnon’s veiled disdain.
For now, there is no need for such choices, even if their precarious balance teeters and shakes. Underneath, the word yet rears its timely head.
To their left, a goat is bleating something fierce. It catches him off-guard, once more forgetting that the whole reality is divided on this precipice, cleaved in half: one realm for the brunt of mortals, another for those entrapped in divine games. How odd, to think that only an arm’s breadth away, farmhands gather their herds, merchants sharpen the adzes, and history moves still ; but oh, how quiet the steps. In their reality, it is thunderous.
The captain’s temples twitch. Neck arches to better regard Agamemon, curbing off-kilter to one side. With a patience as burning as passion, and just as hardly endured, he unclenches his jaw — no, he prevents it from locking in the first place. ❛ If by my men you mean Achilles, I’d object to the term. But it’s comforting, really, to hear of your disinterest, your noble impartiality. Not something I’d have wagered on, from what I heard; from what we heard, my men and all. ❜
