Paris said in disgust, "There's an old tale that Akhilles is protected by spells so that no wound inflicted by a mortal can bring him down."

"Let me but get a weapon into his flesh," said Aeneas. "I'll guarantee to kill him. But we must go up and break the news to Priam; the worst news of all this year."

Kassandra said between her teeth, "We should have expected this. Hector killed Patroklos; Akhilles was ready for him the minute he put a foot outside the wall. This was not war but murder." And silently she wondered if there was that much difference.

"We must go to Akhilles at once," Aeneas said, "perhaps even before we tell our father; and ask a truce to bury and mourn our brother."

"Do you really think they will give it?" asked Paris sarcastically. "You think too well of them."

"They must grant it," said Aeneas. "We gave a truce for Pat-roklos's funeral games."

"If it comes to that," said Andromache, "I will go myself and kneel to Akhilles and beg back the body of my husband."

"They will return it," said Aeneas. "Akhilles is always talking of honor."

"Only his own, I notice," Kassandra said.

"Well then, his own honor will prompt him to do the honorable thing," Aeneas said. "They know me; let me go then with a delegation of Hector's own guard to bring home his body."

"We must tell Father first," said Troilus, rising from the healer's ministrations, very pale, his head wrapped in bandages. "If you wish it, I will tell him; I am to blame; I let him fall into Akhilles's hands—"

Hecuba embraced him fiercely. "No blame to you, my love. I rejoice that you did not follow him into death." She added, "But yes, go to Priam; nothing could comfort him for the loss of our first-born but the knowledge of the son we still have to bless us—"

"I will go and tell him," Paris said. "But first gather all my brothers; all of us who live still shall stand before him and be ready to comfort him."

"And I," said Kassandra, "I will go to the Maiden's Temple, and tell Polyxena; she and Hector were close in age and they loved each other well."

They had begun to set off on their various errands when Andromache went to the wall and let out a high wild shriek.

"Ah, the fiend, the monster! What is he doing now?"

"Who?" Kassandra asked, but she already knew; fiend, monster could be only one person. She rushed to the wall.

The sun was high; it was not yet noon. It had only seemed that they had watched the great battle for half of a day. There was a great cloud of dust on the plain before Troy; it cleared a little and she could see the chariot of Akhilles, with Akhilles himself standing upright, driving his matched horses. And in the dust at the tail of the chariot, a figure whose armor revealed clearly its identity.

"Hector! But what is he doing?" she demanded.

It was all too clear what he was doing; he was dragging

Hector's corpse in the dust behind his chariot, as he raced fiercely in circles around the plain. The Trojans watched, frozen in horror.

"Why," said Kassandra, "he is mad, then. I thought—" she had thought they called him mad rhetorically; but surely a man who could thus abuse the fallen corpse of an enemy - even an enemy who had slain his dearest friend - must be mad in truth. Why, he is not fit to be let out without a keeper, she thought with a shudder.

Aeneas said, "Why, this goes beyond even revenge; the man is inhuman."

"Demented with grief, perhaps," said Kassandra. "He loved Patroklos beyond reason - and when his friend died he lost the last of all ties to sanity—"

"Still, this must be stopped," Aeneas said. "We must send to the Greeks - Odysseus at least is a reasonable man - and get back Hector's body before this comes to his father's ears—"

"So," said Andromache, with clenched fists, "I am to stand here and watch this and not go mad myself with grief, but Priam, a man and a king, must be shielded from the very word, let alone the sight—" She flung back her head and began to scream; "I will go down myself, if I must, and I will persuade that man, with a horsewhip, that he cannot do this thing before all of Hector's kin—"

"No," Paris said, embracing her gently. "No, Andromache, he would not listen to you. I tell you, he is mad—"

"Is he? Or is he feigning madness so that we will offer him a greater ransom for Hector's body?" Andromache asked. Kassandra had not thought of that.

At last Troilus, taking with him two or three of Priam's other sons, went up to tell the King that Hector was dead; while Paris and Aeneas armed themselves and drove forth in a chariot with Priam's favourite herald. They tried in vain to make Akhilles hear them, but he simply went on whipping up his horses into a frenzy and refused to listen to a word the herald said.

After a time they stopped and conferred and went on to the main Akhaian camp to speak with Agamemnon and the other captains. Eventually they returned to Troy looking discouraged; Andromache rushed at them.

"What did they say?" she demanded, though it was obvious they had had no success; down on the plain, Akhilles's chariot was still dragging the body around in circles. It seemed he meant to go on at least till sunset, perhaps longer.

Aeneas said, "They will do nothing to stop Akhilles; they said that he is their leader, and he must do as he will with his own captives and prisoners. He killed Hector and the body is his, to ransom or not as he chooses."

"But that's monstrous," Andromache said. "You hesitated not a minute to grant a truce for burying and mourning Patroklos! How can they do this?"

"They didn't want to," said Paris. "Agamemnon could not look me in the eye. He knows they are violating all the rules of warfare - rules they themselves made and we agreed to honor. But they know they have no chance of triumphing without Akhilles; they angered him once, and they will not risk making him angry again."

The sun had slanted down considerably and the plain of Troy was now partly in the long shadow of the walls. Paris said, "There is nothing for it but this, then. We must go out and fight for his body." He called his arms-bearer and started putting on his armor.

"Summon the Amazons; their charge and their arrows can cover us. They are fierce fighters, fiercer than any man," Aeneas said. "I will vow my best horse to the War-God if he grants us to win Hector's body."

"I'll vow more than that if he grants me Akhilles," said Paris. "Hector and I were not always close; but he was my elder brother, and I loved him; and even if I had not, kinship's dues would forbid me to stand by and see his corpse dishonored. Even Akhilles can have no quarrel with the dead."

Kassandra said, "I remember how Hector said he and Patroklos would have much to talk about in the afterworld."

"Aye," said Aeneas sombrely. "If Akhilles paused to think, he would know that Hector and his friend would feast side by side as comrades in the halls of the afterlife."

"I trust it is no God's will I meet Akhilles as a comrade on the other side of death," said Paris grimly. "Or, I swear, unless I learn something there that I have not been given to know in this life, I shall disrupt the peace of that world itself when I meet Akhilles there."

"Oh, hush," said Aeneas, "none of us know what we shall think or do past that gate; but in this world, we all have been properly taught that enmity ends at death, and what Akhilles now does is an outrage and an atrocity—as well as being plain bad manners. He should show respect for a fallen foe; you know that, I know it, the other Akhaians know it. And I give you my word, if Akhilles does not know it, I shall be happy to give him a lesson, here and now. Are the soldiers armed and ready?"

"Yes," called Paris, "open the gates."