Talus

Patroclus doesn’t trifle much with dice these days; his temper is more or less in check, even with Achilles nipping at his heels demanding his attentions at every turn. The smooth bones roll evenly between his fingers.They seem much smaller now, in a man’s hands instead of a boy’s. He’s no seer, and the gods have weightier questions to answer, but the sight of the marks turning up spurs his restless thoughts. Whatever insight this can offer, he’ll take it. One good throw, one solid indicator – he no longer plays for a score counted out on his fingers but idly without counting at all, with only the vague idea of what an affirming answer will look like, or a denial. The bones cling together in the dirt and they scatter, they show their twisted sides in every possible combination, and still he casts them down again, and again. He doesn’t know what he expects to see.

The barking of dogs and the hearty cries of his fellows on the far side of the fire, nearer to the cave’s opening, herald the arrival of his cousin through the thin haze of sweet smoke. He scoops up his dice and Achilles settles beside him, hands braced on his knees. He’s starting to fill out, as most young men do at a certain number of years’ brawling and chasing, longer and broader. The softness is gone from his face, leaving behind a foxy sharpness like the ocean exposing polished stones at low tide. The excess has been trimmed away, anything that could have been obscuring his bright ferociousness, and his cousin is more Achilles than ever.

“Testing your luck, cousin?” He jostles deliberately against Patroclus’ shoulder, and Patroclus grabs him by the scruff and pulls him close. He’s dusty and his hair is damp from riding, but it’s difficult for Patroclus to restrain his joy at the sight of him, in the roundabout way the two of them show it. Soon he’ll look just the same as his older comrades, shaggy and brawny as a wild horse and no longer a half-done boy in need of tutelage in harp-tuning and spear-throwing, capable of doing some instruction of his own. No man would intervene to keep them from sharing a friendship, a closeness appropriate to their relationship by blood, or to any two hardy young men. But Patroclus is uncertain how much he wants to start over again, as if they were strangers. It’s not so long ago that Patroclus was this age, but young men grow fast. Spirited Achilles will grow up and grow away, and so he should, but something about it pains his heart as the elder of the two of them. The man Achilles is becoming is a man he would be well pleased to spend a life with. And the real excesses and deficits of Achilles’ character – not in archery or in medicine but in prudence, temper, judgment – will not go away with time, they need Patroclus’ nature to counterweigh them or they’ll topple and he’ll topple down too.

He shrugs off the thought and tosses aside the bones to scatter in the straw.

“My luck’s never been better. You look like a wild animal.”

He’s more or less naked, despite the seasons turning. In a place of solitude Patroclus might touch him more intimately, but he doesn’t want to invite that sort of affection to become a public display of who owns what. Some of their fellows have turned to watch them together, squinting through the haze with mild interest. Patroclus rubs his thumb along his cousin’s chin and gets an amused toss of the head for his trouble. His beard is coming in red-gold, filling in well but still gawky, substantially more than glinting golden down on his white cheeks. With his hair stuck back with sweat he looks like a little man-eating lion; the wind whipping at his face has chapped his mouth and left it split, red but not bleeding.

Achilles kisses him on his own chin, between lip and jaw, and lifts his head raw-lipped and grinning. Patroclus embraces him and pulls him into his lap, sinking back under the weight of his ungainly lengthy limbs and elbows and mad laughter.