5

Your spear. You still have it, of course. Sometimes you run your hands across the length of its shaft just to feel the sharpness of the iron head, the smoothness of the wood, the warmth of the polished bronze at the other end.

"And all the Achaeans followed behind you with a terrifying roar," Demodocus continues. "Telamon took an arrow to the neck and fell to the ground behind."

"I took an arrow to the shoulder, but I kept climbing," Ajax says.

"And Eurylochus carried the torch with which he set fire to the high tower that stood next to the gate."

Eurylochus turns to you, his eyes shiny, as if that fire is still burning inside them. "You collapsed the tower with your bare hands, not caring about the embers scorching your skin." He pauses. "We killed many Trojan swine that day."

Eurylochus glances toward Circe, obviously proud of his joke at her expense, and she exclaims: "It was a misunderstanding! How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

Ajax pokes Eurylochus in the ribs, even though he's clearly amused. "Come on, man," he says. "We don't talk about that."

You ignore your crew's bickering and glance at Polyxena instead. She lowers her eyes. It was her people you killed that day, her relatives' deaths your crew recounts with such delight.

"We killed so many the soil turned into red mud," Eurylochus continues. "With the gods' help."