Briseis, the young Trojan queen of Lyrnessus, hears the battle cry of Greek warrior Achilles outside the city walls. She and the other women hide in the citadel while the men go out to fight. From the citadel roof, Briseis sees Achilles kill her husband, King Mynes, and her youngest brother. Shortly thereafter, the Greeks take Lyrnessus. They slaughter all the men and boys and enslave the women. Back in the Greek camp, Briseis and several other young, attractive women are separated from the other enslaved women as special “prizes” for important Greek warriors. Achilles claims Briseis as his prize. In Achilles’s compound, his companion Patroclus brings Briseis wine, trying to make her feel better. Shortly thereafter, Achilles summons Briseis and rapes her. The next morning, Briseis goes down to the sea to wash Achilles’ semen out of her and sees Achilles himself talking to the sea, saying a word that sounds like “Mummy.”
Briseis’s only duties are to serve Achilles sexually and to serve his dining companions wine. She distrusts Patroclus because she doesn’t understand why he keeps trying to be kind to her, an enslaved woman. One night, she goes swimming before going to bed with Achilles, and the seawater on her skin seems to drive him wild, causing him to suckle her breasts passionately. Briseis also befriends other “trophy” enslaved women, including young Chryseis, the “trophy” of Greek high commander Agamemnon. One day, Chryseis’ father, a priest of Apollo, travels to the Greek camp to ransom his daughter. After Agamemnon scorns the priest’s offer, Briseis overhears the priest praying to Apollo for vengeance and recalls that Apollo is the god of plague as well as of healing. Briseis begins praying to Apollo to curse the Greeks with plague.
One night, Patroclus invites Briseis to sit with him while Achilles goes swimming. Briseis, unnerved, asks Patroclus why he is always kind to her. Patroclus explains that he knows what it’s like to be given as a gift to Achilles against one’s will: when Patroclus was 10, he killed his best friend after the friend accused him of cheating at dice. Patroclus’s father, a king, sent his princely son into exile at the court of Achilles’ father, King Peleus. Achilles’ mother, the sea goddess Thetis, had just abandoned the family, and Achilles was refusing to eat. Patroclus and Achilles were unexpectedly good for each other although, Patroclus admits to Briseis, he still cried every night for the first year of his exile. Later, Patroclus goes to the seashore to check on Achilles, and Briseis sees them touching foreheads in a posture of extreme intimacy.
Meanwhile, the rats in the Greek camp start to die strangely, vomiting blood. Soon, the Greek soldiers begin to die of plague. One night, Briseis overhears Achilles ranting about Agamemnon to Patroclus, blaming the plague on Agamemnon’s refusal to give Chryseis back to her father the priest. After Achilles storms out, Patroclus suggests to Briseis that he could convince Achilles to marry her and fantasizes that they could all travel “home” together. Briseis, though wishing she could point out that the Greeks destroyed her home, can’t help but think that marrying Achilles would make her a free woman again. Achilles calls an assembly, where a seer prophesies what all the Greeks already believe: Agamemnon needs to give Chryseis back to her father to stop the plague. Agamemnon, infuriated, agrees to return Chryseis but demands Achilles’s prize—Briseis—as compensation. Achilles announces that if Agamemnon takes his prize, then he won’t fight for the Greeks any longer.
Agamemnon’s men send Chryseis home and take Briseis from Achilles’s compound. That first night, Agamemnon rapes Briseis and sends her away. Afterward, he leaves her alone sexually but insists that she serve wine in his compound every night—a symbol of his power and authority over the other Greek fighters. Meanwhile, the plague dies down, but without Achilles, the Greeks lose ground to the Trojans on the battlefield. As more and more Greek soldiers suffer serious wounds, they begin muttering that Agamemnon should give Briseis back to Achilles. One night over wine, Greek kings Odysseus and Nestor convince Agamemnon to return Briseis—and Agamemnon says he’ll swear he never touched her.
Odysseus and Achilles’s cousin, the warrior Ajax, bring Briseis to Achilles’s compound but leave her outside Achilles’s room while they negotiate. When Achilles is indifferent to Agamemnon’s offers of treasure, Patroclus asks after Briseis. Odysseus drags her into the rooms, saying that Agamemnon never touched her. Achilles stares at Briseis—who, unable to lie, says nothing. Achilles realizes that Odysseus is lying and says Agamemnon can “fuck” Briseis if he wants—Achilles isn’t taking the deal. Patroclus hurries Briseis from the room, pours her wine, and apologizes to her. Later, Odysseus and Ajax collect her and return to Agamemnon’s compound, where Nestor suggests that if Achilles won’t fight, they should convince Patroclus to lead Achilles’s men—while wearing Achilles’s armor, to frighten the Trojans. Later, Agamemnon rapes Briseis again.
While Patroclus is checking on a wounded friend in a hospital tent, Nestor finds him and convinces him to petition Achilles to let Patroclus lead his men and wear his armor. Later, he sees Briseis working in the hospital tent with a split lip and bruised face. When he asks her what happened, she says that Agamemnon blamed her for Achilles’s rejection of his offer. Patroclus returns to Achilles’s compound furious and in tears and demands that Achilles fight. When Achilles says that he can’t, Patroclus asks to lead Achilles’s men while wearing his armor. Achilles grudgingly agrees—provided that Patroclus turn back early and avoid fighting the Trojans’ best warrior, Prince Hector.
The next morning, Patroclus goes out to fight in Achilles’s armor leading Achilles’s men, while Achilles watches the battle from the prow of one of his ships. Patroclus fails to turn back early, fighting long into the afternoon, and eventually Prince Hector kills him.
When news of Patroclus’s death reaches Achilles, he collapses in grief. His goddess mother, Thetis, emerges from the sea to comfort him. He tells her that Patroclus’s death is his fault—he should have been fighting—and that his sole remaining goal in life is to kill Hector. When Thetis reminds him of a prophecy that he’ll die soon after Hector does, Achilles says he’ll be glad to die once he’s killed Hector. Thetis promises him to bring him new armor the next morning, as the Greeks were able to recover Patroclus’ body only after the Trojans stripped Achilles’s armor from his corpse.
Achilles summons the Greeks to an assembly. He says that he is ashamed that he and Agamemnon fell out over a girl and that he will return to the fighting. In reply, Agamemnon promises to give Achilles all the treasure with which he tried to bribe Achilles earlier—Briseis included.
The next day, Achilles receives new armor from Thetis and goes into battle, massacring every Trojan warrior he encounters. After five days of slaughter, Achilles finally kills Hector outside Troy’s gates. He returns to the Greek camp with Hector’s corpse tied to the back of his chariot. With Hector dead, Achilles cremates Patroclus’s corpse and holds his funeral games. Later, Achilles summons Briseis to bed, but he can’t get an erection—all he can think about is Patroclus. Every morning, he has been defiling Hector’s corpse, tying it to his chariot and driving it around Patroclus’s burial mound, yet every evening, the corpse is restored to pristine condition again as if by divine intervention—while the marks of defilement briefly show on Achilles’s own face.
One night at dinner in Achilles’s compound, Hector’s father, King Priam of Troy, walks into the feasting hall disguised as a poor man, drops to the floor in front of Achilles, and begs Achilles to return Hector’s corpse. Achilles hurries Priam to his private rooms and tells his closest living companions, Alcimus and Automedon, to keep his men from telling the other Greeks that Priam has snuck into their camp. He orders Briseis to make up a bed for Priam, and Priam vaguely recognizes her: her older sister Ianthe is married to one of Priam’s sons, and Briseis spent several years in Troy as a young girl.
After Priam is in bed, Achilles and Briseis go wash and wrap Hector’s corpse. While washing the corpse, Achilles mentions to Briseis that he could end the war if he took Priam hostage and traded him to the Trojans in exchange for Helen, the Greek queen whom the Trojan prince Paris, abducted, starting the war—but he won’t take Priam hostage because it would be dishonorable: Priam is his guest. Later, Achilles rapes Briseis and then throws his arm around her.
The next morning, Briseis wakes Priam and begs him to take her back to Troy with him when he leaves. Priam refuses to “dishonor” his host Achilles by “stealing” a woman who belongs to him. Suddenly, Achilles appears to check on them, perhaps having overheard their hurried conversation. Then he, Alcimus, and Automedon bundle Hector’s corpse into a cart for Priam. Finally, Achilles asks Priam how long a cessation of battle Priam will need for Hector’s funeral games; Priam asks for 11 days.
When the men go back to Achilles’s rooms to drink a parting cup of wine, Briseis hides in the back of the cart beside Hector’s corpse. Yet once Priam begins driving the cart toward the Greek camp’s gates with Achilles walking beside him, Briseis realizes that her actions are irrational: even if she does reach Troy, Troy will soon fall to the Greeks now that Hector is dead. When the cart stops at the gates, Briseis sneaks from the cart and walks back toward Achilles’s compound. Later, Achilles returns and asks Briseis why she came back. Briseis is shocked that Achilles knew she was escaping and planned to let her.
During the 11 days that battle is suspended, Briseis begins to suspect that Achilles has impregnated her. One morning, he finds her vomiting, and she shares her suspicions. A few nights later, Achilles gets Alcimus alone. He tells Alcimus that Briseis is pregnant and asks him to marry her and take care of the child if Achilles dies. He agrees. The morning the Greeks return to battle, Achilles brings a priest into Briseis’ bedroom and has the priest marry Briseis and Alcimus. Later that afternoon, Achilles dies in battle—shot in the back with an arrow. Shortly thereafter, Troy falls.
Agamemnon, terrified of Achilles’s ghost, sacrifices King Priam’s youngest daughter Polyxena on Achilles and Patroclus’s shared burial mound as a propitiation. After the sacrifice, Briseis returns to the mound and removes the gag from Polyxena’s mouth. Then she says goodbye to Achilles and Patroclus, preparing to leave Achilles’s story and enter her own.
