Cassandra (31 page)

Hector broke more arrows, handing them out to the riders who knelt at his feet.

`Lycaon's son Pandus under Mount Idus. Adrestus and Amphius from Apaesus. Go to Asius, son of Hyrtacusin Arisbe. The Pelasgians of Larissa; find Lethus' sons. Perois of the Thracians; the king of the Cicones, Euphemus, son of Troezenus. Go to Axius, the beautiful river, and bring this to the king of the Paoeonians. You will ride to Dytorus, you should find the Paphlagonions there at this time of year; their lord is Pylaemenes. In Mysia speak to Ascanius. Find Tmolus and give him this. Find the son of Nomion of Caria. Lastly, go to Lydia and find Sarpedon; tell him Hector bids him remember the boar-hunt.

I had noted all the names down in the priest's script as he spoke. Now I drew a black line under the names. Troy had no more allies.

`Brave messengers of Troy, go carefully,' Hector warned. `Ride around any trouble. No heroic fight you could wage, even if you were as strong as gods, would aid Troy as much as allies. It will wait until you return, I promise.'

They bowed, were blessed, and were gone.

`Now, brothers, who are the gate wards for the next watch?'

Deiphobos, Polites and Cerasus stepped forward.

`Watch must be kept all the time, brothers,' said Hector. `They will try to storm the gate one moonless night when they think us asleep. We will not sleep. Regardless of the outcome of this single combat, I do not believe that the Argives, having mounted such an expedition, will tamely go home without plunder. Nor do I believe that we can buy them off. They will return after they have spent our gold and attack again. We do better to keep the money and know where the enemy is.'

He was frowning as he spoke; there was a pair of lines between his brows. His eyes, however, were serene and determined, and everyone was listening. His voice was low and commanding. He stood easily, leaning on his heels, with Státhi on his shoulder; the same Hector as he had always been, infinitely to be relied upon. I felt an uprush of relief in the room. Hector would know how to wage this sort of war. He went on in his steady, patient tone.

`Each gate will have four companies of men - you may choose your own. Twenty-five men in each company on two watch shifts. But we do not leave mere soldiers to guard our walls, do we, sons of Priam? Each shift shall have one of us as captain. Each company must have two runners, ten archers, twelve soldiers and a captain. While this war lasts, sons of the great king, we will live here, in the palace. Half of us must always be in armour, ready to repel attack.'

There was some muttering at this but Hector said firmly, `This must be so. Or we shall see the women of Troy enslaved, our children murdered, and the Achaeans will feast on our city and pick their teeth with our bones. Do you understand?' he bellowed.

I jumped and saved my inkpot by a whisker. Státhi bristled and spat at me.

`The watches will be measured by the fall of sand,' Hector added. `The alarm signal for each gate as follows; for the Scaean, three short blasts, repeated; for the Dardanian, one long blast and one short blast, repeated; for the Scamander, continuous long blasts. Sons of Priam who are in the palace, wait after the general alarm for the signal, then take your companies to the threatened gate. Now, go and recruit your fighters. Pick the women trained by Myrine for the archers; they are the best in Troy, apart from the eight Scythians. Keep them together; they do not speak Trojan and could not understand the orders if they are separated. You may have any people you need and we can feed them all; but choose tried fighters if you can, not ambitious boys.'

Hector glowered at Pariki, who was posing elegantly by the door where the sunlight fell on his hair, and then Pandarus, who was sitting on the floor, rubbing his wrists.

Hecube walked to the door, taking a knife from me as she passed. She was not really old, I realised, just worn from child-bearing and the weight of authority. She cut into the flesh of her inner arm and cupped her hand to catch the blood which ran down.

Each son of Priam knelt before her at the door and she marked his forehead with her blood.

I had never seen this ritual; it is ancient beyond measure. The Life Giver, the Grain Keeper of the City, was making a sacrifice of herself, marking each of her warriors as her acolytes. I knelt myself as she returned my knife and I felt her thumb press into my skin.

`Cassandra, dear daughter, right hand of Hector, may the goddess protect you,' she said. I gazed up into eyes without hope and shivered. Hecube was not gifted with prophecy, but she knew what was going to happen to Troy. I bound up my mother's arm with a bandage made of a strip of tunic and tried not to shiver.

The priest of Apollo came into the palace as the last of the sons of Priam left. The king, it appeared, had sent for him. Behind him walked my twin, Eleni, dressed in the sun robes of a dedicated priest. He would not look at my face.

`What says Apollo?' asked the king, and Eleni closed his eyes.

I shared the vision. A swift grey-eyed murderer, a chariot falling, the crash of men in armour; then the towers burning. I was seized by my brother Hector. He put a hand over my mouth as I started to speak and then to choke. I struggled to retain control of my body.

I felt Eleni's mind for the first time since Poseidon had returned. He saw the same as me; I was sure of it. But what he said as he sweated under the stench of smoke and death was `Victory'.

`Eleni, no!' I struggled free of Hector. `Tell the truth! Tell the truth, twin, if you ever loved me! Oh, the reek of burning,' and my voice went, my tongue twisted, and I fell into Hector's arms, convulsing, my mouth full of blood.

Eleni did not look at me. `Victory,' he repeated, and the Apollo Priest led him away.

Hector carried me to Tithone, who washed out my mouth and found that I had bitten the inside of my cheek. She was grimmer than usual. As I spat salt water into her drain, I asked why.

`You know what we are called, Cassandra?'

`The healers? Yes, Clotho, Lachesis and Athropos...' I had never thought about this before. `The spinners, the fates. Clotho the Spinner, Lachesis the Weaver, Athropos who cuts the thread of life.'

`Clotho who deals with births and beginnings. Lachesis who treats those who will live. And Athropos who-'

`Kills?' I sat up, the pain of my twin's betrayal almost banished by the shock. `We kill?'

She nodded. `If this war proceeds, Princess, you will see. Forget your twin. He is under the dominion of a vengeful god and maybe Apollo will protect him.

`We have women's work to do and you must join your brother on the walls as he orders our defence. The riders are gone these three hours and they say that the Argive ships have landed. Go, Cassandra, healer and scribe, and make no more prophecies. They will not be heeded.' She shut her mouth with a snap.

I went. I found Hector on the wall near the Scamander Gate. Státhi was perched on his shoulder, clinging to his leather harness with his back feet while he combed his claws through Hector's hair. I bobbed up at my brother's side and he began to speak, without commenting on either Eleni or me, gently detaching the beast's hold and patting his paw.

`Troy has three gates,' he reminded me. `Each one looks in a different direction and only Scamander commands the other two; you cannot see Scaean from Dardanian, or the other way around. Státhi, you are scratching me; I am sure that you do not wish to do that. Therefore in every tower there are trumpeters, or in this case one sleeping trumpeter,' he kicked the musician awake, `and there is the sand glass which measures the watches.' He pointed out a huge glass pot, poised on another, through which sand was slowly trickling. `When all the sand is gone into the bottom vessel, the drum sounds for a change of watch. As it will very soon.'

He looked at the trumpeter. The man waited until the last grain of sand had gone, then began to beat a large bronze drum, three beats and then a pause. Feet sounded on the stairs and twelve men came into the tower. They were half-dressed in tunics and assorted armour and seemed out of breath. Behind them came ten women, bows in hand. They selected arrows from the bundles on the tower floor and filed past to line the walls, eight paces apart.

Polites came after them. `Brother, I have selected my guards,' he said, saluting with one hand on his breast. `They will be ready soon.'

`I hope the Achaeans don't come first,' said Hector grimly. `In future, tell your previous watch that they must not leave the gate unguarded. If your next watch is late, then they must wait. A few broken heads will ensure that each turns up on time. Tell them to take a lesson from these archers. What is your name, Lady?' he asked the woman nearest to him.

`Psyche, Lord Hector.'

`You are skilled with the bow?'

`Myrine the Amazon taught me,' said the woman. `I go hunting rabbits in the plain to feed my children, Lord. I am still a good shot. And if the Achaeans come, they will find out how Psyche feels about slavery.' She was short and plump and had a mass of dark hair, which she had bound back ruthlessly with a scarf like the market-traders wear. Hector took her bow, looking along it, tested the string and handed it back.

Instead of speaking, he bowed ceremoniously to the archer, dislodged a talon from his neck from where Státhi had adjusted his grip, and said, `Come, Cassandra.'

The inside of the wall, which is of stone and three times as high as a tall man, is lined with platforms and stairs of wood, which extend all the way around and join each tower to the other. I followed Hector's heels and we traversed the lower quarter and came to the Scaean Gate, where the watch had changed and Deiphobos was berating his new soldiers about their lack of gear and lateness.

Hector listened without comment. The archers - including the Scythians - lined the wall. We looked out to sea.

Most of the ships had beached and had been dragged out of the water. Black ships with black sails - I crushed down the vision. Men had landed and were making camp, lighting little fires and fetching water. That was a good sign. The only water they could find would be water from where the Scamander flowed into the swamp, and that water produced fever. I wished them all dead. The bay of Troy was empty; all our ships were either still at sea or had been dragged up to lie under the walls.

Straight down to the water the wall went. Just looking down made me dizzy. Troy is built over the river; the Scamander drains the city into the marshes -another reason why they are dangerous - and the wall over the sea is sheer; only a seagull or one of the shipmaster Aegyptus' African monkeys could climb it.

The Scythians' leather breeches offended my nose - Scythians have a religious objection to washing - as we passed them on the way to the Dardanian Gate. This looks out onto the swamps.

`They are least likely to come this way,' said Hector. `But don't tell the guards that. Swamps and chariots do not mix. I am sorry about Eleni, my sister.'

`He was lying,' I said cautiously.

`Yes, I expect that he was.'

`Why?' the question yowled out of me as though I had been Státhi, who gave me a reproving look and leaned away from my voice.

Hector said very gently, `What has telling the truth brought you, Cassandra, most unlucky of the daughters of Priam? Eleni is afraid of the god, afraid of the priests, afraid of himself. He must find his own fate, Cassandra,' said my brother, `and we must find ours.'

`Who goes there?' demanded a harsh voice at that moment, and we stood still until Cerasus came and called off the guard. She was a small woman with a very long spear, and for a while it looked as if the Champion of Troy was going to be spitted like a goose by his own defenders. Hector gently put the spear away from his groin.

`You have chosen your soldiers, brother?'

`As you nearly felt, brother.' Cerasus, always the most easy-going of Priam's sons, grinned. But am I to keep this gate always, Hector? I do not believe that they will attack on this side.'

`No, this gate will rest the weary ones; I fear that we will grow weary before the Argives go home. We will rotate the watch, Cerasus; you will have excitement enough. Are you well supplied?'

`We need more arrows.'

I made a note that the Dardanian Gate needed more arrows, next to the one which said that no wine was to be supplied hence-forward to the trumpeters.

`Begin your patrols, brother; four soldiers at a time, half a watch between the towers, then they can rest, but in armour, Cerasus.

 

We do not know where the attack will come, or when. This is not the sort of war that Agamemnon thinks it will be. He cannot drive a chariot horse full tilt against our stone walls. It would take a year to starve us out, even if we could not supply the city from the sea. Cassandra, make a note; I must talk to the priests of Poseidon and the fishermen and traders; ships will be our lifeline to the outside world, they must be protected. Can you fire arrows straight down from here, Cerasus?'

`Close enough to straight down. I have good archers.'

`Have them bring up oil and boulders; we must discourage any attack on the ships. Torches, too; all of the towers must have a supply of torches.'

I made another note. I looked over the wall out to sea, where the great wave had come. I wondered suddenly if Poseidon had made it to entrap a daughter of Priam into bringing him back into Troy. Poseidon would not care what happened to me - why should he? He was a god and gods have no interest in mortals except when it suits them. I was aghast at how far I had fallen from the Cassandra who was sunnily sure that the gods loved her as Nyssa did, as Eleni did...

I averted my face so that no tears would dilute my ink or blur my carefully constructed syllables. Hector, with Státhi on his shoulder, made an odd and compelling outline as he left the Dardanian tower and walked along the platform, stamping occasionally to check that the flooring was sound. There were a couple of wobbly places and I made another entry on my papyrus roll.

The ordinary noises of the city were reasserting themselves; babies cried, doors closed, chickens clucked, women sang at the loom. I heard hammers beating in the street of smiths, and saw a man hanging out cloth at the dyers. I had often climbed the walls, and the city looked much the same as it always had, sounded the same, and now, with the coming of dark, it smelt the same - of cooking onions and poured wine and water, which smells different from wine in the flask as it comes from the Island of Kriti, sealed with the goddess' seal. Bread was being taken out of the ashes in flat cakes. Children were being summoned for washing and bed. It all seemed reassuringly normal, everyday, safe.