Cassandra (41 page)

`We have to find a clean place to work,' I said, my words stumbling over my tongue. `They are rotting before they come to us. Hold me, Polidarius, I think I am fainting.'

The water was cold with dawn chill and he let me down into it, holding my wrists in a firm grip. I lay under the water for a while, watching the blood bloom in clouds out of my tunic and my hair. I had been dipped in blood like a sacrifice.

I surfaced. The water was foul with excrement and floating debris. I made a disgusted exclamation. Bathing had actually made me dirtier.

`Apollo will strike them with his arrows. That is what Master Glaucus would say,' commented Polidarius. `But, I truly have not been thinking, Chryse. The emergencies have come so quickly that I have forgotten my first principles. This coast is not flushed by the tidal race outside, the current that pours out of the Pillars of Heracles. The waters lie idle and are shallow. Only a great storm will cleanse this sea. I must look at the way the water goes - it may be that over there it is cleaner.' He hauled me to my feet and we waded back. `I have brine boiling over my fire. Come ashore, and we will wash off our bath with that. Yes. I must have a look at the lie of the land nearer to the Pillars, over that way.'

`Over there is Achilles' camp,' said Macaon. `Be careful, brother.'

We slept for five hours, lying close together. Then Macaon went to report to the king, and I went with Polidarius to survey the beaches.

The Myrmidon guard stopped us, examined us narrowly, and then let us go on, around Achilles' encampment and onto the rocky escarpment which enclosed the bay. Here the air was clean and the thin strip of sand untouched; but the water we waded into was just as tainted. It was the custom to anoint steering oars with olive oil so that they clove the water more cleanly; this practise had led to the formation of slicks which trapped and held the nauseating detritus of the army. Even the sea stank.

`How have you endured this, my brother?' I asked as we picked our way to the top of the cliff and breathed new air. `This is stockyard slaughter, not medicine.'

`We do what we must,' he said. `What we must, little brother.'

We stared for a while straight across the Pillars of Heracles to the land beyond.

`When do you think that the arrows will strike?' I asked.

`Apollo has no patience with the impious,' Macaon said wryly. `He has even less patience with the impious who buy their water at four obols a bucket from those who draw it from the River Scamander where it pours into the bay, after it drains the city of Troy. Those captains, such as the elegant Odysseus, who insist their crew trudge, complaining, a long way upstream to collect it, and whose men mainly live on their ships anchored out to sea, as Odysseus' do, and those who always dilute their drinking water not with honey but with terebinthate wine - as, it happens, does Odysseus' - those men alone may hope to escape the god's wrath.'

`How long?'

`Not long now, little brother.'

We found a rainwater-fed stream which ran down the rocks. After washing our tunics and ourselves, we caught a bucket full and went back to camp.

 

The attack had damaged the army - in men, weapons and horses, and morale. After a sickening morning cauterising putrescent wounds and watching young men die, I ran out of the camp, deciding that I needed to look at the other side of the bay, or I might burst into tears, steal a boat and flee home to Epidavros like a coward.

I ran full tilt into a fine tunic. Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. I raised an arm to cover my head in case it was a Myrmidon and looked into the face of red-headed Odysseus.

`My apologies,' he said mildly. `I seem to have got in your way, asclepid.'

`Lord Odysseus, how clumsy of me,' I faltered. `I am... I have been... I was going-'

`Then we shall go together.' He took my arm and we began to walk along the plain of Troy like old friends. `I intended to send for you, Chryse Diomenes, about now. You came early.'

`Lord, I had reason.'

He did not ask me what reason, but patted me gently on the shoulder. I think that he knew - Odysseus usually did, which might have been why he was giving me a choice of names.

`Call me Chryse, Lord. There is a Diomedes in this army and I would not be confused with him.'

`You wouldn't be. I won't ask you to call me Kokkinos, or Phyrre,' - both were terms referring to his red hair - `but you need not call me Lord. I am just Odysseus, Chryse Asclepid Priest. So. How do you like war?'

`Not at all, Odysseus.'

`No, who could?'

`Achilles the Hero likes it well enough,'

`Achilles wants to destroy the world; slaughter makes him happy. I think that the story is true that he is the son of Thetis and Zeus; Zeus is a Titan, the son of Chronos.'

This so agreed with my own thought that I gaped at the king of Ithaca and he smiled and tipped my chin, closing my mouth with his forefinger. `They are heroes, Chryse; as I said to you once, the world is different for heroes, they like killing and plunder.'

`But on your small and poverty-stricken island...' I quoted him.

He laughed. `...We cannot afford heroes. Yes. These heroes have generous gods, asclepid. "Compulsion' and "Power" are their names; or you could call them "Oh, but you must" and "Hand it over". My Ithaca is barren and rocky and ruled by "Poverty" and "Hardship" or "Not an obol to spare" and "Sorry, I can't."'

I laughed at his conceit, wondering how long it had been since I had laughed.

`There, that is better. I did not bring you here to die of despair, asclepid. Now, what were you looking for here in the plain?'

`I wanted to get away, Odysseus, but I also wanted to have a look at the coast. The camp of the Argives is dirty and flies are breeding among the dead. The men have lice and ticks and the ones in the swamp are being bitten to pieces by mosquitoes and they all have dysentery. It augurs badly.'

`Apollo will not be pleased,' he agreed. `Well, here we are, but keep moving. There are archers on the walls, and many are Scythians who can shoot near enough to straight down.'

The army was getting its water from the broad Scamander as it rushed out from under the city of Troy and into the bay. A set

of barred arches let the water out while making entry to the city through its sewers difficult. A hail from the Scaean Gate, mounted high on the cliff, told us that we were not unobserved. As I

watched, a Trojan ship set off into the bay, rowing hard.

`We used to attack them,' observed Odysseus. `Now they are allowed to come and go. The Argive ships off Lemnos may catch them; it depends on the current.'

Scamander's water was dirty as it went into the bay; Polidarius had been right. If the army were drinking this, it was no wonder that they had dysentery. As we walked away from the walls, I realised that I had a question to ask the red-headed king of Ithaca.

`Lord,' I ventured, `why did you come to Troy?'

`Because of the league, asclepid. Words must hold and law must rule or there is an end to civilisation and order. And because against my will, they made me come.'

`But this has loosed the Achaean hordes on the unprotected villages of the whole coast,' I protested. `What order is in that?'

`I am a small king,' he said stonily. `These villages are in Thessaly, in Thrace, in Caria and Mysia and Phrygia. They all have one thing in common.'

`What?'

`They are not in Ithaca.'

We walked half of the way back to the beaches in silence while I thought about it. I considered the death rate among the soldiers, and the probable result of a plague if the army stayed for the winter.

`And the heroes?' I asked.

Odysseus smiled a completely charming smile. `I told you before, Chryse my dear, Asclepid Priest, Thanatos-Blessed, Little Brother of Death, I do not admire heroes. Troy will fall to us eventually; I even know how it can be conquered. But what have I against Troy? More so, why should I allow these heroes to go home and ravage Pelop's land and endanger my own people?

`When the Argives are no longer a threat, when even if they return home alive they will not have sufficient young men for three generations to wage any war at all, then I reveal the plan for the defeat of this harmless city.

`I am a king, you know,' he added, as I stared at him once more. `And a king must defend his kingdom.'

I left him without another word and went back to my wounded.

 

Autumn had set in and the gales were beginning, before the army was sent again to the shut-fast gates of Troy. I saw them creep forth armed with a massive tree-trunk which they had been sheathing in bronze for a week. My wounded had recovered or died; I had nothing to do, so I went with the army. Macaon walked beside me, carrying a bundle of bandages.

`We may be able to treat them as they lie on the plain,' he said, a vertical line dividing his brows. `Fewer may die.'

I was worried about him. Although he was healthy he seemed to have shrunk. His face was wrinkled like that of an old man's and his eyes were dull with fatigue. He would not eat, saying that he had no appetite, and when Polidarius had produced some roasted goat he had pushed it away with a gasp of, `Not more blood!'

I was afraid that if we had to run, I might have to carry him, and I did not know if I could. He was leaning on my shoulder. I took the bag from him and he walked more easily for a while.

Around us the Argive men were marching, their bronze armour greased with fat so it would not clink. They moved as silently as men can, with only the occasional whispered word, though we were still beyond the Scamander and could not have been heard in the city. There was just enough moonlight to see the ground, though we would wait until Selene departed before attacking.

My master's son took my hand and smiled sadly - that was the only time the gentle Macaon had smiled since I had come to Troy.

`Courage,' he murmured.

`Courage,' I replied.

Tithone found a wound in my skull; a big bruise where the helmet had foiled the spear. The salvaged army of Troy was crammed into the alleys of the lower city, stepping on each other's feet and being kicked by exhausted horses. Many were weeping, in some cases with relief at being inside again with a stout wall between us and the god-possessed warriors of the Achaeans.

Hector gave orders: the horses were led away to be tended, the undamaged soldiers flowed up into the palace to be comforted and fed, and only the wounded remained with Tithone and her sisters.

Polyxena was there, steadying my head as Tithone wound a bandage around it, scolding me the while about fighting when I should be healing. The Argives were beating on the gate and screaming at us to come out and be killed. I laughed shakily. It would require something very compelling to make my cautious brother leave the walls of Troy again.

`There,' Tithone completed her binding. My head felt like a wooden ball. `Cassandra, you must take this infusion of wound-herb, marsh-leaf and comfrey, then you must go back to the Maidens and allow Perseis to care for you; foolhardy daughter of Priam.'

I drank the concoction. It tasted good, which meant that I needed it.

Penthesileia was passing and told us that all the Amazons were alive and uninjured. `No spear thrown by those clumsy Argives can find a mark in us,' she laughed. `We are faster than the wind; she is our sister. Come, lean on my arm and I will conduct you. You fought well, Princess, very well for a novice. It is the noise, chiefly, which disconcerts a new Amazon. You shot quite well, too, for someone unused to the back of a moving horse. Did you see that Argive fighting the air? He might have managed to kill Aeneas, if he had not gone distracted.'

`Aeneas is alive?'

`I brought him in myself; a stone hit him on the hip and leg, but Tithone does not think the bones broken, just bent and the flesh flattened. He was standing when the stone struck; fatal crush injuries usually happen when the body is between a hard place and the missile. His condition was not improved by that mad gallop across the front of my horse, but there it is. No one will be found alive on the plain now that the army have possession of it,' she said matter-of-factly.

The noise was indeed dying down outside, muted by the walls. It seemed that the Achaeans were retreating after their request to open the gate had been greeted with stones and darts. The Amazon was right. No wounded cried outside. I even heard the wind again, the constant companion of Ilium. I swallowed and blinked.

`Yes, your ears have come back into use. Good. Your eyes can focus and you are walking in a straight line. I think that you will recover, daughter of Priam. Here is the Palace of the Maidens. Mistress,' she called, `here is a soldier returned from battle.'

Perseis came to the door. I saw in my accentuated sight a woman damaged beyond recognition; as though a stone club had broken her face into ruin. I could not imagine what could produce such damage. One eye looked blankly at me out of the skull smashed like fruit. I sobbed, stared, blinked, and the vision went. She took me inside and laid me down on my own bed. I slept until the evening of the next day. No Argive ghosts gibbered in black dark, and I was grateful.

 

I took the bandage off after I had eaten, bathed and dressed in my moss-green tunic. The bruise was purple but not soggy or hot; I judged myself very lucky and resolved to find the smith and tell her that I could recommend her helmets.

But first I was going to find Eleni, my brother. He had sent me a message from the Temple of Apollo by Idume Adonis Priest, who did not care for the Apollonian worship and, if I knew Idume, he had been substantially bribed. I rummaged in my belongings and found a gold coin in case he needed bribing twice.

I did not know what I was going to say to Eleni.

The king's council was called for the fourth watch. I did not have much time. I hurried up the winding path behind the temples, from courtyard to courtyard. I was hailed in the Temple of the Mother by an old woman who looked vaguely familiar. She was sitting on the cobbles, trying to coax something out from an earthenware pot. She was holding a dead mouse by the tail but whatever it was did not rise to this bait.