Hades Daughter (15 page)

One of the men stepped forward so that the sentries could see his face clearly. “I am Antigonus, brother of Pandrasus, escaped finally from the nightmare of the gorge. Can you not see me, and know my face?”

Several paces behind Antigonus, Brutus dug the blade of his dagger a little deeper against the neck of Peleus, Antigonus’ eldest son. “Be careful what you say,” Brutus hissed at Antigonus, “and remember that should you betray me once we gain the city, you also betray the life of your sons!”

Antigonus’ back stiffened, but he gave no other sign that he’d heard Brutus.

“General,” the sentry called back, the relief in his voice obvious to all who heard it. “General! We thought you dead.”

Antigonus made a deprecatory movement with his hand, earning another hiss from Brutus. “And I thought
myself dead, too, but I, with these my comrades,” he indicated the group behind him, “managed to fight our way clear. We hid in the forests for the day, and have only finally found our way back here at this dark hour.”

“And the Trojan warriors?” the sentry asked.

“Gone, we think,” Antigonus replied. “We saw no sign of them in the gorge as we made our way back to the city.”

“Wait, lord,” called the sentry, “and we shall open the gates for you.”

The sentries, unsuspecting, unbolted the inner gates, leaving them standing open, then drew back one of the two massive cypress and bronze-bound outer gates, allowing the small group of men through.

But when the two sentries who held the door made to close it, five or six of the stragglers at the rear of the group suddenly lunged at them, planting silent daggers in the sentries’ throats, and the men slid to the ground making no more noise than a whispered sigh.

Several of the Trojans pushed the gate to, but did not bolt it.

Others pulled Antigonus and his two sons back towards the gate, keeping knives at their throats as they gagged them with linens torn from the men’s own tunics.

“Assaracus!” Brutus hissed, and Assaracus nodded, threw aside his disguise, and took some twelve men to secure the immediate area and silence any guards on the walls.

When his soft whistle told Brutus the guards had been dealt with, Brutus signalled one of the Trojans waiting at the gates.

The man opened the gate, slipped outside, and mimicked the soft call of a rock partridge.

Instantly, scores of shapes rose silently from their hiding places behind the vines in the fields to either side of the road, and moved forward.

Pandrasus slept badly. He tossed and turned, twisting the fine linen of his sheets into sweat-matted ropes, and causing his concubine, already wearied by the king’s temper during his earlier waking hours, to slip from the bed and sit wakeful in a chair by the window.

When the door opened, and the shapes of strange men slipped into the chamber, she gave a small squeak of terror and drew her hands to her mouth, but, already cowed into total subjection by years of Pandrasus’ mistreatment, made no other movement or sound.

The men hesitated an instant at the sight of her, but realised that she would pose no threat.

The next moment they had dragged the naked, sleep-confused king from his bed. Pandrasus fell to the floor, shouting with anger.

“Silence him as best you can,” Brutus said, “although not permanently, then bring him to the megaron once I send word that the palace is secured.”

I
had waited atop the walls by the gates, wanting to be the first to welcome home my victorious father and, of course, my soon-to-be-lover-and-husband, Melanthus. If I had not lost my virginity in the morning, then I was certain I would lose it during the coming night.

While I waited I lost myself to daydreams of Melanthus, of his sweet wondrous face, his strong, lithe, exciting body. I remembered how I had felt when he had seized me and caressed my breasts—the sensual flare in my belly, the weakness in my thighs—and as I remembered the sensations flared all over again, and I had to lean against the wall, weak and trembling at the thought of finally bedding my hero.

As hero he surely would be. I had no doubt that Melanthus would have killed ten thousand Trojans—for how could they stand against such as he? My love would return, drenched in the blood of his despicable enemies, and I would wash it from him, slowly, and with many a lingering caress.

At the thought, my face must have grown even more dreamy, for the two sentries standing guard a few paces away grinned at me in a most unseemly manner.

I brought myself under control, wondering if I should remark on their insolence, or if that might only serve to embarrass me further, when the taller of them suddenly looked at something beyond the wall.

He swore—quite foully—and grabbed at his companion.

The next instant both were gone, clambering down the ladders leading to the gate.

I looked over the wall, and gasped.

Four or five chariots were hurtling down the road. The charioteers and archers were huddled deep within the body of the chariots, almost as if they were desperate to hide from something, and the horses ran as if possessed, their training and war dignity entirely forgotten.

The sight was so astounding I merely frowned, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Had the horses panicked, and bolted for their stables?

But how could that be? All the war horses had been trained for years, and were experienced in battle. Well…in the mock battles my father had arranged, and surely they were more warlike than the real thing?

If the fault lay not with the horses, then had the men controlling them panicked and caused their horses to dash for home?

But that was even more inconceivable, for all my father’s warriors were brave beyond belief, and the best warriors in all of Greece.

Had not my father told me thus on countless occasions?

There was movement below me, at the gates, and I saw they were being opened. I returned my gaze to the chariots, now very close, and I realised with a horrifying lurch in the pit of my belly that one of them contained my father.

His face wore an expression I had never seen before, and which I had never thought would fit my father’s features—fear.

“Shut the gates!” my father screamed, even as I was still making my way down the ladders to the court just inside the gates. “
Shut the cursed gates!
”

If his face had showed fear, then his voice revealed defeat, and that was so incomprehensible to me that, as I reached the ground and walked towards where my father stood by the heaving horses of his chariot, my legs gave way beneath me, and I crumpled to the ground.

“Cornelia,” my father cried as he caught sight of me. “Daughter! What do you here? Get back to the palace. Go! Go!”

“Father,” I reached for the hand he extended to me, and managed to regain my feet, “what is wrong? Why…?” I stumbled to a halt, not knowing what should follow that “Why?”

“Trickery! Magic! Foulness!” my father spat, and I frowned all the more, for I could understand none of this.

“Where is Melanthus?” I asked.

“Dead, most like,” my father said, shoving me into the hands of one of the guards. “Get her to the palace, and keep her under close care, or I will take your life for your negligence.
Now!
”

And so I was dragged off without a chance to further question my father.

Melanthus? Dead? How could that be?

“Melanthus,” I whispered, in shock I think, as the guard eventually handed me into the care of Tavia. “How can that be?”

My father must be wrong…and that thought was almost as unintelligible as the one that proposed my beloved hero might be dead.

Tavia eventually discovered what news there was. The Trojans had tricked my father into a trap, and then used the black arts—as would cowards—to ensnare my father’s army in a slaughter. My father escaped, but
only because of his heroism and skill, while most others had died.

Melanthus…dead? My mind could not grasp it, and could not pass beyond that concept. I thought nothing of the greater implications of this defeat, had no thought of the other men I knew who must have died, but only tried without success to grasp the idea that Melanthus might be dead.

This could not happen. Not to me. Not to my beloved Melanthus. No. No…

For hours, all through the afternoon and into the night, Tavia held me as we lay on my bed. She whispered nothingnesses to me, and stroked my brow with soft hands, and begged me to eat and drink to maintain my strength.

And, when I responded to none of that, she tried to shame me into responding by suggesting that I behaved in a manner most unbecoming to a woman of my nobility and station.

At that I wrenched myself away from her. All I wanted to do was think about Melanthus, to find some means of explaining away my father’s news.

“My dear,” said Tavia, “he must be dead. So few returned…and he is not among them…I know you adored him, but he was but a boy, and—”

“Get out!” I yelled, bursting into tears. “Go!
I don’t want to hear that!
”

She went, and I fell back to the bed and succumbed to such a fit of sobbing that I thought my heart would break. He was not dead! He could not be! I remembered how we had caressed earlier in the day; I remembered the crushing of his mouth against mine, and I vowed that if Melanthus were dead, then I would allow no man to kiss me again.

There was no one who could ever take Melanthus’ place. No one who could match him in nobility and bravery and prowess.

“If not you,” I eventually snivelled, blowing my nose on the hem of my skirt, “then no one. No one save you, beloved Melanthus, shall ever lay his mouth to mine!”

Slightly hysterical that vow may have been, but it made me feel better. After all, as a vow it was assuredly quite useless. Melanthus could not be dead. I would wake in the morning and he would be here, and he would fall to the bed beside me, and…

I drifted off to sleep, content that I should pass the night in dreams of Melanthus.

I dreamed most peculiarly. I found myself standing in a stone hall of such construction and such overwhelming beauty that I am sure it was of the gods’ making. Above me glowed a golden vaulted roof, around me soared huge stone arches which lined the shadowy side aisles of the hall. Although the outer walls of the hall were of solid stone, I could somehow still see through them to the countryside beyond where a majestic silver river wound its way through gentle verdant hills and fertile pastures. It was an ancient and deeply mysterious land, such as I had never seen nor even imagined.

Oddly, it felt like my homeland, and yet this was nothing like the hills surrounding Mesopotama.

There was a sound of laughter, and from the very corner of my eye I saw the figure of a small girl dashing between the stone arches. It was my future daughter, I knew this, and my joy deepened, for this must be Melanthus’ child, too. I was sure of it.

Then a great joy swept over me. There was a man here, a man I loved beyond any other, and he me. Melanthus! I turned full circle, but I could not see him.

Melanthus?

I frowned, and looked more carefully, and saw instead two women standing at some distance from
me. One was…one was Hera, while the other was a smaller and darker woman, mysterious like the land I had glimpsed beyond the arches.

Hera put her hand on this dark woman’s shoulder and bent to her, and spoke in her ear.

Although I could not hear, and certainly not comprehend, I had a sense of many words being spoken and also, most remarkably, a sense of a vast amount of time passing.

And then, just as I walked closer, and opened my mouth to speak to Hera, the dark woman took a step towards me, then another, and then she was rushing at me as if she were not a woman but a pinprick of brilliant light.

I tried to take a step backwards, to evade this light, but there was nowhere to go, and suddenly the light was upon me—it was so hot!—and then it was gone. Vanished as if it had never been, although there was a horrible burning sensation in my lower belly.

“Hera,” I whispered, thinking to ask her of Melanthus, but I was alone. The hall was empty save for me, and suddenly it seemed a very forsaken place indeed.

The dream was so nasty I woke with a start. I laid a hand on my belly, feeling a warm heaviness in its lower extremity. For a moment, still befuddled by sleep, I wondered if my monthly courses were about to flow, then realised it could not be as they’d only completed themselves a week previously.

I frowned, and thought to rise and pour myself some wine so that I might put the dream from my mind, but just then the door opened and a shape approached my bed. I thought it must be Tavia, and I was glad, for I had need of her comfort. I opened my mouth to apologise to her for my earlier spitefulness, then closed it with a snap.

This wasn’t Tavia.

It wasn’t even the strange dark woman of my dream.

Nor even Hera.

Instead, it was horror most foul come to snatch me.

“Get up!” the shape said, and I realised—to my total stupefaction—that it was a man. In the instant between when he spoke and when he strode to my bed and grabbed me by my hair I wondered consecutively whether this was somehow, wonderfully, Melanthus come to me, or my father returned to explain it was all a bad dream, or perhaps a god come to take me as his own.

But then the man, this
intruder,
grabbed the hair at the crown of my head and dragged me naked and crying from the bed—“I said to get up, girl”—and I knew then that this was neither Melanthus, nor my father, nor even a god.

He dragged me several paces away before I managed to regain either my feet or my voice. “Let me go! How dare you touch me!”

And I kicked at him with a foot.

He evaded me easily, and in the next moment delivered a stinging blow to my breasts.

I gasped in twin shock and pain, and he gave my hair a vicious twist for added measure. “I have no time for kicking, squealing girls,” he said, his voice harsh. “Now keep quiet and
do as I say
!”