Hades Daughter (16 page)

Now terror had overwhelmed my shock, and I tried—difficult with someone’s hand twisted tight into the hair of one’s head—to nod. He seemed to understand my efforts, for he gave a curt jerk of his own head.

“Good. I have not come to rape you, but to take you to the megaron. If you remain quiet and amenable, you will come to no harm.”

I managed an almost-nod again, and he grunted, and, hand still in my hair so that I had to walk with
my head cruelly twisted, pulled me out the door and down the palace corridors towards the megaron.

I could not see his face, but somehow I had no doubt this man was a Trojan.

And not one of the tame slaves I had known all my life.

S
ingly, or in their twos and threes, Brutus’ men dragged variously shocked and compliant, still-sleepy and murmuring, or angry and struggling people into the megaron.

Every single one of them, as soon as they entered the megaron, fell silent on seeing Pandrasus’ burly figure kneeling, head bowed in his utter humiliation, several paces before the dais on which stood the throne. He was completely naked save for minor gold jewellery at his wrist and neck and ears. Then, as if they’d been instructed, every one of them in turn shifted their eyes from Pandrasus to the warrior slouched in the throne. He was of some thirty years, wore nothing but his boots, a golden and scarlet waistcloth and six magnificent golden bands about his limbs. His long, black curly hair was left unbound to course down his back and about his blunt-faced and dark-eyed visage. A sword rested across his knees, and Pandrasus’ gold and ruby bracelet lay on the floor between his feet.

Brutus, staring unblinking at Pandrasus.

Finally, as a guard signalled that all the palace Dorians had been brought to this chamber, Membricus walked across the megaron, paused momentarily to stare at Pandrasus, then moved to Brutus’ side to murmur something in his ear. Brutus nodded, gave Membricus a brief smile, then stood.

Membricus stepped back to stand just to the left of the throne.

Brutus walked very slowly to the edge of the dais where he stopped, his sword swinging idly in his hand, staring about the assembled peoples.

With only the exception of Pandrasus, who kept his eyes on the floor, they were all staring at him.

“My name is Brutus,” he said slowly, but very clearly, his eyes moving with deliberate precision from person to person within the megaron, “born of Silvius, born of Ascanius, born of Aeneas, hero of Troy and son of Aphrodite herself. I am of the blood of gods and princes, and I am heir to Troy, and to all that Troy claims. This man,” he lifted his sword and pointed it at Pandrasus, “has denied the rights of freedom of body and dignity to my people, whom he keeps as slaves. I have come to rectify this matter.”

Brutus stepped off the dais, his booted footsteps ringing about the megaron.

“I offered to Pandrasus the means to free his people without harm to him or his, but he refused.” Brutus was now circling the megaron, staring at each of the Dorians in turn, as if assessing their worth. “He thought to deny my people their freedom, and the gods, in their anger, have humiliated him.”

Brutus paused before a girl of some fourteen or fifteen years. She had a round, somewhat plump face—typical of so many girls her age—above a body that also still carried a remnant of its childish plumpness. While her features were unremarkable, the long, shining hair that tangled over her shoulders and her startlingly deep blue eyes showed that she would one day grow to an attractive woman.

She was naked, although apparently unconcerned about the matter, and Brutus was surprised by the shudder of need that ran through him as he studied her flesh. She did not have a particularly seductive body—Brutus
would certainly not have looked twice under normal circumstances—but there was something about her…something compelling…

Brutus looked back to her eyes, trying to see past the anger within them, trying to see what it was about her…then she moved her arm slightly, and a gleam caught Brutus’ eye, and he saw the gold and ruby bracelet that encircled her right wrist.

Apart from its size and weight, it was a mirror image of the one that Pandrasus had worn.

Brutus smiled, certain now of what it was that must have made him study her so closely. She would prove as useful as Melanthus.

“I am Brutus,” he repeated, his voice soft, his eyes holding the girl’s, “and I am god-favoured. It is not wise to deny me.”

He began to move once more about the megaron. “I control Mesopotama. I control this palace. I control
you.
Be wise. Do not deny me.”

Abruptly Brutus turned on his heel and walked back to stand before Pandrasus.

“My price for your freedom, and the freedom of your people, is but a small one,” Brutus said, and Pandrasus finally lifted his face to Brutus. “Give the Trojans their freedom from slavery, as graciously as you may. And,” his mouth twitched, “as a mark of your sincerity, I ask that you give to them the
means
of their freedom.” He paused, his grin growing wider, more substantial, as he saw the hatred in Pandrasus’ face.

“The
means
to their freedom being one hundred ships, and provisions and livestock for their sustenance for one year, as well as seven hundred talents in gold, silver and other jewellery.”

Pandrasus laughed, a big, belly laugh, his body shaking with the strength of its merriment. “Who do you think you are? A god yourself, to demand such
things of
me?
Ah!” He spat on the floor before him. “You are nothing but a dung-merchant who has let the stink of the shit he peddles addle his wits.”

Brutus gave a small nod in the direction of a guard, and Pandrasus suddenly stiffened, his laughter vanished, as he heard his daughter shriek in protest.

The guard dragged Cornelia over, his hand once more in her hair, and Brutus grabbed her from the guard’s grip.

Before Cornelia could react, Brutus twisted her hair and neck with a vicious force, subduing all her fight, then forced her to her knees.

Then, with one hand still in her hair—as it had been in Melanthus’ not so long ago—Brutus put his sword to Cornelia’s rib cage just under her breast.

She reflexively jerked away from its cold touch, but Brutus easily managed to keep it pressed against her.

“With one movement,” he said, noting Pandrasus’ frantic eyes, “I can slide this blade deep into her heart. And if you doubt me, for one instant…”

“He will do it.” Antigonus, heretofore kept in the shadows at the back of the megaron, now stepped forward.

Pandrasus looked over his shoulder, shocked, and Cornelia stiffened in Brutus’ grasp, her eyes, impossibly, growing even wider than they had been.

Antigonus walked forward, each step a shuffling testament to his own sense of shame, his face haggard.

“He
will
do it,” Antigonus repeated softly as he finally halted a few paces away from Brutus, Cornelia and Pandrasus. “He took my beloved Melanthus from me, and taunted me, and put his sword to Melanthus’ throat…and then he tore it out. He killed him.” Antigonus’ voice broke. “He killed him,” he whispered.

“And he died badly,” Brutus said, giving Cornelia’s head another twist as she let out an appalled sob. “He
was so terrified he pissed himself. Do you want that for your daughter? In front of all these people?”

Silence, save for Cornelia, who was moaning.

“Freedom for my people,” Brutus said, his voice dangerously quiet. “One hundred ships. Provisions for a year. Gold and jewellery…and…”

He had not meant to add that “and” but suddenly, stunningly, he was overwhelmed by a staggering desire and need.

It was almost as if he had been god-struck.

“…and your daughter as my wife, for I find in these past few minutes that I have grown accustomed to her flesh.”

“No!” Cornelia screamed, struggling, heedless of the blade. “No!”

Standing forgotten behind the throne, Membricus was again overwhelmed with the vision he had had when first he cast his eyes on the distant city of Mesopotama. Shadows. Death. Bewilderment. “No,” he whispered, his eyes blank, but no one heard him.

“No!” Cornelia shrieked yet again, writhing desperately.

“
All of this
,” Brutus hissed, his hand tightening in Cornelia’s hair in the struggle to hold her, and his other hand tightened as well, and the sword shifted, and Cornelia screamed as it bit across the flesh of her rib cage. “
All of this!
”

“All is yours,” whispered Pandrasus, his eyes on Cornelia.

“Say it! Stand and say it to these people, who shall bear witness.”

Pandrasus stood, almost slipping, his eyes unable to tear themselves from the sight of his daughter unsuccessfully trying to pull away from the blade, her pathetic efforts only serving to add more cuts to the one already marring her flesh.

“All is his,” he shouted. “Freedom for the Trojan slaves, one hundred ships and provisions for a year. Gold and precious gems. And…and, oh gods, oh gods, my daughter, whom I hereby give to him as wife.” And with those words, Pandrasus knew that he had, surely, killed his daughter.

Brutus nodded, satisfied, and lifted the sword away from his wife’s body as he had failed to lift it from that of the boy she’d loved.

O
nce my father had declared Brutus my husband (and what choice had he? Hold his tongue, and watch me die?), Brutus had taken the sword from my breast, dropped my head so suddenly I fell to the floor, and wiped my blood from his blade in my hair before sheathing it.

Tavia, who’d been watching distraught from the walls of the megaron, rushed to my side and aided me to my feet. She carried a light cloak, which she’d snatched from someone else, and she threw it about my shoulders before hastening me away (Brutus sent guards after us, as would come naturally to such a savage), taking me to my chamber, where she cleansed and dressed the wounds underneath my breast. They were stingingly painful, but they were not deep enough to require stitches, and so once she had cleaned them Tavia gently rubbed an unguent over them, and kissed my brow, as if I were a child, and as if that single kiss would make better all the grief and shock and humiliation of the past day.

Having attended my wounds and my heart as best she could, Tavia then sat with me in my chamber. We waited together all day, waiting for…well, I am not sure for what we waited. We merely sat, holding hands tightly, jumping at every sudden noise. Every so often there would be the sound of running feet in the
corridors, and shouts, and once a scream, no doubt of some hapless woman being raped. The streets were similarly frenzied, filled from time to time with screams and shouts and noises which I did not care to clearly identify. By the evening, however, both the palace and the city streets beyond had quietened.

Eventually, of course, Brutus remembered me.

As night fell he came to this chamber, and ordered Tavia out. Servants fell to his bidding (I could not begrudge them their terrified willingness) and arrayed the low table by the window with food and fine wines.

He asked me to sit with him (I was by this time standing in the furthest corner of my chamber) and, when I refused with a mute shake of my head, dragged me with a hard, repulsive hand to the chair by the low table of food.

So we sat, watching each other wordlessly, the table standing between us.

Of course, so much more stood between us.

He watched me with an air of slight puzzlement combined with amused speculation. He wore nothing but a somewhat sweat-stained gold and scarlet waistcloth and what, even at this moment, I recognised as exquisitely worked golden bands about his tightly muscled limbs. Used only to the soft, slim bodies of courtiers—and the beautiful fineness of my beloved Melanthus—I found his warrior musculature and sun-browned skin displeasing, almost ostentatious. He was physically suited to guard duty, perhaps, to the receiving of orders, not to sitting here before me, so relaxed and confident, as if he had…as if he had the
right.

He continued to watch me with measured deliberation, and I stared at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away, my apparent calmness hiding a tumultuous cauldron of emotions. I was humiliated, angry, terrified, shocked, grief-stricken and guilty, and of all these, the guilt was the worst.

If only I had not so thoughtlessly sent my father “a-hunting” after this Brutus. If I had thought, and been more circumspect, if I had begged my father to listen to the prudent wisdom of Sarpedon, would Melanthus still be alive? Would my father still be laughing, proud and strong, in his megaron? Would my fellow Mesopotamans not be subject to the brutality and rape I was sure was being enacted in every house within the city as this man, this Brutus, and I sat in silence, staring at each other?

My guilt was too terrible to bear, and so I used it to fan my outrage and anger. Who was this man, this piece of filth, to so humiliate myself and my father? Who was he to so carelessly murder Melanthus?

Who was he who had so completely destroyed my life?

In a moment of horror I remembered my vision of Hera.

She had tried to warn me, and I had forgotten it.

I swallowed, almost totally consumed with guilt now, and, horribly, he saw it.

“Eat,” he said, and I shook my head in a single, jerky motion.

He bent forward, picked up an apple, then leaned back in his chair and considered me as he bit into the fruit. The sound of his teeth sinking into the crispness of the apple was shocking in the otherwise silent chamber, the steadiness of his eyes as they regarded me alarming, and the juice of the apple as it trickled down his stubbled chin made my mouth and throat dry out in sheer terror.

For some reason, it reminded me that this man had declared himself my husband, and if now he was here in my chamber, then there was a good reason for that.