Cassandra (32 page)

Yet arrows bristled over our walls and the kings of the Achaeans had come with armies to attack us.

`We will hold the city of Dardanus and Priam,' mused Hector as I scuttled after him back to the Scamander Gate, where we could sight the little fires on the beaches which marked the Argive camp. He stroked Státhi and the cat angled his furry chin to the caress of the strong fingers. `We will stave off fate yet awhile, Cassandra healer-scribe, my beloved sister.'

 

I was sitting in the palace under a vine, later that day, making a list. Hector loved lists. The black marks scuttled over the paper like ants.

`Arrows, Cassandra. We must ensure that we have enough arrows. This war will be fought with darts,' said my brother, and I saw blood gush from a gaping wound in his neck and pour down the armour he wasn't wearing. I stared, refusing to look away - I was not going to blink, I would not give the god so much satisfaction. My insides liquefied. Hector was going to die. Behind the vision I smelt smoke and saw the palace doors broken, and a meal, smashed crockery and wine on the tiled floor.

This was my curse which the vengeful Apollo had inflicted on me. To know, and not to speak; and the suppression of my voice had sharpened my eyes. I was sick with despair. What would I do without Hector, my dearest brother, my shield against the council, who said I was mad?

Denying the vision would not work - the priestesses had told me that when Eleni and I had cried and begged not to have to watch some dreadful picture. I wanted to hit my head against the wall until the skull split, so that I could let out the sending. Instead, I faltered, and made a blot, bit my thumb until I saw red bruises bloom under my skin. I needed advice; I could not despair and let the sendings overtake me or I would go mad and then I would have no defence against my visions. With a huge effort, I summoned up what the priestesses had told me about prophecy:

`Allow yourself to be one with the god. The vision cannot be denied or pushed away or it will return, and when it returns it will be either unclear or much worse. It is not in mere humans to countermand a god. What he sends, you must see.'

`Talk to the carpenters,' Hector said, blood pulsing from his death-wound. `See if they can substitute different woods for the shafts. We won't be able to go out into the swamp for reeds.'

My fingers wrote in syllables as he spoke to them. My inner voice listened to the priestesses. `Prophecy cannot affect the future,' the remembered voices said. `Men turn aside from seeing and fall into a pit. Prophecy is dangerous as a guide to action. It is just a piece cut out of the future. Your heart must not be moved, priestess of Apollo. Your love must not be given to any living thing.'

`And we had better check how much bronze we have - in ingots and in treasure which can be melted down,' said Hector, white as clay, his long hair matted with bright red blood. I dropped the stylus and bent to pick it up.

When I looked again the picture was gone. Resolve was hardening my heart.

 

Very well, Apollo
, I said in my heart,
I will see what you command. But you will not break Cassandra with visions. I am a princess and woman of Troy and though gods cannot be countermanded they can be defied. I will try to warn those who are about to die. Hector will die in this battle, in the sack of the city which Eleni and I have seen since we were three. Very well then; the city must not fall.

I threw my anger and outrage at the blue sky, hoping that the god could hear.
Strike me dead, I prayed, strike me dead if you wish, childish, cruel, pitiless Apollo, but I will circumvent you, I will thwart you! I will stare and stare into the smelter's fire of death and I will not be destroyed...

 

`Cassandra, did you hear? I said, we must go and check the armour of the next watch. Some of those leather shirts wouldn't keep out a hailstone. Cassandra?' he asked, `Are you all right?'

`Yes, Hector,' I said, and added, `I love you.'

He held me close and I thrust my face into his neck, kissing the place where the wound would let out his life. I acknowledged it, because a vision denied will poison the seer and not affect the fates. Hector must die; if I could not prevent it, Hector would die.

A priestess' love should not be given to any living thing, but only to the god, who cannot die.

 

`The Princess Cassandra has defied you,' said Aphrodite. `Apart from death there is nothing more that you can do to her, vengeful Apollo. And you may not be able to keep your golden Diomenes from the beaches at Troy.'

`And Troy shall not fall.' Sea-water-slick muscles rippled in Poseidon's giant torso as he drew a deep, satisfied breath.

`Troy will fall,' Athene breathed on the water in the Pool of Mortal Lives. `Men of my cities in Achaea are come, heroes and kings. I shall inspire them.'

`But not aid them,' said Zeus Cloud-Compeller dryly. `I will not have gods embroiling themselves in mortal war. That is cheating daughter. Inspire them all you wish, but you may not go down into the battle.'

`But father,' protested Athene, `not any of us? Not Apollo?'

`None of you. This is the urgent petition of Demeter, and she is right.'

Poseidon grinned. `You cannot forbid me my oceans, Lord Father.'

`No. But is this your business, Sea God?'

`It is while the others try and destroy my city.'

`My Diomenes will lie at Epidavros in the arms of his wife, and the war will never come near him,' declared Apollo. `I care nothing for your squabbling over Troy.'

Spring came. Chryseis' fear never wholly left her. Although she did not speak of it again, I felt her uncertainty. It tainted my dreams, crept into my mind as we lay on the same pillow, as though the thoughts were conducted from head to head.

Her body began to swell, imperceptibly at first, and she was sick every morning, retching so hard that I ransacked the memories of every old man in the temple of Epidavros for remedies.

I tried all the anti-nausea herbs; mint and thyme and sage and white-grass, comfrey and vervain and wormwood. Then I tried balm and lavender, poppy, borage, mother's herb and marshleaf. Finally I happened on an ilex mixture which at least allowed her to retain milk or broth. Master Glaucus told me to devote all my care to her.

Arion sat in the strengthening sun as I brought Chryseis to lie in the shade and he sang quietly to her, regaining his voice. She drowsed in my arms, her head snuggled below my collar-bone, while we listened as the rich voice sang, not of battles and death but of Pan and Dionysius, of Aphrodite and the judgement of Pariki, the fate of Hermaphrodita the nymph:

 

I would have him forever,
Mine of me, flesh of my bone.
Goddess, give me my shepherd,
So that we will never be parted in this world.

 

The warm light made an aureole of gold around Chryseis, who had turned on the bench to cradle her belly with one arm and embrace me with the other. I brushed a tendril of her hair away from my face.

 

Swift the Goddess answered, and the bodies melted
Together in truth flowed Hermia and her lover,
Phallus and breasts under the nymph's long hair,
One body, one mind, never to part.
Beware, lovers, how you call on the Powers
Lest you find that you get what you want.

 

Arion coughed experimentally and patted his chest. `I was reminded of that song by looking at the pair of you, Diomenes. So similar you might have been twins. It's odd, you know, I find it hard to write songs about happiness. After it is gone, yes; aching ballads of loss are easy; but to say, "I am happy, my wife is beautiful and she loves me and I love her" - somehow the audience never likes it, the rhymes don't come. The muse is a captious creature. How is your beautiful wife, my golden one?'

`She is better than she was,' I stroked the long hair. `The child is transforming her to suit its own purposes; she is very tired. When this is over she will be my joyful Chryseis again, eh, my bird, my heart?'

She smiled in her sleep and I kissed her.

Arion was looking at me with a wry quirk to his mouth, as though he had bitten a new olive. But he said nothing.

It was a generous spring, and when Chryseis grew well enough to be left alone I ranged out with the herb-gatherers, seeking sweet flowers and potent leaves and roots to be preserved in oil or troches or syrups, or to be dried for the bleak days when disease strikes. For my child I cut the sacred herbs for his cradle; basil and vervain for the healer's baby.

I came into my little house one evening and my wife embraced me and sniffed. `Orchid,' she said delightedly. `And thyme and sage. You have been on the mountain.'

`I have, and I found you this.' It was a stone shaped like a shell, so perfect that you could see the striations, though the sea was three days distant. `How is it with you, Chryseis my heart?'

`It is well,' she said. `I feel better than I have since I began to carry this burden. Come, let us be close, husband, come and lie with me, I have been cold without you.'

Very gently, and with trembling care, I caressed the beloved body, stroking down her face to her breasts, kissing the navel which was beginning to protrude. She shivered and pulled me down to lie around her burden, twining her legs with mine. I have always been more delighted with another's pleasure than my own; now I pleased her and she drew me close, closer. For a long time, I could not tell which of us was female and pregnant and which was male and potent; mouth and phallus connected us, exchanged us, like Hermia and her shepherd: Chryseis/Chryse, one creature and glowing with love.

We slept at last, but she cried in Morpheus' embrace. I found a wet patch on my chest in the morning. She said that she did not remember what she had dreamed about.

Arion stayed with us until summer was ripening and the first barley crop was gathered and lay drying in the fields. One morning I heard his voice calling. I left my bed and came to the door barefoot.

`Well, Asclepid, I am off,' he announced. `I am taking the road again. I came to thank you for your care, my golden one, to give you such blessing as the bard has to bestow, and to introduce you to my apprentice.'

Behind him stood a boy of perhaps twelve, laden down with a cloak, a blanket, a provisions bag, a drum and a lyre. He had brown curly hair and eyes that were almost black. He smiled shyly.

`This is Menon the Egyptian,' said Arion. `A fine singer and a good flute player. I need some company these days, Chryse, I am getting old.'

`Where are you going, Master Bard?' I asked, yawning and rubbing a hand through my hair. `Back to Mycenae?'

`Useless, boy. Clytemnestra rules there, and she has no ear for music and absolutely no sense of humour. There are naught but children, women and old men in that city now. I hear that she has admitted Aegisthis, the revenge child, son of Thyestes, into Mycenae. That bodes no good to Agamemnon, no good at all. He should not have sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to Aeolas for a south-west wind. Even though it worked, it was unwise.

`No, I am following the black ships, Diomenes. I am going to Troy.'

`He sacrificed his daughter?' I gasped.

`Yes. He sent Talthybius the herald to bring the girl, telling her mother that she was to marry Achilles. Clytemnestra dressed Iphigenia in all her bridal finery and her red veil and sent her forth with blessings. Then Agamemnon and that scoundrel Calchas, the high priest, took the child to the mountain top and cut her pretty throat on the altar. Such a waste.

Queen Clytemnestra has borne a great deal from the Lord of Men; her own baby disposed of like a deformed whelp, her husband slaughtered before her eyes. It is a doomed house, the house of Atreus. I fear some dreadful stroke if the Lord of Mycenae comes home alive to his own city. But I have had news of great deeds. There are songs to be made of the siege of Troy.'

`Is there word? Have you heard of my sons?' asked Glaucus from his own door.

`They are well and doing great deeds; it appears that there has been heavy fighting and many Argives have died. This I had last night from a Corinth trader - you treated him for pile, respected Master, but did not think to ask him for any news. Are you ready, Menon?'

The boy grinned and hefted the baggage, his foot pawing the ground like a restless horse's hoof in eagerness to be gone. I had been like that once, before I encountered the world. I smiled at him and hoped that the road would bring him happiness like mine.

`Good fortune, then, old friend,' said Glaucus and kissed Arion. `Take good care of him, Menon.'

I embraced the old man and he kissed me, then looked at me again with that pitying, almost scornful gaze.

`Farewell, Diomenes Chryse God-Touched,' he said, and pushed me away almost roughly. `I'll see you on the beaches.'

I watched him mount and ride out of the suppliant's gate.

`Why did he say that, Master?' I asked Glaucus. `I have no intention of going to Troy.'

`He is an old man and his wits are not what they were,' said my master soothingly. `How is the lady your wife?'

`She seems content and is no longer sick,' I said staring after the retreating back of the bard and the boy.

`Good. Come to the temple of surgery this morning, Diomenes. We are to watch an interesting technique for repairing a nerve.'

I returned to my house to find myself some breakfast, thinking of the bright face of Iphigenia with her basket of coins on the steps of Mycenae. Chryseis was still asleep when I left.

 

The soldier had been stunned with the anaesthetic smoke. Itarnes had slit his inner arm, between the bones, and was probing the bloody flesh with a silver blade as thin as gold leaf.

`There,' he instructed, `is the old scar; a sword thrust through the arm. You can see how the hand has begun to wither. He is completely without sensation in the fingers. Here is the nerve, that string - ` he pointed out a thread as fine as thin flax. `And see how it is cloven. Now if I lie this end next to this, and this end here,' he did so, delicately capturing the nerves in the pincers, `and we wrap a little material around them - this is goat bladder, boiled three times and dried in strong sun, then oiled with olive oil and beaten and washed again - now, we will stitch the arm and we will see. It must remain still for a week,' he added, drawing the edges of the wound closed. `And he must have enough poppy so that he feels nothing and does not try to move his fingers or it may pull the threads out of alignment.'