1
She had yellow eyes. At times, particularly by candlelight, they scarcely looked like human eyes at all. Calchas, the priest, once said they reminded him of a goat’s eyes: that she had the same numbed look of a sacrifice. I never saw her like that. She reminded me of a sea eagle, a common enough bird on the coast where I grew up; the sailors call it “the eagle with the sunlit eyes.” And its eyes are beautiful, but it doesn’t do to forget the brutal beak, the talons sharp enough to tear living flesh from bone. No, I didn’t see her as a victim, but then, I knew her better than most. I was her body-slave, or, to use the common, vulgar term slaves themselves use, her catch-fart. And I hated it.
That day, the day we finally abandoned the Greek camp and set sail for “home,” I was feeling really fed up with her because she’d kept me awake half the night praying—if you could call it praying. To me, it sounded more like a married couple having a row. Apollo didn’t say much—in fact, nothing that I could hear. She was saying, “Home? Home?” over and over again, as if it were the worst swear word in her vocabulary. I knew what she meant, because whatever unimaginable place our Greek captors were taking us to it certainly wouldn’t be home. Home, for me, had been a little white house on the side of a hill, the back garden so steep I had to cut terraces into it to grow my herbs. I loved that garden. There were goats at the top of the hill, so my days were punctuated by the clanking of bells. For Cassandra, home had been first a palace, then a temple, both, now, in ruins, just like my house—a shared misfortune that should probably have brought us closer than it did.
Leaving Cassandra with the cart and the baggage, I walked round the hut for the last time, checking to see we’d left nothing behind—or that she’d left nothing behind. I didn’t have anything to leave. The floorboards were gritty under my feet, the sand already starting to encroach. Normally, sweeping that out every morning was one of my jobs, but the last few days I hadn’t bothered. What was the point? The sand would be everywhere soon, piling up in corners, wedging doors shut; and after that the winter storms would begin, finding cracks in walls, blistering paint, warping wood until only a few spars would remain, scattered across a beach that had swallowed everything else. There was a bitter satisfaction in knowing that the ruined marble palaces and temples of Troy would endure for centuries to come while in a few short years the Greek camp would vanish without trace.
Being alone like this, even for a few moments, was a luxury. For the past two months, I’d shared the hut with Cassandra, who’d been in a state of “divine frenzy” when she arrived, clothes ripped, skirt bloodied and stained with semen. Nobody who saw Cassandra in those first days ever forgot it. Holding two blazing torches above her head, she whirled around the overcrowded hut, hair and skirt flying, shouting, “C’mon, get up, what’s wrong with you all? Dance!” Her mother and sisters cowered away from her. “C’mon, what’s the matter with you?”—she was kicking her mother’s shins at this point—“Get up, dance! DANCE!” And Hecuba, desperate to calm her demented daughter down, shuffled her scaly old feet from side to side. A further moment of horror in the old queen’s life, seeing her daughter reduced to this: a pathetic creature with spittle on her chin and garlands of dead flowers drooping from her neck.
“Come on, all of you. Dance at my wedding!”
What wedding? Like every other woman in the camp, Cassandra was facing a
lifetime of slavery. Royal birth, her status as a high priestess of Apollo, none of that would be enough to save her. Like everybody else there, like her own mother, she wasn’t an important person anymore; in fact, she wasn’t any kind of person. She was a thing, because that’s what a slave is—and not just in other people’s eyes, the people who own her, and use or abuse her; no, it’s worse than that. You become a thing even in your own estimation. It takes a strong spirit, a strong mind, to resist the stripping away of your old identity. Most of us can’t do it. And yet here was Cassandra, who if half the stories were true was as mad as a box of snakes, prophesying that she was about to become the wife of a great king.
“Rejoice!” They all had to rejoice with her, not because she was going to marry the richest, most powerful man in the Greek world, but because her marriage would lead directly to his death. Look at him, she was saying, riding in triumph over dead children, king of kings, lord of lords—and yet this hero, this mortal god, will die the death of a stuck pig on a slaughterhouse floor. Her own death was of no importance. She’d go down into the darkness crowned with laurels, having done what her brothers, for all their strength and courage, had failed to do: bring Agamemnon’s head level with the dirt.
Deluded. I don’t remember anybody saying the word, but then, it didn’t need to be said. Her sisters exchanged pitying glances, though I noticed that not one of them tried to console her. Even surrounded by the women of her own family, she was completely alone. She wasn’t despised exactly, but nobody believed her prophecies; in fact, nobody listened to a word she said.
But then—and this was as unexpected as a flash of lightning in a clear blue sky—Agamemnon chose her as his prize. I was there. I felt the ripple of surprise, even consternation, that spread around the arena. Afterwards, as the crowd dispersed, I overheard a couple of Greek fighters talking: “Bloody hell, I wouldn’t want that in my bed.” “No, you’d never dare sleep.” “Did you see her with them torches? Bloody near set the place alight.” “Well, I suppose if all else fails they’ll just tie her to the bed.”
As it turned out, he wasn’t far wrong about that. For her own safety, she was kept locked up, and I was the lucky soul sent to take care of her. The ranting, the raving, the spitting and pissing, went on as before, but behind closed doors. I followed her sisters’ example and ignored the rants—no easy matter when they’re being shouted in your ear in the middle of the night. What I couldn’t ignore was the obsession with fire. Every minute, she was watching me, waiting for me to go to sleep so she could get out of the hut and grab torches from the sconces that lined the path outside. I’d wake and find the door wide open, cold night air streaming in, and
Cassandra outside on the path whirling torches in great arcs of flame above her head. No doubt, in her poor crazed mind, they were the torches of Hymen that light a virgin bride to her marriage bed.
Hour after hour, I lay awake, staring at the rafters, afraid even to close my eyes in case I dropped off to sleep. “Divine frenzy” people called it, but to me, supervising her every waking minute, combing her hair, washing her face, changing her bloody clouts—even that she couldn’t do for herself—there was nothing “divine” about it. When, finally, she began to calm down, when she no longer paced the floor for hours on end, spit flying, fingers snatching empty air, when she sat up in bed and accepted a cup of cold water, having slept non-stop for fifteen hours, I was broken. As close to physical and mental collapse as I’ve ever been. But curious too. Despite the weeks of enforced intimacy, I felt I didn’t know this woman at all, and I wanted to.
Unfortunately, almost everything I’d learned about her since then repelled me. And—in so far as she bothered to notice me at all!—she returned the dislike. I’d seen her at her worst, dribbling and drooling in urine-soaked sheets. You can dress it up whichever way you like, but the simple fact was, I’d seen too much. I knew too much. Sometimes, I think, she found it difficult to be in the same room as me.
“Ritsa? RitSA!”
That was her now. One last look around the empty hut, one final blessed moment of peace, and then I had to go.
“What have you been doing?”
She was standing beside a cart loaded with her possessions, a great heap of them—not bad for a woman who’d arrived in the camp with nothing but the rags she stood up in.
I held out my hand. “I found your earrings.”
Her hand went to her earlobes. “Oh. I can’t think how they got left behind.”
They were nice earrings too: solid gold hoops, a gift from Agamemnon. God knows what poor girl’s ears they’d been ripped out of. Cassandra didn’t thank me. I watched her climb into the cart beside the driver and then, with a snap of the reins, they were off, leaving me to trudge along behind, carrying a bag of “special” clothes. What was special about them I had no idea; she’d packed that bag herself. It was heavy, I knew that, inexplicably heavy if all it held was clothes. I was also carrying her jewellery case, containing the various presents Agamemnon had given her, including a beautiful silver necklace set with fire opals. I had my own reasons for wishing to keep that safe.
So, there I was, stumping along behind the cart, my horizon bounded by the bullocks’ shit-caked backsides and swishing tails. Had I really sunk so
low? Yes—the only possible answer. I was Cassandra’s catch-fart—well, be honest, would you want that on your headstone? No, me neither. Not that I was likely to get one—a headstone, I mean—or even a grave. In the camp, the bodies of women who died were thrown off the cliffs, or added—as kindling, you might say—to a fighter’s funeral pyre. I lost count of the number of good women I saw leave the world that way.
At the end of the track, the driver reined the bullocks in because going any further would risk getting the wheels stuck in loose sand. Jumping down, he walked round the back of the cart, considered the number and size of Cassandra’s boxes, sighed, ostentatiously, and went off to find somebody to help. Cassandra didn’t seem to notice his departure; like me, she was staring out across the bay.
For the past few days, ever since the wind had changed direction, the harbour had been filling up with brown, fat-bellied cargo ships, sitting low in the water, holds stuffed with loot from ruined Troy, rising and falling on the choppy waves like a puddle of disgruntled ducks. They were surrounded by the black, beaked warships that were waiting to escort them home.
Closer to where I was standing, shadows of clouds chased each other across the wet sand. Dwarfed by the immensity of sea and sky, knots of Greek fighters stood around, some of them still singing the same stupid song they’d been singing for weeks: “We’re going, we’re going, we are going HOME!” Home. And what about us, the women of Troy and its satellite cities, where were we going? There were many women on the shore, hundreds; some of those who were holding little girls by the hand would be mourning the loss of their sons. Men and boys dead, women of child-bearing age shared out among the conquerors, some already pregnant with their children. What we were witnessing on that beach was the deliberate destruction of a people.
The long lines shuffled forward, a few feet at a time. Those at the front were being encouraged, by prods from the butt ends of spears, to wade into the sea and climb the rope ladders that dangled down the ships’ swollen sides. I watched their uncertain progress and saw no comfort anywhere. It felt like the end of everything. Was the end. And then, suddenly, one of the women began to sing, though it was a while before I identified the singer. An old woman, past child-bearing age, had chosen to sing, not a song of defiance, but one of loss. A lament, but stoical rather than self-pitying. She gave a voice to those hundreds of silent women. You don’t always need hope; sometimes it helps just to have your despair recognized, and shared.
Cassandra said, “Do
you think he’s ever coming back?”
Meaning the driver, I supposed. A minute later, she’d jumped down from the cart and was striding across the beach, looking straight ahead of her, neither to the right nor to the left, like a young warrior eager for battle to start. Lugging the heavy bag, I stumbled and floundered after her. As we got closer to the shore, I saw that a small group had gathered to wave me goodbye. These were women from other compounds whose kings were not yet ready to sail—and among them, my closest friend, Briseis, who’d already spotted me and, despite her pregnant belly, was jumping up and down and shouting, “Good luck!”—doing everything she could to urge me forward into my new life. But I didn’t want a new life, I wanted the old life back. And I don’t mean my previous existence as a freewoman in Lyrnessus; I’d long ago accepted the loss of that. No, I just wanted a few more months in the Greek camp, because then I’d still have her, and I’d be able to help her through the birth of her child. I stared long and hard at that little group of friends, though mainly at her, trying to fix this last sight of her in my mind so I’d have something to turn to in the blackest hours of the night when time just doesn’t pass.
But Cassandra said, in a slightly prissy, bossy tone of voice, “Come on, Ritsa, don’t dawdle, we’ve got to get on board.”
Why did we? I couldn’t think of a single reason, but it didn’t rest with me. And so, long before I was ready, I had to turn my back on Briseis, who was like a second daughter to me, and face the sea and the ships.
Cassandra raced ahead. Slithering down the last steep slope of shingle, she dislodged an avalanche of pebbles that peppered in her wake. I followed her down more cautiously, telling myself, every time my right foot hit the ground: last time, last time, last time…I was desperately trying to nudge myself into feeling something, anything, but I couldn’t. From the moment I turned my back on Briseis, every emotion seemed to dry up.
The ship we were about to board was easily the biggest in the cargo fleet, possibly the oldest and certainly not the best preserved. Why on earth was Agamemnon sailing home in this battered old sick bucket? Medusa, she was called. Fortunately, the figurehead was pointing out to sea—not that I had anything to fear from her gaze: I was already stone.
There was a gangplank. Nobody seriously expected Agamemnon to wade into the sea and scramble up a rope ladder, though presumably during his years as a fighter he’d done just that many times. But rumours were circulating about his health. In the last two months, he’d rarely been seen in public and when he did appear he kept his distance from the crowds. I hoped he was ill; I hoped he was dying, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Even then, I’d lived
long enough to see the wicked prosper, reach a ripe old age and die in their beds.
Cassandra ran up the gangplank—boldly, though I have to say, not gracefully. She wasn’t a graceful woman, Cassandra. None of her movements was ever precisely the right movement and so, wherever she went, she left a trail of minor destruction behind her. I was forever picking up after her. On this occasion, just as she neared the top, she stumbled. I caught my breath, though she was never in any real danger—anonymous hands quickly reached out and pulled her on board. She was Agamemnon’s…Well, what was she? Concubine, I suppose you’d have to say. Were there rumours of a secret wedding? I didn’t know, and I didn’t dare ask. But whichever way you looked at it, she was valuable cargo. You wouldn’t want that landing in the drink on your watch.
Now, my turn. The bag of “special” clothes weighed a ton and I had the jewellery case clamped to my side.
“You can leave that with us, love,” one of the sailors said. “We’ll look after it.”
Aye, bet you will. Dozens of boxes and bags were piled up round his feet. I added the clothes bag to the heap, but not the case—no way was I going to let go of that—and began to edge cautiously up the gangplank, trying not to look down at the waves rushing past beneath my feet. Two thirds of the way up, I wobbled to a halt, knowing I could never reach the top. My predicament was spotted by the sailors below—much to their amusement—and one of them bounded up the gangplank, nearly dislodging me in the process, planted both hands squarely on my arse and, to the accompaniment of ribald cheers from below, pushed me the last couple of yards onto the deck.
I was intact, even if my dignity wasn’t—though I made everything worse by tripping over the hem of my tunic and falling flat on my face.
“Hey up, lass.”
Calloused hands hauled me to my feet and dusted me down. My rescuer was saying something, but I was too flustered to take it in and thanked a blur of chest and red beard. All the same, even in that first moment, something snagged my memory. His voice? Somewhere or other, I’d heard that voice before, but it was only a fleeting impression, and he’d already moved on.
I stood for a moment, struggling to take in this strange new world. The deck was crowded with sailors; two were shovelling what looked like sheep shit off the boards, while others gathered by the rowing benches and rubbed chalk into their hands. Obviously, Agamemnon was expected on board at any minute. Everybody looked
nervous. One young lad stood not far away from me, fingering a pipe, even raising it to his lips and giving a little, tentative toot. Apart from that, my overwhelming impression was of the stink of animals. There were sheep in a pen and a couple of small goats, tossing their heads from side to side, clanking their bells—a dolorous sound at the best of times, one that always reminded me powerfully of home, but especially so at that moment. I was a good sailor, a calm sailor, but I was frightened of this voyage. Listening to the goats’ bleating, I felt in my own legs and belly the terror of the tilting deck.
Cassandra was standing in the stern, staring across the beach and the battlefield to the ruins of Troy. They say if you look back you turn to salt, but what else could she do? Her father and brothers, her baby nephew, were all buried in that soil. Glancing sideways, I saw she’d stuffed the edge of her veil into her mouth, perhaps to stop herself crying out loud, or cursing Agamemnon, whose procession was now winding its slow, glittering snail’s trail along the shore. A splendid sight—or so it must have seemed to the Greeks. Blaring trumpets, battle horns, beating drums, sunlight flashing on helmets and spears and, high above, the red-and-gold standards of Mycenae straining in the wind. Right at the end of the procession came Agamemnon, marching in the shade of a huge square canopy; priests swinging censers walked ahead of him to sanctify his path.
I expected Cassandra to remain on deck to greet him, but she spat out the hem of her veil and turned away.
“Come on, let’s see where they’re putting us to sleep.”
She called out a question to the man with the red beard, who indicated a low door on the opposite side of the deck. We had to bend nearly double to get through it. Blinded by the sudden gloom, we groped our way down a flight of stairs—it was a proper staircase, I was pleased to see, not just a glorified ladder—and into the deeper darkness beneath. ...
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