Cassandra (24 page)

I had reason for loving Hector more than ever. He had come to the Palace of the Maidens three days earlier and spoken for a long time to Perseis. Then he had called me and we had walked into the city together.

Although I had grown, my brother Hector was still huge. When I curled a finger into his belt, his arm came around my shoulders and held me close. He said, looking down through the golden beard, `Now, little sister, I believe that you cannot speak at the moment, but Perseis and Tithone the healer think that this will pass. However, the Lady of Maidens also says that you lack a craft other than healing and I thought I might give you one.'

I could not, or dared not, speak or I would have protested. Hector looked into my eyes and said, `I will teach you to write, Cassandra. I need a scribe. Now we are going to the guard's house above the city and I will show you how it is arranged.'

Státhi leapt up onto the wall when we reached it. He was always at risk of being stepped on when he kept to the ground, for he did not deign to avoid the feet of mere men. His progress through a crowd was always marked with people hopping and swearing as they were scratched. When he was particularly affronted with humans, he rode on Hector's shoulder, hooking his claws into the warrior's harness. Hardened Phoenician traders had made very advantageous bargains for Troy when confronted with Hector's grey eyes and Státhi's green ones disconcertingly on a level.

`This is my sister Cassandra, Priam's daughter,' said Hector to the guard as we came into the tower above the Scamander Gate. `She will be my scribe. You will guard her and protect her and her orders are mine.'

There were four men in the tower. I found out later that there are always four men in the Scamander tower. They scanned me briefly, said, `As the commander orders,' to Hector and returned to looking out over the city and the plain.

`Here, Cassandra, is papyrus and here is ink - do you remember when you spilled it over Pariki's head?' I smiled at the recollection, but did not dare to speak. He sighed. `Yes. Well, you must listen carefully. Every word has a sound of its own, but it is made up of other sounds which also occur in other words. Consider. This is your name. Ca-sa-nd-ra.' He made four marks on the papyrus. `And this is mine. He-ct-or.' Three marks. `If we write the "sa" in Cassandra like this,' he repeated a mark, `and the "nd" like this, what is the word?'

He had forgotten that I was mute, and he was trying with such kindness and patience to help me. I risked the wrath of Apollo. I made a great effort and croaked, `Sand.'

`Good!' he took my hand and pressed it. `Good. Now, if those three marks are Hector and this one is "ro", what is this word?'

`Hero.' It seemed exceptionally simple, but my brother Hector was impressed. He gathered me in his armoured bosom and hugged out all my breath. Hector was never aware of how strong he was.

`Cassandra, you are a remarkable girl. I have tried to teach that simple set of facts to men who are considered wise and they could not learn it. I will write out the whole syllabry and you can learn it. After that, you can copy the signs until the stylus moves easily in your hand and then - why, then, little sister, you will be Hector's scribe. Would that please you?'

I threw myself at him and wrapped both arms around his neck. `Oh, Hector,' I whispered, `I would love to be Hector's scribe.'

 

The art of writing did not take much effort to learn, though my brother was right. When I exhibited the mystery to the other girls they went blank and could not understand what I was doing. I was too frightened of the wrath of the jealous god to talk much to them anyway.

We went to the Temple of the Blue-Haired One in the morning. It was still cold, and I wore two tunics and a cloak. We had brought blue cloth, a green dish painted with fish and a wooden model of a shop made out of driftwood which Iris had worked on for a month, not knowing (or perhaps foreknowing) that the Sea God would return to Troy. I had nothing but a handful of interesting pebbles, polished by the waves.

Maeles greeted us. It was a small temple, warmed by a fire of salt-soaked timbers which burned with blue and green sparks. We knelt next to the Exiled God and prayed for protection for our city from storm and for our ships from wreck. I felt no presence of any god and I was thankful that no visions came to offend my eyes, knot my tongue and turn my wits.

Through the temple the sea-wind blew, smelling of weed and salt, and the flames flickered. The ocean pulsed like a heartbeat.

We were leaving when Dion, in his sea-coloured robes, met me at the door. I was afraid of him, as I was afraid of everything since the god had cursed me. He reached to cup my cheek in the gesture that my lost Eleni had used, and I froze. I looked for Perseis and the maidens but they had tactfully withdrawn.

I was deserted. I was abandoned with my own lover in the temple of the god I had brought back into the city. Nevertheless I was trembling and dared not speak.

`Come,' he said gently, and I followed him to kneel down before the altar. `Apollo has rejected us,' he said as his mouth came down on mine, `but Poseidon the Powerful has accepted us.'

`No,' I pushed him away. `Dion, I am afraid!'

`You must trust me,' he said, stroking me with hands that could control a wilful sail or a straying oar. `You need me, Cassandra my bright Lady, and I need you, and Poseidon needs us and will shelter us. You need only accept.'

`No!' I jerked out of his embrace and sprang to my feet. `Accept? Accept? All my life I have accepted. I accepted the Lady and she robbed me of my twin, closer than you could ever be, close in my mind, half of myself. He is gone - Ishtar decided that she wanted Eleni and stole him by a vision, so that he loves one he cannot have and has shut his heart to me, his own sister, his twin!'

I could hear my voice rise to a shriek. `Then I accepted the Lord Dionysius and the stranger with the blue bead violated me and hurt me, intruding into my body. The Lord Apollo gave me you, then stole my tongue because I offended him in saving your life! We are only chess pieces to the gods, they care nothing for us, we are puppets, wooden dolls with no hearts to break, no wounds that bleed. I will not accept. No more. I will accept nothing!'

I screamed at him and all the gods in anger and loathing. Dion was watching me. I turned to run out of the temple but found myself facing him. I raised my arm to strike. He did not turn his face away, but gazed at me with pity and love. He was beautiful; the long curly hair, the kelp-brown eyes, the curve of the as-yet-unshaven jaw, the straight line of the red mouth. I could not sustain my fury and it melted away. I was spent and unsteady on my feet; I felt him carry me to his bed and the warmth as he lay down beside me.

The fingers walked up my hip, delicately, as they had in the temple. I shuddered and pushed the spidery caress away. Dion did not retreat. His hand moved palm down between my thighs, sliding across the pearl, then his mouth sucked hard at the nipples. I grabbed a handful of his hair and clasped the head to my breast, hoping for some strong sensation to fill the agonising hollow in my soul. The slipping fingers were wet now; they made a soft sucking sound. My grasp found his phallus.

I lay as I had never lain since the stranger and it was Dion in my arms. The first thrust hurt, but I thrust back until he was deep in the clutch of my womb, deeper than the god or the stranger, stronger than the sea.

Anger fuelled me; my wave peaked and crashed and peaked again while the sea throbbed in my blood and the Priest of Poseidon thudded between my thighs like the Bull from the Sea.

I lost time. The rhythm was oceanic and there was nothing in the world but the mask of his face and the weight of his body and the phallus moving, sliding, between strangers salty with sweat.

As I felt his seed fountain in my womb, I screamed like a gull in desperate loss and triumph.

 

`Tithone - she's one of yours, Demeter. How dare she speak of Apollo so disdainfully? Do you allow your priestesses to blaspheme the Archer, Lord of the Sun, old woman?'

`You have hurt her pupil, closer than daughter,' said the Earth Mother slowly. `She speaks as she finds. And so do I. Vain and vicious, that is the new rule of these young gods.'

`Old woman, you do not dare to speak so to me! I have given great gifts to men. Medicine and knowledge, herbs to heal and wound, and letters to carve their glories into the walls of their stone cities.'

`And you have taken great worth from them. You strike them with plagues, you snuff the stench of their suffering, you drink in their screams. It is not their own glory you would have them write, but your own.'

`Earth Mother,' Apollo lifted his bow and laid an arrow on the string, `I will end your blasphemy.'

`Sun God,' Demeter drew her flowery robe about her and laughed, `you cannot kill me. I am the Earth. I am the force that hammers a fragile grass blade through hard-packed brick. Your temples are stone, Archer; mine are the mountains and the valleys, the streams that thread the flesh of the earth like veins. You breathe the stench of burning flesh; I smell flowers and fruit and wheatfields golden with grain.

`Princeling, you flatter yourself. No man and no god can destroy me. I was here with my brother, Pan the Ageless, before you Children of Chronos came to vex my peaceful world; and I will be here after you have gone, after the men you tortured have quite forgotten you, and the temples you had them build are worn stones scattered in the grass.'

The arrow left the string, aimed with immortal precision. It flew towards the unprotected breast of Demeter, struck and sank.

Demeter smiled, opening the robe to reveal milk-heavy breasts unmarked by the passage of the dart. Apollo threw down his bow.

Aphrodite caressed the golden apple and laughed.

The pestilence took three weeks to pass. All that time I remained on the mountain. I had persuaded my master to leave the plague to me and anyway, I did not want to enter the city of Mycenae again. Ten of my patients died. For a panicky couple of days I thought that they all would die.

Eumides the free man stayed with me. He showed a deft hand with the turning and carrying and no sign of disgust at the cleansing of the sick. On the sixth day, when I felt that I would lose them all, he sat with me as a woman died.

The only mercy showed by the god Apollo in the purging fever is that the dying slip away. Once the moisture is all gone from the body, they are not in pain, and they are corpses a day or so before the soul finally departs. This woman had been a big, heavy market trader, whose boast was that she could carry ten flat baskets on her head; now she was so light that the breeze could have blown her away. Her hand did not clasp mine, her fingers were slack and her breathing barely puffed out the cracked lips. Only her hair was still human, a rich brown, flowing down over the stained chiton. I did not have enough spare clothes to replace the robes of the ones who were going to die.

`Drink this,' Eumides put a wooden cup of broth into my hand, taking my place. `Does she know that we are here, Asclepid?'

`I don't know. She might. There is nothing else I can do for her.' I sipped at the soup, which was hot and savoury with healing herbs. `My master says that if all we can do is to sit and watch them die then at least we can do that.' I was so tired that my eyes were closing against my will, and so tense that my neck ached.

While he held the woman's hand, she died.

I found myself crying. Eumides helped me to my feet, steadying me in his embrace, and led me to our tent. It was noon and hot inside the goat-smelling darkness. Inexplicable revulsion shoved me away from it.

`No,' I said. `I cannot go inside.'

`Come up the mountain, then,' he said, putting down my cup and catching up a wine-flask on a thong. `Elis, we are going higher up,' he called, and she nodded. The once-frightened man-slaying girl had been careful, attentive and responsible. All evidence of her killing had been burned on the pyre still smouldering below the city. She had not mentioned the incident again and I had promised to be silent. By the time she got back to Mycenae she would be one deserving of the reward which the Lord of Men had offered to those willing to tend the sick. The suppliants trusted her, believing in her virtue; only one protected by the gods would come and voluntarily tend the plague-stricken. It was a pity that her mother was dead, but she grieved quietly, if she grieved at all. I could leave her with them for an hour.

Eumides led me, then when I stumbled he carried me up the steep path. He laid me down on the sharp-scented mountain herbage and sat behind me.

My head was on his chest in the shade of an olive tree, my body began to soak up the sun through my tunic. Eumides' strong fingers began to massage my back and neck. I felt the twang as my jaw unlocked under the clever pressure.

`They are all going to die,' I murmured. `I have failed, failed utterly.'

`But you are not afraid of death, Chryse,' he answered. `You have knotted your shoulders like old leather straps. Turn a little to the sun. There. You are not afraid?'

`I'm not, but they are. They are depending on me to save them, I can see it in their eyes, and I can't.' I began to cry again. `Is there to be no life left in the world?' I said. Strong arms were supporting me. I had been so long without sleep that I was seeing spots in front of my eyes and my body was chilled and fevered by turns.

Eumides held me close. Then he kissed me, and I slumped forward into his warmth, hungry for life and the pulse of breath.

We were making love before I realised what was happening. His touch was soothing, his mouth sweet, and I thought momentarily of how I must stink, how kind it was of him to comfort me when I smelt of death-sweat and sickness. He was sure and practised, and forgave my clumsiness when I tried to please him. Healer's fingers are trained to be deft and my ability had not entirely deserted me, even though I was tired enough to welcome the return of the black angel. I have always loved to give pleasure. I felt him gasp, his mouth on mine, his inner lip as smooth as wet silk, and I smelt wormwood.