Cassandra (26 page)

`Nonsense, who could abduct someone out of a palace without waking the guard?' I scoffed.

`Ah, but she went willingly - that's what they are all saying. No one believed for a moment that she liked her husband, though it was her duty to love him.'

I cleansed the small wound carefully and covered the compress with a loose bandage.

I doubted that Elene would allow herself to be stolen again, even if she had to kill to prevent it; but she certainly might have run away. And with that very beautiful youth in the rusty-red tunic? Well, she had a right to give herself to whomever she pleased.

I loved her still so much that I was not even jealous. I hoped that he would treat her well, and strove not to yearn.

 

A year later, Arion the bard was visiting my master, and said that the heroes of Odysseus' League were preparing for war with Troy. I had heard many songs about war but I had never seen it.

We at Epidavros bound wounds and set bones and repaired the dreadful damage men do to each other in battle. Aren't there enough dangers in the world, without seeking more perils?

I remember when they brought in some injured men from a skirmish between two Mycenaean clans which were in blood feud - the Mycenaeans eat, drink and breathe war - and I first saw what a sword thrust through the belly can do.

It was a young man, perhaps eighteen - I was fifteen myself - and his intestines had been pierced, through all the delicate membranes which hold the organs in place. We are taught to feed such a patient garlic soup. After an hour, a sniff of the wound will tell whether the guts are whole, and the man may live; or they are cut, in which case he will die and no nursing can save him. He was in great pain, groaning, and I could not give him poppy as it delays digestion.

He was sweating, rolling his head on the thigh of his battle-friend - a well-made young man with black hair and dark eyes, like most Mycenaeans. His friend was wiping his face with a cloth, holding the hand which groped for comfort. `Myrses,' he whispered, `Myrses, my golden one, it will be better soon. Myrses, my dearest friend, my own love, I am here,' and Myrses seemed to hear him and tried not to cry out as I handled him.

I waited the hour and smelt garlic through the wound.

I was not old enough to control my face, and the friend knew as soon as he looked at me. But his stroking hand never ceased moving, only hesitated for a second. `Chryse,' he said, his eyes piercing me, `are you sure?'

`There is something I can try,' I faltered, for they said I had the gift of healing, but I had never tried to consciously invoke it.

`Try,' said the man. `And I will give you my daughter for wife, my bronze cup, my chariot horse. By my name Palamedes, and by all the gods, by Ares and by Zeus, I swear.'

`Not I but the god,' I said ritually. `Loosen his tunic, I must touch him.'

I knelt next to the bench and saw that Palamedes had unsheathed his bronze knife, sharp as a razor. If I could not cure Myrses, his lover Palamedes would kill him. This is the battle-friend's sworn oath and duty, if there is a wound which cannot be cured. It sometimes takes gut-stabbed men three days to die, always in the greatest agony.

The wound gaped in the young man's belly. The garlic stench flowed from the gap, though there was now not much blood.

I laid my palms flat on the wound, covering the
omphalosi
, the navel and centre of all human energy, as Delphi is the omphalosi of the world.

I tried to pray, but I was sickened by the smell composed of blood, fear, sweat and the oil the Mycenaeans use on their leather. I hesitated, and Palamedes' hand gripped my shoulder and shook me gently.

`Have faith, little priest,' he almost grinned, his white teeth showing through his black beard, though tears were running down his face, cutting channels in the dust.

I closed my eyes and called to the god. Thereafter I felt nothing - no sensation of heat or cold, and I saw no one and heard no sound. It was as though I, Chryse, had ceased to exist.

The next thing I knew was, a man's voice which sounded very loud, demanding in Achaean, `Palamedes? Where am I?'

Someone shoved me, and I opened my eyes as I fell. I tried to clamber to my feet but could not manage it. My knees were as stiff as if I had been kneeling for days. Then a rough hand dragged me up and into a close embrace - I felt the bosses on a leather harness dig into my cheek - and someone began to laugh.

Voices called. I was put down dizzy on the bench and realised it was empty. My patient was standing up, turning his bare belly into the light of the oil lamp.

There was an angry red scar, as though he had been healed a week. Palamedes was bellowing, `A miracle.' The small temple had filled with a press of people and there were a hundred eyes on me. I flinched from their greedy, curious stare. Master Glaucus came and smiled at me. Philostrates of the healing hands was summoned to massage my limbs back to life. My knees were bruised black and I was shivering as though I had been caught in the snows of Parnassus for a week.

When I could stand, Master Glaucus gave me Kriti wine to drink. He asked me so many questions which I could not answer, then conducted us all to the great temple where Myreses the Mycenaean told the assembly of patients and priests what had happened and showed his scar.

I had healed him, through the god, but I went outside as soon as I could and was sick in the bushes next to the temple of Athena Pronaea. I could not eat meat for a month afterwards. They gave me milk and honey to drink and told me that I was a healer. I felt empty and sick. The god's vessel was a poor clay thing, easily smashed and discarded. I felt that I had been used and broken and cast away. I felt violated.

Myrses and Palamedes came later to deliver their offerings. Palamedes told me that I had gone white and still, so still that he feared that I was dead. Myrses had fallen into a light sleep and Palamedes did not want to disturb him so he had sat, supporting his lover, watching, for almost two days.

He said that he had heard the owls of the lady hooting in the cypresses, and seen the sunlight arrows of Apollo shooting golden through the open door. Master Glaucus had been called and counselled that I be left alone, a vessel of the god which must not be touched. Palamedes had never left Myrses, although nothing seemed to be happening. He said that he was watching the rise and fall of Myrses' chest when he had seen a bright glow surrounding my hands. Myrses screamed and twisted, crying that someone had filled his guts with burning coals. Palamedes held him fast. Myrses had gripped his lover's hands so hard that there were still bruises there three weeks afterwards.

Myrses said that he had fallen asleep and seen a vision of the god Apollo, who had fired an arrow into his belly, a fire arrow which burned. He said that the sensation of his intestines knitting together was like being crawled over by ten thousand ants. He was worried about me, uneasy in my company, as though I had a gift which set me apart, and which I might take back.

`I have brought my daughter,' said Palamedes. `She is called Chryse, too - Chryseis. Have you any use for a wife, little priest?'

He put my hand into the hand of a girl, perhaps fourteen, a marriageable age. She had hair like chestnut wood but I could not see her eyes. She kept them lowered. Mycenaean maidens are expected to be demure in the presence of men. But her hand felt good in mine, so I kept it. I had not touched a woman in friendship since Elene.

`I have a use for her,' I said, smiling at the big man. `The gods be with you.'

`And also with you,' Myrses said hastily, and left. Palamedes patted his daughter on the shoulder.

`Daughter, I leave you in good hands,' he grinned, kissed me on the cheek, and followed his friend.

`Chryse?' I asked, curiously. She looked at me for the first time. Her eyes were golden, as golden as amber. The small strong hand clenched on mine. She laughed, then covered her mouth.

`Chryse?' she asked, in the same tone. We laughed. Her lips were as sweet as Kriti honey under mine as I kissed her.

Eros does fire arrows randomly though the world. Chryse and I were struck and transfixed on a single shaft.

That is when I changed my name. I became Diomenes again, the name my mother gave me. I am Diomenes the Asclepid. A Healer Priest. And I still do not believe in the gods.

I found out where Eleni had been when I was ill. He was in the Temple of Apollo. He had been confined there since Poseidon Blue-Haired had stilled the wave.

The priests had known what would happen when Dion was made Poseidon Priest and I caused the god to be brought back into Troy. They knew that they had lost me, but they were determined that one of the royal twins should remain Apollo's darling.

Idume, Adonis Priest, told me that they had threatened my twin with divine wrath, had soothed him with food and wine and priestesses of Ishtar, to no avail. He had cried and begged and finally tried to escape from the temple. It was told in the city that I was dying. He wanted to be with me. Finally Apollo's priests had drugged him with hemlock.

He was chained in the shrine. His chains were of gold.

I could not enter the temple of Apollo. I had no god now, except the Mother who guards all women. I bribed Idume with coins and potions to speak to Eleni and tell him that I still loved him.

I tried to reach him with my mind but I could not. Now, more than ever, when we needed to touch, his mind was shuttered, cut off.

The shock of the god's punishment was fading, however. I began to believe that I could live with my twisted tongue.

I was feeling relatively sanguine - my twin had not deserted me after all - and I went for a walk along the harbour. I was leaning on a wall looking out to sea when the man beside me said, `Look, there's a Thessalian ship,' and pointed, and his hand was all bones - a skeletal hand - and when I looked at his face it was a skull. A death's head was grinning at me, naked, flesh quite gone from the gleaming bones.

`Are you all right, Princess?' said the skull, and I gasped something about the heat and stumbled away.

A market woman gave me a drink of watered wine and I sat in the shade for a moment. Perhaps it had been the sun.

Somehow I did not believe this comforting theory. I had never had a vision like that before. I had seen the past and the future, but never watched someone change in front of me from being alive to being long dead.

Was this some new persecution by the god? Was I, perhaps, losing my mind? It was generally thought in the king's council that I was mad, although Hector's trust in me and his stated opinion kept the voices who wished to exclude me down to a mutter.

I looked back but the man had gone. I was secretly pleased that I did not know who he was. If I had just acquired - or been cursed with - the ability to see death, I was in no hurry to perfect it.

 

Hector's marriage with Andromache was to be on the day before the Dionysiad began, a propitious time and one in which many people married. It gave bride and groom three days to enjoy one another. During the Feast of Dionysius, it was strictly forbidden to open any door which was shut or pull aside any curtain which was drawn.

Maidens, children and old people stayed indoors, venturing out either side of the noon watch to buy food and transact any absolutely necessary business. Animal-keepers stayed with their charges and women near their time went to lie in Tithone's house in the lower city. For the Three Days of the Dionysiad, Troy was mad.

Perseis, Cycne, Eirene, Iris and I arrayed Andromache in her wedding finery. She was pale and drew each breath carefully, like a child who has found a wonderful seashell and holds it prayerfully, lest it should shatter in the hand. We turned her around as she was clad, first in the gauze under tunic, then in the cloth-of-gold chiton.

Her dark hair was loose and brushed until it shone like burnished bronze. Her sandals were of thrice-treated kid. She wore a wreath made of bay for fidelity, ivy for luxury, spring flowers for beauty, fig-blossom for fertility and hyssop for health. Perseis dabbed scented oil behind her ears and on her wrists and ankles and navel.

She was solemn as a statue.

`Are you afraid?' asked Cycne, always one to plant a dainty foot right in the middle of thinning ice.

`Afraid?' she gave us a wondering look. `Afraid? Me? Of Hector?'

We led her up to the palace, with singers all around and dancers leaping. Andromache was as silent and beautiful as the Pallathi herself. She did not smile at the outrageous things the chanters were suggesting, nor did she flinch at the description of Hector as `the bull', together with what must have been an exaggerated expectation of his capacity. I have never seen anyone so absolutely, utterly determined and fated as Andromache walking to her wedding with my brother.

We came to the palace doors and they were thrown open. We paraded up the centre of the great hall and came to the thrones, where Andromache knelt beside Hector.

He looked solemn too. He had been dressed in a tunic and cloak of purple of the finest dye and was also crowned with a wreath. His hair flowed like fleece, pale and cloudy. He reached out a hand and Andromache's met it and clasped. To me they seemed perfectly married from that point. I was racked with envy, sick with jealousy, and I hated myself for feeling like that about my dear sister and my dearer brother.

I betook myself and my roiling emotions behind a convenient pillar. There I came nose-to-elbow with a familiar figure. A god-like profile turned, golden hair shifted across a perfectly-moulded shoulder and silvery eyes flashed.

Pariki was back from trading with Sparta. He smiled at me.

`Missing your twin, eh, Cassandra?' he asked with patently false sympathy.

A wave of anger obliterated all base yearnings and I immediately felt better.

`Hector, son of Priam, Cuirass of Troy of the house of Dardanus and Tros, marries Andromache the warrior, daughter of Thebes,' announced my father in his quavering voice.

`This is of their own will and sanctioned by the gods. May they live long and be blessed!'