Cassandra (47 page)

`That I can do,' said Odysseus quickly, before the gaze could rest on Eleni. `Leave theft to me. Was not my grandfather Autolycus, who named me Odysseus, "surrounded by hatred"? You shall have the Pallathi before you sail.'

He went that night with Diomedes, presumably for his muscle as he was not the brightest of warriors. I do not know how they had got into the city until I saw them return, or rather smelt them. Their path must have led through the sewers.

`Stand upwind, asclepid, and fetch me boiling water,' said Odysseus, filthy beyond recognition.

I poured hot lychnis solution and sea water over his head - fresh water had gone up to nine obols a bucket - and sluiced off the scum. It took eight buckets before he was clean, and eleven for Diomedes, who was bigger. Then we washed a small image, a maiden with an apple in her hand.

`That is the Pallathi,' Odysseus grinned, pulling on a clean tunic and a cloak. `It was in a temple crammed with copies, large and small, metal and wood, carved and painted and draped.'

`It was the smallest and the plainest. Is this the image, Apollo Priest?'

`It is,' Eleni whispered and bowed to the Maiden.

`Then we sail tomorrow,' affirmed Odysseus. Diomedes, once disinfected, had already gone to the kings. He and the elegant thief did not seem to be friends anymore. I wondered what Odysseus had done to him.

The ships set out - the army to Tauris; Odysseus and three ships to the island of the marooned archer. I gave him clean salt, several infusions and soothing ointment for Philoctetes. It is possible to live for a long time with gangrene, if the diet is spare and the living conditions not too harsh. But, of course, if the flesh is dead no treatment can re-animate it.

Arion, Menon and Eleni were taken with Agamemnon's host. I fear that the Atreidae did not entirely trust me.

Once they had left, I moved all the remaining men off the beaches and onto the lowest slopes of Mount Idus. I did not want to risk the mysterious sickness which had killed those first woodcutters, but I had to get them off those infected sands. Then I ordered the building of huts, the digging of drains, the collection of clean water and the systematic burning of the dead. The bodies in the burial pit had fallen mostly to bones; they had been keeping the local vultures fed all winter, but no more would be laid there. I used the authority of the god freely and soon the number of deaths diminished. Because more of them now lived than died, the soldiers began to trust me.

`The commander ought to have ordered a watch on the city,' commented one, flexing a hand which I had nursed back into use. `They could come forth and massacre us; there are only about four hundred of us until the kings return, and that won't be for at least a month with the winds as they are.'

`Why should the Trojans do that?' I asked. `Can you feel this finger, now?'

`Ouch, yes. Why shouldn't they, healer? The men of Ilium have reason to hate us. Our tents are full of gold and captives. Achilles raids up and down this coast and his camp is full of weeping maidens. That reminds me, Asclepid. The Lord Achilles has sent you a gift. It's outside. I'll get it.'

I had treated the myrmidons for injuries sustained in practice or inflicted by some maddened goatherd trying to defend his flock, and their captain Achilles had occasionally sent me presents of looted wine or dried fruit.

I had gone when he wanted to talk to me, which was rarely. He spent most of his time staring out to sea. Once he had revealed his philosophy. `Beware how you give your heart to a man, Chryse,' he had mused, `lest you change love for hate.' He had been holding Patroclus' hand as he spoke, and the other man gave no sign that he had heard.

What gift would the Lord of the Myrmidons have sent to a healer? More figs? More wine? It was to be a different present, however.

The soldier pushed a girl into my house, a bundle of ripped tunic, torn hair and damaged flesh, said `Enjoy yourself,' and went out, closing the door.

Andromache bore a male child, efficiently and for the most part in silence. She had always been healthy and, though despondent during pregnancy, she had decided to give birth as bravely as she could.

I laid the child on her belly, cut the cord and bestowed the blessing of the Mother. Then I said to the waiting boy-priest, `Go tell Hector that he has a son and a living wife; tell the goddess that there is another man in Troy.' The footsteps sped away.

Andromache stroked the baby as it grasped with its little hands for the nipple, found it, and bit. She was too tired to flinch. It was nursing strongly when Hector arrived. He took Andromache's hand and they looked at each other with eyes so full of love and pride that I excused myself and went up onto the wall.

For I was alone. Eleni was with Agamemnon; seasick Dion was gone to Egypt; even Nyssa and Tithone had deserted me.

Then again, Hector had also sent Státhi away and missed him. Half a dozen times a day he looked for his shadow, or put up a hand to stroke a furry body which no longer balanced on his shoulder. Loss came to everyone. It could only be endured.

I went to the Temple of the Mother to burn flowers for the new baby; it was too cold for fresh petals, so I lit the papery dried ones and prayed for the child. The priestess of the Mother was hovering, wanting to tell me something but not wanting to intrude. This annoyed me.

`Well, Lady?' I asked coldly.

`Princess, come into the sanctuary.'

When I followed her it all looked as it usually did - torchlit and echoing, lined and relined with representations of the Pallathi.

`Can you see anything different?'

`No... rather, yes, one of the Pallathi is missing. A little one, she stood over there. Old, made of wood.'

`Yes,' whispered the woman. `Very old.'

An awful suspicion was dawning on me. `You mean... the oldest?' She nodded. `The first?' She nodded again. `Lord Dionysius protect us, you mean the Pallathi herself?'

She stared at me, tears filling her eyes. I knew the prophecy - everyone in the city of Ilium knew it. The city will not fall if the Pallathi is in her place.

Now she was gone and I could not account for it. `But it can't be anyone from outside who stole it,' I protested. `It must be someone in Troy. How could an Achaean get inside? Ridiculous.'

`If it is not an Argive, how did they dare? Have we a traitor?' she quavered.

I thought it very likely. Any population must have a few traitors. But a traitor who knew which was the real Pallathi, and who had a way of getting her out of the city - well, that was another matter. The cat-foot Priest of Apollo, Mysion of the arrogant countenance and the political purposes, leapt to the head of my list.

I told the priestess to keep the vanishing of the Lady secret and went to talk to Maeles at the Temple of Poseidon. He might have heard news of Dion and besides, I intended to search every temple in Troy before I declared the Pallathi lost. I might as well begin with the little ones.

Maeles was distantly pleased to see me - he was taking his elevation to sole priest of Poseidon to heart - and told me that Dion was safe and in Egypt. I did not believe this until he told me that the female cat was pregnant, which was something that only Hector and I knew. So Dion was safe. I was heartened.

As I was leaving, a sailor touched my shoulder.

`Lady, would you spare me some words? I am Eumides who was a slave in Achaea, and I also know the asclepid, the healer you talked to over the wall.'

`Chryse? Yes, come with me - come into the tavern and talk to me.' I was glad to have something else to think about. `Let me buy you some wine, Eumides. Don't I know you?'

He was swarthy, with a tangle of dark curls, brown eyes and white teeth. His hand slid down my shoulder for a fleeting touch and I remembered. He had fallen asleep in my arms at the Dionysiad; he had been my last lover on the third night of wine and blood. I recalled his love, it was passionate and skilled. I remembered with hallucinatory clarity his mouth on my breast. He smiled a wicked smile and I felt myself shiver pleasantly.

However, it was not proper to speak of what had happened in the rites of that god. The hand cupped my breast for a moment, then was removed. I drew a breath.

`Where did you meet the asclepid?'

`In Mycenae, Lady.'

His voice was rich and deep, a honeyed voice. I bought a flask of the old mead at an outrageous price and he tasted it respectfully. He was good looking, this sailor, though a little battered around the face. His hands were blistered with rowing and his eyes had the alertness seen in sailors, hunters and Amazons.

`He bought me; I promised him stories and he freed me. He was grave, lady, a solemn boy, responsible and learned beyond his years, with a sweet kiss and skilled hands to heal and love. I lay with him on the mountain and we were lovers all the way to Corinth, where I took ship for Troy again. He was a child then. He speaks Trojan well. He was a good singer - we used to sing together. But something has happened to him, some great loss. The spark of joy in him, which was never great, is quenched. Lady - did you see - did you see anything of his mind?'

`A little. What do you want to know?'

`I want to know if he still loves me.'

`I saw no vision, Eumides.'

I took the oarsman's hand in both of mine. His fingers were still sensitive despite the hard work; he stroked the inside of my wrist gently as I spoke.

`You know I am cursed; if I saw, I could not tell you what I saw, but I saw nothing. As for his mind, he had been bereaved of someone he greatly loved. I do not know who, or any more about it.'

`Poor Chryse. You know, he stood up to the Atreidae when we were in that city. He plunged down into a plague pit, when all the house of Pluton would not have dragged me there, and tended the stricken. He is the bravest person I know. What could have happened to my own golden one, my Chryse?'

`Death has happened to him,' I said, taking a sip of the mead.

`But he is Thanatos-touched,' protested Eumides.

This puzzled me and I made him explain.

`He is the Little Brother of the Dark Angel and he is truly not afraid of death. I held a knife to his throat and he smiled at me. I was half-mad with fear that the barbarians were going to sacrifice me but he simply told me to strike if I did not believe him. He is beautiful and sad - so sad, now, Princess. It must be something more than the lost love who carried his heart away when I knew him.'

I was warming to Chryse, I was interested in him. The fleeting touch of his self, his concern, as he tended Eleni had been cool and emollient, very grateful to my scarified emotions. Not passionate, the asclepid, but close and loving and scarred, badly scarred by an irreparable loss. I felt pity, when I had not known I could still feel pity. I noticed that I was thinking about someone other than myself for the first time since the god had cursed me. Though this may also have had something to do with the attractive sailor who was stroking my hand, and the memory of his embrace.

I sat with him until the night watch, learning about the Asclepid Priest Chryse Diomenes, little brother of Death.

`Lady, you should make a plan,' Eumides said, laying his hard hand on my arm. `A plan to escape this city.'

`No, I will be here until the end, whatever the end may be; and after that I will not need to escape, because I will be dead.'

`But if you are not dead,' he said softly, `if you do not die, Lady, you will be a slave. I have been a slave; you must not endure such pain. If Chryse was here, he would say the same. He freed me because he knew I would die in the kitchens of Mycenae.

Even to die as a slave is different from dying as a free man.'

`I do not think I will survive, but if I do? What is your plan?'

`You will be spoil for one king or another, Lady. I will know. I can mingle with the Achaean boats and they will not mark me; I have done so all ready.'

`And then?'

`Slip overboard, Lady, and I will find you.' Eumides was in earnest. It would do no harm to indulge his fantasy. I took his hand and he kissed me.

`If this happens, Eumides, that I am a slave, then I will do as you say and you can net me like a fish.'

 

Chryse remained in my thoughts; the golden one, the healer, the only Achaean who made no profession out of slaughter. The refuge-seekers came in day after day, in broken boats and through the marshes, and we sent them on to Troas when they could bear the journey. They all told the same tale, death and ruin out of the sea from the hands of Achilles, grey-eyed. Each one told their tale to Hector while he listened silently.

The turning point, the overburden, came when I was called to the Dardanian Gate. Chryse waited there, and he handed over a girl wrapped in his own cloak.

`I brought her to you, Lady,' he said, distressed. `She cannot bear a man's touch and I can understand that.'

`She is one of many,' I rejoined and he flinched. Instantly I was sorry for hurting him. It was not his fault.

`Achilles gave her to me as a present.' he said through his teeth. `I do not know whether she will live.'

`Chryse,' someone called from the wall, and the healer called back, `Eumides,' in such a tender, glad voice that I was jealous. `Oh, Eumides, my friend, you're here?'

`Where else should I be, asclepid? I am a Trojan,' laughed the sailor. `Have you forgotten me, Chryse?'

`Never. I was thinking of you only last night, wondering if you were here.'

`We'll meet again,' he said. `Little Brother of Thanatos, we will meet again.'

I took the girl and had her carried inside. Polites bowed to Chryse and so did I.

`The kings will be back soon,' Chryse said slowly. `They will have done the three things needed to bring about the fall of Troy, for the Pallathi is with Agamemnon.'

`It is, indeed.' I mentally withdrew my accusation against all the other priests and decided that Mysion had stolen it. But Chryse had a different tale to tell.

`Odysseus got in through your drains,' he said. `Take care that no one else does, Lady.'

It was not possible to keep the loss a secret any longer. The Pallathi was gone and Hector's pilgrims increased in number and daring, crossing the plain in broad daylight.