Cassandra (51 page)

And I had forgotten my infusion for seasickness.

My courage was not wearing well. I had not expected them to murder Hector's son. And they had led Polyxena away, saying that she was the bride of Achilles. I saw the red gash in her throat and remembered Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. She had not clinged to me but walked calmly after the tall high priest, my doomed little sister, my lamb to the sacrifice.

Extreme hatred is as weakening as extreme joy. I leaned on Agamemnon's arm when he ordered me aboard his ship, and looked into his face.

He was tall and strong, broad of bones, obstinate beyond belief. Behind him I saw a vision of a city with high walls, and a black-haired woman waiting by an open door with a double axe in her hands.

The axe came down on his neck as I watched, almost decapitating him, smashing the spine with a crunch of broken bone. The tiled floor of a bathroom swam with blood; it smelt like a slaughterhouse.

For once, I enjoyed the curse of Apollo, and I revelled in the details - his embroidered robe splashed with gore, the red sticky tide creeping to the woman's feet, her laughter echoing in the bathchamber, the scented water pinkening as the blood coloured it. He would die, violently, very soon. I smiled.

Agamemnon saw something of this in my eyes, for he shuddered. He lifted me half off my feet and threw me into the hollow ship.

From somewhere nearby, I suddenly caught a wave of joy from Eleni, half-guilty joy. Bereaved and heart-broken Andromache had put her hand in his.

That carried me for a while. We were lying at anchor in the dark. At the bow, someone was being raped. The ship rocked like a cradle and I heard half-smothered cries of pain and outrage. It might be my turn next. I felt down over my body to oil it so that I would not be too badly injured, but I felt cold and alone and close to despair.

Opening my scrip, I took out a flask and prepared to drink it. To die and join Hector sooner than he had expected; to die and sink into the cool dark, where I would see nothing ever again; to go out like the flame of a candle - it really was seductive.

Then I remembered Eumides the Trojan, and his fantasy of escape.

I was not chained; they had not so far dared to touch me. Someone shoved a jug of looted harvest wine into my hands and I emptied the whole flask of poppy and honey, with a measured dose of henbane to ensure sleep, into it.

I had meant to use it to kill myself, but I suddenly could not believe that all my suffering led only down into the dark. There must be a reason for agony, or humans could not bear life.

And I had become strong in the god's torments, and I would not throw it all away if I could manage it. I tasted the wine, and found that the infusion was not noticeable. There was not enough to kill more than one person in it, but it might put the boat's crew to sleep.

The wine went around and I heard people drinking. The woman next to me was already drowsing when the jug came past again. I waited with my breath held until I heard the crock drop and smash. When no voice was raised to complain about clumsy sailors, I rolled to the side, avoided an oar, and slid down into the sea.

The water was cold. I lay on my back, waiting for the cry which would mean my escape had been discovered. Small waves flowed over me, cool and delightful. The serpent writhed off my neck, disgusted by the chill, and swam towards the shore. The mud and ash of mourning melted and sluiced out of my hair. Even the smell of burning began to dissolve.

I turned over and swam one stroke, two. The tide lapped against the rowlocks of the boats, making a soft noise, and I tried to make no louder sound. The king's ship was silent.

I was flooded with a strange joy; I had now lost everything; brothers, lover, family, city. There was nothing more that I could mourn for, and I floated free in the forgiving water, princess and priestess no longer, loosed of all bonds. I think that I might have laughed.

Then I heard a whisper in Achaean, `Shall fish be netted, Chryse?'

I touched the steering oar of a small boat and said, `Net me.'

They lifted me out of the water with hardly a sound. Eumides' arms were clasped around me, and Chryse's mouth was on mine.

I had been the city's and the god's since I was three. Now I was no one's but my own.

 

`Children, I gave the city into your hands,' said Zeus with disgust. `Look what ruin you have made. What worship will come to us from fallen Ilium, the Holy City? It is burned and the walls are broken. The people are scattered.

`The temples are sacked - even your temple, Apollo Sun Bright. Is this desolation the only result of your quarrel?'

`Achilles is dead,' mourned Athena. `Though his mother has him safe. So many heroes gone, so few ships return on the sea of the great fleet that came.'

`One shall not return,' vowed Apollo, blowing one little black keel far out of its way. `Odysseus shall wander far before he returns to Ithaca and his dreary, virtuous wife. He'll need all of his nimble wits to get home again.

`Come, Father, be comforted. What is the loss of a temple to such as us? Men know our power, they fear us, and men always worship what they fear.'

`That is so,' replied Zeus.

`You are makers of ruin,' Demeter moved away. `Young and pitiless. You will deserve oblivion when it comes. The kindly earth shall cover your temples, and grass will grow on your altars. To kill the harmless mortals for so cruel a reason - they will say the gods have no justice, and they will be right. Such despair will drive them away from any worship. They will offer no prayers to a cold and empty heaven.'

`Men need gods,' snapped Apollo. `Even Diomenes needs the idea of gods.'

`I know nothing about these great matters, but I have won my wager. Cassandra did not die of despair, even when she had lost everything,' gloated Aphrodite.

`She lives yet and she lies in the arms of your favourite Diomenes, who loves her. I have won.'

Aphrodite tossed the golden apple into the air and laughed like a peal of golden bells.

Apollo snatched it as it fell and balanced it, glowing, on the palm of his unlined immortal hand.

`You have not won yet,' he said.

 

Yes, yes, I know. The Trojan War lasted ten years. Sparta wasn't there in 1350 BC, not by that name. The lions at Mycenae are newer than the Trojan War. No one knows the names of the little towns between Epidavros and Mycenae. Everyone knows that Cassandra was killed at Mycenae and everyone knows that she was making clear prophecies and was not believed.

Where Troy once stood is now called the hill of Hissarlik. At least ten Troys are there, each new city being built on the ruins of the old. Although Schliemann, the father of modern archaeology, thought that he had discovered the ruins of Priam's city half way down, it is now generally agreed that Troy VIIb is probably the Ilium of the Trojan War. There isn't a lot left of Troy VIIb, mostly a layer of charcoal.

We are talking about a very long time ago, before the Classic Age which everyone associates with Greek civilisation, before Greece was Greece and its people were called Greeks.

After (or possibly before, but I have assumed after) Troy fell, so did all of the cities in Achaea, and the Dark Age, lasting 300 years, began with the Dorian invasion (though an enterprising trader in Achaea was still selling pots with fake Greek inscriptions to the Etruscans throughout, which is cheering). I have assumed that Troy fell first, then weakened Mycenae-Argos-Tiryns could not resist the invaders.

People moved around a lot in ancient times, as John Boardman in
The Greeks Overseas
demonstrates. It was not unusual to uproot a whole community in response to an oracle and move it to another place, quite often having to fight the locals. This seems to have happened with Troy.

Dardanus followed his cow to the hill of Até and his descendants spent several generations fighting for the place before they could begin the building of Troy. The present city was built by Poseidon for Laomedon, who called it Ilium and also Troy in memory of Tros, his father. It was then partially ruined by Heracles, who then rebuilt it.

Laomedon was the father of Priam, the present king. Note also that there was extensive trading all over the known world, possibly to America and certainly to England - Herodutus' `Tin Isles' - for an essential component of bronze.

I have read the book which suggests that Troy was in North America and I do not find it convincing.

Aeschylus, in his play
Agamemnon,
says that Cassandra died in Mycenae, killed by Clytemnestra. I have decided that she didn't.

The Trojans do not seem to have had animal sacrifice. Hector runs back to the city in a moment of greatest danger and tells his mother to sacrifice her best garment to the Lady.

The Achaeans routinely sacrifice an animal for any religious purpose, and to divine omens. According to Homer, the Trojans burn their dead and the Achaeans bury theirs.

Herodotus says the Trojans would have handed her over if they had her, and I have to agree. Various other sources support this, suggesting that the Elene in Troy was only an image made by Aphrodite to protect her darling.

The plays, however, are not to be relied upon for history.
Iphigenia in Tauris
by Euripides suggests that the sacrificed Iphigenia survived by divine intervention, officiated at a human-sacrificing temple of Athene in Tauris, and was later rescued by her older brother Orestes and his friend Pylades.

Note also that Eleni (Helenus) and Cassandra were twins, not Cassandra and Pariki (Paris) as was suggested in Marion Zimmer Bradley's
The Firebrand.

Homer's
Iliad
is inconsistent. There are, for instance, three separate descriptions of how one person is killed. Homer even kills Aeneas with a stone-cast quite early on; which is tough on Virgil, who followed Aeneas to the founding of Rome.

I have used the version which fits in with my story and I am sure that Homer would approve, whoever she, he (or they) was (or were). Please also note that the
Iliad
only occupies a few days at the end of the war; it is actually called `The Wrath of Achilles' and loses interest when Achilles is slain. It ends with the funerals of Hector and Achilles and is basically concerned with the clash between heroes.

I am not especially concerned with heroes. My opinion of them wavers between that of Arion and that of Diomenes.

The epithets - `Argos where horses graze', `the bright-eyed lady', `the fish-delighting sea, devourer of ships' are mostly from Homer. Since they remind me strongly of Norse kennings, I have invented some in a similar vein and lifted some from actual Old Norse.

`An army of lovers shall not fail.' There seems to have been no stigma attached to homosexuality. Indeed, it was inevitable if one drank from the spring of Salmancis. I have set my characters free to find their own sexual partners.

I have created Diomenes out of whole cloth, because when casting around for an Achaean voice and finding myself becoming alarmingly anti-Argive, I could not find a hero I liked who survived the Iliad, much less the war.

So I found Diomenes of the healing hands. I also needed an outsider to describe a battle. As many soldiers have told me, when you are in a battle you cannot see anything but the opponent who is trying to kill you, and when the dust dies down you are concerned only with rescuing your comrades and staying alive.

While Homer flies on eagles' wings to view the whole battle, I and my characters are down in the blanketing dust with the soldiers. Diomenes watches the battle from the outside.

The temple at Epidavros is as described, but the healers are all invented; though most of the patients come from the votive tablets.

Arion Dolphin-Rider, however, is in Herodotus and did dedicate a dolphin to Dionysius at Tarentum.

In the same way, all the minor characters in Troy are invented, except the sons of Priam, the Amazons, the royal family and the priests.

I have assumed that the Trojans spoke a different language, because Cassandra in
Agamemnon
makes her prophecy of murder at Mycenae, and remarks, `I thought you could understand me; I speak good Achaean.'

Homer says that the goddess Iris tells Hector to keep the allies together because they all speak different languages. Certainly Hittite was entirely distinct, so was Egyptian, and the others may have been dialects. Although anyone trying to speak Swedish to a Dane will soon find that dialect differences can render one completely incomprehensible.

I have consulted Hippocrates, Dioscorides (who was a Greek doctor with the Roman army and the ancient herbalist whose descriptions I can actually recognise) via Culpepper's
Complete Herbal and English Physician.
I have also consulted various old textbooks, especially the medical volume in
The Times History of the War
and
Leaves from a Surgeon's Casebook
by Dr James Harpole.

It is generally agreed that the Greeks knew a lot about medicine, even before the split between the Islands of Cos and Cnidus. I have deduced the practice of hypnotism from the presence of two Gods of Sleep, Morpheus and Hypnos. I may be entirely wrong. However, hypnotism is only useful on the susceptible, so I have added the percussive smoke.

Note that at the same time the Chinese had perfectly reliable acupuncture anaesthesia.

Old medical books have been used to describe medicine before sulfonamides and penicillin; many diseases which killed thousands are now almost entirely extinct (ie, tuberculosis, tetanus, smallpox, various fevers). However, Dr Harpole reports that malignant malaria killed a detachment of British soldiers as late as 1935. Having moved from a low-lying malarial swamp to a high mountain, half of them died of cerebral haemorrhage - the authentic Sennarcharib `breath of the Lord'. Tetanus treatment with snake venom is described by Dr Harpole. The description of the Gaboon or Russell's viper is from Gerald Durrell.