Voyage of the Snake Lady (21 page)

Epilogue

L
ATE IN THE
Month of Falling Leaves Cassandra sat by her pool, wrapped in a warm shawl, looking into the still water, her pale face serene. Then, deep in the mysterious depths of the pool, she saw something that made her smile.

“Chryse,” she called. “Come and see!”

The Mouse Boy left his stone trough and went to her. He had to still himself for a moment and let his eyes gaze vaguely beneath the glinting surface, but it wasn’t long before he, too, saw the same wondrous vision as the priestess.

He smiled. “The man does not see them coming.”

There in the dark waters they saw three riders. The older woman rode slightly ahead through falling snow toward a small snow-flecked tent, set upon the edge of a winding riverbank. In the far distance a great camp could be seen, sheltering beneath overhanging rocks that seemed to have the shape of an eagle. But this man had set up his tent away from them; he sat alone by the river, feeding a struggling fire with twigs. He looked up constantly toward the west, as though he thought he might see something, or someone, crossing the river. His horse stood beside him, very still and patient, midnight black.

At last the black stallion pricked up his ears and turned, aware of the riders approaching from the east. The front rider urged her horse on faster and faster and the man got up as he heard the thud of hooves in the snow.

Cassandra and Chryse watched as Myrina swung down from her horse and ran straight into Kuspada’s arms. He swung her off her feet and kissed her as tears rained down his cheeks.

“Now what is he doing?” Chryse asked as they saw the man take an arrow from his quiver and hold it to the embers of his fire until it caught light. He shot the fiery arrow high into the sky, toward the rocks.

The other two riders slipped from their horses and flung themselves at the man. Soon lights appeared in the distance. A great crowd of people dressed in warm skins came toward them through the snow—men and women, many with young babies in their arms, wrapped well against the weather. Some of them rode on horseback; others ran on foot. All waved and danced, their necks gleaming with gold. They surrounded the weary travelers, hugging them passionately. Then they made a circle around the man and the three newcomers, singing and dancing with wild abandon.

Cassandra and the Mouse Boy watched with huge smiles on their faces. “I think the Snake Lady’s journey is over,” Cassandra said. “And the welcome she has found is warm.”

Author’s Note

I
FIRST BECAME
fascinated by the fabulous legends of the warlike Amazon women when, as a schoolgirl, I studied
The Histories
of Herodotus in Greek Literature classes. At the time they seemed to be nothing more than exciting and rather shocking stories.

Many years later, a BBC 2
Horizon
television program called “The Ice Maiden” renewed my interest in the warrior women. The program recorded the discovery, by archaeologist Natalia Polosmak, of the frozen mummified body of a young woman in the Altai Mountains, believed to have been a high-status priestess or storyteller. I was impressed to hear the female archaeologists relating this find, and other burials of women with weapons, to Herodotus’s stories. It seemed that the Amazons might, after all, have been real nomadic tribeswomen who lived, rode, and fought long ago in the area to the north of and surrounding the Black Sea.

My interest in the subject was fueled by Lyn Webster Wilde’s fascinating book
On the Trail of the Women Warriors
. I felt inspired to try to write a novel for young adults, based on the ancient legends of the Amazons but also taking on board some of the new ideas that modern archaeologists were bringing to light. The result of this project was
The Moon Riders
, published in 2003.

I became too involved with my heroine Myrina to let her go, and soon found myself looking again at the legends for inspiration for a second “adventure.”

Herodotus relates the story of the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons at the River Thermodon and tells how the defeated women were captured and herded into ships. According to Herodotus, the women overpowered and killed their captors, but as they knew nothing of seamanship, they were blown across the Black Sea to the land of the Scythians. Here they met, fought with, and eventually intermarried with a group of Scythian men, thus creating the origins of the Sauromatian tribe, whose women were always known to ride and fight. Though this story is usually set in a slightly later time period, I felt that it fitted well with the aftermath of the Trojan War.

The continuation of Iphigenia’s story is based loosely on Euripides’ play
Iphigenia at Tauris
. Another book—
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines
by Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Ph.D., with Mona Behan—supplied more inspiration and helped me to believe that the fierce nomadic tribeswomen of the Black Sea areas really
were
Herodotus’s Amazons.

The KBR Horse Net website provided helpful information on wild horse behavior, and another website, www.pefkias.gr/, helped me to envisage the Mycenaean ships. http://users.cwnet.com/millenia/scythwrd.html gave me some ideas for ancient Scythian words.

Though most versions of the story have Cassandra killed by Clytemnestra after the fall of Troy, Dares the Phrygian’s version sees Cassandra released by Agamemnon to live on, close to her lost city. Dares’s telling claims to be an eyewitness account of events but seems to be rather discredited by modern historians. However, it was from this version that Chaucer took his inspiration for
Troilus and Cressida
. I decided that if it was good enough for Chaucer, then it was certainly good enough for me!

The ruins of the temple of Sminthean Apollo (Lord of the Mice) are situated in the southwest corner of the Biga peninsula in Turkey, not far from Hissarlik (believed to be Troy). Homer’s
Iliad
refers to this temple as being the home of the priest Chryse and his daughter Chryseis. I thought this temple would make a good refuge for Cassandra, allowing her to live on as the priestess of Sminthean Apollo. After all the misery and hardship that my heroines had suffered, I felt the need for a happy ending!

T
HERESA
T
OMLINSON
, N
OVEMBER 2003

www.theresatomlinson.com

About the Author

Shortlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal, Theresa Tomlinson has an outstanding reputation for her historical novels. Visits to Turkey have sparked her imagination and allowed her to research ancient Troy—the world of
THE MOON RIDERS
and
VOYAGE OF THE SNAKE LADY
.

Theresa Tomlinson has three grown children and lives in Whitby, England, with her husband, an architect, and her cat, Mewsli.

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Also by Theresa Tomlinson

The Moon Riders

Copyright

Voyage of the Snake Lady

Copyright © 2004 by Theresa Tomlinson

Map copyright © 2004 by Alan Tomlinson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tomlinson, Theresa.

   
Voyage of the snake lady / Theresa Tomlinson. — 1st American ed.
     
p. cm.

   
Summary: After living peacefully for some time following the Trojan War, the Moon Riders, a fierce tribe of women warriors, are driven from their home by Neoptolemus, the avenging son of Achilles, and must fight for their lives to survive storms, shipwreck, and strife.

     
ISBN 978-0-06-084739-5 (trade bdg.)

     
ISBN 978-0-06-084740-1 (lib. bdg.)

     
[1. Amazons—Juvenile fiction. 2. Amazons—Fiction. 3. Wild horses—Fiction. 4. Horses—Fiction. 5. Mythology, Greek—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.T5977Voy 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2006100471
CIP
AC

EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062193803

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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION