A Song of War: a novel of Troy Read online

  You shall writhe with visions of the future, and none shall believe a word that falls from your lips.

  I wanted to die then, but I forced myself to stand and take his abuse even as the priest’s curse and Paris’ laughter rang in my ears.

  Let them laugh, for then Paris turned his back to me.

  On my dying breath...

  I lunged and leaped onto his back with the shard of jagged terra-cotta suddenly pressed against the jutting apple of his neck. The warmth of his lifeblood pulsed there, and I had the sudden urge to bite down against it, to tear at his skin with my teeth. I’d hoped Helen would be here today, but Paris would suffice as my victim. “If Menelaus does bring his warriors to our shore, all he will find is your corpse.” My final scheme in my determination to save Troy: if the Achaeans did wing their way across the sea to our gates, they would be met and satisfied with Paris’ corpse, which they could feed to the dogs for all I cared. If honor was satisfied, surely they would return home.

  I raked the terra-cotta against his neck just as I was torn from his back, and the fragment went skittering from my hand. I knew instantly that I’d failed, for there was no gush of warm blood on my hands before I crashed to the hard-packed sand of the courtyard, squinting up into the sun to see my assailant.

  Helen.

  She stood between Paris and me, her heaving breasts commanding the gazes of every male assembled. She might have been a wrathful Aphrodite with the way the sunlight played in her hair and set ablaze the gold discs hanging from her ears. A full contingent of Father’s guards surrounded her, so not even Hermes himself might have spirited her away or harmed a hair on her head. Perhaps she was a daughter of Zeus if he’d shielded her from my curse tablet. “Shall I fetch one of your venom arrows, Paris?” she called to my brother, her icy eyes never leaving me. “Or perhaps the yew berry? It seems a livelier target practice might be in order.”

  “Get away from me,” I said, but she only crouched over me, a lioness toying with its prey.

  “How dare you try to ruin all I’ve worked so hard for?” she murmured.

  I’d have spit viper venom into her face in that moment if I could have. Instead, I scrambled away, tripping again as my feet tangled in the folds of my skirt, my eyes frantically searching for the terra-cotta shard. Helen saw it first and picked it up, pressing it to her full lips to give it a kiss.

  “You have such a pretty neck,” she said before her gaze dropped to my wrists. “Perhaps you should add a necklace to match the bracelets that you’ve made for yourself.”

  “Move away, Helen,” Paris said, and she obeyed, although I caught the flash of contempt in her eyes before she bowed her head to her husband. If Paris thought he held sway over her heart or commanded her obedience, then he was more a fool than I’d thought. My half brother nocked an arrow fletched with owl feathers and aimed it straight at my heart. “Perhaps it’s time to silence this harpy once and for all.”

  I refused to cower, only spat at his feet.

  “Lower your bow, Paris,” came Hellenus’ beloved voice. “Only cowards threaten women.”

  “She tried to kill me!” Paris protested, the arrow still poised.

  “Never in all the tales of old have I heard of a man who slew his own sister and became a hero,” Hector said. “And we shall need all the heroes we can muster in the days to come.”

  My brothers stood united, both of them with daggers drawn. Yet Paris still didn’t move.

  “Do it,” I whispered to him, for the thought came like a whirlwind that it was my death that would save Troy. My murder would silence the voices and end the dreams that tormented me every night. Hellenus would avenge my death by slaying Paris, and then Helen would be sent back to Menelaus. My miserable, unhappy life in exchange for that of my family’s.

  Your ungrateful family, who locks you in a cell and wishes you’d never been born.

  If that was the price, I’d pay it. I stifled a sob, which Paris mistook as a gurgle of fear. He smiled and exhaled, readied to loose the arrow.

  “Put down your bow,” Hellenus repeated to Paris. “Or I shall slay you myself.”

  Paris let go. I closed my eyes, prepared for the pain and the ensuing blackness. Instead, I felt only the whoosh of the arrow over my head, heard its twang as it embedded itself in the tree behind me.

  “Stay away from us, Sister,” he warned. “Or next time you’ll find that arrow buried between your eyes.”

  I didn’t struggle when Hellenus lifted and shielded me in a retreat from the onslaught of angry shouts as Hector sought to silence them all with reason.

  I lay in my twin’s arms in a curious, shattered serenity. I had done everything in my power. There was nothing more I could offer the Fates for my city’s survival.

  The day the Achaeans came found me locked in the womb of my cell.

  Feet pounded past my walls like a hail of giants fallen to earth, but I could see nothing, only feel the reverberations through the ancient stones of the citadel and hear the shouts outside. Despite the iron shackles that now adorned my wrists day and night, I pounded on the thick door, crying for someone—anyone—to release me.

  In vain.

  I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes against the onslaught of the scenes I’d painted with my own lifeblood.

  Ships.

  Horses.

  Fire.

  Murder.

  I’d searched in vain for messages in tiny coils of mouse intestines—gifts from my new cat—to confirm that I’d averted this terrible war, but they refused to share their secrets. I’d taken to braiding the entrails while humming hopeful songs from my childhood until Hellenus had them taken away. Instead, the nightmares intensified so that I cried out every night. I had tried so hard to keep from slipping back into my old habits, but on the worst nights, it was impossible to resist. I told myself it would purge my mind to paint, and so I slashed my own wrists, staring at the crimson welts that blossomed there before I started painting. I told myself that the nightmares were false and that I had succeeded.

  But now this...

  Only when the melee outside had died down and I’d given up hope did my door finally groan open.

  “Hellenus—” I started, then promptly swallowed the greeting. For it wasn’t Hellenus who had come to set me free, but Aeneas. He was in full armor, his helmet sporting the tall sea-colored plumes he always wore in honor of Aphrodite, who had been born from the ocean, and looked more dour than usual. My heart climbed into my throat.

  “The Achaean fleet has arrived,” he said. “We have known for some time that they were becalmed at Aulis. But it seems they placated the gods and obtained a fair wind, for their sails now crowd the horizon.”

  Dear gods, no…

  I was already tugging him along by the hand. “How many ships?”

  The eastern side of the citadel was empty, for all of Troy seemed to have poured itself to the west to witness the arrival of the Achaeans. “Many.”

  Many ships carrying scores of men greedy for glory, ready to devour Troy like black flies on a pail of milk.

  Yet I gasped as I approached the walls.

  Aeneas was wrong. It wasn’t many ships.

  It was a thousand.

  The thousand ships from my visions.

  Their approaching white sails polluted the dark sea like flotsam after a storm, carving a wake of silence through the watching crowd just as their prows carved a path through the waves. All manner of sigils decorated the sails: great horned bulls and tentacled octopi, double-headed axes and open-armed goddesses. This was an invading force such as the world had never seen, yet our great Scaean Gate wasn’t locked tight as it should have been, but was flung open to disgorge our Trojan warriors onto the plains.

  “Death Gates,” I whispered, for it was from those gates that our spearmen would leave and enter Hades’ cold embrace. “All hail to you.”

  I shuddered to feel the dark shadow of madness fall over me at the sight of all those ships, the
same that I’d seen so many times in my nightmares.

  No. No, this couldn’t happen, not after I’d schemed so hard, sacrificed so much. I pulled hard at my own hair to keep me anchored to this moment, for perhaps not all hope was lost. There was still a chance that Menelaus and Agamemnon would fall to Hector’s spear, and the Achaeans would flee as quickly as they had come. I calmed then, for surely it would happen like that, and Troy would be saved.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, suddenly realizing that Aeneas had delivered me to the crowd of royal women. He’d disappeared, likely to harangue my father against incurring the gods’ wrath.

  Most of the women, including Hecuba, edged away from me. Only one emerged from the crush to move closer.

  “Our warriors have gone to welcome the invaders,” Helen said with a sly smile. Her words were maggots in my ears that refused to be dislodged.

  “You’re the invader,” I whispered, locking my gaze on the fleet of ships, yet Helen only tsked under her breath.

  “And I thought you’d be grateful for my invitation to join us.”

  “Your invitation?” I asked. The full weight of my stare must have been disconcerting, for her gaze flickered. Yet to her credit, she didn’t back down.

  “Of course,” she said. “I asked Priam if you might attend, and he capitulated like a little lamb.”

  I saw the renewed gleam in her eyes and knew she reveled in this, the war that she had caused and these men who bowed to her whims. It seemed that Father had found a kindred spirit in his lust for power.

  “You will rue this day,” I said to her. “Your scheming will destroy us.”

  She gave an elegant shrug. “Perhaps. Regardless, the world will never forget the name Helen of Troy. Look there,” she said, lifting a languid arm. She pointed not at the skirmish below, but to the greatest in the flotilla of ships with a sail emblazoned with a lion emblem and unblinking golden eyes painted upon its prow. “Agamemnon’s sail.”

  I felt a sudden coil of dread, a premonition of some great evil to follow, but refused to indulge it. Not here, not now.

  But if not here and now, then when? Or are you afraid to see what waits for you, cowardly Cassandra?

  “Where Agamemnon goes, Menelaus will follow,” I said loud enough to try to drown out the voice battering my mind. “Do you not fear the return of your true husband?”

  “Menelaus is no husband of mine,” she said. “He cowers in the shadows of great men. Hector will likely dispatch him the moment he steps onto the beach.”

  “It’s your fault they came. You crooked your little finger, and they all came running—”

  She tilted her chin. “Men will do what they will. I refuse to shoulder the blame for their greed.”

  I’d have killed her with my bare hands this time had it not been for the contingent of guards surrounding her and the shackles at my wrists. I could barely grind out the words through my fury. “If it were up to me, I’d have you locked in a cell with only Paris’ severed head for company.”

  Helen wrinkled her nose. “Yes, I’ve heard of your penchant for decorating with skulls. No wonder they call you a madwoman.”

  All winter, I had clung to my dream of sanity, my defense of my city—and it was Helen’s careless words and the sight of those ships that broke me. I was a madwoman, and my city was doomed.

  You’ve failed, you miserable, worthless worm.

  You thought you could thwart the Fates, but you were wrong. So very, very wrong.

  You will fall. Your city will fall. It will burn, burn, burn.

  So many voices clanging in my head, drowning out my very thoughts. There would be no escaping them now, no keeping the voices at bay once Helen had unleashed the daemons of war upon our city.

  I shrieked and collapsed there on the rampart, clawing at my hair and face, raging against Helen and the gods, and howling for my brother and for my city. And for myself.

  I was truly alone now, save for the voices that would only grow louder with each passing day. But I would not shield my eyes from the sight of my visions made true, no matter how I wished to.

  I owed Troy that.

  I dragged myself to the edge of the rampart and keened with despair as the first Achaean ships beached themselves. Soon Troy’s beautiful plains would be overrun with soldiers, our wildflowers trampled underfoot and our waters choked with their piss and filth.

  “Our men march today through the Scaean Gate to usher our enemies to the gates of Hades,” Hecuba said assuredly to her women, and I wondered if my father had planted the words in her mouth. Regardless, many of the women gathered near twittered their approval like brainless hens. The war had only just begun, and I alone knew we had already lost. And all I could do was watch, weakened and despairing.

  There was hardly a sea-wolf who had not answered Agamemnon’s call—they swarmed the beach like the locusts I’d dreamed of. With a heavy heart, I saw the striped sails of Ithaca that meant wily Odysseus was here. Odysseus, who had tricked me into believing I had a chance at persuading him to avert this war. Odysseus had done Agamemnon another good service, I’d later learn, in luring the Achaeans’ finest warrior to the cause: young Achilles of Phthia, whose mother had tried to hide him dressed as a girl when the summons arrived. But Achilles, too, had come; Hecuba’s twittering women pointed out his Myrmidons’ banner. A bitter whisper of prophecy told me Agamemnon would rue the day that banner joined his, but I could only let the visions come and wash away like black waves. Already they were dragging me under. For now, I could only watch the coming carnage below. There would be no rest for the Achaeans today, no opportunity to entrench before they faced our forces, men eager for their names to be sung about through the ages. Beneath us, Hector bellowed orders and the Trojans took their places. Next to me, Andromache stiffened.

  “Hector will not die this day,” I heard myself say. “I swear it.”

  She gave me a wan smile, freckles standing out stark against her pale face. “Yet this is only the first of what I fear will be many battles.”

  I might have said more, but I was too busy scanning the rest of the soldiers for Hellenus. I clutched hard at the irons of my shackles when I found him not far from Hector.

  Both readied their spears as the first Achaeans streamed onto the beach, but then Hector yelled a command, and the archers took their positions, kneeling with Paris and his ibex bow, men who preferred not to see the eyes of those they slew. “Your paramour pales in comparison to his mighty brothers,” I said to Helen.

  “He does,” she agreed coolly. I could never prick her as she pricked me. How I hated her.

  The first Achaeans finally came within range. Hector dropped his arm, and the archers released their rain of death. The grisly onslaught screamed through the air, and the Achaeans shouted, raising their shields. From such a distance, many of the arrows missed their mark, but a few drove into the meat and bone of exposed arms and legs.

  Our foot soldiers continued to hug the wall while the archers reloaded, releasing a second hail of death-hissing arrows into the enemy ranks. The Achaeans moved into tighter formation, but they were too few against too many.

  For now.

  Our men sensed their advantage and charged with raised shields and spears. It didn’t escape me that Paris remained behind, safe with his archers, while Hector and Hellenus and Aeneas ran at the front. We’d later learn that Hector’s hungry blade claimed the first Achaean life, that of Odysseus’ companion in the striped tunic who had been the first to touch Troy’s sands during the peace mission last summer. He had led forty ships from Phylace to Troy, and all for naught.

  Yet another prophecy fulfilled.

  I reached for the reassurance of my cat’s skull, then remembered that I had released him into the Scamander. I bit the knuckle of my forefinger to keep from crying out, tasting blood before I felt it dripping down my lips.

  Some of the women cheered for our men while others turned white at this first encounter with death. There was nothing
we could do but watch until the skirmish faded. Our men pushed the Achaeans back, then returned behind the walls as the bulk of the Achaeans remained on their ships. This had been a warning to them, one that they would never heed while Troy’s riches still beckoned.

  And Troy would not heed my warnings, not as the entire city cheered on our victorious men. Some industrious soul located baskets of rose petals, and soon the air was festooned with the smell of the delicate flowers.

  Yet no one save me seemed to notice those same petals trampled underfoot. Or the way the tang of Achaean blood on the blades of our victorious warriors overpowered the floral fragrance.

  It was an agony to look at Troy’s towers and know that one day I would watch them fall. There was no escaping our fate now, only vain delay.

  The arrows of my words had flown too wide, and now the yoke of war was nailed firmly upon our necks. With tears in my eyes, I uttered a final word to the corpse of the city that had borne and sheltered me.

  “Farewell,” I whispered to Troy. And welcomed my madness with open arms.

  Mine was not the face that launched a thousand ships, but the gods cursed me all the same, just as they’d cursed Helen of Sparta as being a viler creature than Scylla and Charybdis combined.

  Her face with its high cheekbones and full lips was lauded by singers and harpists. I, too, was beautiful, heralded by all who visited my father’s court as the loveliest of King Priam’s daughters. But that was where the similarities ended.

  Helen’s exquisite fairness, like the first heady bloom of a peony on the longest day of summer, hid a soul as black and thorn-filled as Hades’ heart, while my dark complexion and even darker words cast me out as a pariah from the rest of my golden family.

  Her name meant Shining One, yet she sought only to bring death and destruction to our shores. My name—Cassandra—meant Winnower of Men, yet no man could hear my truths over the deafening sound of his own hubris.