A Song of War: a novel of Troy Page 4

  “But men can be punished for not treating a prince of Troy with the honor and respect he deserves. I regret that our father does not see you as a true prince of Troy and that others take their cue from him. But our father will not always be king.”

  It was the closest he would come to saying someday Priam would die, and then things would be done Hector’s way. I wondered for a moment what that world would look like for me, for my sister: a world with Hector as king. A world where I was welcomed into the family that excluded me unless it wanted something and shunned my sister altogether.

  But our father had lived more than fifty years and looked hale enough to last fifty more. I could not wait that long for a new world, not if I had to spend those years watching—

  “We’ll be late to join the rest of the archers,” I said before I could conjure up images of what exactly I did not want to see.

  “Then we’ll be late.” Hector took the bow and laid it aside. “I believe I sprained my ankle running after that lion yesterday. Give me your arm to lean on, and we’ll go cheer for Paris. He’s a better archer than me anyway.”

  The training ground at the Spartan palace was large, well-sanded, stocked with weapons both wooden and bronze. For the wedding festivities, the pillars and posts had been draped with ivy and ribbons, and seats had been set along the highest wall so the women could watch, Andromache and Helen flanking the bride. The archers were already jostling and shoving, challenging each other in edged, friendly voices, comparing their bows. Odysseus flashed a strange double-curved bow while old white-bearded Nestor of Pylos held forth on the superiority of Cretan bows. “In my day,” he trumpeted, latching on to my arm, “there was none of this double-curve nonsense and none of these ibex monstrosities, either. Wood and sinew was good enough for any king…” I let him batten my ears for a while, jaw tightening in an effort not to yawn, and finally slid away before I fell dead of boredom. I saw Andromache’s shoulders shake up on her high perch. She always could see through my polite masks.

  The targets were set out, and the men jostled into line. Shafts flew. King Menelaus went red as his hair to be eliminated in the first round, as were a dozen others who all retired loudly saying that a bow was no warrior’s weapon anyway. “Give me a spear, and you will see blood like rain,” Menelaus grumped, settling into his ornate chair beside Helen, and I wondered why I thought she despised him because her face never moved.

  I lasted another round, but I was no Apollo with a bow. It all came quickly down to two: Paris, laughing and playing to the crowd, and Philoctetes, the sturdy middle-aged prince of Meliboea, with Odysseus and his fox grin a distant third.

  Philoctetes took aim at a target hardly bigger than a pomegranate, and Paris tossed jeers from the side, trying to throw off his concentration. “Getting tired, Prince? I see that old arm starting to shake!” But Philoctetes’ shaft flew sweet and true.

  “We’ll see who’s getting tired,” he growled as he made way for Paris. Philoctetes was older than many of the sea-lords here, perhaps thirty-five with a gray-shot beard and an archer’s callused fingers. “You’ve got so much oil in that hair, boy, I’m surprised you can lift your head to see the target.”

  Paris was quick, loose, careless—he shot as though he’d barely looked at the target, though he split it down the center. “I can plant a shaft wherever I want it, old man. And I know where you want it.” With that he turned and flipped the other man’s tunic with the tip of his bow, giving everyone a flash of Philoctetes’ buttocks. “That’s where you’d really like my shaft, eh? Pity you’re too old to be anyone’s mattress anymore.”

  Philoctetes’ broad face darkened in sudden fury. I’d seen him at banquets with a handsome young spearman of perhaps sixteen; it was common enough: an older warrior showing a beardless youth the ways of the bed and the world. To imply it went the other way around, a bearded warrior playing the woman’s role for a youth…

  For once, I was not remotely charmed by Paris’ wit. I wanted to choke him with his bowstring.

  “Please,” he continued to Philoctetes, grinning. “Take your shot.”

  I thought for a moment the graying prince would put his arrow between Paris’ eyes. Hector, I could see, was trading words with Agamemnon along the far wall; he could not have heard the insults under the rise of hoots and claps going up from the watchers. I could have stepped forward, but I stayed where I was. I had already pulled Paris and his incautious tongue from trouble during the first banquet. It occurred to me that perhaps what my charming half brother needed was the drubbing Philoctetes clearly had in mind.

  But he ruled himself and turned his bow to the target, and after that the shots came fast and thick. The shouts and jests among the watchers faded away under that fierce concentration, both princes deadly determined to win as the targets grew smaller. Philoctetes wore a face like wood, and Paris’ mockery redoubled as he swaggered and bowed to the watching women after every shot. Andromache looked exasperated. Queen Helen was leaning forward, gray eyes narrowed.

  I didn’t know how long it could continue before it went to bloodshed, but the king of Ithaca put an end to it. “Let us change the game before you’re shooting at targets no bigger than splinters,” he called at last. “A simple shot, but with this double-curved bow of mine. Put an arrow through a row of axe rings.”

  “That’s too easy,” Philoctetes objected. “When we both make it, who wins?”

  Odysseus grinned. “You’ll see.”

  He set up the shot, and compared to the targets they had hit, it was easy: a shaft through a straight line of axe-handle rings. “To the victor,” Odysseus said, handing his unstrung bow off to Paris.

  My brother bent the bow, trying to re-string it, but it writhed in his hands. He could not fit the string over the horn tip, no matter how he flexed the shaft. “What kind of trick is this?” he said, trying to laugh it off, but I could see anger glint in his gaze. Above all things, Paris hated to look the fool.

  “There’s a special way to string a double-curved bow.” Odysseus grinned. “Do you know it?”

  “No, damn you, I don’t!”

  “Well,” the bridegroom said. “That’s a pity.”

  Philoctetes tried his hand, but with no more success: the bow wriggled like a snake, refusing to be strung. He flung it to the ground in disgust, and in one movement Odysseus gathered his weapon, flexed it under one knee, and between hands and legs bent it to its double-curve and strung it. He whipped an arrow through the axe rings, and took his bow as the shaft stood quivering in the post behind. “I win.”

  “That’s a low cheat.” Paris’ cheeks flushed, and I found myself perversely enjoying the sight of him jolted out of his charm. “No better than one might expect from a pirate.”

  “A pirate who has just won the prize for his bride,” Odysseus said, not offended in the slightest, and bounding up to the high dais, he claimed the gold bracelet that had been set as prize and slid it with a kiss over his future wife’s hand. A ripple of mingled laughter and disapproval went over the watching warriors, but the laughter won out. No one liked a trickster, but even less did the watching kings like the pretty prince of Troy, so applause drowned out those like white-bearded Nestor who huffed, “In my day such tricks were seen as shameful.”

  Philoctetes took it graciously, clapping Odysseus’ shoulder when he rejoined the men, saying, “Well shot, m'lord king.” But Paris collected his own ibex bow aside with an oath, shaking off Hector’s placating hand on his arm and heading for his own quarters. The low, cool voice of Queen Helen stopped him.

  “Son of Priam,” she said from her dais, brilliant in yellow skirts and beaten gold bracelets. “Well shot.”

  He looked over his gleaming shoulder and approached the dais. “Hardly, my queen. I hate to lose.”

  “Do you?” Her lips had a double curve like Odysseus’ bow. “I would not know how that felt. I have never had the luxury of winning.”

  “Oh, my lady, I think you have won much today.”


  A quick exchange, almost lost in the noise of warriors already bored with the overlong archery display and now clamoring at King Menelaus for a deer hunt. I doubted many noticed the silence that fell between my brother and Sparta’s queen for an instant. Paris stood with his shoulders thrown back, looking her over with the kind of deliberate crude appraisal he might have used to size up a shepherd’s daughter. I thought Helen would dismiss him with her cold scorn, but she held him in her gaze an instant, and for the first time I saw those ice-gray eyes kindle into brilliance.

  Just an instant. Paris bowed, Helen flicked her fingers, and he was shouldering back toward his quarters, Hector in pursuit and no doubt lining up another stern brotherly warning. I looked at Queen Helen, immobile and bored on her dais with Andromache, and unease crawled in my stomach.

  I wondered if I had imagined it.

  Well, even if I had not, what of it? A harmless flirtation at a wedding—it is what weddings are for. Revelry and love are in the air; you bed your host’s servant girls and perhaps get misty-eyed over one of his prettier daughters or concubines, and then on the voyage home any rosy regrets sigh away on a sea breeze. Aphrodite worked too hard at a wedding, busying herself with bride and bridegroom, to plant her darts deep in any of the guests. Paris desired Queen Helen, but so did most of the men here. They did not act on it, nor would he.

  My charming younger brother was, for all his fecklessness, too clever to be such a fool.

  ANDROMACHE

  “Tell me of your brother-in-law,” Helen said the following afternoon.

  “Hellenus?” I prepared to bristle, knowing how people liked to stare at my husband’s half-Nubian brother, but Helen shook her head.

  “Paris,” she said, and her ice-colored eyes had a speculative gleam.

  I paused, wondering how to answer. It was a more raucous day than usual in the women’s quarters, as our morning had been enlivened by the arrival of some strange wedding guests: a pair of Cimmerian princesses in an entourage of black-clad guards, almond-eyed, olive-skinned girls with jingling headdresses of silver discs and spears at their sides, grandly announcing in their thick accents that, as a dynasty descended from Zeus, they came to offer gifts for the cousin of Zeus-born Helen. I hid my urge to laugh in a convenient coughing fit, but Helen greeted the Cimmerians graciously and invited them back to her quarters to join the weaving. “Amazons,” the derisive whisper had gone through the Achaean kings, eyeing the princesses hungrily. “They cut one breast off at womanhood and train with spears like warriors!” I saw no evidence either princess had cut a breast off—what imaginations men have!—but they certainly seemed better fit for weapons than weaving. The elder princess was poking dubiously at her loom and trying to look like she knew what a shuttle was, but the younger—Penthesilea, a girl of perhaps sixteen—had given up altogether and was chasing Helen’s red-haired daughter all over the courtyard, yelling strange war cries.

  “Your brother-in-law Paris,” Helen said again, passing her shuttle through the threads of her loom. “I heard he was not raised in Troy.”

  “No, he was born under an ill omen. Our priest of Apollo said he might bring down Troy someday, so it was advised he be put out to perish as an infant.” I grimaced. “Priam thought to have him killed, but his queen begged mercy, so Paris was sent to foster with shepherds.”

  “Obviously, he did not stay in a shepherd’s hut.”

  “At fourteen, he made his way to Troy. It was Hellenus’ twin sister who recognized him for who he was.” I neglected to say Paris had been on the point of being slain as an intruder in the temple of Zeus. Paris owed his half-Nubian sister a great deal for being so sharp-eyed, but he seemed to take his luck entirely for granted. “He had such charm, even as a boy—once he was recognized, my father-in-law relented and welcomed him back as prince.”

  “Mmm,” Helen said.

  I eyed her, stringing my own loom without much skill. “Why do you ask?”

  I knew perfectly well why she asked. I’d seen the gleam in her eye as she looked at Paris after yesterday’s archery display. He’d stood straight and handsome as a young Apollo, golden in the sunlight. The attention between them did not really disquiet me; all women admired Paris—but I should let her know her gaze had been noticed. Some husbands did not want even their wives’ eyes wandering, and red-haired King Menelaus was clearly of a jealous temper.

  “Prince Paris is pretty,” Helen said, her directness surprising me. “I wondered if there was anything behind such a pretty face.”

  “Sometimes I wonder,” I said just as frankly. “He’s Priam’s favorite, and he can joke his way out of anything, but he’s too fond of stirring up trouble.” Someday he’d stir up a mess his charm couldn’t get him out of, and then he’d have the surprise of his life. Yesterday I wondered if Prince Philoctetes might be the one to finally teach Paris a lesson. Part of me wished he had. For someone so eager to earn his father’s approval on his first diplomatic voyage, Paris was behaving recklessly.

  “Does Priam plan a bride for Paris?” Helen asked. “My husband has some idea of betrothing him to our Hermione.” Helen’s eyes traveled to her red-haired daughter, who gripped a stick and was squaring off with young Penthesilea. The Cimmerian girl’s laugh was a raucous shout, but her callused hands were patient as she corrected the little girl’s grip. “Not so tight, little one, don’t strangle your spear!”

  “Paris is not betrothed. Though Agamemnon has also proposed his daughter Iphigenia as a bride.” Maybe I’d mistaken the gleam in Helen’s eyes as she looked at Paris—perhaps it was as a son-in-law that she evaluated him.

  “Paris would not make Hermione a bad husband, I think,” Helen said. “If he would keep her his sole wife and not wed Agamemnon’s daughter, too, as a rival for her. Do the princes of Troy take concubines?”

  I again had the sense that Helen was probing and gave my shuttle a yank. “It is not usual for Trojans to take concubines, no.”

  “Your Priam did, if he fathered that dark one.”

  “And my father-in-law found it was not worth the strife in his palace.”

  Helen lifted pale brows, inviting gossip, but I held my tongue. I did not trust her enough for confidences, and Hector had told me in confidence of his mother’s rage when Hellenus’ Nubian mother joined the palace. “When she died, my father swore there would be no more concubines,” my husband had said. “Only slaves who were no threat to a queen.”

  Will there be slaves in your bed? I’d wanted to ask Hector, but I did not. Of course there would be. I would simply have to look the other way, as all wives did.

  But Hector had read my mind. “There will be no slaves and no concubines for me, Andromache. Even the slave girls give my mother offense, much as she hides it. I will not see you hurt the same way.”

  I sighed. I was the luckiest of women; I knew that. But if my husband continued to spare me childbearing, his mother was going to start hinting he take another wife to bear him sons. How was I supposed to tell her I wasn’t barren, and tell him I was fit to give him sons, when neither would believe me?

  If you have no children, you’ll be easier to set aside. The thought whispered, a leaden, poisonous dread. You aren’t fit in any other way for your position—when Hector’s passion cools, you’ll be replaced by someone dignified and fertile and suitable.

  No. I pushed that thought away, not for the first time. My husband would never have taken me to wife with such a thing in mind. But I wondered if that was why Priam had let him wed me, unsuitable as I was. Let him plow the girl and grow tired of her; she’s easily replaced. My father-in-law could easily plan such a thing. Even perhaps suggest to Hector that I be spared childbirth for a while to ensure his grandsons came from a better broodmare than me?

  Helen was gazing at me, curious. I gave a bright, meaningless smile, holding up my shuttle. “See what a tangle I’ve made! I should take lessons from your cousin Penelope here.” The bride stood at Helen’s other side, hands flying twice as
fast as either of us as she worked at her own weaving. “My, how quickly you work.”

  The girl nodded. I’d grown to like her very well in these past weeks: a bright-eyed, rosy little thing of fifteen with a sharp wit under her quiet demeanor. “I’m making my betrothed a cloak,” she explained. “Striped in the colors of Ithaca.”

  “You have a tight hand and a good eye.” Helen looked over the nearly finished cloak. “Such care! I never saw the point in becoming an expert at the loom when one has slaves to do the household weaving.”

  I wondered if that was a barb at her cousin, who would be queen of a much poorer household than this, but Penelope only grinned.

  “It’s to a woman’s advantage to weave well, not just for her husband’s convenience. Weaving keeps a woman looking busy but leaves her mind free to scheme with no one the wiser.”

  “You already intend to scheme against your husband, then?” Another of Helen’s cynical laughs. “And here I thought you were quite content with your bridegroom.”

  “Oh, I am. I shall scheme for him, if he ever needs it. Men may not know it, but they need wives with fast wits as well as good weaving hands and wide childbearing hips.”

  “Clever girl,” Helen approved. “I hope my daughter grows up as clever someday.”

  We all looked at little Hermione, who was begging for a turn with Penthesilea’s spear. The Cimmerian girl was demonstrating the proper throw, her shoulders lean-muscled like a warrior’s, loose trousers showing under her skirts. “Put your hips into it as well as your arm, and it will fly like an eagle!”

  Unexpectedly, Helen looked envious. “When I was a child, I was allowed to wrestle with my brothers in the training yard and even train with their arms… I wish I had never given it up.”

  I could not imagine Helen sweating and covered in training-yard sand any more than I could imagine her in a birthing bed or lying under Menelaus. I was trying to frame a response when young Penthesilea approached her elder sister with a quick whisper and then came to Helen in a careless light-footed swagger. “I’m no good for a loom,” she said in her abrupt, thickly accented voice. “I’m going to join the men at the training ground and show them how an Amazon throws a spear.”