A Song of War: a novel of Troy Read online

  “What do we do now?” Hector whispered. My heroic brother, for once utterly at a loss. And I had no answer.

  ANDROMACHE

  “I do hope you won’t slap me again,” Helen said coolly as the men stormed away to their whispered argument. “I would hate to greet my new family with a bruised face.”

  I stared at her as if she were a hydra. She had discarded her purple robes and dressed in layered kilts and a blood-red bodice baring her white breasts. She glittered with gold: a diadem dropping long strands to her shoulders, heavy earrings, bracelets climbing her arms, rings at each finger. She wore a king’s fortune in gold—Menelaus’ fortune, I realized, as I watched her pluck an apple from the bowl. “It wasn’t enough to cuckold your husband? You had to rob him blind as well?”

  “My gold, not his. I had every right to take it with me.” Helen sat on one of the gilt stools and stretched herself under the sun like a lazy cat, sinking her neat white teeth into the apple.

  I stood frozen where I was as she sat there calmly eating. I had been so happy leaving Sparta and its clouds behind. Now this, another broken mess for Hector to sweep up with bleeding hands. “I hope Menelaus wrings your swan neck when Hector drops you at his feet, you faithless bitch.”

  “Hector won’t be dropping me anywhere.” Helen regarded me with her ice-colored eyes. “Paris and his father want war, and I’m far too convenient an excuse.”

  “Did Paris tell you that?”

  “No. He tells me he loves me.” A smile of fond contempt. “He thinks I haven’t figured the rest out for myself. Not too bright, that one. Ah, well, he’s the material I have to work with.”

  “You’re—you’re wrong,” I managed to say. “Priam will never accept you in Troy.”

  “I doubt that. He likes war, and he likes beautiful women, and I am both. I will flirt with him slightly, and I have a feeling he will chuck me under the chin and give me a palace.” She took another dainty bite of apple, swallowed with satisfaction. “Troy… after all you’ve told me, I feel sure I will like it.”

  War. I saw Achaean ships thronged with pirate kings; I saw Hector in his lapis-decorated breastplate; I saw death. “Why did you do this?” I cried. “You are a queen; you live in a palace; you have a beautiful daughter and a chest full of gold and slaves to wait on your every whim. You don’t love Paris—you don’t even like him—so why?”

  “Oh, you sheltered child.” Helen shook her head. “What do you know, you pampered girl with your prince who adores you and spares you childbirth and gives you a seal so you can walk the world independent of his shadow? What do you know of being a prize? I have been a prize all my life, passed from one sea-wolf to the next. I was captured at eleven by a hero who called himself Theseus who could hardly wait to push himself between my thighs and make himself king; I spent a month weeping in his bed before my father reclaimed me with never a kind word for my pain. That is the fate my beauty won me. At thirteen, I looked at that pack of petty killers who came to court me—the same men who thronged to watch Penelope marry—and the best I could do among them was Menelaus, who beats me because I have never given him a son and is too jealous to let me walk alone outside the women’s quarters. I am a queen, yes, but what has that brought me? If Menelaus ever falls in battle, I will go to the man who defeats him, to be raped and beaten again if I fail to please. If Menelaus lives to grow old, I will sit in the women’s quarters weaving until I am so ancient and ugly no one wishes to ravage me anymore, watching my daughter go to a husband’s bed at thirteen to be raped and beaten and passed from man to man in her turn, a prize just like me. That is my fate, Andromache. But I reject it.”

  She uncoiled like a snake, tossing the half-eaten apple aside and rising to her full height. The marble statue had come to life; her eyes were fires full of bitter, bottomless hatred, and she hissed like a Fury.

  “I am a daughter of Zeus. I was meant for more than to be a prize between squabbling killers. I want what you have: a husband who does not black my eyes or force me to bear a child every year, a seal of my own so I can receive petitioners and give council in my own right, wide streets where I am free to walk and bare my breasts and do anything, anything, but sit at a loom. Your pretty prince Paris is as pliable as clay; it was easy to make him dance to my tune. He will bring me honor and freedom and respect, and I will have him and Troy at my feet.”

  “What of your daughter?” I lashed out. “Your Hermione. Can you abandon her as easily as the rest?”

  Pain streaked across Helen’s face like a shot of lightning, but she did not flinch. “I could not bring her with me without being noticed, but I will have her back. Priam will barter for her, whether as a victory prize for defeating Menelaus’ warriors or in negotiation in return for my Spartan gold. Priam will barter for her if I have to become his wife instead of Paris’. I will have her back, whether or not it means war.”

  “What of those who would have to fight such a war for you?” I whispered.

  She shrugged. “If Menelaus brings an army to your shores, it is his own decision. Men wage battles with no regard to the advice of women. If he decides to go to war in my name, it is not my fault.” A mirthless smile. “Besides, some might say mortal men should fight for a daughter of Zeus.”

  “My husband will be first on the field! If he falls—”

  “I hope he does not. I like him, and in truth, Andromache, I like you. But I will not sacrifice the remainder of my wretched life for your convenience. I saw this chance come to my door, and there is no amount of liking in the world that would make me pass it by.”

  “What if it all comes down?” I cried. “My husband, my family, Troy! What if it all falls because of you? What then?”

  I was not seeing the future. I was no seer catching glimpses of what the Fates had in store. I was only afraid, speaking my fears in the hope that they would never come to pass.

  “Then we will all be prizes again, all of us women, and go to the bed of whatever man drags us off by the hair.” Helen’s face was like flint. “But I will have tasted some measure first of freedom.”

  In a blood-colored sunset, we set sail: three ships gliding east toward windy Troy. Helen and Paris took the foremost ship, Hector and Hellenus and I the rearmost, already keeping our eyes trained for pursuit. “I will not rest easy until we are behind the Scaean Gate again,” Hector said.

  I thought it would be considerably longer than that before my husband rested easy. He sat still as a statue on the narrow bed that was our small share of privacy on board, his huge hands dangling helpless between his knees.

  “My father did not trust me,” he said, “and now he courts disaster.”

  “Perhaps not,” I cajoled. “Perhaps we can make Priam see sense, send her back.”

  “Perhaps.” Hector sounded listless. I felt the old clutch of panic, wondering how to pull him from the black grip of such hopelessness. I wanted to perch on his knee, turn my talk to lighter things, chatter and joke as I always did—but this was no time for chatter and jokes. My husband needed more from me than cheer and distraction.

  I took his face between my hands and made him meet my eyes, steadily drinking in his silent misery. “My love, you will do what must be done.” My voice started to tremble, but I forced it to remain steady. “If there is war, you will fight it. If there is death, you will face it. If there is dishonor, you will bear it. You can do nothing less, and you know it.”

  He gazed back at me. This time I was the one to stroke his hair as though he were a frightened horse.

  “You will bear whatever the Fates bring,” I said quietly. “You must. And so will I.”

  “That is a bitter thing, Andromache.”

  Yes, but I was done avoiding bitter things. Helen had called me a sheltered child, and perhaps I was. No more. “Whatever comes, I will be at your side.” I pulled Hector down to our marriage bed, murmuring my love for him, murmuring my faith in him, and he held me so hard I could barely breathe. We fell into each other, desperat
ely seeking comfort in warmth—but this time I was seeking something more. When he tried to pull away at the end as he always did, I whispered, “No.”

  “Andromache—”

  “No,” I said again, pulling him closer till the final shudder racked him and he filled me. I was not too weak, too unsuitable to bear his sons. Not anymore.

  No more, I thought, cradling my husband as he slid into sleep, as the waves lapped the hull outside and the moon rose. There would be no more laughing off my duties, no more unburdening my troubles to Hellenus, who made me long uncomfortably for a more ordinary life. I would shoulder my duties and my troubles uncomplainingly, and Hector’s, too.

  I was ready. I had to be. I was Hector’s wife, the future queen of Troy.

  HELLENUS

  Shall I sing to you of Troy? Shining Troy, windy Troy, many-towered Troy. We made our way toward it, day by day across a calm sea.

  I will return only to leave again. That I had vowed the day we sailed for Sparta, as the seabirds cried overhead and the sails bellied with a west wind. Now I wondered if Odysseus would still welcome me when I turned up on his shore with my sister, or if Trojan princes would be welcome nowhere in the Achaean lands after Paris had stolen an Achaean queen.

  I didn’t care. Troy was bound for strife, and I would not waste my remaining years trying to mend the senseless chaos my father had courted. I would risk a journey to Ithaca and stake all on Odysseus’ welcome holding true.

  The decision made, I was strangely calm, passing my days at the prow watching the ship sailing ahead, where Helen and Paris no doubt enjoyed their false idyll. I thought Andromache might join me in my vigil, sitting down with her ready smile and her feet swinging like an urchin’s—but Andromache had drawn away from me on this voyage. Her small freckled face had a new gravity, turning always toward Hector with quiet attention. I wondered if my cheerful, sunny girl was gone for good… but she had never been mine. I was just an ordinary man, after all, and she would be a queen.

  Hector was the one to join me, strong arms folded across his chest, broad bracelets glinting. There was no matching glint in his eye as he watched Paris and Helen’s ship ahead. “It may not mean war,” he said without preamble.

  “No,” I acknowledged.

  “But if war comes, I will need you at my side, Hellenus.”

  I blinked, surprised. “I am not the strongest spearman among our brothers.”

  “Brothers.” Hector spat the word. “What good are any of them? Deiphobus is a fool, Troilus a young hot-head, Polites a child, and Paris is more likely to spend himself between his new wife’s legs than in battle. As for the others—” he cut himself off. “Of my many brothers, there is not one I value so highly as you.”

  “Hector…”

  He gripped my shoulder, voice coming low and harsh. “Promise that you will fight at my side if war comes.”

  My pulse skipped. No, I thought, no, do not make me stay. “Hector, you do not need me. Our cousin Aeneas would be your willing right hand. A far better warrior than I—”

  “But you are my brother,” Hector said simply.

  Such simple words, and yet they made my heart both lift and sink.

  “There is something else I ask of you.” His grip tightened on my shoulder. “If I fall in battle, you must protect Andromache.”

  I stood there, shaking, watching my dream of Ithaca fade away in the face of his pleading. There would be no island home, no new beginning for my sister and me. I had dreamed of escape, but the gods had other plans.

  “Promise me,” Hector pleaded. “Swear that if I fall, you will take Andromache for your own and keep her safe. Swear it.”

  I wondered if Aphrodite was laughing at me up on Olympus. How the goddess of love had played with my future: if I ever held the girl I loved, it would be over the corpse of the brother I revered. “I swear it,” I said hoarsely. “I swear it now by all the gods, and when back in Troy, I will swear it on the sacred Palladion at the temple of Athena. I will fight at your side whatever comes, and should you fall, I will keep Andromache safe.”

  A single fierce nod and Hector’s hand fell away from my shoulder. We stood gazing over the endless sea, and after a time, my bitter heart eased a little. I still could not call Troy home, but I now had purpose there: a brother to serve, a woman to protect. Modest aims compared to the desire of most warriors for glory and gold, but I am a modest man.

  A cry went up from our sharp-eyed man at the tiller. Hector and I shaded our eyes, searching the horizon. Suddenly, I was longing for Troy, if only because I would see my twin again. My other half, who had muttered of death the day I left for Sparta. I hope you are wrong, Cassandra, I thought. Most dearly do I hope that.

  The cry went up again, and on the distant, glittering horizon, I saw it.

  Troy.

  THE SECOND SONG

  The Prophecy

  by Stephanie Thornton

  Oh, oh! Agony, agony!

  Again the awful pains of prophecy

  Are on me, maddening as they fall…

  Aeschylus, Agamemnon

  CASSANDRA

  They called me mad because I uttered truths no one wished to hear.

  When they refused to listen, I screamed the warnings, yet they only jeered and hurled jagged epithets at me.

  Palsied slack-wit.

  Empty fly-skull.

  I thought perhaps if I whispered, they would quiet and listen, but I was mistaken.

  So very, very mistaken.

  Only once did anyone heed my visions, when I recognized handsome young Paris as my erstwhile brother, fostered to a shepherd after it was prophesied that he would cause Troy’s downfall. How I wished I could go back and undo that moment, let my twin, Hellenus, and my half brothers believe Paris a temple intruder and bash his head into Zeus’ altar. Then I might have danced like a maenad in the pool of his lifeblood upon the tiles. For I knew now that the prophecy still stalked Paris like a black shadow and that his journey to Sparta would somehow set its wheels into motion.

  It had been years since the nightmares had plagued me, since a different day in a different god’s temple, but they started afresh the night after fourteen-year-old Paris rejoined our family from his exile. More than two months ago, he’d departed for Sparta with our Trojan entourage, and my nighttime terrors had redoubled. Only Hellenus could banish the dark terrors with his songs and stories from our childhood. Still, there always lurked the horrors only I could see.

  Why, oh why, could only I see them?

  “Paris is dangerous,” I’d warned Hellenus, shuddering violently despite his arm around my shoulders. “Nothing good will come of this mission to Sparta.”

  “He is young and untried,” Hellenus had admitted. “Perhaps our father might command him to remain behind.”

  “Please ask,” I’d begged my brother after my pleas to Father fell on deaf ears. “Tell him what I’ve seen if you must. Anything to keep him from going.”

  But Father had refused to keep Paris in Troy, had instead encouraged him to travel to Sparta to learn his greater responsibilities as a prince of the realm, especially now, as Troy sought fresh forms of profit in the wake of the internal wars ravaging our Hittite neighbors. Paris had even boasted that our father had set him to a special task, although he remained tight-lipped about its details. And Hellenus had gone as well, taking all my solace with him. I’d watched their ships sink into the dark horizon and then retreated into a roaring silence, defenseless and alone.

  I might die in my room, and no one would notice until my corpse began to stink and rot.

  Those were dark weeks of nightmares and such an aching loneliness that I thought I would die. But today the sun finally came out again.

  There were no portents or careening hawks overhead, no dreams or hidden messages in fire smoke to tell me that my twin had returned after being months away in Sparta. Still, I knew he was coming home, and my heart fairly sang in my chest at the thought of embracing him again.

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nbsp; “A sister always knows,” I mused in a voice rusty from disuse. Only today did I dare speak again, knowing that soon my words would no longer be wasted on deaf ears. I’d dressed in my best finery by the dim light of a single oil lamp, a flowing black skirt embroidered with a gold geometric border and a soft fringed kilt pinned with a golden snake brooch that matched the serpent girdle coiled around my waist. Between my breasts was the small terra-cotta vial I always carried, its contents a secret reminder of my strength. Thick golden bangles covered my wrists so I looked like a pampered princess, save for my bare feet, which no one could see.

  Now all that remained was to wait. And hope.

  Idly, I scratched the bony chin of my tomcat. Fairly decrepit now, he had been a beloved gift from Hellenus when we were both scarcely older than children, just after the incident in the temple of Apollo. My scrawny mouser loved to catch birds and nibble on all manner of insects, provided they’d been appropriately dispatched first.

  Except ants. He hated ants.

  A conveniently fat fly had somehow gotten in and landed on a wall fresco, this one depicting my father on Troy’s limestone ramparts, his hand raised in salute. The insect skittered up my father’s shoulder and stopped on his head. There was a sudden thwack, and my unfortunate victim fell to the tiled floor, slain by a gold-and-pearl flyswatter.

  “Pesky little nit.” I plucked the fly from the ground, marveling for a moment at its iridescent wings and stunning cacophony of colors on its hard shell. As a young girl, I’d collected insects until Queen Hecuba loftily informed me that the hobby wasn’t fit for a child of my father’s blood. The queen might have reluctantly claimed Hellenus and me after my birth killed our true mother, but that didn’t mean she harbored soft feelings for either of us. Thus, into the midden heap went all my moths and butterflies, my beetles and ladybirds. I’d watched in morbid fascination for days as maggots slowly consumed their fragile forms.