A Song of War: a novel of Troy Read online

“Cease struggling, and it will go easier for you,” Hector said in my ear. There was no way I could best him with physical force, yet I refused to fall silent as I’d done so often in the past.

  “Send her back, Father, or you shall be the last Trojan king to sit upon that throne!” I shrieked. “Women, begin weaving burial shrouds, for your husbands and sons will soon be carrion for the crows!”

  That was when they gagged me.

  By the time Hector deposited me in my chambers, I was sobbing uncontrollably, spent and exhausted from the futility of the fight.

  “You do this to yourself, Cassandra,” Hector said, looking down on me from his great height as he gently removed my gag. “Rest now, and perhaps tomorrow will be kinder.”

  He was wrong. There would be no kind tomorrows, only sorrows the like of which singers would recite for years to come.

  “Cassandra!” My twin’s voice, calling me as he burst through the doorway in Hector’s wake, and suddenly I was enveloped in his strong arms. No matter what happened, Hellenus would protect me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, and I nodded into his shoulder.

  “Silly girl,” he muttered. “You know better than to challenge our father.”

  I ignored my twin as Hector paused in the doorway. “Hector,” I said, my voice barely a croak. He turned to look back at me, his features blackened in the shadows from the sun behind him. I shuddered then with another dark premonition of Hector, somewhat older but irretrievably lost to us.

  Like so many others would be if the war I saw came to pass.

  “Hector,” I said, this time more urgently as the mania that had possessed me began to clear. My hands were still bound, and I struggled to sit. “Why did you let Paris take her? Why?”

  My eldest half brother’s lips were tight set. “What’s done can no longer be undone.”

  “There will be war,” I said, sliding off the bed to fall to my knees before him, like a supplicant before an altar. “Please, Hector—”

  But he only held up the massive hands I’d seen calm countless frightened horses. “I have done my best. Father has made his decision. Helen stays.”

  The distaste was writ clear on his face as he beckoned to Hellenus, and I caught Hector’s whisper of “touched by the gods” as he glanced at me. Then his expression softened to a melancholy frown, and he closed the door behind him.

  I slumped to the floor then, staring at my chamber’s walls. Last night, after I’d woken shrieking from the visions, I had dared not return to sleep and had instead set myself to painting the images on my walls. It was a habit I often resorted to when nightmares clawed my skull, for in drawing the nightmares, I might draw them out of me. I stared at the newest images: the ships, the towers, the men.

  Troy.

  I touched the old scars at my wrists, finding comfort in their hard edges despite the fresh wetness seeping from last night’s cuts, newly opened when Hector trussed me up like a sacrificial lamb. I would add to the marks tonight, for seeing Helen had brought the rest of the dreamscapes into perfect clarity. The blood and flames, the rage and the grief.

  This morning I’d thought our walls would keep us safe. Little did I know the enemy had already slithered inside.

  I glanced down at my palms, my heart lightening to see the glint of gold there.

  A single strand of blond hair. Helen’s hair.

  My heart leaped, and I coiled the treasure around my thumb for safekeeping.

  “Helen must return to Sparta,” I said.

  “We tried to send her back when we first discovered her,” Hellenus said, a dejected slump to his broad shoulders, although not so broad as Hector’s. “Hector even demanded it, but Paris claimed he had Father’s blessing to nettle the Achaeans.”

  “He’s not nettling them,” I said, picking at my knuckle, relishing the hairline crack of blood that emerged. “He’s jamming a stick into their hive. And we shall all pay the price when they come after us.” I gestured to the macabre paintings along my walls. “I’ve seen it.”

  Hellenus stood and frowned at the image of the temple of Athena on fire with the goddess’ statue toppled to the ground, a great hulking Achaean hovering over a crumpled woman while a Trojan soldier stood helpless in the shadows outside. Next to it was a wall of a thousand ships—I’d counted—bearing all manner of strange sigils, a vision I couldn’t shake from my mind, try as I might. Near it was my first painting—now faded, even though the memory of that night was still blade-sharp in my mind—the temple of Apollo with two figures in the shadowy forecourt.

  Nothing good ever came to be in the house of a god. I’d learned that at the first blush of maidenhood, after I’d taken my vows as a priestess of Apollo. I’d gone to Father in a fit of sobbing but had received the opposite of the help and solace I’d expected. I’d thought of ending it all that night, but my twin had found me at dawn where Father had locked me away—for my own good, he’d claimed—the knife in my trembling hand and the stark ribbon of blood curling down my wrist. That was the first time I’d felt pain’s cleansing release, the same I now craved.

  “No, Cassandra,” Hellenus had said, taking the knife from me. “Whatever it is, it isn’t worth this.”

  Perhaps not, but it had seemed a small price to pay for a father’s lost love and a god’s displeasure. Still, I’d allowed Hellenus to tuck the blade into his own belt and sing me to sleep.

  Now Hellenus knelt beside me and set to work removing the ropes that bound my wrists. I squirmed to keep him from seeing my mangled wrists, for not even Hellenus would understand the bone-deep need to purge myself.

  I moved too late, for he grasped my wrist and turned it over as the ropes fell to the floor. “What have you done?” he whispered.

  I forced myself not to yank my hands back. “After you left—when I told everyone it had been a mistake to send Paris to Sparta, Father locked me up.”

  “Like last time.”

  I nodded. But it had been worse this time, for I’d been entirely alone. For months.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” Hellenus pressed a kiss to my forehead, further comforting me with his familiar scent of cinnamon oil. I blinked back rare tears as he released me. I could hear the questions in his mind as he looked around my room, at the paintings of ships and fire I’d painted with my own blood. He lifted his eyes and stared up at the rafters.

  “Oh, Cassandra,” he murmured.

  Don’t let him see, you fool. He’ll hate you if he sees everything.

  I jumped up, tried to cover his eyes, but he only gaped. Never before had I let it go so far.

  I hated the way his eyes changed then, filled with pity and something else. Revulsion, perhaps?

  I wanted to die then. I wanted to be better, different, not to see the things I’d seen and know the things I knew.

  I flinched as he flung open the door and bellowed at a passing slave to bring baskets to remove all the rubbish from my room.

  Not my room. My cell.

  A pyramid-shaped chamber on the ramparts where Father had locked me the night of Apollo’s temple, complete with the sour-faced attendant who reported my every utterance to him. Eventually, I had been allowed out—this time I wondered if I would be so lucky. After my attack on Helen, I predicted it would be a long, long time before I felt the sun on my face again. If ever.

  The tiny cell felt even smaller as several slaves packed inside to do Hellenus’ bidding.

  “Do we remove those, too?” one asked, making the sign against evil as she lifted her chin toward the rafters. All manner of animal skulls hung from roughly hewn ropes, gifts my cat had brought me, sneaking in when my attendant delivered food or deigned to empty my night bucket. There were tiny mice, birds, and bats, and even a slender snake—Apollo’s mouthpiece—with its desiccated skin still clinging to its bones. That one I’d tied the highest to keep it from whispering foul prophecies in my ears while I slept. It worked some nights, others—like last night—not at all.

  All
were painted with charcoal and blood, meant to keep away the daemons I saw in my visions.

  “I want this room fit for Priam’s daughter by nightfall!” Hellenus commanded the slaves.

  Soon the detritus of the last few months was swept away: plates of moldy bread, fouled bandages and filthy clothing, and so much more that I’d forgotten about and failed to notice. It looked worse illuminated by the light from the door—easier to ignore it all in the perpetual gloom of my windowless cell. I would miss the bones of my silent friends, but only two treasures had to be safe from the slaves’ pillaging: the terra-cotta vial in my bodice and—

  “No!” I yelled as one slave moved to sweep away a set of yellowing bones atop a small cushion. I whisked away the precious skull and clutched it jealously to my chest, careful not to disturb the tiny bits of dried skin and fur that still remained. “Not my cat!”

  “Your cat?” Hellenus stared at me in horror. “Tell me that’s not the one I gave you?”

  I shrugged, not knowing how Hellenus wanted me to answer. “He died after you left for Sparta, and I couldn’t bear to part with him.” Not even when his body had bloated with putrefying gas and the ants had covered him. I’d killed so many that my fingers had been black for days, and I had finally stripped away his rotting flesh myself to keep the insects off him. “He’s the only one who listens to me when you’re not around.”

  Hellenus just stared at me. “What am I going to do with you, Cassandra?” he finally asked.

  I took offense at that and bared my teeth at the slave woman as I replaced my cat—or what was left of him—on his cushion. I’d bite off her fingers before I’d let her touch him. “You could listen to me, for a start,” I said to my brother.

  Hellenus sighed and ran a hand over his tightly plaited hair. “There’s nothing that can be done, at least not right now. The entire court was congratulating Paris on his cuckolding of Menelaus when I left to chase after you. All of Troy sees Helen’s presence as a victory won, nothing more.”

  “Until the Achaeans come calling with their warships. There will be war, Hellenus.”

  “I’ve seen the Achaean forces. They may build fine ships, but they’re provincial compared to the might of Troy.”

  “Farmers with pitchforks can still set their neighbor’s fields ablaze.”

  “Hector and I expect they’ll send a delegation to ask for Helen’s return before it comes to war.” He reached out to clasp my hand. “You could leave, Cassandra. Leave here and go somewhere quiet where no one can hurt you again.”

  I shook my head. “Father will never make the mistake of letting me loose again.”

  “I’ll reason with him, ask for your release.”

  “I won’t go without you.” Hellenus’ eyes suddenly shuttered. “I can’t leave, especially not if it comes to war. I promised Hector I would fight by his side. He relies on me—”

  “So does Andromache. That’s the real chain holding you here.” Hellenus opened his mouth to protest, but I stopped him with a raised hand. “Don’t worry; I doubt anyone else can see how you look at her.”

  Hellenus flushed and ducked his head. “I can’t leave them,” he muttered.

  “Then neither can I, especially considering it was my misfortune to recognize Paris and unleash all this upon us.” I clutched Hellenus’ hand tight. “When the Achaeans come, swear to me that you’ll find a way to send that bitch Helen back.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Hellenus promised. “I only hope it’s enough.”

  It would have to be. Elsewise, my nightmares would break free from my dreamscape to embroil us all.

  I didn’t pray because I no longer trusted the gods, but in that moment, I made a vow more sacred than the one I’d once sworn on Apollo’s stone-cold altar. All my life I had seen what others could not and despaired when they refused to heed the truth. This time I would make them listen. This would be the nightmare prophecy that never came true.

  And looking about my scrubbed and shining chamber, I had a sudden faith that I could do it.

  Troy accepted Helen as a jewel meant to enhance the city’s beauty.

  I listened in horror from my cell as heralds shouted her praise and the city cheered while she was paraded about in a celebration to set fire to the heavens. Singers wrote new songs claiming that her coming had brought glory to our city, but I knew she would make those same flames fall from the heavens to earth.

  It was only a matter of time unless something was done to stop this madness.

  All this while I was kept under lock and key.

  Me, the only sane one in the entire kingdom, reviled as a madwoman while the rest of the city seized with pleasure akin to a Dionysian debauch. I shook my head grimly to hear my family made such fools and imagined how they would hang their heads when I rescued them from their own folly. A tiny flare of hope deep in my chest believed that in doing so, I might finally win their love and acceptance.

  It might have been days or weeks since my attack on Helen when I was woken from a deep and blissfully dreamless sleep by the scrape of the heavy bolt being removed from the other side of the door. It wasn’t time for my next meal, at least not judging from the full tray of food that lay untouched by my lone oil lamp. I yelped and scrambled out of the way as the door swung open, blinking at the sudden light.

  “See that we’re not disturbed,” Father ordered before the door closed behind him. He strode past me to my only chair, and I scuttled away from his upturned boots, pulling my knees to my chest from force of habit.

  “You have disappointed me yet again, Cassandra,” he said after he’d finished arranging his tunic, looking down his nose at me. His beard and nails were freshly trimmed, whereas my hair was a tangle, and I’d yet to wash the blood from my wrists. “Your brother came to ask for your release, but I had to tell him that’s not possible.”

  “It is,” I said, stumbling closer. “I promise—”

  He held up a hand, his gold lion ring gleaming dully in the weak light. “It is not, not when you rage against my decisions even from within these walls. This rabble-rousing of yours must stop, Cassandra. It will stop, or I swear before Zeus you’ll never see anything outside your cell again.”

  My cell, which he had used to lock me away after the temple of Apollo, to protect me from myself and my own lack of virtue, he’d said. I’d gone to him hysterical, seeking solace from the father who I thought would protect me, but I’d been betrayed.

  Just as I was betrayed now.

  “I speak the truth,” I said, heart hammering in my ears as I faced the man who had created but never valued me. “You know not what you do, inviting this war with the Achaeans.”

  “Foolish girl,” he said, eyes flashing as he rose. “I know exactly what I do.”

  But I was no fool. I’d had much time to think in the darkness between Hellenus’ visits, to ponder why my father didn’t send Helen back on the first ship to Mycenae with enough gold to placate Menelaus for so egregious a crime.

  Power. Always power.

  “You seek to steal more glory for yourself while Hattusa is distracted by civil war. You think to strangle the tin trade with the Achaeans and squeeze ever more taxes from them for harboring their ships in Troy after they lose this fight.” I knew I was right from the way my father’s eyes narrowed. “Your desires are transparent to me, as is the future.”

  “The future is never clear,” he temporized, and my heart lifted. At least he was arguing with me—if he could argue, he could be convinced. “You defile your own tongue to say otherwise.”

  “I have seen it,” I said, gesturing to the sketches of charcoal and blood on my walls. “You will lose all if you let this war come to pass.”

  For a moment, I thought I saw doubt in his eyes, but then he blinked, and it was gone. “Helen will go back if she proves to be more trouble than she’s worth, beauty and Paris be damned. I never risk all, for I’m no fool,” he said. “Yet you risk all in your defiance. These four walls will be your prison u
ntil you speak a prophecy in Troy’s favor against the Achaeans.”

  “I won’t do that.” I pushed down the panic that threatened. “You cannot mold prophecy to your whim. I’ll not lie for you.”

  “Then you’ll remain in here to tame your tongue and mend your mind.” He rapped once on the door, and it groaned open—how I longed to shove past him and break into the sweet sunshine, if only for a moment. “Remember, one favorable prophecy and the world is yours again.”

  I forced myself not to fall screaming to my knees as the bar came down on the other side, locking me in darkness once again.

  If only Helen would come and visit you, then you could slit her lovely throat.

  The voice was no longer a comfort, proof I wasn’t alone in the dark. It taunted me instead, proof of my broken mind.

  I must succeed in saving Troy from its own folly. For in doing so, it was the only way I would save myself.

  Helen never came, only my attendant and Hellenus when he managed to bribe the woman with trinkets of gold. I kept my cat’s fragile skull belted about my waist but refrained from speaking to it, my father’s mandate echoing in my mind. Hellenus brought me a new patchwork kitten to keep me company—although he’d made me swear that none of her bones would ever end up decorating my rafters. Each time the door opened, my new cat brought me all manner of dead birds and mice from her forays outside. How I envied her every time she slipped in smelling of sun and sea breezes. I used a filched knife to cut open her macabre gifts and spill their entrails by the light of my lamp. The slaves thought me mad, but I worked in deadly earnest; the entrails gave me the opportunity to augur as I’d learned in the temple of Apollo.

  For my city and my family. Though most of them reviled me, I refused to allow my blunder to let Paris and Helen wreak havoc on all of them.

  On Hector and Andromache and little Polites.

  On Hellenus.

  I would save them. I would save them all.

  Paris and Helen were rash, foul creatures who deserved to writhe in the flames of Tartarus for eternity, but I could bide my time, at least until the ships arrived. So I was on my best behavior in the weeks that followed Father’s visit, even as summer darkened toward autumn and my patience was pulled tauter than a bowstring ready to snap.