Electra (12 page)

For some reason the boat caught my attention. It was well made, the keel following the natural shape of something which had probably been a tree-root. The sails were of painted cloth, red-and-white striped, such as Corinthian vessels often display. Someone had spent a lot of painstaking work on getting it right and it was a thoroughly acceptable gift for a God of the Sea. Why did it hurt me to look at it? Why were my eyes stinging?

Then I remembered. Just such an offering had been taken by the maidens, I amongst them, to Poseidon's temple when I had brought his worship back into Troy. Apollo had cursed me for it. I remembered exactly what the temple looked like, remembered my lover Dion, who was Poseidon-Priest, Dion of the kelp-brown hair and eyes, who had fled to Egypt before the city fell. I remembered my twin, golden Eleni, his closeness and his smooth skin and the scent of his hair. I searched for him and found only a desperately unhappy shade, a ghost of my bright twin. Then it struck me like a knife in the heart.

Troy was gone.

Eumides held me tighter, sensing that something was wrong. 'What is it, Cassandra?' he asked.

I could not speak for a moment, then I said in my cradle-tongue, into his neck, 'Troy is no more.'

'Troy is no more,' he agreed in the same language. 'I will never sail my boat
Farseer
into the harbour again and see the walls rising sheer from the Scaean Gate, nor hear Prince Hector, Priam's son, calling for news from Libya, a golden child on either side of him and Stathi the cat perched on his shoulder.

'I used to dream about you, Princess, when I was enslaved in Mycenae. I dreamed of coming into the harbour again and finding Troy as I had left it, tall and proud and impregnable. I would swagger in, I thought, and drink mead in the tavern below the acropolis and boast of the wide world, having come home. But freed against all hope by an apprentice healer, I returned to a siege and saw the death of everyone I knew and the loss of everything I loved - except you, Princess, except Chryse and you.'

He kissed me, and I tasted salt; his tears, not mine. My grief was too great for weeping. Eumides clutched me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes. His agate gaze held me fixed in his regard. His face was wet. 'The city is destroyed by Agamemnon and his army, the people are scattered or enslaved and all the sons of Priam are dead. But so is Agamemnon, slaughtered like a beast by his wife at the height of his arrogance. His damaged, half-mad children are now our companions, dependent on us to get them to Delphi alive. And Troy has not perished, Princess, Priestess, Cassandra of my heart, while we are still alive.'

I had never heard such a flow of words from Eumides. I dug my fingers into his arms, dragging him closer into an embrace which was almost an assault. His answering grasp bruised my skin.

'We belong together,' I said, realising that this was true. 'While you live, Troy remains.'

'Agape mou,' he said. 'My love.'

'I love you,' I replied. I had no better words. There should have been one in some language to describe how much I needed him, liked him, wanted him, valued him. Eumides the sailor, my companion in the Dionysiad, sharer of my Trojan speech, my rescuer, scoundrel, trader, old friend, thief, with eyes like black honey and hair that curled like bracken. We strained closer. I breathed in the scent of his skin, salt and pine resin.

I do not know how long we sat there on the harbour wall, embracing in full view of the scandalised citizens. A passing sail cast a cold shadow over us and we blinked and shivered.

'Come along, Lady,' he said, lifting me to my feet. 'Taphis the Corinthian has a good name and my friend Laodamos supplies him with the best of Kriti wine. We can have a rest, then dinner, and then some more rest.'

Taphis had given his male visitors a large room on the ground floor. It was paved with marble - the herb business was obviously prospering - and scattered with sheepskins and woven rugs in bright colours. We made a bed out of these and lay down together.

'Where is Electra?' asked Chryse sleepily.

'I left her with Gythia, Taphis' wife. I have told Gythia that the lady is prone to nightmares and should be watched constantly, and she has promised to care for her. She is a strong and intelligent woman with a large number of female slaves, including a very tough old woman who nursed the Lady Gythia and looks equal to anything, and she can manage.'

'Even if she can't, it will wait until morning,' he said, removing his outer tunic and yawning.

'Chryse?' I asked as he lay down beside me. I was flanked with warm muscled bodies and I found it hard to concentrate.

'Lady?' His golden hair tickled my face.

'Why did you follow the army and rescue me? You could have just gone home to Epidavros.'

'Because I love you,' he said, as though he was prescribing for a headache. 'I spoke to you over the walls and admired your wisdom and your courage, beautiful Princess, Healer of Ilium. You saved my life when the Amazons would have shot me like a roosting bird and you spoke to me most courteously when you gave me back the ashes of my master's son, Macaon. I nursed your twin brother, Eleni, when the arrows of Apollo struck the army. I looked into his face, which is also your face, and I knew that I loved you. I had not thought to love a woman again, after Chryseis left me,' he said sadly. 'But she will understand. Why, Lady, don't you love us?'

'Yes,' I agreed. There was an interval while we shifted under the woven blankets, finding places better for knees and elbows.

'Why did you say you were a priestess of Demeter?' asked Eumides, snuggling down beside me. My eyes were closing. I was blessedly comfortable, bathed and clean and scented with sweet oil instead of travel-dust.

'Simple, Trojan,' I laid my head on his smooth chest. 'Argive Priestesses of Apollo have to be virgins. My companion does not qualify, and neither do I. I would have had to lie apart even from the children, alone with the Princess Electra in virginal seclusion, instead of with you.'

'I have always been devoted to Demeter,' lied Chryse sleepily.

Of course my greedy crew, thinking that I was cheating them - how could they think that of me? - opened Aeolus' bag of winds and we flew to another island.

Strange, rosy smoke encircled the valleys as we climbed to Circe's house. Birds sang there, unafraid. Flowers blossomed under her feet as she came out to greet us, a slender maiden with a waterfall of rich black hair. She invited my dirty, squabbling crew into her marble house, fed them soup, and watched them become pigs - not a long journey for most. They dropped to all fours, snorting and grunting, and she penned them firmly with the swine. Indeed I was tempted to leave them there.

But I smiled at her and she softened. She was lonely with only Gods for company. She washed me clean of sea-rime and filth, and sang to me. Her black hair flowed across my face as she lay down with me, scented with dittany, herb of immortality. She was smooth and warm and responded to my caresses, which I had learnt from many women in the islanded sea. When she was pleased and sated, I kissed her and asked her for my crew again, and for directions home.

She loved me and tended me, but she sent me sailing into Hell.

I heard the latch click. I woke in terror and the dream went on. I saw his black curly hair, felt his hand slide along my hip, and lashed out with both feet. This had never happened before. The only resistance I had managed in my mother's house was to cry, to beg, to whimper, to try and push him away, and it had never worked.

The figure recoiled with a cry, but there was no thud as he fell. I was still dreaming. But he did not return. The horror faded a little, and I wandered off into a green landscape, empty of people. I remember dipping my hands into a stream, feeling the coldness of the clean water. Then I knew no more until morning.

I woke feeling unusually well. An old woman, toothless and wrinkled, was sitting by my bed. She laid a work-worn hand on my forehead.

'Good,' she said, in the Corinthian dialect, which is thick and hard to understand. 'You have no fever. You slept well, Lady?'

'I slept well. Have you been here all night?'

'Indeed, Lady. The Lady Gythia instructed me to watch you carefully. You struggled and screamed a little, early in the evening, but you have lain sweetly all of the night, and now, see? It is morning.'

Bright light was shooting through the shutters, stripping the floor with gold. The old woman was nursing two people. The bright-eyed child was lying in a basket at her feet. As though he had felt my gaze on him, he awoke and awarded the world a demi-god's smile. The old woman allowed him to scramble out of the cradle and he padded away towards the Lady's apartment, planting each sturdy little foot as though he had a good solid grip on the earth. I blinked back unexpected tears.

'The Lady Gythia's son?'

'The son of the household. His mother was a slave. She died in childbirth and the Lady took the child. He is called Autesios; a fine strong boy! Taphis has no other son. He hopes he will show promise with herbs. He is curious and bold, and we love him very much. Taphis loved his mother, too. Children conceived in love have a sunny nature.'

I changed the subject. The Gods alone knew in what emotion I had been conceived. 'The Lady Gythia. Has she been married long?'

'Twenty years. The Lord depends on her. He knows herbs, but she knows people! She knows who can pay, who is reliable, which shipmasters are pirates, which will deliver their cargo on time. All the women of Corinth come to see her. She listens. She was a fine child, too. I nursed her at my own breast. Ah, well, I'll nurse no babes from these withered teats.

'Come along, Lady, there is a bath for you, and my Lady will be anxious to know how you passed the night. That is a strong infusion. Only an Asclepid would dare to administer it. They are under the protection of Apollo, and the Bright One would not let them make mistakes. A little dizzy? That is to be expected.'

I let her lead me to a fine bronze bathtub and two slave girls poured hot water over me, scented with roses. I was revising my opinion of Cassandra again. If the Lady Gythia was valuable to her husband because of her knowledge and her ingenuity, then there might be something in the Trojan woman's talk of skills. And the Lady Gythia and her husband were familiar together, like old friends. I had never seen this before. My father never asked my mother's opinion about anything, and she was, of course, never seen at counsels where there were men. My hostess was visited by all the women of Corinth and had retained her reputation. Perhaps the rules were not as strict as I had thought.

I was hungry enough to eat a good breakfast of yoghurt and honey. The yoghurt was chalky and not very fresh but the honey was excellent, herb-scented. I realised that it was the famed Kriti honey, gathered by the Goddess' bees from the sacred thyme. Weight by weight it is worth more than gold. This was a wealthy household.

Orestes said that he had slept well and he certainly ate enough. He was looking healthier. One night's sleep can erase a week's privation in a child. His hair had regained its wave and his face was filling out from that white, pinched look which had wrung my heart. He, it seemed, was also worried about me.

'Did you sleep without dreams, sister?' he asked.

'I slept well, brother,' I replied. He leant into my lap and looked up into my face. His eyes, as always, were deep and solemn.

'Electra, why are we going to Delphi?'

'Because we will be safe there,' I said, and he drew away from me a little, putting both hands on my knee.

'And from there?' he asked. My shadowed little brother, the darling of my heart. Orestes was the reason, I believe, that I had not taken my maiden's girdle and… My mind shied away from the memory.

'There we will stay,' I said. 'When you are settled, I will leave you there and come back to the Palace of Agamemnon.'

'Why?' he asked.

I wiped a smear of honey from the corner of his mouth and said, 'To kill our mother and her lover.'

He thought about this. 'The Queen, our mother, killed our father, didn't she? That's why we ran away.'

'Yes.'

'Do you know that she killed him?'

'I saw her kill him.'

'I think,' he said gravely, 'that I should be the one to go back and kill them.'

'You?' I almost laughed. He was so delicate, so thin and small. He had never practised at sword play with the other boys. His wrists were as slender as mine.

'Because the Lord Apollo says that it is for me to do. I hear him, when I am sleeping. And, sister, because to do this deed will attract a dreadful curse from the Gods. I can bear it if you will look after me, but I cannot tend you, Lady Sister Electra.'

'It is my task, Lord Brother Orestes,' I said.

He did not reply, but walked away, down the stairs from the women's quarters.

The old woman came back. She had veiled her head, though there were no men around, and the glimpse of her face that I saw was very pale. Her hands shook as she took away my plate and brought me warm and much diluted wine. I wondered what was wrong with her.

I dressed in a clean chiton - it was pleasant to be back in civilisation again - and went to find my travelling companions. This meant that I had to go downstairs to the main room of the house, where the master Taphis and his clerks were engaged in classifying and packaging a shipment of herbs from Thrace. I covered my head in the presence of the male household.

The courtyard stank of medicinal scents. Diomenes, Cassandra, still unveiled, and Eumides the sailor were sitting together on a marble bench, drinking wine-and-water from terracotta wine cups and quarrelling amiably about herbs. They looked pleased with themselves, close and warm. I surveyed them bitterly. The most unlikely conjunction possible - a sailor, an escaped royal slave, and an Asclepid from Epidavros - were pleased in each other's company, valued each other, were delighted in each other. It was utterly immoral. Disgusting. One man for each woman, that's what I had been taught. Now this Trojan whore had two men, and they both sought her company, they both liked her. There are no rewards for virtue. I comforted myself with the thought that they would desire wives and legitimate children, and would abandon her at Delphi. The she would be alone indeed. The priestesses of Apollo must be virgins, and over fifty, and Cassandra was neither.