For the Most Beautiful (38 page)

‘It is the women who lay clothes to dry on the rooftops of Troy,' I continued. ‘It is the fishermen who catch the silver fish in the bay,' I gestured out over the plain towards the sea, sparkling blue in the sunlight, ‘and sell them on the stalls of the marketplace. It is the princes who live in the palaces on the windy heights of the city, and the slaves who draw water from the wells. This, my king –
this
is Troy. And if we act now, we may still be able to save our city before it is too late.'

King Priam shook his head again. ‘I have heard that King Agamemnon treats his prisoners without clemency,' he said, ‘but we shall have no need of his mercy when we win.'

‘Father,' a voice said. Prince Aeneas, King Priam's third son, had stepped forwards. ‘If I may speak.'

King Priam bowed his head.

Aeneas cleared his throat. ‘What you say is right and just, as it should be from the mouth of a sceptre-bearing king. But I am bound to remind you that we are drawing on our last supplies from the granaries, and that even now the last of the barley meal, millet and vetch are being sent to the poor of the city. The harvest has not been gathered, as the farms were left untended when the Trojans came to the shelter of the city, so the stores of wheat have not been replenished. Hardly any merchants or farmers have been allowed in or out since, upon your orders. When did we last see shellfish from the bay upon our plates? Or fresh meat hunted from the hills?' He took a deep breath. ‘I fear that, if we do not remove the poor and the sick and those unable to fight from the city soon, we shall have nothing left with which to feed our army. And if our soldiers do not eat, then how shall we ever win the war?'

King Priam's brows knitted. Then he turned to his adviser. ‘Is this true, Dryops?'

Dryops bowed his head. ‘It is, my king. The overseers of the granaries estimate that we have but a few weeks' supply of barley remaining, with so many additional mouths to feed, and barely a week's worth of vetch.'

The king tapped his fingers upon the arm of his throne, thinking.

I held my breath, hardly daring to hope.

At last, King Priam turned back to me. ‘Very well, daughter of Polydamas,' he said, his words clipped. ‘We shall send the women, slaves and children and those who are old or injured from the city, as my son suggests. Dryops, you will send an edict to the heralds, to be proclaimed throughout the city, that all who are unfit to fight are to leave the city. We must preserve food supplies for our warriors and nobles. You will give our people assurances that they will return to Troy as soon as we have driven the Greeks from our shores.'

Dryops nodded briskly. ‘Yes, my king.'

‘Daughter of Polydamas, you will aid Dryops in organizing their removal through the woods, if, as you say, they have been left unguarded. My spies inform me that it is the custom of the Greeks to engage in funeral games and feasts until the twelfth night, when they light the pyre and burn their dead. We shall have the people leave the city on that night, while the Greeks are burning Achilles.' He gave me a shrewd look. ‘Do you think you can manage it?'

I nodded, my heart racing.
Twelve days …

‘Then,' he continued, ‘our people should be taken to the fortified towns beyond the mountains in the south, on the border with the Maeonians, where they can await our victory and then return.'

I glanced at Cassandra, and saw my own happiness and disbelief reflected in her face. Then I knelt before the king and queen, gazing up into the faces of the last of the dynasty of Laomedon, who held it in their hands to determine the fate of the city I loved most. ‘I shall begin immediately, my king,' I promised.

I had been sent to Agamemnon's tent the day Achilles died, though still the king did not dare to lie with me, fearing the vengeance of the spirits of the dead if he took me before Achilles' body was consumed upon the flames.

Now, after twelve days of mourning, gifts and funeral games, they were burning Achilles on his pyre. From where I stood on the platform around the wooden palisade to the east, I could see the flames flickering against the dark night sky in a shower of sparks that melted into the stars.

I could not bear to be with everyone else. I could not bear to see the false grief on Agamemnon's face. I could not endure watching the generals and the soldiers weep for a man they had never truly known. The gnawing pain inside me, the emptiness of loneliness and loss, was almost more than I could tolerate. When I had heard that Achilles was dead, that Paris had struck him in the heel as he fought around Troy, that I would be leaving Achilles' hut for the tent of the king once more, I had felt as if a part of me had been lost that I would never find. As if Mynes had taken with him to the Underworld more than half of what I was, and Patroclus and Achilles together had taken the small part that remained.

I turned away from the sight of the pyre, but its orange glow was still imprinted against my eyelids. Nearby, the sound of the eastern lookouts laughing and playing dice echoed hollowly in my ears. I could not understand how anyone in the world could laugh any more, now that Achilles, too, was dead.

Troy lay on the horizon, still and quiet in the evening air. A few watch-fires glimmered on the walls, but apart from the flickering fire of the torches, there was no movement.

Or was there?

I narrowed my eyes. On the horizon, barely visible, a strange ripple seemed to be crossing the short span of the plain between the southern gates of the city and the forests that spread south to the lower slopes of Mount Ida, many, many thousands of paces distant. I stared at it. The movement was constant, but so faint that I might almost have missed it. It was as if a river were crossing the plain where I knew that there was none … a river …

A river of
people.

My eyes widened in shock.

It was the Trojans.

They were escaping from the city.

I tried to make out if the lookouts had seen what I had. There were only two of them, for there was no gate on this side of the camp and most of the guards were placed along the southern part of the palisade where the settlement was most vulnerable to attack. And, from their laughter and the rattle of dice as they hit the table, the lookouts had noticed nothing.

But, still, if they saw the Trojans leaving the city …

I made up my mind. Gathering my tunic in my hands, I hurried back along the wooden rampart, then down the ladder to the camp as fast as I could. The huts were deserted – all the soldiers were watching Achilles' body burn – and my way was unimpeded as I dashed through the tents and huts, one hand held to the ache in my side, the other hitching my tunic up from under my feet.

At last I saw it. The healer's hut. Without pausing, I pushed the door open and slipped inside. I had been there only once before, sent by Agamemnon's healer for some cures, and it was dark, one old terracotta oil-lamp burning in the corner. My fingers fumbling in my fear, I picked up the lamp and held it up to the clay pots, one after another, trying to make out in the flickering light the writing scrawled upon them in black glaze.

Heliotrope
…
common fumitory
…
mallow
…
rock-rose
…
stoneseed
…

And there it was. In a large jar sealed with wax:
juice of the poppy
. My hand shook as I lifted it from the shelf and carried it to a table, where a jar of red wine – stolen, no doubt, from the stores of Pedasus or Lyrnessus – and a goblet, still half full, stood beside a bundle of tablets that the healer had clearly been reading before he had left to watch Achilles' pyre. Pulling the wax stopper from the pot of poppy juice, I tipped it slightly and poured several drops into the jar of red wine, enough, as Deiope had told me when I was young, to invoke a deep and instant sleep.

I had to walk more slowly back to the palisade to stop the wine spilling. The lookouts were still playing dice. I could hear their shouts to the gods to bless them with luck, their laughter and curses growing louder, as I climbed slowly, careful not to spill a drop, up the ladder on to the rampart. They hardly noticed as I approached them, their eyes fixed on the game.

‘Brave guards,' I said, doing everything I could to keep my voice steady. One looked up, then nudged the other in the ribs. He grunted.

‘I bring you wine from King Agamemnon himself,' I continued, holding out the jar and gripping my fingers to keep them from trembling. ‘He wishes you to pour a libation to the gods in honour of the great Achilles. He sends you this good wine as a token of his thanks for your watch this night.'

The lookouts' faces mirrored greedy grins.

‘Give it here, then,' the first one said. He grabbed it from me and poured a few drops to the ground before sloshing the rest into their goblets. His breath stank of wine already, and the jar swayed in his hand as he poured. ‘To the great Achilles!'

They raised their goblets and drained them in one.

There were a few moments as they looked at each other, still grinning, the dice upon the table showing two ones: the losing throw. Then, slowly, their faces relaxed. Their eyelids drooped.

As one, the two men slumped on their stools.

They were asleep.

I let out a long, low breath and glanced towards Troy. A steady stream of people still rippled out from the South Gates into the darkness, heading for the black line of the trees of the forest. It would be several hours at least before the guards woke, and when they did, they would know at once what I had done.

And King Agamemnon would not allow me to live for it. He would come after me and ensure that I was punished for my treachery.

I turned again towards the line of Trojans escaping to their freedom.

But when he does, I shall be ready.

‘I won't leave you behind.'

I took Cassandra's hand and squeezed it. Though I could not see her face in the shadows of the night I knew that she was weeping.

We were standing by the South Gates, Cassandra's slave Lysianassa beside us, and the last of the Trojan men, women and children huddled around each other for warmth close to the great double gates as they awaited their turn in the line to escape from the city. The past twelve days had been a blur of checking names against the heralds' lists, packing belongings, finding guides to lead the way to the mountains, persuading the reluctant Trojans that they must leave their city and their possessions under royal decree. Cassandra and I had not slept for many nights. Now, on the twelfth night after Achilles' death, the Trojans were at last escaping from the city under the darkness of a new moon, hoping against hope that the Greeks would be too occupied with their mourning to notice the line of people streaming across the plain to the unguarded paths of the forest and the hills in the south.

I turned to Cassandra, my eyes heavy with fatigue. ‘You have to, Cassandra! I will follow tomorrow with your brother Aeneas' wife as soon as her child is born, as we agreed. It is far better that I risk taking them alone tomorrow than that we delay the escape.'

‘Please, let me stay with you. I'll leave the city when you do, I promise.'

I smiled at her in the darkness. ‘A princess of Troy is far more valuable than I am. You must get yourself to safety now with the rest of the Trojans, for King Priam and Queen Hecuba, if for no one else.'

She hesitated for a moment, then, at last, I saw the silhouette of her head nod. She reached for my other hand and bent forwards to whisper, ‘Troy owes you much, Krisayis.' She squeezed my hand. ‘Because of you, our people will survive.'

There was a pause.

‘It seems you did manage to trick the gods, after all,' she said in a low voice, and I could tell that she was smiling.

I smiled too. ‘Perhaps I did.' I embraced my friend.

As we broke apart, a man stepped forwards from the shadows, a young shepherd from the hills with a plain-spun tunic and broad cheekbones. ‘We should leave now, Princess.' He indicated the line of Trojans, which was even now dwindling and disappearing beneath the towering shadows of the walls. ‘There is much distance to be made and there are only a few hours before daybreak.'

I nodded. ‘Yes. My thanks to you, Iapyx. Make sure these last of the men, women and children reach the mountains beyond the forest before dawn.'

He looked up at the sky, then down at me. ‘With the gods' will, my lady.'

I glanced at Cassandra, and she gave me a sidelong smile.

‘Keep your wits about you, Iapyx,' I said, ‘and we may not need the help of the gods.'