For the Most Beautiful (39 page)

I did not sleep that night. The slaves around me slept soundly in the quarters of King Agamemnon's tent, their dreams filled with ordinary cares. I, too, was untroubled in a way. I had never felt as clear as I had that night on the starry shores of Troy.

At last, at the very last, I knew what I must do.

Since Death had chosen to take from me the men I loved, I would join them in the Underworld myself and make my destiny at last.

The next morning, the sun rose to a clear sky, the clouds tinted with gold at the edges and the horizon a clear pale pink, like the inside of a shell – oddly beautiful, this dawn, as if the goddess knew it was the last time I would see her fingertips creeping over the horizon. I made my way between the slave women, already busying to prepare the king's morning meal, towards King Agamemnon's council chamber.

The lords were gathering for their usual morning meeting with the king, and a young slave – she could not have been more than twelve years of age – stood by the entrance, a pitcher of wine in her hands, her face pale and her eyes rimmed with dark circles of fatigue.

‘Let me take that,' I said, moving to stand beside her. ‘You go and get some more sleep.'

She gave me a swift, grateful glance. ‘Are you sure?'

I nodded. She handed me the pitcher and slipped back into the slaves' quarters without another word.

The lords had assembled now. They sat where they always did, on juniper-wood stools set around the large circular table beside Agamemnon's throne.

‘We have gathered,' Nestor rumbled, ‘to discuss our tactics for the coming battles, now that Achilles is dead.'

One by one, the lords fell silent. I felt my fingers grip the clay pitcher in my hands at the sound of his name. But I would not allow myself to be distracted.

Not today. I was waiting, waiting for the sound that would announce the camp guards had discovered what I had done.

‘Clearly, we no longer have any chance of taking the city by force,' the king said. He was glowering, his mouth narrowed to a thin line, and it was plain he felt nothing but anger at the loss of Achilles. ‘No matter how stubborn he was, with Achilles gone we might as well be attacking the best-fortified city of the Aegean with a group of girls armed with shuttles and looms.'

Ajax leapt to his feet. ‘Now wait just one moment—'

But Odysseus interrupted him. He had stood up, too, and had placed his hand on Ajax's shoulder. ‘Come, Ajax,' he said. ‘Be seated. I have a suggestion to make, my king, if you will hear it. One that …' he smiled ‘… does not require force of arms at all.'

‘Another of your magic tricks, no doubt,' the king growled. It was evident he would not be easily impressed today.

Odysseus inclined his head. ‘Indeed.'

He reached into his cloak and drew out a scroll of papyrus. Bending forwards, he spread it before the seated lords and proceeded to explain in a low voice something I could not hear. The other lords were pointing and muttering, and King Agamemnon's expression was shifting slowly from scepticism to incredulity, then excitement as I watched.

I squinted to see what they were looking at, but it was impossible from where I stood, and I dared not move.

Not yet.

At last the king thumped his fist on the arm of his throne. ‘It's perfect!' he shouted, his belly wobbling with delight. ‘Odysseus, you son of a trickster, you are Hermes reborn!' He spread his arms wide. ‘My lords, soon we will break into the city of Troy, and you will bed its women!'

The lords cheered and raised their goblets to the sky.

‘And I,' Agamemnon continued smoothly, ‘shall have Achilles' slave girl at last.' He wetted his fat lips with his tongue. ‘Good practice for the Trojan women we shall soon have, do you not agree?'

The lords laughed. The king's eyes swept the tent and found me, standing by the entrance. His eyes narrowed.

At that very moment, the tent flap was swept open and two men came running in, their armour clanking, helmets under their arms, to kneel at Agamemnon's feet.

I clenched my hands, fingers white.
There is no way back now.
I felt my hands shake slightly at my sides and tightened them harder, determined no one would see I was afraid, Agamemnon least of all.

It was almost time.

‘My king!' one gasped, rising to stand. ‘We have news of the gravest kind – of treason in your camp!'

King Agamemnon shifted in his throne, his face alert. ‘Treason? By whom?'

The other drew a long breath. ‘A slave – a slave girl. She drugged us with her wine!'

King Agamemnon's gaze shifted, slowly, towards me.

The lookouts turned and saw me.

‘Her!' the first man shouted, pointing at me. ‘It was her, my king!'

King Agamemnon's eyes were slits in his face. ‘You tried to poison my guards?'

I shook my head. ‘No.'

Diomedes laughed. ‘But of course she would say that. She is a Trojan and a slave. These Trojans are all dirty, lying thieves.'

The lords laughed nastily.

I felt a strange ringing in my ears, courage rising in my chest now that the final moment was here. Perhaps this was how Achilles and Mynes had felt when they prepared to go to war.

At last, my time had come.

I set down the pitcher upon the table, carefully, and moved a few paces so that I stood facing the council of war. The lords were eyeing me as they would an untamed horse, fear and derision in their faces in equal measure.

‘Get back to your place, slave,' Ajax called. ‘What right have you to come near the true-born sons of Greece?'

But King Agamemnon's lips twisted into a humourless smile. ‘Let us see what she has to say,' he said, his eyes boring into me. ‘Let us see if she thinks she has anything worth saying, before she dies.'

I looked into the faces of the Greek lords – Odysseus, Ajax, Nestor, Diomedes, Agamemnon, all my captors – and took a deep breath.

‘You have underestimated me, Greeks,' I said quietly.

There was a cry of rage and disbelief from the gathered lords.

‘How dare she speak to us in such a way?' Diomedes shouted. ‘It is an insult!'

King Agamemnon's expression had changed from pretended humour to anger, his eyebrows lowering upon his forehead like Zeus' thunderbolts upon the clouds.

‘You have always thought that slaves and women were worth nothing,' I continued, my voice rising over the tumult, ‘but, because of a slave, the greatest of the Greeks is dead. Because of a slave, you will never have the Troy you think to gain. And, Agamemnon,' I turned to gaze at the king, my voice gaining strength with my courage, ‘you will
never
have me.'

I did it before they had a chance to guess what was in my mind. In a breath I was at the entrance and out of the tent, past the guards before they could see me and running, running across the shore, running through the assembly-place to the huge flaming pyre that lay in its centre, still piled high and burning strongly as was the custom until the eve of the twelfth day.

I heard a shout from behind me, ‘
Stop her!
', but I would not be stopped.

At last, after all that I had endured, I would make my own fate, as both the men I had lain with in love had told me that I would.

Achilles' pyre was burning hot as I reached it, the air around it shimmering, the flames lapping up to the impossibly blue sky. Faggots of new dry wood were piled up on the mound of packed earth, crackling invitingly, like the hearth Patroclus had tended in Achilles' hut. A makeshift ladder was still propped against the soil, where someone had been throwing driftwood onto the blazing fire.

In a single breath I scaled the ladder and threw myself on to the flames. My thoughts turned to Achilles as the haze of black smoke surrounded me, the way he had held me that night upon the shore, the heat of his arms, each of us the downfall of the other. I thought of Patroclus, dragging me through the Greek camp in a hail of arrows, whittling away at a wooden bird; Patroclus, his brown eyes open and staring. And I thought of Mynes, the husband I had loved, the sound of the rain pattering upon the olive tree as we embraced each other, the taste of the wine he had brought me on our wedding night upon my lips.

‘No! Stop her!
Stop her!
She is
mine
to kill!'

But it was too late. I was already halfway to the Land of the Dead and the mist-covered banks of the Styx. The sound of the waves lapping against the shores of Troy, and the confused shouting of the Greek guards – those were the last things I heard. I focused my eyes on the sky, the blue shifting palely to white, and then to the brightest, sheerest, most shimmering light.

Wait for me in the Underworld.

Wait for me, Mynes, my love.

I will be there soon.

Wait for me.

Wait for me.

All of the ordinary people of Troy were gone from the city, now. Only the warriors remained, a few of their most loyal slaves, and those of the royal princes and nobles, who had chosen to stay behind to guard their homes and their riches as their wives had fled. My father had come back from Didyma, only to refuse to leave his beloved temple again, no matter what I said to try to persuade him otherwise. And King Priam and Queen Hecuba had sworn to stay with their city, their nobles and their warriors, convinced of the thickness of their walls, the height of their towers and their inevitable victory to the very last.

That evening the palace was empty as I made my way from Cassandra's deserted chambers to my last feast in Troy. I was due to leave the city that very night under cover of darkness, as the final escort from the city for Princess Creusa, who had that very morning given birth to a little baby boy, Ascanius. There was a ghostlike quality to the echoing chambers and long, empty corridors, as if I could almost sense the ruins they would become: the deep trenches and low stone walls and piles of rubble, insufficient tribute to the living, breathing soul of Troy that had once been its people. The high-roofed scented chambers of young lovers, the gardens where beautiful girls had once walked and the wide roads that wound through the bustling city, full of loud-mouthed foreign merchants and dark-skinned slaves: all of them nothing, without the people who had made them live.

I slipped into the Great Hall and moved towards my usual seat near the window, far from the royal thrones, not wishing to talk, wanting to savour every last moment I had. The hall, the last stronghold of the rich and noble, was still populated with its usual boasting warriors and lords – though now it was small beer they drank, not wine, and boiled vetch and barley upon their platters. It was as if they would pretend, and go on pretending, that this was the feast of a city rich in wheat and wine and figs, not a starving city's last meal, in spite of the grey barley upon their plates and the thick, tasteless beer: for in their determined ignorance lay their hope.

When the tables were cleared of what little food remained and the wine-pourers were serving the last of the small beer, the bard struck up his lyre, first tuning the four-stringed shell so that it sang like a swallow in spring.

I glanced over at him, wondering why he had not left Troy with the others. He was young, dark-haired and tanned by the sun, with brown muscled arms and an honest, open face. His eyes were closed as if he were listening intently to the music pouring from his instrument. His song told of the gods, as the tales of bards often did: this one the story of Are and Arinniti, and their scandalous love-affair. He sang of how Arinniti's husband, Haphaistios, when he caught the two gods in his bed, bound them there with an ingenious set of chains, and summoned all the other gods to see. And how much mirth there was in heaven when the gods caught Are and Arinniti in the middle of their love-making, naked as the day they were born!

King Priam and Queen Hecuba, the warriors and gathered nobles were laughing as the singing came to an end and the slaves entered the hall. The nobles got to their feet, some unfastening silver pins from their cloak-clasps – the only treasures they had left – and placing them by the bard's leather pouch, gifts for his performance, as they walked to the large painted doors that led out to the courtyard.

The Great Hall was empty now. The bard was packing away his lyre and putting the gifts of silver into his pouch. I noticed how tall he was when he stood, and my heart beat a little faster.

‘You sing well,' I said, my voice echoing across the empty hall.