A Thousand Ships

by Natalie Haynes

  Eris felt a jolt of rage consume her. Whose wedding was it? Who dared overlook her, Eris, queen of strife and discord? Who had been so discourteous, so hurtful, so cruel as to not invite her to their wedding? She patted the snake’s head idly and the name came to her. Thetis, that was who. The jumped-up little sea-nymph with her greenish hair and watery eyes was getting married, though you would have to be blind to think it was what the damp little thing wanted. How dare a sea-nymph – Eris grew taller with each moment of increasing wrath – a sea-nymph think to exclude her from a divine banquet? How dare—

  Her thoughts broke off, as her head clattered into the ceiling. No, it was not Thetis who would have decided who to invite and who to refuse. Thetis didn’t want to attend the wedding herself, she was hardly likely to be making lists of desirable attendees. No. Someone else had decided which gods should be present, and they had invited everyone but her. Eris felt a sudden prickling behind her eyes, though she could not identify the cause.

  But if she did not know who had scorned her, she knew one thing at least. This was an affront. She had overlooked her eviction from Hera’s bedroom. She had moved past the moment when the gods turned on her and each other as they mocked Ares and Aphrodite. But this, this was an insult too far. Eris was not stupid, she knew that chaos followed her black wings. But that was no excuse. And this time, she would have her revenge.

  She stalked through the halls knocking over anything which looked precious or loved: perfume bottles and jars of oil smashed, dented shields bounced on the stone floor, a string of beads split and spread to every corner of the room. She did not know exactly where the gods were but she could see a glow coming from some island below Olympus and she was certain that all, or at least most of them, were there. Laughing at her, having their fun at her expense. What else would anyone do at a wedding?

  She would fly down there and sow the discord that made her feared. She would stir god against god and man against man. By the end of this day—

  Her thoughts were interrupted once again, just as she was about to take to the air. She fluttered back down to the ground, her eyes caught by the sight of it winking in the morning light. Bright and dull at the same time, warm and cool, hard and round. She grabbed at it. Was this for her, this golden ball? She turned it round in her claws. No, not a ball, an apple. Whoever had left it here obviously didn’t want it, or they would not have abandoned it. And, looking closer, it had an inscription on it. ‘The apple of Eris, most beautiful of the gods,’ she imagined it might say. Perhaps this was the apology for her cruel mistreatment. It did not make up for the unkindness, but it was, she supposed, a start. It might have been nicer if someone had thought to bring it down to her cave, but no one ever visited her.

  She couldn’t quite read the words, which curled into one another, so she rubbed her feathers against the golden surface and angled it towards the light. No, it didn’t say it was hers. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have it. It was in her clawed hand now; she already had it. She looked again, tilting it, trying to read the squashed script. She traced the words with her finger: ‘Te kalliste.’

  For the most beautiful?

  Eris smiled. She would take the apple. But she would not keep it.

  26

  The Trojan Women

  The women buried him under sand and rocks. At first, Hecabe wanted to refuse the burial spot Odysseus had pointed out to her because she resented the way he had known so confidently and immediately where Polydorus should lie. But she could not propose an alternative and in the end, the women lifted her lifeless son and carried him slowly up the shore. Cassandra took his head, since she seemed the least disturbed by his ruined face. The rest of them gathered round his limbs and trunk. So when Odysseus returned to their makeshift camp, as the sun was climbing to his highest point overhead, the task was completed.

  ‘Two things,’ he said to Hecabe. ‘When the Ithacans set sail from here tomorrow, you will accompany me.’

  ‘Why would I accompany you?’ Hecabe asked.

  ‘Because you lost the war.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t wish to keep reminding you, madam, but you make it difficult to avoid. You are slaves now.’ He threw his arms out wide, encompassing them all. ‘Our slaves. This group will be disbanded, divided among the Greeks before the end of today. And you, madam, you will come with me.’

  Hecabe’s face contorted into a sneer. ‘You have drawn the shortest straw, then? An old woman is not what you must have wished for.’

  Odysseus smiled. ‘I had the first pick of you.’ He paused. ‘Well, not quite the first, but Agamemnon – who has precedence, of course – was unconcerned when I told him I would prefer to take you. He may change his mind when the distribution takes place later on, but I like my chances.’

  She stared. ‘You know Agamemnon will choose one of my daughters.’

  ‘Yes. He is a proud man, and only a princess could appeal to that pride. Having the queen of fabled Troy in his retinue would be,’ Odysseus scratched his bearded chin, ‘appropriate for his status, but not for his tastes. Unless she was a very young queen.’

  ‘You say proud, but you mean vain.’

  Odysseus smiled again, and spoke quietly in the Trojan dialect. ‘Not all these soldiers are mine, madam.’

  She nodded, unsurprised to discover Troy’s wiliest enemy had knowledge of its tongue. ‘I understand. But for you, then, is an ageing widow appropriate to your status?’

  ‘It is, madam. And I think it is appropriate to yours, too.’

  ‘I have no status. As you have been so quick to remind me, I am a slave now.’

  ‘Old habits,’ he said. He turned to the rock which Helen sat upon, her long hair flowing down along her straight back. ‘Menelaus asked me to bring you back to him, lady. Would you gather your belongings?’

  Helen shrugged her magnificent shoulders. ‘Anything I own belongs to the Trojans, or it has remained in Sparta these past ten years,’ she said. ‘I have nothing but what I am wearing.’

  ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You wove no tapestries while you waited for your husband to bring you home? I thought you would have created something quite ornate in all these years.’

  ‘My weaving was nothing compared to that of these women,’ she said, turning her gaze from the sea to look him full in the face. She saw him take a shallow breath. ‘I have other skills.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘You can’t begin to imagine,’ she said. She looked at the men who accompanied him. ‘Menelaus has hardly sent the cream of his men to escort me back to the camp,’ she murmured.

  ‘Errant wives don’t warrant a processional guard,’ Odysseus said.

  ‘And yet, when he sees me, he will fall prostrate before me.’ She gave no sign of having heard Odysseus speak. She nodded. ‘I’m ready, you may take me to my husband.’

  ‘Thank you, highness.’ Odysseus bowed low before her, but his smirk gave him away. She took slow, sinuous steps towards the Spartan guards who owed their lives and their allegiance to Menelaus, who had fought to the death for her, and who despised her even as they could not take their eyes from her. As she passed Odysseus she paused, reached over, and placed her fingertips on his beard: an act of supplication. But not in Helen’s hands. She did not fall to her knees or bow her head. She simply stared into his grey-green eyes as he flushed a deep, dark red. ‘You would give your life for me in a heartbeat,’ she said. ‘You cannot disguise it any more than other men can. So don’t mock me, Odysseus. Or I may decide that you will regret it.’

  Hecabe, her women, the Greek warriors, all saw the same thing: a daughter of Zeus turning her full and terrifying attention towards a mortal.

  ‘I understand,’ Odysseus said. His voice barely quavered, but the smile was gone. She gave the smallest of nods and let go of his jaw. She walked past him to the Spartans, who fell in behind her, like youths in a religious procession following the statue of Aphrodite as it was carried to its shrine.

  Hecabe was tempted to gloat over
his humiliation, but she did not. There was something about Helen – a simmering menace – which made even the queen of Troy think twice.

  ‘He’s welcome to her,’ Odysseus said, once the Spartan party was out of earshot.

  ‘What is he like?’ Hecabe asked. ‘Menelaus? Is he a match for her?’

  Odysseus’ eyebrows gave the answer his tongue could not.

  ‘You will accompany me in the morning,’ he said. ‘I will give you the rest of today to spend with your daughters. Although the other Greeks may not be so considerate. Do you understand?’

  ‘Why are you taking me? Tell the truth.’

  ‘I thought you’d enjoy the voyage home.’

  ‘Your home is not mine.’

  ‘Our ships will sail north before they head west,’ he said.

  She tried to conceal the hope dancing in her eyes. ‘Where will you put down first?’

  ‘Thrace,’ he replied. ‘I’ve sent a messenger to tell the king – Polymestor, I heard he was called – that I would very much like to meet him on the Chersonese shore.’

  27

  Calliope

  I know what the poet would like to be doing now. He’d like to follow Helen back to the camp like a faithful dog. He’d like to describe the scene where Menelaus falls at her feet and thanks all the Olympian gods for her safe return. He’d like to sing of her beauty and her grace, and the way every man bows to her every whim. Well, he cannot.

  I have had enough of Helen. Enough of her beauty, enough of her power, enough of her. I despise the way they all melt at the merest mention of her. She is only a woman. And no one’s looks last forever, even daughters of Zeus.

  I shall teach him a lesson. Let him follow the future of another woman, another queen. Let him see what Cassandra sees: her mother’s future. That will show him to be careful what he prays for. Not every story leaves the teller unharmed.

  28

  Hecabe

  Cassandra saw the future as though it were the past. It was not for her as it was for the priests who read signs in the flight of birds or the entrails of beasts. From their murky pronouncements, you would believe the future was always swathed in cloud and fog, tiny strands of isolated brightness in the dark. But for Cassandra, it was as clear as a recent memory. And so when she heard Odysseus say he would take her mother to Thrace, she knew what was to come, because for her it had all the clarity of something she had already seen happen.

  She felt a wave of revulsion rip through her and the familiar sour taste rising in her throat. She did not dare vomit, as Hecabe would punish her for the mess, her mouth curling in disgust as she slapped her daughter across the cheek. Cassandra felt a flicker of heat from the tiny white scars on her brow bone, from the time her mother had hit her while wearing her full ceremonial jewellery. That gold was gone now, of course, stowed in the strongboxes of the Greeks. Cassandra swallowed two, three times in rapid succession, took a deep breath and tried to focus on the faint taste of salt in the air. Salt had always quelled the worst of her sickness.

  But how could salt take away the sound of those eyeballs popping, the sight of black jelly pouring down a weather-beaten face? Her breathing became uneven. She pushed the vision away, but every time she blinked, it was all she could see: ruined sockets and thick dark blood. She tried to come back to the present, turn away from the future and be where she was. Sometimes she could walk herself back, step by step from tomorrow to today, and the taking of each small step reduced her potent desire to scream.

  But this time she found that she could not travel backwards, only forward to disaster, over and over again. She watched her mother leave her – was she, Cassandra, the last one to leave the shores of Troy? She wanted to look around and check: where was Andromache, where was her sister, Polyxena? But she could only watch what played out in front of her: the following morning. It must be the following morning, mustn’t it? Because Odysseus had said to her mother that she would be leaving with him then. And her mother’s expression, as the Greek hero held out his arm to help her onto his ship, was almost triumphant. She still carried herself like a queen, even if the queen wore a soot-stained chiton, torn in two places at the hem.

  Hecabe was preparing herself for the meeting with Polymestor, Cassandra could see. She took some brief solace when she saw that her mother was not alone. Odysseus had taken a small group of Hecabe’s serving-women along with her, so although she did not have her family, she had the women whose company she had often preferred. Cassandra wondered if Odysseus had been forced to barter with his fellow Greeks to take a whole gaggle of women, or whether no one had cared where the old ones went. As she walked on Trojan ground for the last time, her mother made no effort to hold Cassandra, or kiss her goodbye. But Cassandra saw something in her eyes which was not familiar. The exasperation which usually marked Hecabe was gone. She did not kiss her daughter, it was true. But she did not kiss her because she feared the humiliation of breaking down in tears.

  The scene dissolved and reformed as Odysseus’ ship landed high on the sands of the Chersonese coast. Cassandra knew it was Thrace – a place she had never seen – as well as if she had grown up there. Her visions were never wrong, never lacking in detail, even if she could not always understand them. In the short time it took for Odysseus’ men to disembark and put up a few small tents, two messengers dressed in ornamental garb appeared from somewhere further inland. They bowed before Odysseus, almost on their knees to ensure his favour for their king. Odysseus might be the guest in Thrace, but no one was under the illusion that his host – the king, Polymestor – was anything other than desperate for his approval. The messengers paid no heed to the old women, a little cluster of slaves. Why would they? Cassandra felt the sour pressure in her throat once more and she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Not now, not now, not now. She tried to focus on the sand beneath her mother’s sandaled feet: full of round grey pebbles and bright white shells which she would have liked to pick up so she could run her thumbnail across their neat ridges.

  She felt another rush of memory, like a blow to her stomach. But this was a true memory, even if it was not hers. It was not the future she could sense now, this was the past. Her mother was right near the spot where Polydorus’ body had been rowed out of the bay, into the open sea, before being dumped overboard with a few handfuls of stones stuffed into his tunic to weigh him down. Hecabe’s feet would stand in the footsteps of the men who had pushed the small boat out into the water. She would be so close to Polydorus but yet too late. Cassandra’s visions were always too late, even when they should not have been. She had long since learned that no one heard the truth from her, that even if they listened, they did not hear.

  The men who had committed this impiety against her poor brother, Cassandra saw, had not realized that he would tip in the water, the stones dropping from his clothes before he was an arm’s length under the surface. He should have sunk to the seabed, been eaten by fish, watched in silence by the sea-nymphs. But they had not weighted him down properly. No wonder he had washed up a day later on the sands near Troy.

  She saw that his face had been battered long before he met the rocks on the Trojan shoreline. Her beautiful brother had been beaten before he was killed by the treacherous Greek king, who had thought no one would ever find out. Cassandra tried to cling to this – the unspeakable man’s vicious motivation – as she watched Odysseus talking to his slaves, telling them to invite their king to come and visit his tall ships, and be made welcome by the conquering heroes of Troy. She watched the messengers scurry away, taking word to Polymestor. She saw her mother’s lips disappear into a thin line. She saw it all.

  Again the scene disappeared and this time it reappeared as Polymestor strode down the grass-tufted sand. He was dressed in all his finery: a heavily embroidered robe, gold chains around his throat, gold rings on his fat fingers. His thinning black hair was oiled in the Trojan style, and Cassandra saw a spasm of distaste pass over Odysseus’ face before he accepted the
man’s two great hands in greeting. Cassandra could smell the suffocating sweetness of cinnamon and myrtle with which the man had scented his hair oil.

  ‘Odysseus,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘This is an honour.’

  ‘Yes, so your slaves led me to believe,’ Odysseus replied. ‘You have been anxious for news from Troy, it seems.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Polymestor. ‘We have sacrificed many heads of cattle in the hope of winning the gods’ favour towards the Greeks.’

  ‘Generous of you,’ Odysseus said. ‘You didn’t want to join the war effort yourself?’

  If Polymestor heard the faint edge in Odysseus’ voice, he did not allow it to show. ‘My Thracian kingdom is the bulwark of Greece,’ he replied. ‘I knew I must be sure to keep our dominance secure in case you needed our aid. I sent messengers to Agamemnon, my lord. He has always known we were ready to assist. He had only to send word.’

  ‘Agamemnon never spoke to me of these messages,’ Odysseus said.

  ‘He is such a private man,’ Polymestor agreed.

  ‘That hasn’t been my experience at all. But no doubt you know him better than I do.’

  Cassandra saw Odysseus’ men, going about their business. Building a small camp they knew they would never use. No wonder they had found the Trojans so easy to trick, she thought. Duplicity was second nature to the Greeks, to these Ithacans. They went about it as naturally as cleaning weapons or fetching water.