Lord of the Silver Bow t-1

by David Gemmell

  The meeting with Priam had unsettled him. The king was arrogant and Helikaon had never liked him. Yet he was also canny. He believed the Mykene were preparing to raid the east in force somewhere, and his arguments were persuasive. A people who lived for war would always be seeking fresh areas of conquest and plunder.

  And the east was ripe for such a venture. The Hittites were engaged in several wars. Battles with the Ashurians, the Elamites and the Kassites had sapped their strength, and now an Egypteian invasion into Phoenicia had further stretched their waning resources.

  A fresh breeze blew off the sea and Helikaon drew in a deep breath, tasting the salt in the air. Kassandra was still swimming, but he did not call out to her.

  In the happy days when he had lived with Hektor, and Kassandra had come to stay with them, he had learned she was not a child who took well to commands.

  He sat quietly in the sunshine and waited. After a little while he saw Kassandra swim smoothly back to the shore and wade from the water. Lifting a white knee-length tunic from the rock over which she had draped it she clothed herself and ran over the sand to where Helikaon waited. Slim and small, her face delicate and fine-boned, Kassandra would one day be a beautiful woman. Her long dark hair was thick and lustrous, her eyes a soft blend of grey and blue.

  ‘The dolphins are worried,’ she said. ‘The sea is changing.’

  ‘Changing?’

  ‘It is getting warmer. They don’t like it.’

  He had almost forgotten how fey the child was, and how she could not tell fantasy from reality. Sometimes at night she used to wander the gardens chatting as if to old friends, though there was no-one with her.

  ‘It is good to see you again, Kassandra,’ he told her.

  ‘Why?’ Her eyes were wide, the question asked with great innocence.

  ‘Because you are my friend, and it is always good to see friends.’

  She sat down on the rock beside him, drawing up her knees and resting her arms on them, and stared out to sea. ‘The big one is Cavala,’ she said, pointing to the dolphins. ‘That is his wife, Vora. They have been together for five migrations. I don’t know how long that is. Do you think it is a long time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Your mother has guests. She was wondering if you would like to meet them.’

  ‘I don’t like guests,’ said the girl, shaking back her long black hair. Droplets of water sprayed out.

  ‘I am a guest,’ he pointed out.

  She nodded, her expression, as always, serious. ‘Yes, I suppose that you are.

  Then I am wrong, Helikaon, for I like you. Who are the others?’

  ‘Laodike, and Hektor’s betrothed, the lady Andromache.’

  ‘She shoots a bow,’ said Kassandra. ‘She is very skilled.’

  ‘Andromache?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Mother will be dead soon.’ The words were spoken without feeling, cold and detached.

  He kept his voice calm. With anyone else he would have grown angry, but Kassandra could not be judged against any normal standards of behaviour. ‘Does it not make you sad?’

  ‘Why would it make me sad?’

  ‘Do you not love her?’

  ‘Of course I love her. She is my greatest friend. Mother, you and Hektor. I love you all.’

  ‘But when she is dead you will not be able to see her, or hug her.’

  ‘Of course I will, silly! When I am dead too.’

  Helikaon fell silent. The sea was calm and beautiful, and sitting here in the quiet of the Bay of Herakles it seemed that all the world was at peace. ‘I used to dream that you would marry me,’ said Kassandra. ‘When I was little. Before I knew better. I thought it would be wonderful to live with you in a palace.’

  He laughed. ‘As I recall you also wanted to marry Hektor.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That would have been wonderful too. Egypteian brothers and sisters marry, you know.’

  ‘But you changed your mind about me,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Was it because you heard me snore?’

  ‘You don’t snore, Helikaon. You sleep on your back, with your arms spread out. I used to sit and watch you sleep. And I listened to your dreams. They were always frightening.’

  ‘How do you listen to dreams?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just do. I love this bay,’ she said. ‘It is very peaceful.’

  ‘So, are you going to tell me why you decided not to marry me?’

  ‘I will never marry. It is not in my destiny.’

  ‘In a few years you may change your mind. When you are grown. You are only eleven. I would wager that by the time you are my age the world will look very different to you.’

  ‘It will look different to everyone,’ she said. ‘But I will be dead before then, and I will be with mother.’

  Helikaon shivered. ‘Don’t say that! Children should not talk of death so lightly.’

  Her grey eyes met his own, and he saw the sadness there. ‘I will be on a rock,’

  she said, ‘high in the sky, and three kings will be with me. And I will see you far below. The rock will carry me to the stars. It will be a great journey.’

  Helikaon pushed himself to his feet. ‘I must attend your mother. She would be happy if you came with me.’

  ‘Then I shall make her happy,’ said Kassandra.

  Swinging back she gazed at the bay. ‘This is where they will come,’ she whispered. ‘Just like Herakles did. Only this time their ships will fill the bay. As far as can be seen, all the way to the horizon. And there will be blood and death upon the beach.’

  iii

  For Laodike the afternoon was one of unremitting sadness. And it had started so well. She had been laughing and joking with Andromache in her high apartments overlooking the northern plains. Andromache had been trying on various hats and clothes presented to Laodike by foreign ambassadors. Most of them were ludicrous, and showed how stupid and primitive were the peoples of other nations: a wooden hat from Phrygia, with an integral veil so heavy that any woman wearing it would be half blind; a tall, conical Babylonian hat, made up of beaten rings of silver, that perched precariously on top of the head, held in place only by chin straps. She and Andromache had cavorted around the apartments, shrieking with laughter. At one point Andromache had donned a Kretan dress of heavy linen, embroidered with gold thread. It was designed so that the breasts could stand free, and a corset of bone drew in the waist, emphasising the curves of the wearer.

  ‘It is the most uncomfortable clothing I’ve ever worn,’ said Andromache, pulling back her shoulders, her breasts jutting proud and high. Laodike’s good humour had begun to evaporate at that moment. Standing there, in a stupid dress, the flame-haired Andromache looked like a goddess, and Laodike had felt unutterably plain.

  Her mood had lifted as they were travelling to mother’s summer palace, but not by much. Mother had never liked her. Laodike’s childhood had been one of constant scolding. She could never remember the names of all the countries of the Great Green, and even when she did recall them, she found that she got the cities mixed up. So many of them were similar – Maeonia, Mysia, Mykene, Kios and Kos. In the end they all blurred in her mind. In mother’s lessons she would panic, and the gates of her mind would close, denying all access – even to things she knew. Kreusa and Paris would always know the answers, just as – she had been told – Hektor did before them. She didn’t doubt that strange little Kassandra also pleased mother.

  Perhaps now that she is ill she will be less harsh, she had thought, as the two-wheeled carriage crossed the Scamander bridge.

  ‘What is she like, your mother?’ Andromache asked.

  ‘Very nice,’ answered Laodike.

  ‘No, I mean, what does she look like?’

  ‘Oh, she’s tall and her hair is dark. Father says she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She is still very attractive. Her eyes are grey-blue.’

  ‘She is revered on Thera,’ said And
romache. ‘Part of her dowry built the Temple of the Horse.’

  ‘Yes. Mother spoke of it. Very big.’

  Andromache laughed. ‘Very big? It is colossal, Laodike. You can see it from the sea, miles from Thera. The head is so large that inside it there is a great hall, in which fifty of the senior priestesses meet and offer prayers and sacrifices to Poseidon. The eyes are massive windows. If you lean out you can pretend to be a bird, so high are you in the sky.’

  ‘It sounds… wonderful,’ said Laodike dully.

  ‘Are you ill?’ asked Andromache, leaning in to her, and placing an arm round her shoulder.

  ‘No, I am well. Truly,’ answered Laodike. She looked into Andromache’s green eyes, seeing the concern there. ‘It is just…’

  ‘Hera’s curse?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, happy that it was not a complete lie. ‘Don’t you find it strange that it was a goddess who cursed women with periods of bleeding? Ought to have been a capricious god, really.’

  Andromache laughed. ‘If all the tales are to be believed the male gods would surely prefer women to rut all the time. Perhaps Hera was just allowing us a little respite.’

  Laodike saw the shoulders of the carriage driver hunch forward, as if he was trying to move himself further from the conversation. Suddenly her mood lifted, and she began to giggle. ‘Oh, Andromache, you really do have a wonderful way of seeing things.’ Settling back in her seat she glanced ahead at the walls of King’s Joy, her fears melting away.

  Laodike had not seen her mother for several months, and, when Paris led them into the garden, she did not recognize her. Sitting in a wicker chair was a white-haired ancient, frail and bony, her face a mask of yellowed parchment, drawn so tightly across her skull it seemed that at any moment the skin would tear. Laodike stood very still, not knowing how to react. At first she thought the crone was also visiting mother, but then the ancient spoke. ‘Are you just going to stand there, stupid girl, or are you going to kiss your mother?’

  Laodike felt giddy. Her mouth was dry, her mind reeling, just as it had during those awful lessons. ‘This is Andromache,’ she managed to say.

  The dying queen’s gaze moved on. Laodike felt a surge of relief. Then Andromache stepped forward and kissed Hekabe’s cheek. ‘I am sorry to find you in such poor health,’ she said.

  ‘My son tells me I will like you,’ said the queen coldly. ‘I have always loathed that phrase. It instantly makes me feel I am destined to dislike the person. So you tell me why I should like you.’

  Andromache shook her head. ‘I think not, Queen Hekabe. It seems to me that in Troy everyone plays games. I do not play games. Like me if you will, dislike me if you must. Either way the sun will still shine.’

  ‘A good answer,’ said the queen. Then her bright eyes fixed Andromache with a piercing look. ‘I hear you stood on the high parapet with Priam, and that you refused to kneel.’

  ‘Did you kneel for Priam?’

  ‘Not for Priam, or any man!’ snapped the queen.

  Andromache laughed. ‘There you are then, Queen Hekabe. We have something in common already. We don’t know how to kneel.’

  The queen’s smile faded. ‘Yes, we have something in common. Has my husband tried to bed you yet?’

  ‘No. Nor will he succeed if he tries.’

  ‘Oh, he will try, my dear. Not just because you are tall and comely, but because you are very like me. Or rather as I once was. I too was once a priestess of Thera. I too was strong once. I ran through the hills, and bent the bow, and danced in the revels. I too had a sweet lover, full-lipped and heavy-breasted.

  How did Kalliope take your parting?’

  Laodike was shocked at this news, and glanced at Andromache. She thought her friend would be crestfallen and shamed. Instead Andromache smiled broadly. ‘What a city this is,’ she said. ‘Everywhere there are spies and whispers, and no secrets are safe. I had not thought the royal court would know so much of the happenings on Thera.’

  ‘The royal court does not,’ said the queen. ‘I do. So, did Kalliope weep? Did she beg you to run away with her?’

  ‘Was that how you parted from your lover?’

  ‘Yes. It tore my heart to leave her. She killed herself.’

  ‘She must have loved you greatly.’

  ‘I am sure that she did. But she killed herself twenty years later, after a vileness grew in her throat, draining the flesh from her bones, and robbing her of speech and breath. She threw herself from the Eye of the Horse, her life dashed out on the rocks far below. Now I have a vileness in my belly. Do you think the gods punished us both for our lustful ways?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Hekabe shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wonder.’

  ‘I do not,’ said Andromache. ‘Angry men stalk the lands with sword and fire, burning, killing, and raping. Yet the gods are said to admire them. If this is true, then I cannot see how they would punish women for loving one another.

  However, if I am wrong, and the gods do hate us for our pleasures, then they do not deserve my worship.’

  Hekabe suddenly laughed. ‘Oh, you are so like me! And you are far more suited to my Hektor than your insipid sister. However, we were talking about Priam. He will not rape you. He will seek to seduce you, or he will find some other means to force your acquiescence. He is a subtle man. I think he will wait until I am dead, though. So you have a little time of freedom yet.’

  ‘How could anyone love such a man?’ said Andromache.

  Hekabe sighed. ‘He is wilful, and sometimes cruel. But there is greatness in him too.’ She smiled. ‘When you have known him a little longer you will see it.’ Her eyes turned back to Laodike. ‘Well, girl, are you going to kiss mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Laodike meekly, stepping forward and stooping down. She closed her eyes and planted a swift peck on her mother’s cheek, then moved back hurriedly. The queen smelt of cloves, the scent sickly and cloying.

  Servants brought chairs and cool drinks and they sat together. Paris had wandered off, and was reading a scroll. Laodike did not know what to say. She knew now that mother was dying, and her heart ached with the knowledge of it.

  She felt like a child again, miserable, alone and unloved. Even on the verge of death mother did not have a kind word for her. Her stomach was knotted, and the conversation between Andromache and Hekabe seemed like the intermittent buzzing of bees. Mother summoned more servants to raise a set of painted sun screens around them, and, though the shade was welcome, it did nothing to raise Laodike’s spirits.

  And then Helikaon came, and once more Laodike’s spirits lifted. She rose from her chair and waved as the young prince came striding across the pale grass of the cliff top, young Kassandra beside him. He smiled when he saw Laodike.

  ‘You are more lovely than ever, cousin,’ he said, taking her into his arms and hugging her close. Laodike wanted the hug never to end, and she clung to him, and kissed his cheek.

  ‘By the gods, Laodike, must you act the harlot?’ demanded mother.

  The harshness of the tone cut through her. She had committed the most awful breach of protocol. A guest must first greet the queen. Helikaon leaned in and kissed her brow. Then he winked and mouthed the words: ‘Don’t worry!’ Stepping forward he knelt beside the queen’s chair. ‘I brought Kassandra as you requested.’

  ‘No-one brought me,’ said Kassandra. ‘I came to make you happy, mother.’

  ‘You always make me happy, my dear,’ said Hekabe. ‘Now sit with us, Helikaon. I am told you have been battling pirates, and setting them ablaze, no less.’

  ‘It is too beautiful a day,’ he said, ‘to be spoiled by tales of bloodshed and savagery. And the lady Andromache already knows of the battle and its aftermath.

  She was there on the beach.’

  ‘I envy you,’ said Hekabe. ‘I would like to have watched those Mykene burn.

  Heartless dogs every one of them. I never met a Mykene I liked – nor one I trusted.’

  ‘Tell mother about
the disguise,’ said Laodike. ‘One of my servants heard it from a crewman.’

  ‘Disguise?’ echoed Hekabe, her brows furrowing.

  ‘To escape assassins on the cliff,’ said Laodike. ‘It was very clever. Tell her, Helikaon.’

  ‘It was a small matter. I knew the killers were waiting for me, so I bribed one of Kygones’ guards and borrowed his armour. Nothing dramatic, I fear. I merely walked past the Mykene.’ He suddenly chuckled. ‘One of them even called me over to ask if I had seen Helikaon.’

  ‘You were dressed as a guard?’ said Andromache. ‘Did you perchance lose your sandal on the beach?’

  ‘Yes. The strap broke. How odd you should know that.’

  ‘Not at all. I saw you.’

  Laodike looked at her young friend. Her face seemed very pale, and for the first time since she had known her Andromache seemed tense and ill at ease. ‘It was a cheap sandal,’ said Helikaon.

  ‘Tell me of the ship,’ demanded Hekabe. ‘I have always loved tales of ships.’

  Laodike sat quietly as Helikaon spoke of the Xanthos, and the Madman from Miletos who designed and built her. He talked of her seaworthiness, and how she danced upon the waters like a queen of the sea. He told them of the storm, and how the ship weathered it. Laodike was lost in the wonder of it all. She dreamed of sailing far away from Troy, to live on a green island, where no-one would ever call her a stupid girl, or demand that she recite the names of lands she would never visit.

  Towards dusk Hekabe complained of tiredness, and two servants were summoned to carry her back into the house. Helikaon left soon after. He had intended to sail today for Dardania, but now would have to wait for the dawn. He kissed Laodike, and hugged her again. ‘She does not mean to be cruel,’ he said.

  Oh yes, she does, thought Laodike, but said: ‘I am sure you are right, Helikaon.’

  Kneeling beside Kassandra he said: ‘Do I get a hug from you, little friend?’