‘It’s not our deaths – our deaths will come when they come. It’s Greek deaths I see.’
‘Don’t promise me they’ll die, the bastards,’ she said. ‘They’ll never die. Cut off one of their heads and another ten spring up from somewhere else.’
‘They’ll die,’ I told her.
‘I’ll pray for it,’ she said.
‘To which gods?’ I asked. ‘Ours, theirs or your own?’
‘To all of them,’ she said. ‘Tell me when it’s coming and I’ll take knives to them myself.’
Naomi had been married (she called it) to a fish merchant before we left Troy but never saw her husband again. She had been given to the Greek soldiers even before we landed. She had strangled at birth the child she bore to the platoon in the shed where they kept the Trojan women. They beat her for this, too, weak as she was. The marks where she had cut her wrists with a piece of flint were still there. Not long after I had come to the farm, I found her in the slave huts at the port and, pretending that I needed her help, persuaded my kind husband to buy her. Otherwise I suppose she might have tried to kill herself again, and that time succeeded.
‘So what are you writing?’ she said, standing in the chilly wind, without a cloak, shivering.
‘The whole story,’ I said. ‘The story of those days we have hardly dared remember, in case they showed on our faces.’
‘So when their doom comes on them, they will know why,’ she said.
‘That’s a fierce god you had there as a child,’ I told her. ‘I can still see his traces on you. He believed in justice and revenge, and bad men being punished and good ones rewarded. And men in deserts pointing bony fingers at the bad, denouncing them. After all you’ve seen, do you still believe your enemies will be punished, or that they’ll be abashed by words, made ashamed because someone recites their misdeeds?’
Some years ago one of her countrymen, an Israelite, had come off a boat forced to put in because of a storm. We found him in the olive groves with some other stranded sailors, eating our olives. Naomi found out his race and dragged him back to the house. She spent a day and a whole night talking to him until they had patched the ship and could put out to sea again. All they had in common was a mangled Hittite tongue, fragments of which she remembered from those years in Troy, when it had been useful to know our chief ally’s language, and which he knew from trading at Hattusas, the Hittite capital. This mariner told her about her people, who had stopped their desert wanderings, had fought the established inhabitants for their cities, overcome them and settled themselves in more fertile territories. He spoke of their religion, which still relied on those tablets she remembered (simple rules normally observed by all, such as honouring your father and mother and not committing murder). Sadly enough, he knew nothing of her parents and had not heard of her. He thought she must come from a different tribe. Nevertheless, he drew a fierce picture of this god worshipped by these former nomads. Amazingly enough, they had a single deity, one jealous god, who forbade any images of himself, as he was something like the wind, everywhere and nowhere.
Before he departed, this Israelite offered to marry Naomi – she’s a good-looking woman and has quite a lot of silver hidden in her room. She refused, saying she had no desire to find herself on a trading journey through the desert pulling a reluctant camel to its feet, while the man’s other wives lay about squabbling and eating figs in a tent. She told him she was already married, which was not true, but now she has a man, a servant on another estate and her small boy, aged three, is his son.
I think she must love this man, or why would she walk three miles over the mountains to visit him so often? I envy her. She is less lonely than I am, now my husband is dead and my children are away. No one will ask questions about her, a slave, but I must live without company most of the time, to keep my secret. Formerly I presented myself as a very shy woman, devoted to her husband and children, never leaving my own home, which gave me a good reputation among the Greeks, where women are trained to cling to their thresholds and make sure their daughters never stray out of sight of the house. This retired life meant I never had to account for myself. Now, all these years later, I don’t think anyone would ask who I once was, where I came from or who my parents were. I have grown into the landscape like a tree.
I turned back to writing, but before I did so I said to Naomi, ‘The victors compose the ballads about their wars, saying how great and brave they were.’
She bent towards me and said, ‘You must tell me more about what you expect to happen. We shall have plans to make. And how soon?’
‘What can happen before the spring?’ I said. In my dreams I had seen men coming up the beach from ships.
What I had not foreseen was an immediate visit. Yet, as I spoke, a man ran into the courtyard and shouted, ‘There’s waggons coming along the road, about a mile off – rich waggons. Someone important’s coming!’
I jumped to my feet in alarm.
Four
Troy
Adosha, Helenus and I scrambled up the narrow track on the wooded hill to the oracle’s cave. It lay almost a mile inland from the sea, behind the city and up the steep path which at that time of year was blocked with bushes, and with stones which had come down with the winter rain. It was a hard climb. We did not have to go right to the top for the cave of the oracle was two-thirds of the way up the hill. The mouth of the cave ran into the hillside. In front of it was a glade. All around were trees hung with the animal masks used in our ceremonies and bells with muted clappers, which made a sound between banging and ringing. Also dangling from the trees were strips of stained cloth, the skeletons of birds and small animals and clay bowls, hung on strings, containing offertory objects.
Before you arrived at the oracle’s cave you had to pass, at the centre of the grove near the steeply mounting cliff, the black slab of the altar. In front of the altar lay the pit we called the blood-pit, its sides hard with dried blood. In wet weather the pool in the pit was red. At the bottom lay bones and scraps of half-burned flesh. The smell, especially in summer, was terrifying in itself. Thoughts of those sacrifices, at night, when the adults were not the people we knew in daylight, thoughts of the beast struggling and crying out as the white-faced priests and priestesses cut its throat, the idea, the possibility, never discussed, that sometimes the sacrifice on that black altar had been human, not animal, and might one day be so again – all that awed adults and frightened children. No child, however brave, ever played on that hill, even on the sunniest day.
Adosha, thin, only eighteen years old, was wearing her best dress, long and red, secured at the shoulder with a large, bronze brooch (she was dressed to impress the Greeks). Once we had scrambled up the hill she took our hands in hers and, after a pause to pluck up courage, advanced across the grass. We must have been a strange sight – Adosha in her long gown, Helenus and I, undersized for our age, pale and gazing fiercely through our almond eyes at the altar some ten yards away – we were not frightened – no, not we! After a few more paces we stopped again, hearing only the sigh of the wind in the trees, the muted sounds of the bells’ clappers, the song of birds. We all three stared at the black altar, mounted on four blocks of greenish stone and then slid our eyes to the cave-mouth. Bushes grew in front of it. Out of sight from where we stood was the pit into which they rolled the animals after the sacrifice. Hanging from the trees all round us were the animal masks – the bird-mask, with its beaked nose and feathers, a plume at the top – the hollowed-out skull of a big dog, the mask painted black and red – the goat-mask, with its horns – the flat-headed snake, painted yellow and black in whorls, with tiny horns at the top – the mask of a lion, painted with black rings round its eyes.
Adosha, afraid of the place, afraid of what we would do in it, or what would happen to us, said brusquely, ‘Come on,’ and pulled us both in the direction of the altar. Meanwhile for me, and for Helenus too, I guessed, the light dimmed. I felt a trance coming on me. The animal masks seemed to g
row bigger and loom down. Helenus said later he saw the snake-mask’s mouth open and heard a hissing. None of us wanted to look at the altar, with its grimly-stained surface, or down into the pit. Nevertheless, as we got closer I saw from the corner of my eye a goat lying half-burned at the bottom, its horns in earth and its head thrown back as if pleading for mercy. There were flies buzzing round and a rat leaped from the pit as we got closer still. But the real horror of the pit was the fear of seeing the remains of a human being lying there – a woman’s face peering up through the ashes or a half-burned baby or the stretched-out figure of a young man with his throat slit, the priestess’s son-lover who used to be sacrificed there each year in the old days.
The light was dimming and then came that time I – we both – dreaded, always half-forgotten until it happened again. It was the time when time stopped. Nothing moved. There was no sound. Then, into that void the visions would come crowding.
I was only half-conscious of the big eunuch-priest in his dark robe coming stooping from the mouth of the cave. I saw his mouth move and I knew he was speaking to me but I could not hear him. Already I saw men sitting round campfires, their helmets and weapons stacked on the ground nearby. I saw them cutting pieces of meat from a sheep on a spit, heard voices, and laughter. At the same time I was aware the priest had me by the hand and was leading me into the cave, and I felt sympathy coming from him. I knew Helenus was there as well. Then my mother was crying out from one of the towers of the city as, from below, came the sound of swords hitting shields, the neighing of horses, the swish of a flight of arrows, a sudden yell of pain, sounds of a storm rising.
Then I was staring, scarcely seeing it, into the chalk-white face of the priestess, an old woman with long white hair, a great necklace of jagged lumps of blue stone round her old neck, a scarlet dress, heavy with gold embroidery hanging from her thin shoulders. Her face was painted. Her lips were very red, there were black lines around her eyes. She sat in the depths of the cave on a stool, in front of a brazier giving out aromatic smoke. The thin red slit of the woman’s mouth opened and a voice, neither a man’s nor a woman’s, said, ‘So you have come to tell me what you know. Tell me quickly. Neither of you can stay long. You are too young for this.’ Then I found myself speaking, although sometimes the voice seemed to be Helenus’ as well. And my father was saying, ‘How many more sons shall I see killed?’ There was a terrible chorus of voices, men’s and women’s, crying, ‘Send the woman back. Send the woman back.’ There were children crying.
‘Send the Greek queen back to her husband,’ came Helenus’ voice, but it was not exactly his voice.
‘It’s the port they want and not the woman,’ came my mother’s voice, speaking reasonably. ‘Send her, send our daughters, too. It will make no difference.’
A chariot went round and round the walls, something dragged at the back of it. Men dug a deep trench by the sea. A band of weary men came through the city gates, the wounded leaning on the fit – the live carrying the dead over their shoulders. The heavy gates were closed behind them. Children cried, a man’s voice called, ‘Water!’ ‘Send the woman back,’ someone said. There were screams.
‘Five years and then we burn,’ came Helenus’ voice.
‘No stone shall be left standing on another,’ I murmured.
‘Children wrenched from their mothers’ arms, their heads shattered against stones.’
‘The swords will come down and down, the stones will run with blood.’
‘Treachery.’
‘Death.’
The oracle’s white face loomed over us and, ‘Enough,’ she said. Her priest was pulling both of us to our feet. She said, ‘I have also seen what you have seen. That is what you came to find out. Is there anything else you want to know?’
But I knew the woman had finished with us. She wanted no questions. I felt myself being pulled away. The priest was half carrying me through the dark and cold of the cave, on and on, into daylight. Then I was lying on the grass and heard another body drop down beside mine. It was Helenus. Gradually the sound of the birds grew louder. I could hear the wind in the trees again and the muffled clang of the bells in the trees.
I asked, ‘Are you there, Helenus?’ I saw Adosha’s feet beside me and heard her shocked voice, ‘He just threw you on the ground and went back into the cave. No ceremony there.’
‘I don’t think we brought good news,’ Helenus told her.
Even as we helped each other up I could still see dim figures at the altar, like ghosts. A tall woman was raising a knife before bringing it down towards the black slab where a boy lay, bound and screaming. I glanced at Helenus, hoping he had seen it too but he was standing weakly there on the grass, head bowed, like someone grateful to have emerged from high fever. The terrible thing was that my vision showed me that the woman killing the boy was my mother, Hecuba.
As we returned Adosha said little but she was kind. She helped us down the steep places on the track, even carrying Helenus down the sharpest and rockiest part of the path when his legs were slipping under him, while I sat at the top, waiting my turn. She knew that after these attacks we were always very weak. So we went slowly downhill to the plain behind the city, through the pasture surrounded by the ewes and their lambs and back to the palace. We must have been a terrible sight, Helenus and I, pale and exhausted, with our hair all tangled from the climb and our arms and legs streaked with mud.
Unfit to be seen by our distinguished, unwanted guests we entered the palace by the courtyard near the stables, where sweating slaves were basting three whole sheep on spits across a huge fire. A cauldron hung over a smaller fire and in a corner heaps of fish were being gutted and piles of onions chopped.
‘Your brother was looking for you both,’ one woman said over her shoulder. ‘He said you ought to be in the great hall.’
We went to wash and change our clothes. ‘Just sit there quietly,’ Adosha instructed. ‘Don’t look at anybody and don’t say anything.’
Helenus had on a heavily embroidered tunic and I had a long skirt with stiff pleats. Adosha had fetched these things from the chest in the storehouse where the ceremonial clothes were kept.
Seventy people could dine and two hundred stand comfortably in the great hall. On that day it was full to capacity. There were landowners from within a radius of twenty miles, citizens of Troy – bakers, blacksmiths, wealthy traders, merchants, fishermen, potters and warriors. There were Egyptians and Phoenicians and two tall Africans, head and shoulders above the rest.
There was a continual murmur of conversation, comment and translation as the words of the main protagonists seated before the fireplace passed back and forth.
On one side sat the two Greek kings, legs apart, hands along the arms of their carved wooden chairs. Opposite them were King Priam and Queen Hecuba, also sitting formally and motionlessly. All four were posed to be seen, by those attending the council, like the characters on a wall painting. Blind Calchas, with his long white hair and staff, stood behind his king, Agamemnon. Next to Calchas, beautiful Helen stood behind her husband. My parents had at their backs Anchises, their adviser, and my brothers Hector, Deiphobus and Troilus. Next to them were two insignificant-looking Hittite men of business, recognisable as what they were by their robes, and by their pointed hats and the scrolls they held. They could not have reached the city from their capital Hattusas, many weeks’ journey away. They must have been summoned from somewhere nearby.
Beside the chairs of Agamemnon and King Priam stood the translators to clarify and supplement what they were saying. They could also slow things down when one side needed time to think. Seated cross-legged on the floor were my younger sister and brother, Polyxena and Polydorus. Around them, on stools or standing, were Trojan dignitaries and the rest of the Greek party. Behind the throng in the room, Greek soldiers, in armour, leaned against the walls. They had come in after the conference started and should not have been there.
Though the four seated figures by the firepla
ce sat still as statues and spoke unemphatically, the faces of the tough, scarred Greeks and the large concourse of hardy Trojan dignitaries betrayed the fact that this assembly had turned into a show of strength on either side – Greeks and Trojans were displaying equally affability, cordiality and willingness to defend themselves. An important aspect of the display was the family of Priam and Hecuba, particularly their sons. But, I wondered, where was Paris on this important occasion?
Helenus and I had slipped through the crowd and dropped on to the floor beside Polyxena and Polydorus. I felt, rather than saw, the chilly blue gaze of Agamemnon on me. I sat quite still, looking at the floor, hoping, I suppose, like an animal, that if I did not move he would forget about me. From the corner of my eye I saw the kings’ big, muscular legs ending in gilded sandals. The reddish hairs on Menelaus’ legs seemed unnatural. For reassurance I glanced at my father. He was a grave, hieratic figure, his beard and shoulder-length hair both crimped, a long robe in severe folds round his feet, a high gold crown on his head. He was different, but still my gentle father, the man of the port accounts, rent tallies and archives, who would spend all night in the stables with Advenor, holding up a lantern for a foaling mare. I looked at my mother, again for reassurance. Her face was grave and still but I sensed that underneath her calm she was displeased by what was happening. I looked for reassurance, but found too little. I was losing control; my panic was mounting.
The discussion in progress concerned the old vexed question of harbour tariffs. The Greeks were suggesting they should pay no tax for docking and harbour facilities. My parents were refusing politely.
As the talk went on I felt myself drifting helplessly. Helenus took my hand. He glanced round at the room. It would have been impossible to leave without a fuss. The room was packed. There were men and women’s legs right up against our backs and all eyes were in our direction. Behind me a woman turned to her companion and muttered, ‘In the next breath they’ll ask us to send shiploads of free food to Pylos.’
Cassandra Page 4