by Pat Barker
“I suppose it does.”
Warily, Helenus sits down and begins unwinding the rags. After hesitating a while, Pyrrhus climbs the slope towards him, but slowly, not coming too close. “Might be better to let the air get to it.”
Helenus flexes his toes. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
Skin heals; the mind doesn’t. Pyrrhus knows it’s time to bring this awkward encounter to a close, though he tells himself it was Helenus who started it—he needn’t have spoken at all. But now, he’s curious to know why he did. So, against his better judgement, he watches as Helenus wades in, wincing as a wave foams round his ankles. He’s not steady on his feet, though he does go a little further before turning round and struggling towards the shore. On impulse, Pyrrhus reaches out and offers his hand. Helenus clasps it, laughing in embarrassment at his weakness, and lets himself be hauled onto dry land. Breathless from the effort, he rests his hands on his knees. He’s very dark-skinned with a lot of hair on his legs that the water’s swirled into half-moons and circles, rather like the pattern seaweed makes on rocks. Exactly like the patterns some kinds of seaweed make on rocks. Somehow, seeing that similarity clears a space in Pyrrhus’s head and he begins to relax, to open up a little.
“They do look a lot better.” A ridiculous comment, since it’s the first time he’s seen them. Nothing he says seems to come out right.
“I’m walking a bit better.” Helenus looks out to sea and then back at Pyrrhus. “Are you going to swim?”
“No, I think I’ll give it a miss.”
“Very wise.” A slight hesitation. “Big day tomorrow.”
Trying to keep his voice neutral, Pyrrhus says: “You must be pleased.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“I don’t need a Trojan to—” He bites the words back. “It isn’t easy, you know, being Achilles’s son.”
Helenus snorts. “You think it’s easy being Priam’s son? At least you didn’t betray your father.”
“Didn’t get the chance, did I? Never met the fucker.” But that’s altogether too brutal, too honest; it frightens him back into his cave. “I’d better be going. There’s a lot to do still.”
Pyrrhus picks up his tunic and sandals and starts to walk past Helenus, who puts a hand on his chest to stop him.
“I’m sorry about the horse. They were a great team.”
Bugger the team. It’s Ebony. The pain’s unbearable. He nods brusquely and strides off, though he’s only gone a few yards when Helenus calls after him: “When great Achilles was alive, he defied even the gods.”
Not bothering to turn round, Pyrrhus shouts over his shoulder: “How would you know?”
“Everybody knows.”
Pyrrhus just shakes his head and walks faster. He has to get away from the sea and the sand and the drifting black clouds that are making a widow of the moon, back into his world: straw and hay, smells of leather and saddle soap, the warmth of Ebony’s shoulder, the strong curve of his neck. Reaching the stables, he finds them deserted. Where are all the grooms? Up on the headland probably. All of them? How many men does it take to build a funeral pyre? Only it won’t be the building that’s taking the time, it’ll be the hauling of the logs. He notices the carthorses’ stalls are empty. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that the men aren’t here; the horses have been fed and watered, they’re all settled for the night—and he’d rather be alone anyway. Though even as he thinks that, the idiot boy comes rushing out of the tack room, spit flying, stuttering his eagerness to help. Pyrrhus waves him away and walks along the row of stalls. Ebony whickers a greeting. Pyrrhus selects a few wizened apples from a bag by the door, and gives one to Phoenix first, as always pretending an equality of love he doesn’t feel. It’s a mystery why some horses are special, and others not. Rufus was. Ebony is.
Crossing the narrow aisle, he holds out an apple on the palm of his hand and gently, delicately, Ebony takes it. Much chewing, a foam of green saliva at the corners of his mouth, followed by several nods and shakes of the great head: More! “Just one, then, but that’s the last. You’ve got your hay.” There can’t be too many extra treats, because Ebony’s routine must be kept as normal as possible right up to the moment Pyrrhus raises the sword. Ebony mouths the next apple off his palm. There’s green slobber all over Pyrrhus’s fingers now; he wipes it off on the side of his tunic, picks up a handful of clean straw and begins to rub Ebony down. It’s not necessary—Ebony’s coat gleams, as it always does—he’s better looked after than many a child—but Pyrrhus enjoys doing it. His body bends into the strokes and he gives himself up to the pleasure. Something hypnotic about this; Ebony feels it too—little twitches and flickers run across his skin. He doesn’t regret the past or dread the future, but at the back of Pyrrhus’s mind, there’s always the thought of what the morning will bring.
Only hours left now.
Even as he runs his hand over Ebony’s neck, he’s estimating the precise angle and force of the cut—because this time there mustn’t be any shameful, cack-handed bungling. Ebony mustn’t die the way Priam died.
At last Pyrrhus throws down the straw and stands back. He’d like to spend the night in the stables, to sit with his back against the wall and snatch whatever sleep he can, but he can’t let himself do it. He needs to be rested and Ebony needs his normal routine. Tomorrow morning, early, he’ll come and supervise the making of the drugged mash, though he does wonder whether that’s really necessary. Seeing crowds of people gathered on the headland, Ebony might think it’s the start of another race? He loves racing and, because he’s never been ill-treated, he won’t be afraid, even when Pyrrhus raises the sword.
When great Achilles was alive, he defied even the gods. He wonders what Helenus meant by saying that, whether he’d really been suggesting that Ebony didn’t have to die. If so, he’s a fool. Only madness and ruin await a man who defies the gods. Achilles did. Resting his head against Ebony’s, Pyrrhus blows gently into his flaring nostrils, as once, long ago, he used to do with Rufus. “Sorry, Ebony,” he says. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I am not that man.”
* * *
——————
A few minutes later, stumbling blindly up the veranda steps to the main door of the hall, he fails to notice a man huddled in the shadows, so it’s a shock when he moves. Helenus, of course. No time for that now; no patience. “What do you want?”
“Our fathers were guest-friends. That means we are too. The least you could do is offer me some food.”
Pyrrhus, mouth already open to refuse, looks down at Helenus and sees that he’s cold, hungry, frightened and alone. Then he remembers the emptiness of his living quarters: the gibing mirror and the tongueless lyre. Really, what else is he going to do? So, he steps to one side, opens the door a little wider—and lets the future in.
33
Outside, it was dark at last. Before leaving the hut, I filled a bowl with blackberries and added a dollop of the claggy porridge the Greek fighters were inexplicably addicted to. I found Maire sitting on her bed with the baby guzzling at her breast. Helle was hovering behind her.
“Just hold still for a minute.” I crushed a few blackberries against the side of the bowl, mixed them into the grey gloop and began sticking them onto her face and chest. Not too many, but enough to persuade the curious to take a step back.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Helle asked.
“Plague.”
“Plague? Doesn’t look anything like it.”
“Have you got any better ideas?”
Maire handed the baby to me while she spread the shawl to wrap him in. I felt the warm weight of him in my arms and a slight dampness against my chest. Looking down, I saw his eyes beginning to close. Sleep, eat, sleep again. There were thin blue veins on his lids and a small grey milk-blister on his upper lip. When Maire was ready, I handed him back and felt a chill emptiness where
his warmth had been. The girls clustered round Maire to say goodbye, peering into the folds of the shawl for a last glimpse of the baby’s face. One or two of them were crying; they’d invested so much hope in that child—far, far, far too much. We all had.
When Maire was shrouded in her black robe, I told her to say a final goodbye and went to wait by the door. Andromache came over and wished me luck. I wondered if she was secretly pleased that Maire and the baby were going. The surprise, as so often, was Helle, who followed Maire and me out onto the veranda. “I’m coming,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Oh, not to stay, I know I won’t be able to stay. But there’s safety in numbers—and anyway, I’ve got this.”
She pulled back her cloak and I saw she was holding a knife—a wicked-looking thing with a bone handle and a long blade. She must have stolen it from the hall on one of the evenings she’d danced after dinner. I didn’t find the sight of it at all reassuring. Helle was strong, but no match for a Greek fighter; I thought she’d just be handing them a weapon—and she was a striking figure, likely to attract the attention of anybody walking past. I felt Maire and I would be safer on our own. But she wanted to come, and I couldn’t deny her the chance to spend a few more minutes with her friend.
“All right,” I said, reluctantly. I could see they were waiting for me to lead the way. They hadn’t been outside the hut since their arrival, except for Helle’s short trips across the yard to the hall, so they’d have no idea of the layout of the camp. “We’ll go along the beach,” I said. “C’mon, this way.”
“Where are we going?” Helle said.
“I’m taking them to Cassandra.”
“You trust her, do you?”
“No, but I think she’ll agree to help. And she does have a certain amount of power.”
I’d thought about this long and hard. Ritsa and Hecamede would have helped if they could, but realistically what could they hope to do? It had to be Cassandra.
Keeping to the shadows as far as we could, we scaled round the edges of the yard. I was tense with fear that the baby would wake up suddenly and howl. As we passed through a circle of torchlight, I noticed he was awake, but he didn’t move and he made no sound. Perhaps the walking movement soothed him, or perhaps, like so many young animals, he knew to keep quiet when there were predators around. Soon we left the torchlight and the cooking fires behind, setting off along the path that led to the beach. The moon kept disappearing behind black clouds, but the darkness didn’t bother me. This was one of the paths I’d often followed before dawn and sometimes late at night during my early days in the camp. Not usually at this time, because I’d been required to serve wine in the hall.
When we came out onto the beach, I started to relax a little, but then immediately froze because there were two men standing at the water’s edge. One of them had waded a little way in and seemed to be getting ready to swim. I heard their voices between the crashing of the waves, but I couldn’t make out the words. One of them looked a bit like Pyrrhus, but I couldn’t be certain because in the moonlight his hair looked black. I didn’t dare move, for fear of attracting their attention, but we needed to take a break anyway: Maire was gasping for breath. She wouldn’t have been a fit woman at the best of times, and she’d lost a lot of blood after the birth. Turning to my right, looking up at the headland, I saw dark shapes of men with torches moving around, their huge shadows flickering on the grass. They’d be building the funeral pyre for Priam. On my left, peering cautiously out of the shadow of the dune path, I saw the ground was clear. One of the men at the water’s edge had picked up his tunic and was striding off. After a while the other got up too and followed him.
Maire was breathing more easily now. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”
Feeling that the shore was too exposed, I led the way along the line of cradled ships that circled the bay. We moved in quick bursts, darting from one patch of shadow to the next. From the moment I arrived in the camp, the constant thrumming of the rigging against the mastheads had haunted my dreams. It struck me then as the sound of a mind at the end of its tether, but I was stronger now, and focused solely on getting Maire and her baby to safety—or what passed for safety in that camp. There were no guarantees for anybody.
As we drew level with the arena, a whole bunch of fighters, many of them carrying torches, erupted from between the ships and spilled out onto the beach. Most of them set off at a run, probably on their way to the next compound for a drink, but three stragglers happened to notice us standing in the shadow of the hulls. One of them lingered for a moment, but then shrugged and moved off.
“Hello, girls!”
The man facing me was thin, sweaty and very, very drunk. Not nasty, not threatening—or not yet. There was no way round him—no way back either. In effect, we were trapped in the narrow space between two ships. I put my arm round Maire and made a great show of supporting her. Helle did the same, but I felt her stiffen and hoped she wasn’t reaching for the knife. “We’re on our way to the hospital,” I said. “She’s got a fever. I wouldn’t come too close.” He peered at Maire, who was sweating and panting. No acting required—half an hour of floundering through loose sand had tested her to the limit. “I think it might be the plague.” Taking her cue, Helle pulled Maire’s mantle away from her face and neck, while I clutched the shawl to make sure the baby stayed hidden. Seen by torchlight, in the shadow of the ships, the purple crusts that had been so unconvincing in the hut looked absolutely terrifying. Fear of the plague was a constant feature of life in the camp; less than a year ago there’d been a really bad outbreak and most of the men would have known somebody who’d died of it then. The man stopped dead in his tracks. “C’mon!” the man behind him shouted. “Leave it.”
He turned and fled, though when he’d reached a safe distance he stopped and wished us luck. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of Helle’s knife. “Will you put that bloody thing away!”
Though I have to admit, I felt better with her there. It would have been harder managing Maire and the baby on my own. As it was, I ended up carrying the baby, while Helle supported Maire. Fortunately, we didn’t meet anybody else. We heard shouting and singing coming from men drinking round the cooking fires, though I thought they were rather more subdued than usual. Nobody knew quite what to expect the following day. At last, we reached Agamemnon’s compound. For once, I had no time to dwell on the feeling of desolation that always hit me the minute I passed through the gates. The hospital lay straight ahead, the lamps inside making the canvas glow. Leaving the others outside, I ducked under the flap and looked for Ritsa. Two women at the bench filling jugs with wine, but no Ritsa. She must be with Cassandra—I couldn’t think of anywhere else she might be.
Sounds of eating and drinking, sporadic singing, laughter and a clattering of pots and plates came from Agamemnon’s hall, but the yard outside was quiet. I knocked on Cassandra’s door. A maid answered and was obviously reluctant to let us in, but then I heard Cassandra asking, “Who is it?” I called out my name and a moment later the maid invited us in. Maire and Helle stood, uncertainly, just inside the door while I went through into the living quarters to talk to Cassandra. I found her with her hair unbound, wearing a yellow robe that didn’t suit her—and my mother’s necklace.
“What is it?” She didn’t meet my eye and I got the impression she was ashamed to be seen like this: dressed to titillate and seduce, and from sheer lack of practice not doing it very well. Of course, dinner in the hall would be over soon; she’d be expecting a summons to Agamemnon’s bed. I wondered how she felt about that. All very well to see yourself sweeping through the gates of Hades, crowned with laurels, being hailed as a conqueror by all the Trojan dead—but there was a lot of lying on her back while Agamemnon puffed and sweated on top of her to be got through first. But perhaps she didn’t mind? Perhaps she might even enjoy it. She hadn’t chosen to be a virgin pries
tess; Hecuba had made that choice on her behalf.
I was about to explain why I was there, when Ritsa, who must have heard my voice, came in carrying a diadem and veil. Cassandra snapped at her to put them down. “Well?” she said, turning back to me. “What can I do for you?” Her tone was only just not hostile.
I explained the problem and, thinking that the baby might be his own best advocate, called for Maire and Helle to come in. Maire had tried to rub off the blackberry “sores” and so her face was now entirely purple. Helle was looking truculent. Cassandra glanced at them, placing them instantly in a category far beneath her notice. Maire pushed the folds of her shawl away from the baby’s face, obviously thinking the sight of him might move Cassandra to pity. Her gaze did flicker across him—briefly—but her expression was difficult to read. She must have given up hope of motherhood years ago—and since she obviously believed her prophecy that she and Agamemnon were soon to die, there was no prospect of it in the future either. What could a baby be to her other than a source of pain and, perhaps, regret? I thought it might even harden her against us. But, in fact, she simply turned away, picked up the diadem and began fiddling with it, distractedly. “Oh, well,” she said, at last. “I suppose she could work in the kitchen.” She looked at Ritsa. “Will you see to it?”
Ritsa glanced at me and then, spreading her arms wide as if she were herding geese, swept Maire and Helle out of the door.
Perhaps Cassandra expected me to leave with them, but I sat down facing her instead. I wanted to give Helle plenty of time to say goodbye to her friend. I waited till I heard the front door close. “You don’t serve wine at dinner, then?”
“I’m his wife.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said. “Quite different.”
There we were, two women who’d shared Agamemnon’s bed. We had to talk, because good manners required it, but the conversation merely limped along, weighed down by the things we were not saying. She couldn’t bring herself to look at me. I doubt if Cassandra had ever had an intimate conversation with another woman. At last, after an awkward pause, she said: “What was it like for you?”
