Mood Riders

by Theresa Tomlinson

  “This happens every night,” Cassandra whispered.

  “They almost sound like . . .” Myrina murmured. “They almost sound like the Moon Riders.”

  “Yes,” Cassandra agreed. “I think it is something very like.”

  As they moved closer to the sheds, a slight movement could be seen through the wooden slatted gateway. Two guards sat there, wearily playing knucklebones, ignoring the sounds that were so unexpected here in the back streets of war-torn Troy. Myrina went straight up to press her face against the wooden slats of the gates. The guards looked up at her a little uncertainly. “We ought to start to charge.” One of them guffawed. “A coin or a kiss to see the bitches howling at the moon.” But then they saw Cassandra and scrambled to their feet to bow.

  “That is the Snake Lady who brought us food,” another man whispered, roughly nudging his loud-mouthed companion.

  The joker turned serious at once and bowed to Myrina respectfully. “Forgive me, Snake Lady. I would do anything to please you.”

  Myrina ignored them as she stared through the locked gates at the rows of women, the moonlight full on their faces. They were fastened to hard wooden sleeping boards by ropes tied around their ankles, which meant that they could move very little. But still the sense of movement was very powerful. They swung their hips from side to side as one, their feet shuffling to the left, then to the right. Each one held hands with the women next but one, so that a crisscross pattern of linked arms formed in front of their bodies. Heads swung to the right, then to the left, then rolled down toward their chests and up to the right again, following the shape of a crescent moon.

  Myrina gasped. “They move and sing in perfect time,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Cassandra answered. “And look at their faces.”

  “Yes! What faces . . . rapt, serene . . . almost happy. Is this a sacred dance for them? Where do they come from?”

  Cassandra shook her head. “They hail from distant regions and speak in different tongues. This singing and dancing is a patchwork of their many traditions, but I think it has indeed become a sacred dance for them.”

  Myrina turned back to watch them again, seeing that some were pale skinned, some dark and others black as obsidian.

  “I often come down here to watch them,” Cassandra told her. “There is some strange comfort in their music and their dance. I use them in my own service each day—as many as I can. It is my way of protecting them from warriors who think they may use them as they like. I have learned that each woman brings something of her own to the dance and their ritual grows more powerful with every step and turn.”

  “Yes.” Myrina understood at once. As the Moon Riders drew power from their own dancing, so these desperate women had also found a way to give one another strength, enough to carry them through the hardships they must bear.

  “There are children here,” Cassandra whispered. “Trojan warriors and their allies use these women for their pleasure, but now the men’s bones lie charred outside our gates and the children who have survived sleep over there in the shed.”

  “Why doesn’t your father stop this?” Myrina asked sharply. “Can’t you make him stop it?”

  Cassandra flinched a little. “He thinks it is a warrior’s right. He says, ‘What else are slaves for?’”

  Myrina sighed. She knew well enough the fate of women captured in war. Hadn’t Antiope been just such a one, but she had lived with Theseus in comfort, as a captured queen, not chained to a bed board as these women were. She was filled with anger and sadness at their plight, but also with a wondering admiration at their resilience. Somehow they had found a way to survive, as Chryseis had not.

  “They must be freed.” She spoke with utter determination. “But you are right: not as prey to the Achaean wolves. We must think carefully and find a way to do it.”

  “One thing that I can do is to order one of these women to serve you as your maid,” Cassandra ventured.

  “Maid?” Myrina looked fiercely at her friend and spoke indignantly. “I have never needed a maid!”

  Cassandra put her hand to her mouth to cover what was almost a giggle, the first truly happy sound that Myrina had heard from her since she had arrived in Troy. Suddenly the weary princess, burdened with practical cares and tragedy, was gone. “Fool!” she whispered, stamping her foot, but still laughing. “You can have her wait on you or not as you wish, but this will give you a means of communicating with them and finding out more. I will send you Akasya, an Egyptian who speaks the Luvvian tongue.”

  Myrina understood then and nodded. “My brain is full of raw cotton,” she agreed. “There is so much to think about. Yes, send Akasya to me.”

  Cassandra’s laughter vanished quickly and her voice shook a little. “I will help all I can, but . . . my mind is clouded with frightening visions. I thought that Troy couldn’t suffer any more after Hector was killed, but now I see even greater sorrows to come.”

  “What greater sorrows?”

  Cassandra shook her head violently from side to side.

  Myrina sighed. Cassandra’s gift of seeing had always been a great and terrible gift. Sometimes she could put it to use, but more often the visions were unclear and her family simply thought her crazy when she tried to tell them what she saw. The shabby princess clenched her fists in frustration, then turned to rest her head against the once elegant façade of a Trojan house, a small trickle of blood running from her nose. She wiped it quickly away, but her words seemed to echo her body’s response. “There’s misery and terror in the very stone of our walls; I see our streets running with blood.”

  “Then you must escape,” Myrina insisted, frowning.

  Cassandra shook her head. “My fate is not important.”

  “Do you know it?” Myrina asked. “Can you see what is to happen to you?”

  “No . . . it’s not clear,” Cassandra replied quietly. “But I am troubled with dreams of horses. Sometimes there’s a great gray horse that gallops about our city and kicks wildly at our walls so that they begin to crumble; at other times I see a horse that is stiff like a statue and, though its legs are still, it comes toward us, moving steadily to the citadel.”

  “How can it move and be still?” Myrina’s head was aching.

  “I don’t know, but it comes on and on and breaks through our walls.”

  Myrina was so tired that her patience was short, even though she was glad to be with Cassandra again.

  “Then there is the tiny firefly,” Cassandra went on. “It flits around the Achaean tents, setting them aflame. And there is the other dream, and again it is full of horses and you, Myrina. You are riding Isatis and leading a great herd. So when you came to take the Mazagardi horses, I knew that my other dreams must speak some truth as well.”

  Myrina struggled to understand. “You always had the gift of true sight,” she said. “And Atisha swore that we should listen to you. But . . . when we took the Mazagardi horses, it wasn’t me who led them; it was Yildiz. I followed behind. Did you not see Yildiz in your dream?”

  Cassandra shook her head firmly. “No. It was you who led the way and I fear there was a terrible feeling of loneliness all about you. You were leading a great herd and yet you were somehow terribly alone!”

  Myrina shivered. “Send Akasya to me in the morning,” she cut in sharply. She suddenly didn’t want to hear any more. “Now I must rest before I fall asleep on my feet.”

  Myrina found Bremusa in her sleeping chamber, soothing Yildiz by stroking her brow. “She is in a strange, unsettled mood,” Bremusa whispered as she left to find her own chamber.

  Myrina lay down beside Yildiz and closed her eyes at last.

  “I love you, Snake Mother,” Yildiz whispered. “I will always love you.”

  Myrina smiled wearily. “And I you,” she murmured. “Go to sleep, Little Star—it has been a very long day.”

  Myrina woke with a jolt, suddenly aware that there was an empty, cold space beside her, though the morning light was
only just beginning to creep into the room. “Yildiz! Yildiz, where are you?” she called. She got up and stumbled sleepily about the room and out into the passageway. “Yildiz!” she called again.

  Coronilla came tearing up the stairway toward her with a face like thunder. At the sight of her, a terrible lurch of sickness swung from one side of Myrina’s stomach to the other.

  “I think you had better come,” Coronilla whispered.

  “What is it? Tell me!” Myrina clenched her fists tightly.

  “The princess says it is Odysseus, the Lord of Ithaca.”

  “Ah yes—he is their go-between. Has he come to talk?”

  For all that she was so wiry and strong, Coronilla’s chin trembled like a child’s. “No. He walks toward the Southern Gate,” she said. “And in his arms he bears . . . a burden.”

  “What burden?”

  Coronilla shook her head. “We have seen them from the Southern Tower. His servant leads a bay mare; it is Silene.”

  “He carries a burden? You mean he carries Yildiz?”

  Coronilla’s face was grim as she nodded.

  “No!” Myrina cried. “No!” She raised her hand and smashed her clenched fist against the limestone wall, grazing her knuckles so brutally that they started to bleed. “Yildiz! She said . . . Last night . . . Oh, how could she be so foolish?”

  “Come quickly!” Coronilla grabbed her arm. “There may be hope! Do not waste your strength on anger.”

  Myrina unclenched her bleeding fist and they ran.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Firefly

  CASSANDRA HAD GIVEN orders for the huge wooden doors of the Southern Gate to be opened and now a group of Trojan guards escorted her through the streets of the lower town. A small crowd followed the princess, curious to see what was going on. This was not the usual way that Odysseus approached the city when he wished to issue threats or agree a brief truce for funerals.

  He reached the first dusty, crumbling shacks and stood still, waiting. Cassandra went to him, Myrina and Coronilla racing after her. They caught up just as Cassandra reached the stocky figure. He hung his head, his face weary and lined, bent with concern over the small shape of Yildiz.

  “We meet again, Princess.” He bowed. “I do not think there is much hope for your brave little firefly, but I would not see her trampled beneath the feet of the Ant Men.”

  “Firefly?” Cassandra’s face contorted in sudden torment and her hands flew up to rake at her cheeks. “Ah no!”

  “She may be small, but she has the sting of a wasp. The little one snatched a brand from the watchmen’s fire and sent a hail of burning arrows into Achilles’ tents, so that half of them are burnt and his men stagger about in fury, trying to put them out.”

  Myrina pushed through the staring crowd and took Yildiz in her arms. A terrible pain constricted her throat. She tried to speak, but nothing would come, so she turned and marched immediately back to the citadel, leaving Cassandra to deal with the King of Ithaca.

  Yildiz was bleeding profusely from what looked like a spear wound to her throat, her cheeks deathly white, eyes closed.

  “Let me help carry her,” Coronilla begged, striding along beside Myrina.

  Myrina shook her head. “Run ahead!” she snapped. “Fetch water and binding cloths.”

  Coronilla said no more and broke into a run. Myrina could hear her shouting to the slaves as she leaped up the stairs.

  Bremusa and Alcibie were waiting in Myrina’s chamber with warm water and bindings and ointment, but as Myrina lowered Yildiz onto the bed she saw that her breathing was very shallow. Her eyelids fluttered and just for a moment a bright gleam of joy appeared on her face. “I got them, Snake Mother,” she murmured. Then she closed her eyes and ceased to breathe.

  “No!” Myrina gasped. “This cannot happen. No . . . it is too much.” She slumped on the floor beside the bed, unable to get her own breath, her mind spinning. There was a moment of silent disbelief, but then Bremusa stooped to rub her back, whispering comforting words. Cassandra came in, her face white and strained, eyes swimming with tears as she looked down at Yildiz’s still, small body, the worn linen sheet beneath her stained with blood.

  Suddenly all Myrina could feel was a blazing anger that shot through her whole body. “Firefly!” she screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Cassandra. “Firefly! You saw it all and you didn’t warn us. You let it happen, just let it happen!”

  Cassandra’s face became a frozen mask of horror, but she said nothing, just turned and fled the room.

  Myrina’s gang carefully cleaned the small body and prepared it for funeral rites. Myrina herself sat watching them in shocked silence, unable to move. Priam, Hecuba, Helen, and Paris all came to the chamber to pay their respects and offer sympathy. Coronilla answered them courteously through her tears, but Myrina still couldn’t speak. Gradually the heated rage began to subside a little and at last a biting, painful tenderness flooded her whole being, as she looked across at Yildiz’s white face. She got up and went to sit beside the bed, now draped in clean, worn linen, with bunches of bloodred poppies lovingly laid on the coverlet beside the dead girl. She took Yildiz’s cold hand in hers and looked for a long time into the childlike face. “She is almost smiling,” she murmured.

  Bremusa touched her shoulder. “Yes, she is smiling; we must take some comfort from that. Our Little Star died like a true Moon Rider. Alcibie says they are calling her Young Amazon in the streets of Troy, just as they did in Athens when Hippolyta was killed.”

  Later that day the serious-faced Lord Aeneas came to visit Myrina. “This little one shall have a royal funeral,” he told her. “Odysseus has sent a message that they will keep a truce while we hold our rites and build another funeral pyre.”

  Myrina shuddered with horror as she remembered the foul pit of ashes that she had seen outside the Eastern Gate. “No,” she whispered. “We cannot build her pyre there by the upper gates.”

  Aeneas bowed his head, but looked puzzled. “What else would you wish for her?”

  Myrina’s thoughts swam around her head in muddled desperation, but then suddenly she had the answer clear: “The Tomb of Dancing Myrina.” It was the mound of the ancient queen of the Moon Riders for whom she herself had been named. “That is the only place nearby that is right for Yildiz.”

  “Ah yes.” Aeneas understood. “But it is far from the citadel gates, out in no-man’s-land, close to where the warriors gather for battle. I do not know . . . but I will do my best.” He turned and left the chamber.

  The Tomb of Dancing Myrina brought thoughts of Cassandra back. Myrina remembered the princess’s strange mystical stories of when she was a young child growing up in a happier Troy. “Where is Cassandra?” she asked, puzzled. “Why is she not here?”

  The young women looked at one another, distressed and worried. Then Bremusa folded her arms and did not mince her words. “The princess fled and I’d not blame her if she never spoke to you again. You made it pretty clear, by Maa you did, that you blamed our Little Star’s death on her!”

  Myrina looked up into Bremusa’s round face and a vague memory came back to her. “I did,” she murmured, “and I was wrong; it is on my own shoulders that the blame must fall. You told me that she was in a strange mood, but . . . I was tired and wouldn’t listen.”

  Coronilla crouched beside her and stroked her arm. “Nothing could have stopped Yildiz. Not Cassandra, not you—none of us. She was secretly determined to get her revenge, carrying burning anger within her all the way from the flames of her home-tent to Troy.”

  Wearily Myrina nodded, then stumbled to her feet. “But where is Cassandra? I must put things right with her.”

  “Nobody has seen her all day,” Alcibie told her. “But there is a slave woman called Akasya who has been waiting in the passage, saying that Cassandra sent her to you.”

  “Ah yes.” Myrina struggled to clear her mind. She went outside and sure enough there was a young woman, standing erect, rough rope
links about her ankles.

  “Akasya?”

  “Yes . . . Snake Lady. I am your slave to do your bidding all through the day, but I must return to the huts at night, after the evening meal.”

  Myrina nodded. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had stood there with Cassandra watching the dancing slaves. “Where is the princess now?”

  Akasya shook her head. “I do not know for sure, but when the princess is troubled she often goes to the temple of the Trojan sun god and talks to Theano the priestess.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  “Yes, Snake Lady.”

  Akasya led the way and Myrina hurried after her. She found the princess white and trembling, deep in conversation with an older woman who wore a ragged saffron priestess’s robe. Cassandra looked up and, when she saw that it was Myrina, turned her face away.

  Myrina went to kneel before her. “Forgive me, my friend,” she whispered.

  Cassandra turned around at once and hugged her. The priestess quietly left them and they wept together for what seemed a long time. When at last they raised their heads, Myrina remembered her maid. Akasya stood obediently in the shadows by the doorway, her own face wet with silent tears.

  Aeneas greeted Myrina the next morning. “The King of Ithaca has arranged a truce, Snake Lady,” he said. “We may lead a funeral procession out to the Tomb of Dancing Myrina and there build a pyre. None of the Achaean warriors will attack until sunrise tomorrow.”

  The Moon Riders thanked him and at noon a procession headed out through the lower town, carrying the small body toward the sacred mound.

  What was left of the Trojan royal family came with them to the Southern Gate, but Priam declined to go farther, offering his apologies, uncertain that the Achaean truce would respect him and his own. Myrina was glad to leave them behind, for she felt that they had little knowledge of Yildiz. Cassandra insisted on accompanying them, and as the smaller party walked farther out into no-man’s-land Myrina saw that Akasya was there unbidden, moving determinedly behind her new mistress, keeping her distance but always there within call.