Mood Riders

by Theresa Tomlinson

  Tomi leaped to his feet. “I should be there, I should be with them!”

  Myrina struggled up, brushing grass and flowers from her hair. All the joy of last night was ebbing fast away. “Do you have to fight alongside them?” she asked.

  Tomi stared at her in surprise. “I never thought to hear you say such a thing! You cannot want a coward for a husband.”

  “I know that you are no coward,” she answered him quickly. “But . . . I have a different fight on my hands and I need you to help me. The fight that I prepare for may be just as bitter, I fear.”

  Tomi looked back again at the battle lines that were forming down on the plain below. King Memnon’s warriors were strong and muscular; moving lightly on their feet, they jogged toward the Achaean battle ranks like loping gazelles. They ran fearlessly to the fight, spears at the ready, but the Achaean lines, as ever, grew and grew. Achilles’ Ant Men, now led by his son, were smaller in number, but still Agamemnon’s forces sprawled right across the southern horizon. Up there on the hillside Myrina and Tomi could see only too well that it was once more to be an uneven fight.

  Tomi clenched his jaw. “By Maa!” he swore. “What chance have they got? I have led them to their deaths!”

  Myrina took him by the shoulders. “They have come of their own accord. Listen to me—you can make little difference in that fight down there, but a very big difference in the struggle that I plan.”

  He still looked over to the plain, but then shook his head. “What you say is true—I can do little to help them now. I will do whatever you want of me.”

  Then they turned to watch as the two sides approached each other.

  “Your brave king should have turned about and gone straight home,” Myrina whispered.

  “He could never do that.” Tomi shook his head. “He has the biggest heart of any man I know and his honor is all to him. If only I could have got him here earlier.”

  “You are not to blame for that!” Myrina told him almost angrily. “Penthesilea should have waited! Though you know I loved her with all my heart, I can still say that—she should have waited!”

  They turned and headed back to the hidden gate, walking slowly hand in hand.

  “Tell me then, what is this plan of yours?” Tomi asked.

  The battle raged all day and once again the Trojan royal family watched from the top of the Southern Tower. Tomi listened to Myrina’s plan to release the slave women and take them to safety.

  When she had finished he laughed and applauded. “So you will save their lives and find your new recruits all at once. Only my clever Snake Lady could think of that.”

  “But will you help?” she asked urgently.

  “Of course I will,” he agreed.

  “Come speak to Akasya,” Myrina told him. “She is my maid and my go-between.”

  Akasya boldly scolded Myrina for taking the risk of leaving the safety of the walls.

  Tomi laughed again. “I understand things better and better,” he said. “This woman is no slave but a Moon Rider through and through.”

  “And so are all the others,” Myrina said. “But there is one great problem. Most of them cannot ride a horse!”

  Tomi tried to listen but he could not help but be distracted by his concern for his Ethiopian friends and the battle that raged outside the city walls. By the time the sun had begun to sink in the west, Myrina was once again down at the Southern Gate with Cassandra, ministering to the wounded. Tomi joined those who went out to carry the injured back.

  King Memnon had fought fiercely, but that evening he was among the dead. King Priam wearily ordered funeral rites to be held once more, and among the miserable Trojans there was, at last, talk of giving Helen back.

  “We have failed yet again! Now Paris is dead, why should we fight on?”

  “Perhaps they will spare us if she is handed back!”

  “Will they go at last, in return for Deiphobus’s unwilling bride?”

  There were no more allies to ride to the rescue and even Aeneas, who had so bravely led the forces after Hector’s death, was voicing doubts about the sense in carrying on the fight.

  Cassandra took his side and begged her father to give Helen up. “She will go willingly enough.” Cassandra was sure.

  But her father was adamant. “To fight for ten long years and now give in—never!”

  Cassandra wept and pleaded, but he wouldn’t listen and threatened to have her locked up if she didn’t keep quiet. Myrina comforted her and begged her to help set the slaves free and ride away with them.

  Cassandra still shook her head at that suggestion. “These Trojans who are left have known me all my life; they still see me as the priestess of Trojan Apollo. I must stay here to the bitter end.”

  Myrina shook her head. “But when the Achaeans batter their way inside, as it seems they must, what will happen to you?”

  Cassandra pressed her lips together in determination. “I have plans, too, my friend. The Priestess Theano is planning to slip away to Thrace and wait in hiding there, taking Chryseis and the child along with her. Once Troy has fallen, as we know it must, the Achaeans will desert our shores for a while.”

  “But what of you, Princess?” Myrina demanded.

  “I will do my best to join my friends and travel southeast with them to the little island of Sminthe, where Chryseis’s father, Chryse, still holds out in the temple of Smintheon Apollo. At least, that is where we will try to meet up and find peace together.”

  Myrina clicked her tongue in frustration. “But you are a princess of the royal Trojan blood. You would be a great prize to Agamemnon or his brother. I fear that they may drag you away with them and humiliate you to show what great victors they are.”

  Cassandra smiled. “But you have forgotten something. You and I carry a secret that Agamemnon might value even beyond such pride.”

  “Ahh.” Myrina began to understand.

  “I can tell him that despite his great cruelty, Iphigenia is still safe. I could bear witness to his wife, Clytemnestra, and tell her that her daughter surely lives. Do you not think that he will put some value on that?”

  Myrina remembered the dark, moody face of Agamemnon as he had watched Penthesilea fight. The man certainly looked as though he bore a terrible burden. Was he eaten up with guilt? So he should be!

  Myrina had learned to take note of what Cassandra said, though she despised Agamemnon. “Will he believe you?”

  Cassandra nodded. “He will grasp at the knowledge as a drowning man grasps for a rope.”

  Myrina took her hand. “You know this?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  That night Myrina and Tomi took Isatis and Moon Silver quietly out through the hidden upper gate. They led their horses onto the hillside and then mounted, riding steadily around the jutting scars and grassland that surrounded Troy, making soft whispering horse calls. They returned before the morning light, leading six Mazagardi mares that they had found wandering, lost since Penthesilea’s battle. Some of the horses were scarred and others bore an arrow tip or a gash, but the surviving Moon Riders set to work to feed them and heal their wounds, helped willingly by the slave women.

  The next night they set out again and this time Coronilla came with them. They returned with ten horses; with the thirty they already had, they began to fill up the depleted royal stables.

  Early one morning, when Myrina was returning to her chamber still under cover of darkness, having put three fresh horses in the stable, she passed a man walking quietly through the streets. There was something about him that made her look twice: something about the thickset shoulders and stocky build was familiar. She caught her breath, then turned and followed him quietly, sure that he bore the broad-shouldered stoop and crafty face of the King of Ithaca.

  From the sure and silent way that he moved, she knew that this was not the first time that Odysseus had made a night visit to Troy. He stopped beneath an archway that was shrouded in thick climbing plants, as though waiting for somethi
ng or someone. Myrina stood still, too, and watched as from the shadows of a sweet-smelling jasmine emerged the Queen of Sparta and her elderly slave woman, Aethra. They whispered together for a few moments, and then Helen kissed the old woman and slipped away. The King of Ithaca led Aethra back down through the streets, walking slowly, matching his pace to hers. Myrina shrank into a covered alleyway as they went past. She could hear Odysseus speaking in a low voice to reassure the old woman.

  After they had gone Myrina remained hidden in the shadows, her mind racing. She could go at once and call the Trojan guards or report to King Priam, but what good would that do? Was not she herself about secret business that would not please the King of Troy, had he known of it? She was desperate to save the slave women and ensure that the Moon Riders survived. In just the same way, perhaps Helen had a right to see an old woman safely back into the care of her grandsons.

  The affair was intriguing. How many more secret plots were stirring within the walls of Troy? The war leader Aeneas seemed to have withdrawn his energy from the fight, and Myrina could not believe that such a clever man as he would stay within the walls, awaiting his fate.

  The following morning she went to Helen’s chamber, courteously asking after the queen’s health as cover for her curiosity. As she’d expected, she found Helen on her balcony, watching a good-sized Achaean ship moving out to the deeper water, where the crew set about hauling up the sails.

  “A fair wind for Athens?” Myrina whispered.

  Helen turned to look at her sharply.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Myrina assured her. “The time is coming for us all to think how best we may survive.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The Earth Shaker

  OVER THE NEXT days Cassandra sent small groups of slave women out through the upper gate under the direction of Myrina and Tomi. They took baskets and jars with them, which they were supposed to be filling with olives, apples, and berries. The excuse was believed, as food stocks were now lower than ever. When they returned in the evening with their baskets, the guards did not look closely to see what they had brought back, and nobody guessed that they’d spent most of the day learning to ride.

  It wasn’t possible to teach the women the skills of the Mazagardi, but at least they could sit astride and hold on, while the horses would obey the cries of those who were more able.

  Once or twice they wandered into the path of solitary Achaeans, who like them seemed to be busy scavenging. They usually saw them from afar and kept their distance. Once Tomi swore that he had watched a gang of them cutting down apple trees and dragging the wood away.

  As the Month of Falling Leaves came close, Priam began to look hopefully toward the colder weather. Each year the Achaean lords would withdraw and sail south to make camp on warmer, more comfortable islands, leaving only a small force of weather-hardened warriors to watch the high-walled city. Winter brought a little more liberty to Troy and the possibility of fresh supplies of fish from the Sea of Marmara and olives and grain from those small Phrygian towns that could spare it.

  But this year as the weary Achaean lords made preparations to leave, another disaster befell the city on the hill, and this one was not man-made.

  Tomi and Myrina were fast asleep when it began. The first sign was that the wooden door to the chamber started to bang, as though someone were slamming it back and forth. They woke up with a start and found that the very bed they slept in was slithering across the room. Then all at once they were rolling together across the floor. They clutched at each other. “Earth tremor,” Tomi whispered. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” Myrina shook her head, dizzy. “Don’t think so—just a bit battered.”

  They got up, still shaken, and went at once to see that Cassandra and Chryseis were unharmed. The palace stood solidly enough, but great cracks had appeared in the walls and cries of distress could be heard echoing through the corridors.

  “The Earth Shaker!”

  “The sea god is angry!”

  “Poseidon attacks us now?”

  They were in Cassandra’s chamber when they heard a terrible, heartbreaking wail. All four of them ran out into the passageway to find that the dreadful sounds came from Helen’s bedchamber. Helen clutched her head and screamed repeatedly in an agony of despair. Two nurses covered in dust kneeled before her, and laid out on the floor were the bodies of the two little sons that Helen had borne to Paris. They had been sleeping with their nurses in the children’s quarters.

  “Ah no,” Cassandra cried.

  “The walls fell down . . . the walls fell down on top of them!” the nurses cried. “We could not get in to them fast enough! It’s not our fault! It’s not!”

  Suddenly Cassandra backed away, pale and trembling, clapping her hands to her ears.

  “What is it?” Myrina caught her arm.

  “The horse . . . the horse that gallops around and around the walls,” she muttered, shaking from head to toe. “Can’t you hear it? It kicks down the walls of Troy!” Suddenly blood streamed from her nose and down her gown.

  “Get her out of here! Get her out!” Helen began screaming and pointing at Cassandra. “She brings disaster wherever she goes. She’s a witch! I swear it! She is to blame for this. Get her out!”

  Myrina grabbed Cassandra and she and Tomi pulled her away, down the passageway to her room. They made her lie down and Chryseis washed her face.

  The bleeding stopped almost at once and Cassandra quickly became calm again. Suddenly she was getting up and seemed quite in control, her voice deep and strong. “This is the moment,” she told Myrina as she struggled to her feet. “You must wait no longer, you must go.”

  Myrina hesitated for a moment, but Chryseis agreed. “This is your moment,” she said.

  Tomi frowned in uncertainty, but Cassandra took Myrina by the hand and led them all onto her balcony, which overlooked the south of the city. “Can you see it?” She pointed. “Look down there! Can you see it? By the fig tree.”

  They stared down to where she seemed to be pointing, but all they could see was a group of guards standing on top of the tower looking down at the wall. They seemed to be pointing and shouting, quite agitated about something.

  “What is it?” Myrina asked.

  “The wall is cracked from top to bottom,” Cassandra told her. “Just a little rain and a little sun and it will fall apart and crumble like a castle made of sand when they return.”

  Myrina and Tomi looked at each other, puzzled. “When they return?”

  Then Cassandra pointed out to sea, and as they turned to look they saw at once that it was dotted with Achaean ships sailing fast away from the Trojan shore, leaving behind them few tents and no cooking fires.

  “What are they doing?” Tomi asked.

  “Do they leave for the Bitter Months?” Myrina wondered.

  “Perhaps they think themselves safer out at sea than on the shaking land,” said Tomi.

  Myrina turned back to the cracked wall. It was hard to think; everything seemed to be happening at once. She could see no crack, but the guards down there were certainly disturbed and looking at something and Myrina knew better than to disregard Cassandra’s warnings. It would be hard to leave her friend, but perhaps the moment had indeed come.

  She turned to her and gripped her shoulders. “Come with us—please come with us!”

  Cassandra simply shook her head.

  “We are like the rats that sailors say will always leave a sinking ship.” Myrina couldn’t stop tears from rolling down her cheeks.

  But now Cassandra took hold of her, smiling. “How right you are! How right you are, my lovely Snake Lady. But why do rats leave a sinking ship? Because then they will not be dragged down; they will swim and have a chance to survive! Get your women and your horses and go—I shall order the guards to let them out under your direction.”

  “The princess speaks truth.” Chryseis was convinced. “Now is the moment. Priam has too many other things to worry about.”
/>   “Yes!” Myrina assented and Tomi nodded.

  “Will you travel to Iphigenia’s place of safety?” Chryseis asked.

  “Yes; will you come?”

  Chryseis shook her head. “No, but if you are willing, Theano and I will ride out with you, but then we will head for the safety of Thrace.”

  “Of course,” Myrina agreed.

  “But . . . please tell Iphigenia about my little Chryse. I plan to make us a home on Sminthe Island with my father as soon as I can, and Iphigenia will always be welcome to join us there—please tell her that! There will be a home for her on Sminthe once the Achaeans have left our ruined land.”

  “I will tell her,” Myrina promised. Then she hurried away, shouting for Coronilla. “Go at once to gather the other Moon Riders and then to the stables! Prepare the horses!”

  “Is this it?” Coronilla was wildly excited. They had longed for this moment and she was eager to put their plans into action.

  Tomi, Myrina, and Cassandra set off at once down the passageway, toward the southern entrance to the palace. They passed Helen’s room again. The door stood wide open and Myrina could not help but pause for a moment in her stride, for the sight there shocked her deeply. The nurses and waiting women were carefully washing the two poor dead children, laying out fresh garments to dress them in, but Helen sat in front of her mirror, smoothing rose oil into her cheeks. The scent of the precious oil filled the whole room and drifted out into the passage.

  The Queen of Sparta picked up a pot of rouge and a small brush and began carefully to paint her lips. She stopped for a moment and turned, aware of Myrina standing white-faced in her doorway. All trace of tears had gone and already the skillful work that she had done made her face look radiant.

  “There is nothing left here for me now,” she said calmly. “Menelaus always liked this shade of rouge and he loved the scent of roses on my skin.”