Mammoth Book of Best New SF 19

by Gardner Dozois

  “Before I am in torment…before I am used by those I don’t want…I want to have…” She now has this really weird expression, like longing I’ve never seen her have before. “I want to know how it would have been.”

  “What’s that, Cassie?” I say. But I know. I can smell it now.

  She rises, comes to me, puts her hands in my hair gently.

  Yes.

  “You can’t sing about the Trojans,” Keleuthetis said. He was so irritated that his voice was almost above a whisper. “The Greeks are the heroes. We are Greeks. What language is this — coming from your own mouth? How can you sing of barbarians?”

  Homer frowns to the night air.

  “What makes you even think such a thing?” his tutor persisted.

  “Shush, you two!” the ship’s governor hissed in the dark.

  Their ship had been hiding from pirates on the western coast of Lesbos since afternoon. Homer’s family was in a terrified heap beside him, but somehow he wasn’t afraid. He had just found the future and a tub full of pirates wasn’t going to shake his confidence in it. Keleuthetis showed no fear for the opposite reason — his future had nearly expired anyway.

  Homer closed his eyes as if to dream. For several nights now, since his visit to the ruins of Troy, he had been haunted by the voices he had heard.

  The wailing women of Troy.

  “I don’t want to sing just of the Trojans, but of both sides. Even in your song of Achilles,” Homer whispered, “you tell about Achilles sharing a meal with Priam when he came to pay the ransom for Hector’s body.”

  “Yes,” Keleuthetis said impatiently. “But —”

  “The Trojans must have been mighty to hold off the Greeks for ten years.

  Worthy opponents.”

  “OK. You’re a smart-assed brat, Homer.”

  “I’ve never had much to do, except think.”

  “That’s true,” said his mother in a startlingly loud voice from the nearby darkness.

  “Shh!” said the governor.

  They remained quiet for a time. All around him were warm people. Homer could hear the creak of timbers and the water lick the sides of the ship where it was held in place with the anchor-stone. He could hear the wind in the trees and far voices of people on Lesbos across the quiet stretch of water. He could hear the soft sleep-breathing of his sisters and brothers and low murmurs among the sailors.

  Homer dreamed a dream for a few moments as he lay awake. It seemed to pour into him from the cool heavens above.

  “My master,” Homer said respectfully, trying to soften Keleuthetis’s annoyance. “I want to sing about the people doing the deeds, not just the deeds.”

  Keleuthetis didn’t reply, as if considering.

  “Imagine Hector,” Homer said tentatively. “Hector the…” Homer searched for a workable handle for the greatest of the Trojan heroes. Something valiant. Something he is all the time, happy or sad. “Hector, the Breaker of Horses. He has just come back from fighting where the battle hasn’t favored them. The Trojan soldiers aren’t like regular soldiers because they are at home, defending their city. There wives and children are there. As he returns from battle, the women crowd around Hector for news of their husbands and sons but he is so sorry for the women that he just tells them to go pray. Then Hector goes to find his wife. Gentle Andromache’s not at home, she’s up on the citadel walls above the gate, because she had heard that things were going badly. He hurries through the streets back to the walls to look for her. She sees him first and is running toward him, their little baby in her arms. Hector smiles when he sees her, but she’s so fed up that she scolds him, ‘Why do you have to fight? You’ll leave me a widow and your son an orphan! Don’t you love us?’ Hector tells her that he must fight, especially when he thinks of her ending her days in slavery. If he must die fighting to prevent that, then he must. ‘People will point you out as the wife of Hector, who was the bravest in the battles of Troy. He defended his wife from slavery to his death, they will say.’ When Hector tells her these things she knows she has to accept it. She smiles even though she weeps. And Hector, the Breaker of Horses, picks up little Astyanax to give him a cuddle. But his little son is frightened because Hector is wearing his terrible war helmet. He drops his little wheeled horse and cries with fear. Hector laughs. He holds him up and says, ‘One day people will say that he was even braver and stronger than his father!’ Then Hector tells Andromache to go back to her loom and her duties, to work hard and let the men fight because they must…”

  Homer stopped.

  A man sobbed several arms’ lengths away.

  Oh. He had forgotten that the young man from the beach was aboard. Embarrassed, he waited to be scolded for his impudence.

  The governor failed to shush them.

  The weeping young man managed to say, “I never heard a truer tale, lad,” while mutterings of assent passed through the sailors.

  Homer smiled in the dark.

  There was a long pause.

  “Well?” says the governor.

  Homer wonders who the governor is after that.

  “Well, lad?” the governor said again.

  “Me, sir?”

  “Yes. So what happens next?”

  I feel that I might be in a goddess’s bed. I think that even if Priam himself were to walk into the room, I couldn’t stir, being so solid with content. Cassandra is lazily brushing my arm, her head on my chest, her face pensive in the dim light of the bedside oil lamp.

  Then I hear that sound again, the one that Leo and I heard on the wall. Digging. Many shovels hacking away at earth. It fills the room.

  I sit up. “Cassie, do you hear that?” My heart is thudding hard.

  “Yes,” she says. “Sometimes I hear their voices.” Languidly, she points up towards the ceiling by her doorway. “They’ve dug to about there now. They’re digging at the front gate as well.”

  “Who?”

  She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, Coro. Come back to me. You’ve got to go soon. Hold me before you go.”

  I am freezing cold. I snuggle down next to her again and kiss her; she is as tasty as the finest olives, as warm as solstice sun, as soft as blossoms. “I want to come back tomorrow night,” I whisper to her. “And every night for the rest of my life.”

  A wince of pain shoots through her face. She touches my chin. “OK,” she says. “That’s what I want, too.”

  But I see the dread in her eyes.

  For the first time, I understand. She has a real sight, a god-given sight, most likely. Was this the revenge Apollo had taken because she hadn’t wanted him? The air I share with her is tainted with fear, impending disaster. I feel its poison like lead in my blood.

  “Will there be a tomorrow night?” I ask.

  She parts her lips.

  I put my fingers on that parting. I don’t want the answer. She makes a kiss on my fingertips. We look deeply at each other for a moment. Above us, another spadeful of earth turns. My hairs all stand on end.

  “We have to go now,” she says. “We’ll see each other again shortly, Coro.”

  We dress silently. I am trembling, sick-feeling, cold. But why must I go, I wonder? Like the other question, I’m not sure I want to know the answer — it’s enough for now that Cassandra tells me to go. We move toward the door at the same time. Impulsively, I twist off the ring that my father, the king of Phrygia, gave me when I left for this war and press it into Cassandra’s palm.

  Her face is streaked with tears as she puts it on her finger. It looks too big on her slim hand.

  “Tomorrow night,” I say to her. “Goodnight, Cassie.”

  She smiles somehow and clings to me briefly, then lets me out of her door. The corridors are still empty, the sounds of revelry more worn and subdued than it had been when I entered.

  I run, feeling pursued by the Fates; I run for the great wooden Horse.

  The streets are quieter than they were before I went to the palace, the people now nearing exhaustion fro
m drinking, eating, laughing and lovemaking. Leo is still fast asleep on the floor where I left him; when I shake him, he rouses blearily and follows me without comprehension but also without question. I can still feel Cassandra on my skin as we trot through the narrow alleys towards the gate, where the Horse stands, its head above the rooftops. The black sky and stars say it’s late but not yet near morning. Leo and I sit in a sheltered nook in the wall near the Horse and the Scaean Gate, where we’d put up a flimsy barricade after tearing down the doors to let the Horse in.

  Leo is drunker and sleepier than me. Before I can even hint at what I’ve been up to, his head lolls to one side and he snores, so I polish off the rest of the not-very-diluted wine in the skin he had been carrying, making me completely blot to. I think I’m awake, but even while my eyes are wide open, someone steps on my face, squashing my nose, mashing my lips into my teeth, twisting a burn on my cheekbone.

  But no one is there.

  I must be dreaming, fast asleep, but feeling drunkenly awake.

  Then the dream takes a strange, unsettling turn.

  Some of our soldiers (and some of their ladies) have chosen to sleep between the hooves of the horse. No one stirs in their sleep but I hear a rustling, scrabbling sound.

  Then a door opens in the belly of the Horse.

  A voice comes out of it, a voice that all of us who have fought in the battles on the plain below know well, belonging to Odysseus the trickster.

  “Echion, for god’s sake, use the rope, you idiot!” the Ithican says.

  A dark man-shape falls out of the door, not wearing his shield but clutching it under his arm. For a second, there’s a pale flash of a terrified face in the pre-dawn gloom. Then he falls on his head and lies crumpled on the ground, his neck obviously broken.

  Then in my dream, more Greeks come sliding down a rope, swords and shields ready, slicing into our men who are just coming around from sleep. Odysseus with his red hair sticking out from his helmet. Then Little Aias and Menelaus. The women run, screeching, drenched in the blood of the men they had been cuddling.

  No one sees me or Leo in our narrow spot. But this is my dream, isn’t it?

  Out drops a newcomer to the Greek side. Neoptolemos. I hadn’t seen him up close before but, minus the nobility of expression, he’s the spitting image of his dad, Achilles.

  He has the eyes of a madman.

  The sounds of screaming and battle rise along the paths up the hill where the Greeks have swarmed. I smell fresh smoke. Some of the Greeks from the Horse’s belly start tearing down the barricade at the gate. The gate swings wide open; Greeks come trotting in like a herd of uncertain stallions.

  This is a stupid dream. I try to wake up.

  There’s no difference between waking and dreaming.

  This is real.

  I stand up, give Leo a waking nudge with my foot. We’d left our helmets and weapons up on the walls yesterday while we worked on the gate. So unarmed, I don’t know what to do. The men who dropped out of the horses’ belly are still staggering as if having being cramped inside has weakened their legs. It would be a good time to pick them off, if I had a proper weapon.

  Leo and I see the fat wife of the bronzesmith in her nightie at a doorway, her lips moving and her eyes wide. We rush her back inside and look for her husband’s weapons — I think we lost the bronzesmith in battle a few weeks ago. Leo finds an unimpressive helmet and a sword. The wife brings out an Illyrian javelin (front heavy) and a shield (too light) for me from the hearth corner.

  Outside, we can hear what seems like thousands of Greek voices, swarming from the gate, past the door, and spreading into the the town.

  Leo kills an intruding Greek in the widow’s doorway. She gibbers; as we leave, we hear her drop the bar across her door.

  I advance towards the Horse, where Neoptolemos is shouting and waving his sword.

  I’m scared. But it’s battle and I’m a soldier so I run at him, trying to think of the glory of defeating Achilles’s son. Neoptolemos has the strength of an ox and knocks me to the ground. He looks me over briefly, especially at the measly bronzesmith’s shield then stalks off.

  “Priam!” he shouts. “I’m coming for you!”

  I dust myself off. “Snob,” I mutter to his back. But without better gear, I don’t want to give him my royal credentials.

  He’s going the long way if he’s looking for King Priam. No way am I going to let that mad dog attack the king; this is probably what Cassandra knew I must do. Leo is gone and I am the only one of the Trojan side alive in sight. Another pair of feet emerge from the horse’s belly door just as I duck away from the corpses around the hooves, running through the alleys, up toward the palace.

  Turned on its head, the celebration carries on in nightmarish flavor. I hear the sound of swords on shield so at least someone was fighting back already. No matter where I look, Greeks run down narrow roads, climb through windows, crawl out of cellars.

  I pass a house where one of our soldiers (it’s the olive oil merchant’s son — I fought by his side only four or five days ago) has been pushed out the window, his throat cut, blood streaking down the wall from the window. From inside I hear a woman, groaning now with anger and shame, a Greek soldier shouting with pleasure.

  Screaming. A Greek tries to pull a baby from a young woman’s arms. She slaps at him with her free hand. Two houses down, a big gout of flame whooshes out the window, lighting the whole road. The Greek is distracted by the sight; I stick the javelin in his ear, twist it out, then keep going. I hear the sweet sound of the Greek hitting the paving stones and the slap of the woman’s sandals running away.

  I duck through the streets, over low walls, seeing the bodies of my fellow soldiers, unarmed and unprepared. Women are crying out everywhere; men are shouting; houses are burning. Two Greek soldiers walk casually, sharing a captured loaf of bread. I hide when necessary, saving myself for the defense of the palace, impatient that it’s taking me so long to get back.

  A small person and a larger, strange form scurry down one of paths behind the houses. Instinctively, I know they are not Greeks. We pass, recognizing each other in the pallid daylight.

  It’s Aeneas, hooded, carrying his father on his back with his young son, Ascinaius. Aeneas says nothing to me, but gives me a guilt-stricken glance. He is on the run, saving his family for better things than the defense of Troy.

  Zeus, help us.

  I turn a corner and the place is full of arrows in full flight. I jump back. Don’t know if they are theirs or ours; don’t want to be killed by either side.

  When I reach the palace, I see Hector’s wife, Andromache at the gates. She clutches little Astyanax so tightly he is struggling against her, but her gaze is down the road. She sees me and rushes to me, “Prince Coreobus, the King went to Zeus’s temple but look — that blood-thirsty Greek is dragging him back up here.”

  “Where’s Cassandra?” I ask.

  “At the temple,” she says. She points again. “Help the king!” she commands.

  Neoptolemos pulls Priam’s beard, sword at his ribs. I can hear the old king moaning and weeping. “I should have let your father kill me when I went to ask for my son’s body! He was a noble soul, your father! You are a pig!”

  “Shut up about my father!” Neoptolemos shouts.

  I run for him, raising my javelin, but he’s got Priam in such a hold that I can’t see a way to hack at him just yet.

  “You’re less than a pig,” Priam shouts. Then he howls when his beard is given a yank. I see now that Priam’s arm has been cut and is dripping blood everywhere.

  “You again!” Neoptolemos laughs when he sees me. “You aren’t even kitted up for a fight,” he says scornfully.

  “You would rather wrestle with an old man?” I say.

  “A king is always a prize.”

  “I’m the son of the King of Phrygia,” I say. “Fight me!”

  “Take my helmet,” Priam says to me. “I’m done. I want to die now.”
r />   But I can’t get near him.

  The two of them are struggling in a sort of dance. I don’t think the son of Achilles expected the old king to be so strong. I ready my javelin but can’t find the moment. Then Priam sees his daughter-in-law just inside the palace gates.

  “Andromache, go!” he bellows in royal command.

  “Andromache? Wife of Hector?” I see that gleam in Neoptolemos’s eye. Lust. But he proves it a deep and twisted lust. He is bored with Priam so thrusts his sword into his ribs and drops him, then pulls the dripping sword out. Neoptolemos is accurate; Priam hardly makes a sound.

  Grief bites me; he was a good and noble king and a guest-friend of my father. Seeing his eyes dull and sightless already, I removed his helmet and put it on my own head and take his sword.

  “Fight me now,” I call out.

  But Neoptolemos lurches towards Andromache. I think for a moment that this guy is too cowardly to fight but I soon realize that I haven’t had a glimpse of his madness. He snatches baby Astyanax away from her, holding the child by his ankle, then begins to swing him. It is like some dreadful playful moment as a father or uncle might do with a tiny son, whirling him round, grinning, even chuckling.

  Then he lets go.

  Astynanax is silent as he flies over the wall of the palace, down the cliff.

  Andromache takes in a breath, then sits down, her eyes wide with shock.

  I am stunned for a moment, watching this monster. Then I come to my senses and move in to attack. Still several paces from each other, we both raise our swords, his bloodied.

  Then like a flooding river bursting its banks, a stream of palace dogs, certainly possessed, bound between us. They snarl and snap and bark, leaping onto the body of Priam and tearing at the dead king with their teeth. Even Neoptolemos looks horrified.

  Then I know for certain that the gods are against us.

  With a cold dread, I suddenly remember Cassie’s words on the wall the other night. About defending her when the animal’s belly opens.

  I turn and run.

  I couldn’t save your father, Cassie, I say in my mind over and over as I run for the temple.

  Flames everywhere. People yelling in twelve languages. I see one of our guys throwing a paving block down on a Greek, hear the crunch of armor. The block bounces and the Greek is still. But then a Greek arrow finds it way up to the Trojan and he falls back inside. I see a troop of shadows, some of them only knee-high, guided by a reassuring voice saying, “This way, this way, no need to hurry. Don’t be frightened.”