Aerne shrank away from her wandering hand, concerned. “I have heard of this Troy from the traders who come to buy our copper and tin. Troy was attacked and ravaged, as you say. What manner of protection is this Troy Game then, if Troy itself lies destroyed?”
Genvissa sighed. “Have you not been listening to me, old man? Troy was destroyed many generations ago—Brutus’ line has been wandering seeking a home ever since. Long ago there were many Kingmen, men who knew how to manipulate the Game and who knew how to unravel the spell-weaving that protected any given land or city. Troy’s Game was unravelled by a man called Achilles, who knew the means by which to dispel the magical protection that hung about the city. But Achilles is long dead, as is his line. Every other Aegean Kingman and their lines are dead, save for the Trojan kingline. This Brutus is the only man left who can weave the enchantments needed to resurrect the Game. The only one. There is no one who can unravel the Game this Brutus and I will build to protect Llangarlia, Aerne. No one.”
No one, she repeated in her mind, and smiled at the thought of useless, feeble Asterion raging far beyond the peaks of the great Himalayas.
The instant I close the Game with Brutus, Asterion will be trapped. There is no need to worry about Asterion. No need at all.
In his distant alpine valley, deep within the dark heart of his roughly drawn labyrinth, Asterion lowered his head, and smiled.
Power throbbed about him, so virulent it had devastated the entire valley of all life. One day…
“One day!” whispered Asterion.
…he would fling that power at Genvissa and all her hopes and plans and ambitions.
Meanwhile, all he had to do was sit, and observe.
CHAPTER TEN
Mesopotama
CORNELIA SPEAKS
Ishifted slightly, turning my shoulder just so, knowing that the movement caused my breasts to catch the morning light as it flooded through the windows of the megaron. I had dressed carefully that morning, donning the stiffest and thickest of my flounced ankle-length skirts, knowing that their swaying as I moved drew the eye to my hips. I had begged my nurse, Tavia, to tighten my wide, embroidered girdle an extra notch so that my waist narrowed to the span of a man’s hands. And above my narrow waist and my sweeping flounced skirts I donned the very best of my jackets, its stiffened emerald linen fitting tightly to my form. I had tied only its bottom two laces, leaving the rest of the jacket open to frame my breasts, as I was allowed to do as an unmarried woman. My hair, although not as glorious as that of some women’s, was nonetheless left to curl and drape over my shoulders most becomingly. I looked my absolute best that morning and, from the admiring glances that fell my way, I knew I was not the only one to think so.
Every man in the megaron who saw me lusted for me. Even my own father, I think, for I saw the tip of his tongue moisten his lips as his eyes lingered on my breasts. It was not unknown for a king to take his own daughter to wife, especially when she was his only heir, but if my father had thoughts in that direction, then I should shortly disabuse him of them. There was only one man I wanted, and that was my cousin Melanthus.
Eight paces away, Melanthus’ mouth lifted in a knowing smile as he beheld me, and he shifted, aroused.
He would be mine within the week. I knew it.
Suddenly happy, I relaxed, slipping away from my provocative pose. My mind slipped into one of my frequent fantasies about my life with Melanthus: the long, hot nights spent in wild abandon in our bed; the children I would bear him (many strong and courageous sons…I would not waste his time nor my strength on mere daughters); the extravagant feasts and celebrations we would preside over when he was my consort; the epic poems Melanthus would compose in my honour; the…
“What is this?”
So startled I could not repress a small jump, I looked to my father, Pandrasus. He stood before his throne on the raised dais of the megaron, one of his legs thrust back as if to retain contact with his golden throne, a piece of somewhat tatty parchment in his hand.
His shoulders were back, and stiff, as if in affront. His belly was thrust forward, as if in challenge, and his face was flushed, his eyes bright with outrage. On the wrist of the hand which held the offending parchment gleamed the thick gold and ruby bracelet of his office, a larger and only slightly richer version of the bracelet that encircled my wrist.
He looked magnificent—all the women in the chamber must have been set a-trembling, and even I felt my tongue circle about my lips in appreciation, but I managed to turn my mind away from my father’s undoubted sexual appeal (besides, what was it when compared to Melanthus’ youthful beauty and prowess?). When I was young, a mere four or five, a prophetess had said I would marry a great king and bear him many children, but that great king was surely not my father. She must have seen Melanthus…perhaps in our bed, getting one of those many children on my body.
My mind threatened to veer off towards yet another fantasy about my cousin, but then my father shouted again, and I forced my mind back to the matter at hand.
“What is this?”
Several servants cowered before my father, falling to their knees, and the soldiers about the walls of the megaron had stiffened, hands to their swords.
My father waved the parchment about, still shouting. I had no idea what it contained, but it was undoubtedly the reason my father had summoned his court early this day. I hoped it would not detain us long, for I would draw Melanthus into a private corner and test just how deep his desire ran.
I glanced again at Melanthus. I saw that he had eyes for no one else but me, and the linen of his waistcloth bulged most promisingly.
Perhaps he would be mine before the morning was out.
“Listen!” my father said, and began to read.
“I, Brutus, leader of all those who survived the fall of Troy, send greetings to Pandrasus, king of the Dorian Greeks in Mesopotama. I am come to demand that you immediately free all Trojans from your slavery, for I find it intolerable that you should treat them in any way other than that which their nobility demands. Be moved to pity them, and bestow upon them their former liberty and grant them permission to live wheresoever they please. Furthermore, as example of your grand benefice, I demand that you shall grant your former slaves the means to remove themselves from Mesopotama…five score of ships, well stocked with food, water, wine and cattle, that they might begin their new lives far away from here in grand manner. I await your decision in the forests to the east of Mesopotama, knowing that you will do what is best for your people, and your own greatness.”
I paid all this little attention. It had nothing to do with me…Melanthus was all that mattered.
My father finished with the detestable letter, then threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“I have heard of this Brutus,” he said. “Cornelia, shall I tell the court of what I know?”
Startled by the direct question, I gathered my thoughts. “Of course,” I said, “unless what you know is unseemly.”
“Oh, it is unseemly enough, but I think you should hear it.”
Somewhat interested now (scandal was always delicious), I lifted my eyebrows—newly plucked and darkened to just the right shade to complement the rich blueness of my eyes—and hoped that Melanthus was close enough to see their full effect.
“A Trojan,” my father continued, and I would have dismissed Brutus from my care instantly save that he had so impudently demanded such nonsense of my father. From the tone of his communication, one could almost have believed that Brutus thought himself the equal of my father. It was laughable. Ridiculous! I found it difficult to believe that a Trojan had found the temerity to write thus to my father. He must suffer from a malaise of the mind. I shivered at the thought of how my father would deal with him.
“A Trojan,” my father said again, his voice venomous, and spat on the gleaming floor of the megaron.
The phlegm sat there, glistening in the sun as it streamed through the windows, a fitting response to
this man Brutus’ slur.
“He is an exile, even from his own people,” my father continued. “He tore his mother apart in childbirth and then, when he was a youth of fifteen, slew his father with a ‘misplaced’ arrow. He is a man who has murdered his parents, who is condemned, even by the Trojans,” he spoke the word as an insult, “and now, having come to disturb my peace, he thinks to demand I set my slaves free! Ah!”
One of my father’s advisers, a man by the man of Sarpedon who was known for the prudence of his advice, stepped forward and raised his head as if seeking permission to speak, but my father waved him back to his place. This was no time for prudence, surely!
“Cornelia, beloved,” my father said, holding out the parchment to me. “You are my daughter and my heir. What would your answer be to this man?”
I tossed my head, enjoying the moment. My father, the mighty Pandrasus, asking me for advice when he had waved Sarpedon back. How everyone must admire me at this moment! I walked forward, my step springing, knowing how pleasingly such movement would make my loosely-bound dark curls and my ivory breasts sway and catch the sun.
I took the parchment from my father. “He is ridiculous,” I said, and tore the parchment into two, then two again, and then even again, until the thing lay scattered about the floor in tiny pieces. “He cannot know of your greatness to send such a thing. Do not our laws state,” I was showing off my learning before Melanthus at this point, “that such disrespect should be rewarded only with death?”
My father laughed, proud of me. “Well said, daughter. Shall I kill him for his impudence then?”
It was a game to me. I thought nothing of it. All I wanted was to make Melanthus smile. “Indeed, father. You are too mighty to let such impudence pass unheeded.” And, oh, Hera, how I wished in the weeks and months to come that I had never spoken such thoughtlessness.
“As my daughter wishes. There shall be a slaughter so great that when next you bathe it may be in Trojan blood!” My father laughed again, hearty and confident. “Antigonus!” he called to his younger brother (and sire of the most adorable Melanthus). “Set the trumpets a-blowing and the archers a-racing to their chariots. We shall go a-hunting this morning.”
A movement from the corner of my eye distracted me from the excitement, and I saw Melanthus approach his father, and lay a hand to his arm.
His waistcloth now lay smooth against his thighs.
Suddenly worried, I hastened over.
“Father,” I heard Melanthus say in his honeyed voice, “allow me to ride with you, I pray. I am old enough now to play at war.”
Antigonus roughed the black curls of his son’s head, considering. “Your mother treasures you, the last of her sons to remain at her side. Should I so distress her to allow this?”
“I am a man,” Melanthus growled in as deep a voice as he could manage. I would have laughed were the situation not so serious.
Antigonus leaned forward and kissed his son’s brow with soft lips. “Ah, my best beloved son, I forget that last summer you passed your sixteenth year. Very well then, this will be no more than a skirmish in any case. You may ride with me.”
Melanthus was too excited to do anything but glow at his father, but I was not so lost for words.
“Uncle! How could you risk your best beloved son this way? Surely he needs a year or so yet before he must ride to war?”
“He is a man, Cornelia,” my uncle said. “Have you not realised?”
I blushed, as I was meant to, and Melanthus laughed, and spoke to his father. “I will go to mother and tell her that finally you have allowed me to stray beyond her skirts. Cornelia, will you walk with me? Knowing mother, she will have need of a woman’s comfort at the news that her youngest son has now stepped into his manhood.”
Antigonus grinned at both of us, then walked away with a quick step to organise the raiding party needed to subdue this absurd Brutus.
“Come with me,” Melanthus breathed into my ear. “We can have a moment in peace before Tavia seeks you out for your morning milk.”
My flush deepened, but with indignation now. “I am a woman grown—my nurse does not rule me!”
“Come,” Melanthus said again, and pulled me down the corridor towards his mother’s apartment.
We never reached it. The corridor was bustling with people hastening to and from the courtyard where the soldiers were gathering, and when Melanthus pulled me into a small storeroom no one noticed.
Melanthus closed the door, and, presumably, hot both with his lust for me and his pride at going to war, thrust me against a wall and grabbed my breasts in his hands. I gasped at his daring, but then leaned in against him, pushing my breasts the more firmly into his hands and, for the first time, laid my mouth to his.
It was our first kiss, and—I must admit—it was a little more brutal and uncomfortable than I’d dreamed. His mouth crushed mine, our teeth clinked, and then his tongue was thrusting deep into my mouth. His hands about my breasts squeezed, painfully, and I felt his hips shove against mine.
I was startled at his ardour, but it was what I had wanted for too long, and so, in a spirit of great adventure, my eyes staring into his, I pushed my tongue against his.
Suddenly his hands had left my breasts and were tugging at my skirts, bruising their silk in his desperation to pull them above my waist.
I was about to lose my virginity. I was both scared and excited; this wasn’t the gentle, romantic experience I’d always imagined, and I was beginning to think that Melanthus was a little too knowledgeable for my peace of mind, but at the same time my spine felt as if it were on fire, and I had an ache deep in my belly that I knew only Melanthus could relieve.
He grabbed at my thighs, then my buttocks, and half lifted me up so that I sat against his hips.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, his voice breathless and hoarse, and, hesitating only momentarily, I did as he asked. I was trembling now and, to be honest, a little more scared than excited.
His mouth was back on mine, his tongue driving deep, and I felt the first determined thrusts of his erection bruising the delicate skin between my thighs. He pushed against me, and I screwed my eyes shut, knowing that there would be a momentary pain when he finally managed to pierce me. I sent a quick prayer to Hera, begging that the pain was only brief and more than compensated for by the wondrous sweet feel of Melanthus deep inside me.
And then, suddenly, it was all over—for him, at least. Melanthus gave a ridiculous hiccupy gasp, and I felt a warm sticky wetness flood over my inner thigh.
He sighed, and closed his eyes as I opened mine in bewilderment and with a horrible sense of failure. I might be an innocent when it came to what happened between a man and a woman, but I knew that this was not all that there should be.
I was still a virgin to start with.
My cheeks flooded with warmth (had I done something wrong? Had Melanthus not found me desirable enough?) and I placed my hands on his shoulders to push him away (all I wanted to do at this point was to pull down my skirts and find somewhere private to clean myself), but before either he or I could move the door to the storeroom flew open, and there stood my nurse Tavia in a narrow rectangle of bright light.
“Princess!” she wailed, and Melanthus dropped me so quickly my bare buttocks hit the stone floor with a bruising force. He fumbled with his clothing, but Tavia paid him no mind as she ran over to me, patting incoherently at my face and hands and sobbing something unintelligible.
I managed to rise to my feet, surreptitiously trying to wipe the mess off my thigh with a corner of my skirts as I did so. But Tavia was fussing too much, so I gave up the effort, and let my skirts drop down to cover my nakedness.
His clothes now in some order, Melanthus looked at me, his mouth opening and closing as he fought to find something to say. He gave up, gave me a lopsided grin, and fled out the door.
By this time I was so embarrassed I succumbed to a shameful display of waspishness. “Be quiet, Tavia! Do you want at
tract the entire household with your fuss?”
She did quieten, although it took her several gulping breaths to do so. She looked at me, noting well the stain on my robe. “Princess, did he…did he…?”
“Yes,” I said, wishing it were so, then decided to tell the truth. “But not in me. You may rest assured, Tavia, that I am as yet still intact. It was but play.”
There. Let her think what she would. I brushed past her and marched back to my chamber, trying to ignore the increasingly uncomfortable stickiness between my thighs and Tavia’s fussing at my back. But by the time I’d washed and changed, my good humour had returned. Melanthus did desire me. It was only my inexperience which had thwarted him.
Tonight, when he returned victorious from battle, I would ensure that I was better prepared and that we would have the time, the privacy and the comfort to more fully consummate our passion.
Tavia, unfortunately, would have to take her snores elsewhere.
I smiled, happy once more, and slipped back into my fantasies.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Brutus moved cautiously across the slope of the hill, ducking behind the trunks of the thick beech, elm and oak trees and the occasional outcrop of limestone rock that had erupted forth from the earth.
All about him, hidden within shadows and behind trees, stood still, silent men armed with swords, daggers and lances, their bodies protected with hardened leather corsets, greaves and helmets. Small circular shields were slung across their backs, ready to be pulled about and used at a moment’s notice. Their faces, as any reflective surface on their bodies or armour, were dulled with dirt.
Warriors similarly lined the shadowy spaces of the forest on the other side of the gorge. There were almost eight hundred all told, Assaracus’ men as well as Brutus’.
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