Sacred Bride
Page 4
We have no food – the little we had is in our packs, somewhere at the bottom of the river – but there’s plenty of water outside. Occasionally I go to the door and cup my hands until they fill, and drink. In between times, when I’m not checking on Damastor, I sit staring into the fire, my xiphos beside me, huddled in my cloak and reflecting on all we’ve gone through.
I’ve just silenced the oracle of Dodona. I don’t know how these things work, but it may never speak again. Or maybe they’ll just find other victims to wall up beneath it, and normal business will resume. Either way, I have the priestesses’ last words, and the Trojans have come all this way to Epirus for nothing. If I can survive long enough to get back to the coast and my waiting ship, this will have been a very successful mission indeed.
On the other hand, I’m now stranded somewhere in the mountains of Epirus with my most despised enemy searching for me, using who knows what sneaky sorcerous methods to track me, and I have an innocent youth to safeguard. We’re not away clean, not by a long shot.
Night is falling, and the world is turning a very sullen grey. I try and stay awake, but the gathering warmth of the fire and my exhaustion are too much for me and my eyes close…
* * *
I wake to find my cloak snatched off me and a sharp metal point beneath my chin. A mule whinnies somewhere outside and in the faint light of the embers I can see a dark, cloaked shape standing over me. I gaze up the blade, and realise it’s curved. I grope for my own sword but it’s gone.
‘Odysseus of Ithaca,’ a voice drawls, speaking Achaean in musical eastern tones. ‘Naked and at my mercy. Praise to all the gods.’
3 – Conflicting Loyalties
‘Have I missed my target, or have I struck it truly, like an archer? Or am I a false prophet, a beggar knocking from door to door, an idle babbler?’
—Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Epirus
It’s a voice I know.
‘Kyshanda?’
I go to rise, but she doesn’t move the scimitar, and I have to flop back or slit my own throat.
‘Uh, uh,’ she says, in a sultry voice. ‘Did I say you could get up?’ She glances at Damastor’s prone form on the other side of the hut. ‘Is he…?’ she asks.
‘Unconscious,’ I tell her, my mind reeling with amazement, lust, doubt and fear in equal measure. ‘Concussion… Kyshanda, what are you—?’
‘Shh,’ she purrs, sliding her left hand down her belly sensuously, though the sword blade hasn’t moved far from my throat. She’s wearing the strange attire of eastern males: tubed leggings instead of good Achaea kilts and tunics. She deftly unknots her waistband one-handed and steps out of her leggings before my disbelieving eyes, her taut, coppery legs gleaming in the light of the embers. Then she straddles my torso while I watch, too thunderstruck to move, slowly squatting over me then dropping to her knees and pressing her darkly-thatched pubis against mine.
Her angular, equine face is blessed with big, luminescent eyes that fasten on mine. She plants her left hand on my chest, giggles as she teasingly draws her sword back and forth above my throat then – to my immense relief – places it to one side and kisses me. Her mouth tastes of cloves and cinnamon. I empty my mind of the doubts that have assailed me over the last months, too overwhelmed to resist her, drinking her in while my hands grope for the ties that bind up her hair and let them loose, so that her hair cascades down on either side of her face like a lustrous shroud.
‘Ye Gods, I’ve missed you,’ I breathe, and she sighs into my mouth, grinding herself against my thickening cock. She tilts and rocks her hips, riding her moist cleft back and forth along the underside of my tool while we devour each other’s lips and tongues.
‘I’ve been dreaming of this ever since Delos,’ she answers in a whispery moan. Her vaginal opening is soaked with her juices, and my cock is now as rigid as it can get. ‘Don’t move,’ she tells me, then she reaches down, grips my penis and slowly feeds it into her hungry sheath, moaning as I fill her. ‘Stay still – let me ride you,’ she pants, sitting up on my hips and peeling her tunic off. Her breasts are small, high and firm, with dark aureoles that quiver as she begins to grind again, groaning as she rubs her clitoris against my pubic mound.
I’m more than happy to be her mount, gazing up at her in rapture as her tight belly undulates, her breasts sway and her mouth falls open, her eyes rolling back every few seconds as pleasure claims her. Her movement isn’t so much out and in, rather she contains my rod, the muscles of her vagina clenching around it, so withholding my climax is effortless. Long, long passages of bliss ensue as she builds toward release, at times catching my gaze, other times lost inside her own senses, until her movements become ever more urgent.
‘I’m coming,’ she suddenly blurts, her face going through pleasure to an agony of pent-up need. Then she orgasms, in the longest most drawn-out climax I’ve ever witnessed, her face flushing and her breath ragged then almost ceasing as she vents a drawn-out cry. ‘Urhhh… unnnn…ahhh…oohhh…’ Tears start in her eyes, running down her cheeks as she sobs and then unleashes a high guttural wail as her belly quivers and her hips spasm. I pull her shoulders down, holding her head in the nape of my neck as she convulses through her final ecstasy.
The legendary seer Tiresias, who spent parts of his life as both man and woman, told Hera and Zeus that a woman’s orgasm is tenfold that of a man; but I think he under-counted. Kyshanda’s face, as I draw it up to study it, is filled with rapture. It’s a vision of Elysium, a moment to take to my grave.
‘Now me,’ I breathe, sliding my hands down her side over silky skin, gripping her hips and then clenching my back and buttock muscles, thrusting up into her, jolting her whole body. We’re of a height, but I’m much stockier, much stronger, and I feel huge inside her. I have myself under control, enabling me to bring us both to a heavenly plateau where we linger, ready to take the final plunge.
I roll her over and enjoy the vision of her wondrous face, hair spread beneath like rays of a dark sun. Her legs lock behind my back as she opens herself wider. ‘Yes,’ she groans as I move harder and faster, plunging in and in and in, the weight of my need now flooding my loins, until I can’t hold back and expend myself in her in a series of furious thrusts, knocking the breath from my lungs. And she’s coming again, clinging to me through her pleasure.
Perfect… perfect… a dream made flesh.
Gradually we subside, moaning, sighing, kissing, and the most wonderful sense of serenity fills me, something I’ve never felt before. For a long time we’re too spent to talk, just lying there woven together as our sweat mingles. I realise suddenly that there’s tears on her cheeks and touch them with my fingers. ‘Are you sad?’ I ask. ‘Why—?’
She giggles. ‘No, my eyes sometimes leak, during a big one. I’m sorry, lover, but you need to get off me. There are stones under my arse and they’re horribly uncomfortable.’
How is it that women can be so damn practical after making love?
I slowly, regretfully, pull out of her, and she rubs her small behind ruefully, sweeps the earthen floor clear beneath her then rolls over and faces me, teeth gleaming through smiling lips. ‘Greetings, Achaean,’ she breathes, with mock formality. ‘How nice to see you again.’
‘It’s indeed a pleasure to reacquaint with you,’ I tell her, matching her manner. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Please,’ she says smugly. ‘I’m the daughter of Hekuba. I could find you blindfold in the Labyrinth of Minos.’
‘But Skaya-Mandu…?’
‘It seems he went the wrong way after he lost you in the gorge,’ she says lightly. ‘He’d forbidden me to join the hunt, of course. So I just waited in the shrine until everyone else was gone, then gave my guards the slip and set out. Our horses are not fit for such mountainous country as this, but Dodona has plenty of mules.’ She throws a glance over my shoulder, at the still unconscious Damastor. ‘Who’s that?’
‘A local guide,’ I lie. I don’t know if the T
rojans know who or what Bria is, but it’s not my secret to divulge, and for all our passion, Kyshanda is still an enemy. Officially. And, despite what has just happened, she may be my enemy unofficially as well. In the aftermath of such purity of desire, the world begins to intrude, despite my wish that it just go away and leave us to enjoy this, only our second time together. ‘Delos was the happiest day of my life,’ I tell her, truthfully. ‘And this is the best night.’
She looks pleased at that, kisses my hand then places it over her left breast. ‘My heart is yours,’ she whispers.
This should be music to me, but since we parted last, I learned something, from a source I don’t even know I can trust – the very same Tiresias of Thebes who spent part of his life as a woman. With his dying words, he told me that Hekuba, Queen of Troy, had commanded her daughter Kyshanda to seduce me to the Trojan cause. And Kyshanda has several times exhorted me to forsake Achaea and come to her homeland. That’s why I don’t know whether I can trust her, and that poisons everything. Is she driven by politics or love? Or even both – some combination that I could possibly live with? But I’ll go mad if she’s just playing me for a fool.
‘So, my lover,’ she says, as if there’s no doubt in her mind. ‘I believe you’ve silenced Dodona? As if you didn’t already have enough enemies!’
I start to tell her of the plight of the ghost priestesses, but she interrupts.
‘I know,’ she whispers, ‘and you did well.’
I’m surprised, and warmed by her assertion. We can all recognise cruelty, but so often we tolerate it when it’s perpetrated on our so-called enemies. But she’s always vowed that she wants peace between our peoples.
Albeit a peace in which Troy is preeminent.
‘I was in the upper chamber with Skaya-Mandu, when the Zeus priests realised the spirits were speaking unprompted,’ she goes on, arching an eyebrow. ‘They were speaking to you, weren’t they? I thought I heard your voice. You asked something before you set them free…?’
Suddenly I’m wary – and I wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for blasted Tiresias.
She senses my hesitation, and reaches out, mirroring the placement of my hand over her heart. ‘Look at me, Odysseus,’ she says sadly. ‘We’re on the same side, dear love.’ Then her voice rises, with increasing vehemence. ‘I don’t want a war between us. I want us to be like this, together. I want passion and madness and every curtain ripped aside and every sense explored and I want everything to—’
She stops, her voice cut off, as if she’s caught herself from falling. She’s got tears in her eyes again.
I’m reminded that Kyshanda recently spent a season serving Persephone, who’s not entirely sane. Crossing the border of life and death can distort anyone, and it makes me wonder what Kyshanda gained, and what she lost. Filled with pity, I shift my hand, placing it over the one she’s rested on my chest, and squeeze.
Maybe I’m a fool, but I believe her.
‘Yes, I questioned the spirits,’ I tell her. ‘I haven’t even had time to think about the meaning of what they said.’ It pains me to be coy about this, but dammit, I can’t say more… May Tiresias rot forever in the very lowest levels of Tartarus and may Hades conjure up the very worst torture he can devise for him… ‘What news of Troy?’ I ask her, stalling while I try to measure what I can trust her with.
She sighs, her face showing her hurt as she recognises the game I’m playing. This for that, as a substitute for total sharing. But she’s a princess, well versed in the courtly art of intrigue. ‘Troy prospers,’ she tells me. ‘Our new harbour is thriving and there are ships there all the time. My father King Piri-Yamu levies a toll and we’re richer now than ever before. The Hittite Emperor sends us felicitations, and encourages him in his efforts to strengthen our alliance. My brother Heka-Taru is currently visiting their capital city, Hattusas, negotiating a military treaty, a precursor to trade talks.’
‘And what about Trojan plans for Achaea?’
‘You know the answer to that,’ she says sadly. ‘My father the king speaks of conquest, by spear and gold. The destruction of his prospective ally, Thebes, has changed nothing. He seeks new treaties with our neighbouring kingdoms to further this. It’s a slow process – there are many ancient quarrels to overcome – but we make headway.’
None of this quells my unease. As a prince of Ithaca, whose lifeblood is the sea, for both fishing and trading, I spend a lot of time talking with sailors and sea-merchants. I know the prices as well as any merchant, and that many goods have become far more expensive since Troy’s new harbour opened, especially the strategically vital metal, tin, which is blended with copper to make bronze, the hardest known alloy and the foundation of military power. The strangulation of Achaea, long prophesised, is well underway. The only question is whether they’ll be content to slowly crush us, or whether they take the faster, more ruinous path of outright war.
‘There’s no need for either a trade war, or one of violence,’ I comment forcefully. ‘Jason – an Achaean hero – founded the tin mines on the eastern shores of the Axeinos Sea. They belong to our people.’
‘They belong to whoever can hold them,’ she counters, and though it vexes me, she’s right.
‘To attack us would be madness,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve studied how your people fight: on open ground, flat plains, chariots and light infantry. You can’t find enough flat ground in the whole of Achaea to fight like that. If Piri-Yamu thinks numbers are everything, he’s a fool.’
‘My father’s not a fool,’ she says defensively. ‘Why do you think he and Mother send us here so frequently? We’re learning you too. He knows that any invasion would be costly and difficult. But you must understand that no kingdom placed where we are, on the edge of the Hittite Confederacy, can afford to be anything but strong! You speak of plains and flat land – the hinterland, the barrier between us and the Hittites, is mountainous but the coastal plains are wide, fertile and rich in copper, gold and silver. It’s a long way for the Hittites to march an army, but not too far for an empire as strong as they are. The mountains are the only deterrent there is for them not to crush us, should they choose. The Hittites are aggressive, with designs of conquest, into even such faraway places as Egypt. To avoid being seen as tempting prey, we must grow stronger, and we can only look north and west – especially west – for new opportunities. If Achaea surrendered sovereignty to us, we could protect each other.’
It’s a depressingly familiar tale – when the Hittites are divided, as they have been in previous generations, torn by internecine fighting, we can all relax. But when they unite, it makes trouble for everyone. I’ve heard all this from merchant captains many times. ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ I murmur.
She pulls her hand away, turning a little sulky, but then she meets my eye again. ‘Parassi has returned to Troy. It’s a secret for now, but he’s going to be formally introduced to court.’
‘Parassi,’ I breathe. ‘Wasn’t he just some random shepherd?’ But I had my suspicions even when I first saw him, up on Mount Ida. ‘No, of course he wasn’t.’
My first mission in the service of Athena was to act as her bodyguard at a meeting of the gods – in which Parassi ‘just happened’ to be picked out by Zeus to adjudicate on who best exemplified ideal womanhood: Earth Mother Hera; coldly practical Athena; or sexy and seemingly-subservient Aphrodite.
‘He’s my half-brother,’ Kyshanda says meaningfully. She too attended that farce.
‘Half?’ I exclaim. Now this is news, and sharing it is a genuine show of trust from Kyshanda. ‘Piri-Yamu has a bastard he’s prepared to acknowledge? But he’s got several official wives and dozens of legitimate children!’
The fecundity of Queen Hekuba, in particular, is legendary – fifteen children and still going.
Kyshanda looks troubled. ‘No, Parassi is Mother’s.’
‘What?’
‘Every equinox, as High Priestess of Kamrusepa, our goddess of feminine magic—’
‘Yes, they are aligned in purpose if not worship,’ she replies, before going on. ‘Every equinox our queen ritually mates with the high priest of our neighbours, the Dardanians, during a secret ceremony to bless the new season. This cannot be avoided, even if the queen is fertile. She took precautions, but those failed. For a long while, Father was wrathful and wouldn’t have the boy raised among us, but he’s relented, at the behest of the priests.’
Fascinating. Has Piri-Yamu changed his mind because Parassi was singled out by Zeus on Mount Ida? ‘How will Parassi be presented to your father’s court?’
‘Mother’s concocted some impressive-sounding nonsense about omens and secret propitiations of the gods,’ Kyshanda mutters. ‘He’s older than Skaya and even Heka-Taru, and he’s a theios, of course. My full brothers despise him – he’s too pretty – and though he can shoot a bow as well as anyone, he barely knows which end of a sword to hold.’
‘And what do you think of him?’
‘I think he’s a snake.’
I guess a half-brother’s never going to measure up in her eyes, especially if there’s a chance Hekuba might somehow contrive to elevate him before Kyshanda’s full brothers. ‘Where does he fit in the succession?’ I ask.
‘In our lands, the successor can be any recognised son, nominated by the dying king,’ she replies. ‘It keeps my brothers on their toes.’ She strokes my chest and looks into my eyes. ‘I have one more, very important thing to tell you, but first… What did the oracle reveal, my darling? Surely you can remember the words, at least?’
It’s a moment of truth. Do I trust to love, or to the dying testament of the greatest prophet of the age?