Put like that…
The ale downed, we wind through the town, to the house of a rich man whose home has been commandeered – with compensatory payments – by Agamemnon to house his ‘guests’. As the sole woman in the Trojan party, Kyshanda has been kept isolated, and to Agamemnon’s credit, well-guarded.
Bria and I are shown into a small room downstairs, where Kyshanda mopes by a window. Her lovely, lively and sensuous face is downcast and miserable – but when she sees me it comes alive with hope.
‘Odysseus!’ She leaps to her feet and hurries toward me.
Bria steps between us. ‘Uh-uh, sweet-cakes. We’re here to talk business. Do you know who I am?’
‘You’re Bria,’ Kyshanda says warily, looking past her at me. ‘Odysseus? We have to talk.’
Bria grins. ‘Perhaps – but you and I will speak first.’ She jabs a finger into the middle of Kyshanda’s chest. ‘Lay it on the line, Princess! Were you ever sincere about wanting to prevent war between Achaea and Troy?’
Kyshanda’s narrow face lights up with urgency. ‘Yes, yes, I swear—’
Bria jabs her again, harder this time. ‘I know when people lie, bitch.’
‘I’m not lying, I’m not. I swear it’s true—’
‘Did you screw Ithaca here, because your mother, Queen Hekuba, told you to?’
‘I didn’t… we didn’t—’
Bria opens her palm as if to slap her. ‘I told you, I know when people lie!’
Kyshanda looks past her at me. ‘I swear… I do love Odysseus. My love is true…’
‘Knew it,’ Bria grunts in satisfaction, holding up a hand to prevent me from intervening. ‘But you still want to enslave our people, don’t you, Princess?’
‘No, I want peace. Honestly. I swear.’
Peace? Only on Trojan terms. I heard her say it, the other night at the secret gathering. Which she doesn’t know I overheard. The only place I could find in her love would be at her feet.
Though, maybe, she was playing a role, in the Dionysus priest’s house. If you want to be in the game…
‘So much swearing, but no cussing,’ Bria snickers. ‘Prissy, highborn bitch.’
‘That’s enough,’ I tell Bria. ‘Kyshanda, I loved you too. But our people are enemies.’
Loved… I just said ‘loved’.
She understands the implication instantly, and turns away, clutching at her face. ‘Go away, I don’t want to talk,’ she croaks, looking back at me. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. Just go.’
Bria doesn’t relent. ‘Not yet, Princess,’ she says, grabbing Kyshanda’s shoulders. ‘You say you wish for peace, but what are you prepared to do to make sure that peace is what we have?’
‘Everything!’ Kyshanda screeches, struggling helplessly in Bria’s grip. ‘Anything!’
‘Good,’ Bria rasps. ‘Because your lot have been coming to Achaea, visiting our oracular sites and learning our ways, but we know little or nothing of yours. Our traders can enter your harbour, but foreigners aren’t permitted in Troy itself. And we know nothing of what your mother, the greatest seer in Troy, is told by the spirits.’
‘I would never betray my family,’ Kyshanda says hoarsely.
‘I’m not asking you to betray your family, but preserve them, by undermining the impetus to war,’ Bria says cunningly. ‘Do you know about the Palladium?’ she asks.
I frown – it’s not a word I know. But another name for Athena is ‘Pallas’…
Kyshanda does know it. ‘It’s an idol we keep in the Achaean Shrine, a trophy of war from an older age. There are a few Achaeans living in Troy and they pray there.’
‘Aye – and do you realise that the Palladium is an idol to Athena?’
Kyshanda bits her lip, then nods. ‘Yes. But my mother says it’s powerless.’
‘Hekuba doesn’t know what it can do,’ Bria says smugly. ‘It can open the Serpent’s Path, for example. Learn to use the Palladium, and you’ll gain your very own prophesies, independently of her. And furthermore, you’ll be able to communicate with any other Athena seer walking the Paths at that time. Me, for example, or even Ithaca here – his training is coming along nicely.’
Kyshanda gulps, looking back at me, a shy hope burning again in her face.
And my heart still palpitates. Half of me only sees this wondrous, enchanting Trojan princess. But the other half yearns for a self-composed, calm, brave, resourceful woman who may well be just as impossible to build a life with.
Don’t come to me for advice on matters of love.
‘But to use the Palladium,’ Bria goes on, ‘you’ll have to pledge wholeheartedly to Athena.’
Kyshanda’s eyes widen. ‘And if I refuse?’
‘You’re free to,’ Bria tells her, in a tone I don’t trust. She’s just told her about the Palladium’s hidden powers – if Kyshanda refuses, just how important is that secret? Is it worth killing for?
Kyshanda drags her gaze from Bria’s face to mine. ‘That other woman… it was Arnacia, yes?’
‘Her name’s Penelope now,’ I tell her.
‘Penelope…’ I hate the way her face crumples as she repeats the name. Then she regathers her pride. ‘Then you won’t wait for me? For a time when peace truly reigns between Achaea and Troy?’
Dear gods, my parents have been nagging me to marry, the whole damn world expects men of my kind to do that. But the marriage she proposes is impossible, and the time she speaks of may never come.
And where once she owned my heart, now it is split in two.
‘I can’t,’ I reply, hating myself but knowing it’s the right thing to say.
Kyshanda shudders, closing her eyes and gathering her hands to her breasts. ‘Then neither can I,’ she croaks. I expect her to refuse Bria’s demands now, and damn the consequences, but instead, with a convulsive sob, she says, ‘Aye, I will swear to Athena.’ She looks up at me. ‘Please, go. I’ll do this with Bria alone.’
I want, urgently, to go to her, then think better of it. What possible good will that do? Numbly, I turn and leave the room, as a future I’d longed for, ever since I first saw her, disintegrates before me.
I know better than to look back.
But I’m also scared to look forward, to an unknown future without her. But that’s the fear I must confront.
Ithaca, 2 months later
‘Come on, you lazy prick – carve it up,’ Bria rasps, from her perch on a rock in a secluded bay some miles north of Ithaca town. It’s far enough from my father’s farm, which occupies a good part of this northern end of the island, to avoid prying eyes, but close enough to borrow the necessary equipment. She’s taken over the body of Hebea – the slender serving girl is off-duty, and probably unaware of what Bria’s doing to her – which is to fill it with more wine than is probably healthy for a teenage girl.
‘Move!’ she shouts again. ‘We need to be done by sunset.’
I have a farmer’s plough – the sort a pair of oxen would be harnessed to, to drag round a field and break up the turf before planting. I have an ox on one side of the yoke, with the other side taken up by an extremely bemused and recalcitrant ass, making the plough very lopsided. I’m steering this strange contraption up and down the beach, just out of reach of the waves. I’m blindfolded, too, just for good measure – that’s apparently to help my concentration.
Why? Because I’m learning how to prophesize. Bria says I have the gift, and what’s now needed is to find the medium for unlocking it. Some oracles use symbols on wax or parchment, to be melted or burned; others use cloud shapes or the flight of birds or pig entrails or wine lees or a hundred other routes to inspiration or madness. But after all kinds of tests and false turns, Bria’s decided that what might work for me is the sand and sea, farming implements and this peculiar combination of animals. ‘It’s because you’re an islander,’ she tells me. ‘And you don’t fit into any conventional mould. Worth a try, anyway.’
I think she just likes hu
miliating me in bizarre new ways.
‘Repeat the questions,’ her voice reminds me, accompanied by a slurping sound.
I wince and resume my low chanting, repeating over and over as I steer the plough in whatever direction feels right. ‘Will we have peace? Does Troy still plan invasion? Will the Skyfather remain true to Achaea?’ and under my breathe: ‘To which woman should I give my heart?’
It’s the latter question that’s really exercising me, because it’s one thing for my head to know that it’s over between Kyshanda and me, but hearts take longer to give up on love. Part of me still believes, with a faith that defies reason, that our story isn’t over.
There’s an afternoon sea breeze blowing, sending the occasional sharp gust to whip the sand up and sting my shins. After a while, I lose track of time and direction, walking back and forth, the two animals plodding and farting along in front of me and the plough tip catching on buried rocks and bits of driftwood. No answers are coming to me, either from the hissing waves or the whine of the wind around my ears. I’ve pretty much given up when Bria shouts, ‘Right, finish!’
I pull off the blindfold and blink at the sight: in the fading light, I see that I’ve carved line upon line of furrows in the sand and gravel, just above the water line – but the wind is getting stronger, driving the waves further up the beach. As I watch, a larger one rolls in, and the surging water covers the lines closest to the shore.
When they recede, some of the furrows have been smoothed away, while other parts remain in traces that have been distorted by the water.
I catch the shapes of three letters, in syllabic Achaean script. I cry out in astonishment. ‘Look…’ I sound it out: ‘Eirēnē: binding together; unity… peace.’
Bria comes dancing down the beach to meet me. ‘I think we’ve unlocked your prophetic gifts, Ithaca,’ she crows. ‘Ha, ha! I’m the best damned tutor in the whole bloody Aegean! You’re so lucky to have me, boy!’
I’m not sure I feel lucky, especially when she whacks me with the wineskin.
But I do feel somewhat awed, as the next wave creates an image that just might be a bridle – the Stallion restrained? And then I’m sure I see a pair of identical male faces in profile, each facing away from the other. Zeus is torn still… The danger hasn’t passed…
Bria slaps my back, snorting with delight. ‘I knew you had it in you, Ithaca!’
She thinks we’re done and turns away, so she misses the last image, which the seventh waves creates then erases: a loom – for the weavers, for the Moirae… for Penelope. My chest tightens, and I feel a painful sensation, like a needle plunging into my chest, dragging a thread of fire through my torn heart – sewing it back together. It’s not mended, but now my head is clear.
Thank you, I whisper to the spirits. Thank you.
‘Come on, Ithaca, that’s enough for today,’ Bria says cheerily. ‘Is Hebea old enough to get laid? I haven’t had a good pumping in weeks and I’m getting frisky.’
‘No,’ I tell her firmly. ‘Why don’t you sod off to somewhere else, now we’ve got this worked out. I’m sure the goats of Arcadia would welcome your company. Telmius would, anyway.’
She thrusts the wineskin into my hands. ‘Brilliant idea.’
A moment later she’s gone, leaving Hebea staring blankly up at me. ‘Oh, gods… Not again,’ she stammers, clutching her stomach. She’s looking a little sick and the wineskin in my hand feels surprisingly light…
‘It’s all right,’ I reassure her. ‘She’s left us, and we’re heading home. Nothing bad happened.’ I heft the plough and with the ox and the ass trailing behind us, we set off back to the farm.
Hebea’s anxiety subsides – she can trust me, and she knows it. After a few minutes of idle chat, she feels well enough to go skipping ahead, while I lumber after her up the hill, enjoying her giddy delight in life.
Somehow, a sense of well-being steals over me, and I indeed feel at peace.
In part, this is because a fragile truce still holds in my father Laertes’s home, where he and my mother try their best to forget her infidelity and restore the love they once had.
Peace also resides in Achaea: for now. High King Agamemnon reigns unchallenged, and his newly wedded wife Clytemnestra is already with child by him. Hyllus and the Heraclids might still be plotting vengeance, but they are quiescent for now, and every kingdom gives the High King his rightful due, from here in Cephalonia to Attica through Boeotia, Argos, Euboea, Lacedaemon, Elis, Phocis, Locris, Aetolia, Messenia, even Thessaly, and all the larger isles of the Aegean.
That includes Arcadia. Agamemnon, having thrust his new puppet Agapenor forward to gain Helen’s hand, decided he had overreached himself and resorted to the oldest trick in politics – divide and rule. He’s split the kingdom in two to lessen its power, bequeathing the west, ruled from Pisa, to Agapenor and the east to Echemus, one of his most loyal men. Tyndareus helped tie the alliance tighter by proposing the marriage of his third daughter, Timandra, to Echemus – he’s the younger, untested man and Tyndareus’s support will help him resist Agapenor if the latter becomes too feisty.
So, although no Achaean kingdom is more than a tenth the size of mighty Troy, we are many and now we’re united. The Stallion is bridled, for now.
And hopefully, peace reigns in the house of Menelaus, as he learns love with divine, damaged Helen. May they never be parted, and may the oath I made for them – ‘The Oath of Tyndareus’ – never be invoked. May Menelaus’s gentle kindness quell the venom in her veins, the thread of bitter heat she can’t control.
The Wedding of Helen is already being distorted by the storytellers into something I barely recognize. Those tale-spinners weren’t present of course, and in their ignorance of the real issues, are turning events into a predestined love affair between Helen and Menelaus. The presence of the Trojans, the near outbreak of war, even the appearance of the gods, are being glossed over or ignored: it’s turning into a golden-clad romance, and I’m happy with that. But deep down I worry that Helen still dreams of empires and vengeance. Healing her might be a lifetime’s work.
My role in these wedding stories seems to be one of comic-relief: turning up with no gifts and insisting on everyone swearing an oath while standing on a dead horse. I’m not too unhappy over that, though: better funny than dead.
I still don’t believe in Fate either, that some overarching, immutable destiny binds our every act and hope. Are the Moirae, the Fates, anything more than just another set of hungry spirits, preying on mankind’s fears? I don’t know, but they have their own priestess now. I think about Penelope every day, and wonder if she thinks of me.
I still fear for Menelaus – indeed I fear for us all. Parassi and Skaya-Mandu are not, I judge, ones to leave another’s wellbeing alone. Troy still grows fat while strangling the trade routes – grow or die, is the imperial imperative. Despite all that, I pray that peace will also reign in the giant palace of Piri-Yamu, far across the Aegean Sea. Let them grow strong, so long as their eyes no longer turn our way.
And may peace reign in Kyshanda’s heart, as I hope one day it will reign in mine.
My prayers whispered, I glance back at the sea, now far below us, as the sun goes down, setting on the westernmost kingdom of Achaea. The glow of orange and red behind the hills and limestone peaks of my small island is a sight of beauty to lift any heart. In a spirit of optimism, I pray that the gods keep faith with us, as we keep faith in them. Like for like, this for that. May they, one day, be worthy of the reverence we give.
It’s something to hope for.
Acknowledgements
Cath: Many thanks to Heather and Mike, our agents, Heather doubly so for her beta reading skills. And to the rest of the reading team – Lisa and Kerry and Paul. Extra thanks to Sofie Wigram for making sure my translations of all our Greek quotes don’t go off the rails. To Alan, my husband, for his continuing, unquestioning support. And last but not least to Canelo, Elizabeth and Patrick especially, for believing in our w
ild adventure into Ancient Greek mythos, and working hard to share it with our readers.
David: Thanks as always to our test readers Kerry, Heather, Paul and Lisa; and to Canelo for their faith in this project, especially Elizabeth for the editing, and Patrick for the awesome covers. Much gratitude to our agents Heather and Mike for putting the relationship between writer and publisher together, and their constant support and advocacy. Thanks most of all to Kerry, for putting up with having a writer for a husband, and all your support and encouragement – I love you always.
Hello to Jason Isaacs. Tinkety-tonk and down with the Nazis.
Glossary
General terms, names and places
Achaea, Achaean: The whole of Greece. While ‘Achaea’ is also a minor kingdom on the north coast of the Peloponnese, ‘Achaean’ is a common term in Homer’s The Iliad for all Greeks, who were united by a common culture and whose mostly-independent kingdoms owed allegiance to a High King. Hittite documents dating from around the time of the Trojan War refer to ‘Ahhiyawa’, as one of the great political powers they interacted with; ‘Ahhiyawa’ is now widely believed by scholars to be their word for “Achaea”.
Adonis: A wildly handsome mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite.
Arktoi: The little ‘bears’; young novices of Artemis.
Avatar: A theios or theia who has the ability to allow their god to enter them and take over their body, so that the god, who is otherwise invisible to all but the theioi, can be seen. The god may appear in the form of the avatar, or in their own mythic form.
Axeinos: The Ancient Greek name for the Black Sea; the literal translation of Axeinos is ‘inhospitable’.
Cerberus: The monstrous hound that guards Erebus, allowing the dead souls in, while keeping the living out.
Daemon: A spirit, without connotations of good or evil. The term can also refer to a lesser deity, but can also describe the major gods.
Dromas: A whore, specifically a street prostitute, from the Greek word for ‘racecourse’.
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