Читать книгу Electra - Kerry Greenwood - Страница 14

The bearers stopped for breath at the foot of a steep gravel path in the middle of what seemed to be a market. I looked out of the litter, in which I was tethered by a chain about my neck. A captive of Lord Agamemnon must not be allowed to escape. She might be valuable; especially if she is, was, a Princess of Troy.

The traders carried firewood and skewers of meat and sandals and tripods. I could smell dust and roasted flesh and charcoal fires, unwashed humans, pine trees, wine and amber oil. Now that the religious hush which greeted the return of the Great King had passed, the noise of the crowd hurt my ears.

I looked up to a narrow gate, surmounted with two lionesses carved out of grey granite. For a moment I flinched. The massive walls seemed about to fall and crush me. The road wound past the feet of the Cyclopean walls and curved up the hill. The bronze doors were open.

Above us the city rang with harping and singing, and some enthusiast was hooting through a bronze trumpet. Long strips of delicate weaving, blue and black and crimson, fluttered from the walls and flapped in the chill breeze. Mycenae was evidently pleased that Agamemnon was home in triumph from Troy.

I was part of his triumph. A most unwilling part.

I had seen the city - my city - sacked and burned. Agamemnon's army had slaughtered my brothers and taken my sisters as slaves. He had taken me also, disgraced Priestess of Bright Apollo, torn me from my twin Eleni, who was closer than any lover.

Agamemnon was bringing Cassandra, daughter of Priam, home to his queen and his city, to draw water for his horses for the rest of my days. I listened to the sea-sound of wind in the olives, remembering Ocean, and the buzzing of flesh-flies in the pines.

I had almost escaped. The priest of Asclepius, Diomenes called Chryse, and the Trojan ex-slave, Eumides, had fished me out of the water. Agamemnon, however, had not drunk any of the drugged wine with which I had put my ship to sleep.

We heard a bull's roar over the water, 'Find Cassandra!' I had slipped back into the ocean, to avoid compromising my friends. Even then I swam quite a way to shore before they caught me.

Chryse and Eumides had sworn, in hurried whispers, that they would follow and rescue me, but I had seen nothing of them on the long road. I did not expect help from them. I trusted their good hearts, but anything might have happened to them - storms at sea had scattered the fleet, several ships had been lost, and we had been repeatedly attacked by bandits on the long road from Navplion.

I recalled the chain of little hot lights, fire speeding across the mountains to announce the return of the Sons of Atreus. King Agamemnon had sighted them too, far out on the wrinkled sea, flat as a plate, the seamen grunting at the oars.

'There goes the message of my victory,' he said, and grinned.

I hated him. Big as a bull, strong, coarse, brutal, cunning king. He had tried to rape me the night of my recapture, but I had called on the black aspect of Gaia the Mother, the Goddess Hecate, Drinker of Dog's Blood, and the proud phallus had shrunk and fallen under her black regard, the snake-haired one.

For disgraced or not, captive or not, exiled or at home, I am still Cassandra, daughter of Priam of the Royal House of Troy, Priestess of Apollo, and I can call on the Gods. They owe this to me, who have wounded me almost beyond bearing.

Agamemnon had attempted violation again the next night, when I was seasick; perhaps he thought that I would have less power if I was retching helplessly. The other women had urged me to co-operate, saying that he would beat me, but I would not. He disgusted me, his matted chest, filthy skin still smeared with Trojan blood, and his grasping, sweaty hands.

And when he shoved me down and knelt again between my thighs to no effect, he did not beat me. He got up clumsily, made the sign against evil - and evil was certainly there in that loot-filled cabin - and pushed me out to sleep with the captives.

Thereafter he did not speak to me. If I looked at him, he avoided my gaze.

Slaves have but small triumphs.

The journey from the port was slow, because Agamemnon's treasure had to be transported, loaded on every horse and mule in the Argolid. The loot from Apollo's temple alone burdened ten ox-carts.

Oh, Ilium, all that remains of you is golden vessels and the frail flesh of your children, and how long will we last? Gold melts and flesh dies. In a generation all memory of Troy will be gone. No one will speak of it except to say, 'This was Troy, once a great city, which the Sons of Atreus destroyed because of faithless Argive Elene.'

Yet, it was not Elene. We never had her. It was greed that destroyed Troy, all its wisdom and wealth spilled on that blood-soaked plain, because the Argives did not like to pay our tolls for passing the Hellespont. Eight years of piracy and two years of siege, and now the treasuries of Agamemnon brim with our gold.

And Troy is gone, gone utterly.

Oh my twin, my lost Eleni, taken by the son of Achilles. My arms ached for him, my mind sought constantly for the spark of his mind. It was there - a flicker, just a flicker. A desperately miserable and humiliated Eleni lit a small corner of my mind. I hoped that he could not feel my rage, my burning fury. I would not add to his burdens. He was a slave and I was a slave. But we were in good company.

The women of Troy are valuable throughout the world. They call us the well-skilled women. In the baggage train there were almost a hundred of us - spinners, weavers, two jewellery-makers, a dozen house-builders and the best potters in the city. Our skills would not die, provided we were allowed to teach them to another. For we worked and moved and even breathed now at the behest of our masters, and we had not been slaves before. We talked when we could, to comfort each other. Perhaps half were resigned enough to settle in their new lives, but three had already been murdered by their Achaean masters for being insufficiently meek.

I did not hold out great hopes for the rest.

The happiest of Ilium are the dead, and there are so many dead. Hector, my brother, tall as a tree, sun-golden, with his great beard. My mother and father, my brothers, all dead, all gone. I could feel Eleni, my twin, by our God-given consciousness. He was just existing, but he was still alive, the last son of Priam.

Eleni was still alive and I was about to die.

By the God's vision I knew. I was certain. If I went up that hill I was going to share Agamemnon's death. The woman was waiting for him. She would strike once across the belly and then as the guts spilled and he bowed before her, with a skilled woodsman's stroke she was going to cut off his head.

And mine.

I heard my own dying cry and smelt blood so strongly that I choked. The water of the bath lapped like a red tide. I clutched at my throat, cleared my voice and cried, 'Stop!'

My bearers, both Achaeans, looked around inquiringly. Achaeans are infallibly curious. It is their only charming characteristic.

'Why did you say "Stop!", Lady?' one asked.

'If you take me up into the city I will die,' I said. They were sorry for me, and the left one patted my hand soothingly.

'Slavery is not good; no one desires it. But in life there is hope,' he said.

'I mean, soldier, if I go up into the Palace I will be killed,' I elaborated.

The patted me again and said, 'Lady, we are ordered to take you up into the city.'

'Listen, idiots, don't you understand me? I thought I spoke clear grammatical Achaean!' They stared at me stupidly. 'There's a lake of blood up there. I can smell it so strongly that I can hardly bear the stink. I am a Priestess of Apollo and he gave me clear sight and I tell you, the king must die - will die - I can see the manner of his death now as clearly as I see you. If you take me there she will kill me too, so put the litter down.'

'The Lady is distraught,' said one.

'Women, even priestesses, are excitable,' said the other, lifting his end of the litter so that I was flung backwards by the length of my chain.

'The Priestess is overcome by the horror of her situation,' said the first, hoisting his end to a muscular shoulder.

We jolted up the steep path to the Lion Gate and I occupied myself in prayer. Not to the new cruel Gods, Apollo or Artemis or Hera, but to the familiar Lords of my destroyed city: Gaia the Earth, Mistress of Animals; and Dionysos the Dancer. I shut off the vision of blood and recalled, instead, sitting on Hector's shoulders with my twin Eleni, hands clasped across his golden head, while he argued with a ship's crew about a missing amphora of honey from Kriti. I closed my eyes.