Frustrated, irritable, exhausted, sick to my stomach, close to tears, I was just about to put my hands on his shoulders and give him an almighty heave—I cared not if I disturbed his sleep—when a voice spoke.
“Cornelia.”
It was barely a whisper, but I was so surprised I jumped as if I’d been slapped.
“Shush, Cornelia, do not wake your husband. This is not for his ears.”
I looked about the room, and finally saw a figure silhouetted against the open windows.
“Hera?” I whispered.
The figure walked forward, and I saw by its movement and form that it was indeed a woman.
“Hera?” I said again, although now that she was closer I saw that she did not look much like the goddess who had come to me on the blasted rock to warn me of the impending catastrophe in my life, but someone slightly younger and of a more rounded build. I thought for a brief moment it might be that smaller, darker woman I’d seen with Hera in the great stone hall, but no, this woman was far taller than she had been.
“Shush, Cornelia, and listen. Tell me, do you want revenge on that man who lies beside you?”
“Yes!”
“Then hear what I say,” the visionary woman said, “and you shall have what you want.”
She stepped yet closer, and now I saw that she had glorious black hair with a curious russet streak through it.
I wondered if she were the distant sister Hera had talked of, but, in truth, I did not care who she was. If she could give me the means to destroy Brutus, then she was all that I wanted.
“Listen, Cornelia,” the goddess said, and, bending gracefully beside the bed, began to whisper in my ear.
CHAPTER THREE
Later that morning Cornelia walked the corridors of the palace to her father’s closely guarded chamber.
She walked gracefully, unhurriedly, her head high and her shoulders back, as if she still ruled this place as the beloved only heir of its king. Her dress was meticulous: the heavy, flounced embroidered skirts that flowed to either side of her as she walked; the wide tight girdle that flattered her still narrow waist; the tightly fitted emerald jacket with its stiffened high neck and lapels that flared to either side of her breasts.
But now she wore a filmy linen blouse under the jacket that, while it revealed the bounce and shape of her breasts, hid their more intimate features. It was a wife’s dress, and those that passed her in the corridor assumed Cornelia had accepted her place by Brutus’ side.
The two warriors stationed outside Pandrasus’ door nodded her through, used to Cornelia’s visits.
She ignored them, brushing past without a glance.
Pandrasus sat on a stool by the solitary small, narrow window. It was open, revealing the bustle of the city below.
He was staring out, his face expressionless, his eyes blank.
She found him thus on every morning that she came to visit.
In the past few months Pandrasus seemed to have shrunk. He was clothed in a simple waistband and short linen waistcloth, his belly folding over the waistband in flabby folds where once it had rounded firm and proud. His arms and legs had thinned as if, having no longer the duties of kingship to support, their muscles had lost their strength and dwindled into uselessness.
His hands, dangling between his legs, quavered with a slight tremor.
“Father,” Cornelia said, drawing up a stool to sit next to him.
He turned his head listlessly. “Daughter.”
“Ships have arrived,” she said, “two nights since. Eight of them.”
Pandrasus grimaced, the only sign that he’d heard.
“Your fellow kings betray you,” she said.
“They have been paid well with Dorian jewels,” Pandrasus said. “Riches buy any loyalty.”
“Then use those riches to purchase your own loyalty,” Cornelia said, keeping her voice low lest the guards at the door hear her.
Pandrasus shrugged, turning his eyes to gaze blankly out the window once more.
“You do not have to lie each night under the weight of his body,” Cornelia whispered harshly. “You do not have Trojan sweat ground into your pores! How can you just sit there and shrug when it is I who must endure him?”
Pandrasus turned his face back to her, his eyes a little less dull than they had been. For the first time he noticed the filmy linen she wore under her jacket, and he frowned.
His daughter was proud of her breasts, and enjoyed displaying them.
Lifting one trembly hand he tugged at the linen where it was tucked into her girdle, finally managing to free it so he could pull the material towards her neck.
The material caught on one of Cornelia’s breasts, and she flinched.
Pandrasus saw her movement, paused, then raised the material more carefully.
His face, if possible, became even more expressionless than previously.
Cornelia might be his only heir, his only legitimate child, but Pandrasus had impregnated so many of his concubines that he was well used to the early changes pregnancy wrought in a woman’s body.
He lifted a finger to one of her breasts, and traced the engorged blue veins as they marred her ivory flesh.
“You are breeding to him,” he said, now cupping her breast in his hand, as if to gauge its weight and value.
“You think to blame me?” she said. “You think this my fault?” She brushed his hand away and jerked the material back over her breasts. “Save me, father, if not yourself.”
“How? How?” Pandrasus was finally roused. “Here I sit day and night cosseted about with Trojan spears. How am I to save you? Would you like me to beat that child from your belly? Throw you from this window to a final release? Is that what you want?”
Cornelia drew back from her father, her expression hard. “I need a father. I need a man who can protect me.” She tossed her head. “That is not what sits before me now.”
Colour mottled Pandrasus’ cheeks, and his mouth clamped into a thin line.
She held his stare, where once she would have looked away. “Nichoria,” she said. “If you ask Podarces of Nichoria then he will help. Remind him of the debt he owes you.”
Pandrasus looked at Cornelia carefully, both surprised and a little disconcerted at her knowledge. “The ‘debt’?” he said.
“You knew Podarces well when you were young together. You found him one day, burying his youthful manhood between his mother’s legs even as he tightened his hands about her throat. You kept your silence, even though matricide—and maternal rape—is a most unnatural offence. Podarces owes you his throne. Call in the debt.”
“How do you know this?”
“A woman came to me,” Cornelia said, her very calmness unnerving. “She said she was a goddess, and showed me the manner of Podarces’ mother’s death. She said you knew, and it was a knowledge that you should now use to throw off this Trojan insult to your kingdom and your daughter.”
Pandrasus stared, then relaxed, nodding a little. “The gods came to you, and have shown you—and thus me—the means to our freedom.” He smiled, proud of his daughter, and patted her cheek. “I will need you to send him a message, demanding his aid. Can you do that?”
“Yes!” Cornelia leaned forward, taking her father’s hands and, not even flinching at the discomfort, pressing them to her breasts in the traditional Dorian woman’s gesture of gratitude. “Yes, I can arrange that!”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Membricus?” Assaracus? How stand our preparations?”
Brutus and his two companions stood on the beach of the bay just west of Mesopotama. It had been three months since the first ships had arrived. Now almost one hundred black-hulled ships bobbed at anchor in the waters before them, crowded so closely together there was scarcely an arm’s breadth between their sides. Brutus called the flotilla his “kingdom”, for a man could step on to one of the outside ships and jump easily from ship to ship, traversing a territory of undulating wooden decks and platforms.
> “The last of the ships arrived last night,” Membricus said.
“Pandrasus said he could get no more,” Assaracus put in.
“Hmmm,” Brutus said, not unduly upset. In the past six months Pandrasus had purchased, leased, begged, stolen and commandeered virtually all the ships along the west coast of Greece, and some from even further afield. Brutus could see, even from this distance, the distinctive lines of several Egyptian merchant vessels. “What ratio war vessels to merchant?”
“Seventeen war vessels,” Assaracus said. “The rest are merchantcraft. We shall be at risk from pirates, if we sail very far south.”
His last sentence was both statement and question. Brutus had, as yet, confided nothing of his plans to any of his lieutenants. Seven thousand Trojans were about to sail into the unknown, and to an as yet unknown destination, and Brutus wanted them to do so without question.
“The gods shall watch over us,” Brutus said, then turned so he could look at Assaracus. “Remember what happened to Pandrasus and his army.”
Assaracus grunted. What had happened to Pandrasus was a fading memory, both for the Trojans and the Dorians. Brutus had established his authority quickly and cruelly within days of taking Mesopotama, and for months the Dorians had been so cowed, and so shocked, by the turn of events that there had been no resistance or questioning of anything Brutus ordered.
But now there was a growing undertow of resentment and loathing within the Dorian community. Brutus’ preparations for the outfitting of his fleet had stripped the city and its surrounding farming land of all its wealth, both food and gold. Everything Mesopotama had was being poured, both literally and metaphorically, into Brutus’ fleet. Pandrasus himself had overcome the sloth and depression which had at first gripped him and was growing more confident, more ready to express openly his contempt of Brutus and the Trojans where before he had taken the effort to veil it.
And more Dorians were following his example. Assaracus had no doubt that sooner or later their resentment would explode into violence, and an attempt to wrest back from the Trojans everything they had won.
Their departure could not be too soon for him.
“The oar crews are training well,” Membricus said.
“Good,” Brutus said, and both the men with him could hear the relief in his voice. All the ships would require oar crews to augment their sails, some forty to sixty men per ship, and much time in the past months had been spent training sufficient crews from among the Trojans.
It had been difficult. Oar crews took years to train well, and only constant voyaging hardened them into mature crews, but the Mesopotaman Trojans had scant knowledge of the sea. Instead, the men and youths pressed into service generally spent hours every day on practice platforms which had been built along the shoreline. Experienced orderers, the men who beat the time for the oars, shouted and cursed in their efforts to get the trainees to stroke together, or to learn to back water, or to dip and hold, all manoeuvres oar crews needed to learn in order to control a ship. Sails were all very well, but too often the waters of the Mediterranean lay becalmed…and Brutus did not have enough provisions to feed the entire fleet while they drifted about aimlessly.
“We must leave soon,” Membricus said, unable to stop himself glancing at the waters of the shadowy Acheron River as it emptied itself into the bay. “It is midsummer now, and we will not have many months left before the autumn storms begin to bite. No matter how enthusiastic, our oar crews are not good enough to deal with the anger of the autumn storms. When, Brutus, when?”
“Within the week,” Brutus said. “We will leave within the week.”
“Where?” Assaracus said softly.
“Artemis will guide us,” Brutus said, then smiled, as if he had suddenly realised their concern. “A day’s sail south of this bay is an island. There Artemis is waiting for me. There she will show me the path towards Troia Nova.”
He turned as if to go, then stopped as he caught sight of a figure standing atop the walls of Mesopotama.
Even at this distance he knew who it was.
Cornelia.
Beside Brutus, Membricus hissed as he, too, recognised the figure.
Cornelia moved a little, perhaps uncomfortable under the regard of the three men, and as she did so a shadow suddenly poured from her, as wine pours forth from a ewer, and slithered down the city walls and across the ground to where the three men stood.
It touched Brutus, enveloped him in its gloom, and travelled no further.
“Sorcery!” Membricus said, grabbing Brutus, and pulling him to one side.
But as Brutus moved, so the shadow moved, and Brutus could not escape its touch.
Membricus hissed again. “She is a witch, Brutus. Beware!”
“Witch?” said Brutus. “Surely not, unless hatred and scheming can brew sorcery of its own accord.” He paused, not taking his eyes from Cornelia’s distant figure. “But I do not trust her.” Again he stopped. “I have only just discovered that Cornelia has been sending and receiving secret communications from…I know not who. She uses her nurse Tavia as her messenger.”
Both Assaracus and Membricus exclaimed, and would have spoken save that Brutus continued.
“No, you do not need to say it. I now watch her like a hawk.”
“Kill her,” said Assaracus flatly.
“She carries my son.”
“Then kill her once she bears him.”
Brutus gave a small smile. “There shall be no need, I think.” He glanced at Membricus, who had long ago told him of the full extent of his vision concerning Cornelia’s death. “Tell Assaracus what you saw.”
Membricus grinned. The retelling of Cornelia’s forthcoming death was always an enjoyable experience. “She will die with a sword in her belly in the dank harbour of a peasant’s shelter the instant Brutus’ son has slithered from her body,” he said. “I have seen this.” He looked back to Brutus. “But I agree with Assaracus. Kill her now.”
“No. She carries my—”
“Brutus, listen to me. See this shadow. Do you remember, when we stood atop that hill overlooking Mesopotama, that I said I could see a darkness crawling down the river towards the city? It came from Hades’ Underworld. Look at this shadowy darkness crawling towards you now. Brutus, can you not understand what I am saying?”
Brutus glanced at his wife—she still stood, watching them, and it seemed that in that moment the shadow deepened about them—then looked back to Membricus. “No. I can’t. What do you mean?”
“Cornelia was born and raised and fed by the evil that crawled out of Hades’ Underworld down the river to Mesopotama,” Membricus said. “She is Hades’ daughter, not Pandrasus’, even though he might have given her flesh. Thank the gods we have to endure only a few more months of her.” He paused. “For otherwise, my friend, if she continued to draw breath then I think—I know—she has the power to destroy your entire world.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Deimas stood in the doorway of the bakery, watching his people bustle up and down the streets. He thought that a casual observer would believe that Mesopotama was, and had always been, a Trojan city, for it was the people of his blood who filled the streets, hastening between market and home, baths and city square, their hair now recut and partly regrown to blot out forever the signs of their slavery. In contrast to the Trojan presence, there was hardly a Dorian to be seen. Ever since Brutus had subjugated the city the Dorians had kept to their homes: silent and watching. Deimas grinned, folding his arms and leaning his shoulders against the warm stone wall of the building. Doubtless the Dorians stayed at home because they now had so many chores to occupy them. Where once despised Trojan slaves had dusted the hearth, folded the linens, and cooked the Dorians’ daily meat, now the Dorians had to do these onerous tasks for themselves.
The Trojans were free, and none had any taste for aiding their former masters in their daily grind.
Deimas suddenly caught sight of Cornelia, walking slow and heavy through
the streets. Her face was lowered, one hand was resting on her belly, her body constantly twisting and turning to avoid the Trojans who pushed heedless past her. Deimas’ smile died. Few among the Trojans liked Cornelia. Not only was she a Dorian, but she was the daughter of the hated Pandrasus. Deimas didn’t blame Brutus for taking her to his bed—she was a legitimate spoil of war, after all—but to name her his wife? Deimas shook his head. Cornelia barely spoke to anyone save her nurse, Tavia; Deimas hadn’t seen her pass more than a few words with Brutus in all the months they’d been together.
He shuddered, then grinned. Brutus no doubt didn’t require her to be particularly articulate in bed.
Then Cornelia was upon him, and Deimas inclined his head politely in greeting. Her face was red and sweating from the climb and the weight she carried in her belly, and her arms, Deimas noted, were much thinner than once they had been. Brutus’ son was draining her of all her plumpness.
Poor Cornelia, Deimas thought. Only some seven months ago she would have had a litter borne by sweating Trojan slaves to carry her to her palace in comfort. Now she was nothing but the sweating, exhausted litter for Brutus’ son.
“I am glad to see Brutus’ son grow so well,” Deimas said.
“Or daughter,” Cornelia said, stopping to catch her breath. “Who knows? Brutus may be capable of siring only girls.”
“Membricus says a son,” Deimas said mildly, watching her face and thinking that Cornelia must truly despise her husband. “All know he is a potent seer.”
She opened her mouth, but could patently think of no response. Instead, she wiped a straggle of hair from her forehead, gathered her skirt in her other hand, and stepped back into the climb.
Deimas watched her as she stepped out of view around a corner, then his eyes flickered upwards to an opened window in one of the houses lining the street.
A Dorian man was leaning out slightly, his eyes tracking Cornelia. As she disappeared, the man turned, and saw Deimas staring at him.