I looked away. I didn’t want this child at all, let alone have it grub for sustenance at my breast.
“When you birth your baby,” she continued, her eyes watching me with a faint and highly irritating degree of condescension, “you will want to snatch it up and place it at your breast. All women do.”
“I don’t want this child!” I said, balling up a fist and striking it against my belly. “I don’t want it! I don’t want it! I don’t—”
To my shame, I began to sob again, and Aethylla sighed—again—and looked away.
Aethylla, her baby and her husband, Pelopan, were to accompany myself, Brutus, Membricus and Deimas (who showed not a single sign of grief at the destruction of the city which had sheltered and nurtured him) on a raft to Brutus’ lead ship.
Apparently, Brutus had decided that Aethylla would be good company for me.
I didn’t care one way or the other. I was weary beyond belief; both my sadness and the physical effort I had been forced to undertake in order to escape the destruction had taken their toll on me. I just wanted to sleep, and some small part of me hoped that when I woke it would be to find that this entire day had been a nightmare—that this last seven months had been a nightmare!—and I was once more home with my father and a life to look forward to with Melanthus.
Membricus aided me to the centre of the raft—I hated the feel of his hands on my flesh, but I did not complain—while some twenty or twenty-five other people crowded about me.
Brutus was the last to leap on to the raft—his energetic leap causing the craft to rock alarmingly in the water—and he shouted to the men with the poles to take us to the ship.
At this I raised my head, and looked ahead. All of the ships bar one had raised anchor and were under oar towards the mouth of the bay. The ship remaining was a sleek warship, its black hull sitting low in the water, its prow and stern curving gracefully in arcs at either end. I could see the heads of the men who sat on their oar benches, waiting for us.
I looked behind.
There was no one left on the beach. Somehow I had been so absorbed in my grief that I’d not noticed we were the very last to leave.
Something went cold and hard within me.
I was leaving. Leaving.
I cast one more glance at what was left of Mesopotama and it was nothing but a small hump of rubble that was still collapsing into itself; in a week’s time there would be nothing remaining to tell anyone that a proud and glorious city had stood on that hill by the Acheron.
Brutus had apparently seen where I looked, for I heard him say to Membricus: “Mesopotama no longer. Necropolis now, I think.”
“A fitting city for the river of Hades, my friend,” Membricus replied.
Oh, Hera! How I despised them both. I might berate myself for my part in Mesopotama’s destruction, but that did not stop me loathing those men who had pushed me to it.
The raft journey was brief, and soon we were at the ship. Most of the others boarded first, and then I had to suffer the indignity of having Brutus and Aethylla’s husband, Pelopan, lift me into the ship as if I were a loosely tied pile of goatskins.
What am I thinking? Brutus would have handled even those goatskins with more care than he did me.
I had never before been aboard one of these warships, even though many had docked in the bay of Mesopotama before. Once aboard I forgot my exhaustion for a moment to stare with some curiosity about me.
The body of the ship was open-hulled, a row of benches for the oarsmen on either side of a gaping chasm that went down to the keel. This space was now filled with people, all turning themselves around and around like dogs as they arranged their blankets in the limited room available to them. Here and there chickens squawked, dogs barked and, I could not believe it, several goats farted happily.
For one appalling moment I thought Brutus expected me to bed down in this chaos, but he put a hand to my elbow and nodded towards the back of the ship.
“There is a small cabin on the aft deck,” he said, “where I have arranged a sleeping space for you.”
I wrenched my elbow away from his hand and looked. There was indeed a small raised deck across the stern section of the ship. On this was a timber construction which may, with imagination, have been called a cabin.
There was also a rickety, enclosed affair suspended over the very stern of the ship, which I instantly realised was a means of some privacy to allow one to void one’s bodily wastes.
I suddenly realised how full my bladder was and, again, my eyes filled with tears.
Embarrassingly, Brutus had seen the direction in which my eyes had travelled, and he turned to Aethylla. “Perhaps you could assist Cornelia? The deck of a ship can be treacherous for one unused to it.”
Thus it was that I found myself being aided aft by Aethylla, she chatting all the way about how carrying a child made a woman apt to the most embarrassing urinary accidents, and, while I wanted to hate her as much as I hated Brutus, all I could feel was grateful, because I do not think I could have managed unaided on this constantly tilting footing, with my triple burdens of child, exhaustion and sorrow.
“Thank you,” I muttered as Aethylla aided me into the privy, and the woman nodded at me, as if I was a child who had suddenly decided to be good.
Later, when she accompanied me into the cramped and stifling cabin and to the straw mattress atop the sleeping pallet, she said to me: “How many months to go?”
“Two or three,” I said, lowering myself to the mattress, and sighing with relief.
And then the relief caught like stone in my throat, and dread overcame me.
I lay on that mattress all the long hours it took us to row to the open ocean and to get under way—south, from what I heard someone shout from the open hull of the ship as the crew raised the great linen sail.
I lay there as afternoon slid into night, and Aethylla brought some bread and wine for me to eat.
I lay there for hours, terrified for my life, and not knowing what to do about it.
Two or three months to go. Two or three months before I gave birth to this baby.
Two or three months to live.
I had no illusions about how Brutus felt about me. I think he hated me almost as much as I him. If he hadn’t from the first, then he most certainly did now after those viciously spiteful words I said to him the previous night. Oh, Hera, if only I could take back those words now.
If I was alive and on this ship, the only reason was because of this child.
I placed my hands on my belly, feeling the shape of the child within, and for the first time realised just how precious it was to me.
This child was the only thing keeping me alive…and when it no longer depended on me for survival then Brutus could well hand it over to a wet nurse and decide I was eminently disposable.
Maybe Brutus would not actually kill me—although, frankly, I thought he would have no hesitation in doing so—but at best I would be abandoned on some tiny atoll or barren stretch of coastline.
I remembered again, with growing horror, the words I had thrown at Brutus last night. How I’d taunted him. How, when he snatched at me as if to strike me, I’d said, “You wouldn’t dare! I carry your son. You wouldn’t dare.”
And how he had said: “Then beware of the day you no longer carry that child, Cornelia. Beware the day.”
Beware of the day you no longer carry that child, Cornelia. Beware the day.
I swallowed, my throat dry, and reached for the flask of wine that Aethylla had brought me.
She, lying by my side, her baby at her breast again, thoughtfully handed it to me, and I murmured a thank you.
I drank, then gave the flask back to Aethylla, and lay down, my thoughts racing. I had two or three months to make Brutus decide he might like to keep me, after all. I had two or three months to change the minds of most Trojans about me, for I was aware that people would realise my involvement in the debacle in the streets, and not thank me for it.
; I tried to remember if I had ever been disparaging to the Trojan slaves in my father’s palace. I’d ignored them mostly…I don’t think I’d ever purposely humiliated or rebuked one of them…but who knew what I may have said and done inadvertently that would now be used against me?
Here I was, surrounded by people who had every reason to hate me, without a single friend, and I had two or three months to make myself wanted.
I closed my eyes briefly and offered up prayers to Hera for what might well appear a stain on the memory of my father and Melanthus, and then I sat up, laying a hand on Aethylla’s shoulder to stop her rising as well.
“No, stay here, Aethylla. I have a mind to talk to my husband. There is no need for you to disturb yourself. Besides, see how peacefully your child now sleeps in your arms.”
“Be careful,” she said.
“I will be,” I replied, my voice light and, I hoped, sweet. “Thank you for your concern—for this matter, and for all you have done for me in this past day, Aethylla.”
She looked at me slyly, and then grinned, as if she knew the direction of my thoughts. I gave her an embarrassed half-smile, then heaved myself most ungracefully to my feet and made my way out of the cabin and down the narrow walkway to where my husband sat with his friends and the ship’s captain at the edge of the deck.
The night was beautiful, even I had to admit that. Moonlight dappled over the calm waters, and the northerly wind brought with it the scents of cypress and pine.
I gathered myself, wishing I had a robe other than this torn, stained thing I wore, and stopped hesitantly at the edge of the group.
“Cornelia?” my husband said, looking up at me.
The others—Membricus, Deimas, the captain, whose name I did not know, and several other of Brutus’ officers—all looked at me likewise, their faces devoid of emotion, their eyes carefully blank.
They must truly loathe me, I thought, and fought down an unwanted flare of panic.
“Brutus,” I said, then stopped, scared and unsure of how to go on.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
“I…I wanted to say to you…to all of you…that I regret my actions that resulted in…in so many people’s deaths this past day. I…I was stupid. Naive.”
“You were treacherous. Not ‘naive’,” said Membricus, his voice hard.
“Yes,” I said hastily, willing to agree with anything and everything if it would make Brutus think the better of me. “Treacherous. I…I wanted to assure you—” No, that was stupid, the wrong thing to say. “Brutus, I will not blame you for disbelieving me, but at that moment when I saw my father, and realised his death was caused from my actions…”
I stopped, lowering my eyes, feeling the terrible weight of their judgement.
“I will never be so foolish again,” I whispered. “Never.”
And with that I mustered all my dignity, and whatever balance remained to me on this rocking ship, and made my way back to the cabin.
It was not much, but it was a start.
CHAPTER TWO
They watched her walk away in silence, and remained in silence for some time after Cornelia had retreated inside her cabin.
Then Membricus spoke. “She is death incarnate,” he said. “No one can trust her. Her words are those of the viper.”
“She is a stupid young girl,” Brutus said eventually, “and perhaps her father’s death has taught her a lesson. She is without friends here, and harmless enough, surely.”
And doomed to die, thought Brutus, if Membricus saw aright. He dropped his eyes and studied his hands, suddenly sick of death.
Most of the others shrugged, the matter of little concern to them now that they had escaped Mesopotama, but Membricus looked at Brutus, and wondered.
About them, as far as the eye could see, ships sailed through the gentle waters of the Ionian Sea.
All was calm.
In the cabin, Cornelia finally slept. She dreamed, but not of the destruction and death she’d witnessed that day. Instead, she dreamed of that strange stone hall where she’d seen Hera and the small, dark, fey goddess and where she’d heard the laughter of her daughter.
In her grief and guilt, the dream gave her some measure of comfort, and she clung to it all the night through.
Midway through the next day the fore-looker standing on the platform at the stem of the lead ship gave a great shout, and pointed to the hazy outline of an island on the horizon.
“Artemis waits,” Brutus said, his voice trembling with emotion.
“Are you prepared?” Membricus said.
“Aye.” Brutus turned aside, and signalled first to the captain who steered the ship to turn direct for the island, then to the fore-looker to signal the other ships of his intent.
All the other captains had been warned of this break in their journey, and all would turn their ships after Brutus’, and anchor off the coast while he went ashore.
The captain shouted some orders, and four of his men dropped overboard a small boat made of pitch-blackened pine.
Into this they placed a beautifully crafted pottery flask of the best wine, a bag of the finest herbs, and a pitifully bleating, pure white billygoat, his legs tied together and a halter on his head.
While they readied the craft, Brutus stripped himself of his waistband and cloth and washed himself in some pailfuls of sea water. As he soaped his long curly hair, Cornelia wandered up, and sat on a barrel close by.
She eyed his naked, glistening body, but he could see no derision in her eyes. “Where go you, husband?” she said, watching as Brutus sluiced a pailful of water over his head to rinse out his hair.
Some of the soapy water splashed Cornelia’s robe, but her face did not twist in distaste as he would have predicted, and she merely lifted the sodden piece of material away from her body and flapped it a little in the air to dry it. Her eyebrows lifted inquiringly as she saw him watching her.
“The island,” he said, nodding towards it, “is a most sacred place. Artemis awaits me there. She will show me where to direct these ships.”
Cornelia’s eyes flared, perhaps in awe at his mention of Artemis’ name in so casual a manner. “You are favoured by Artemis?” she said.
“Aye.”
She smiled, a poor girlish imitation of coquetry. “But Artemis is an eternal virgin. She can satisfy no man.”
“It is not why I go to see her,” Brutus said flatly, and Cornelia’s smile vanished.
“I meant no disrespect, husband.”
He looked at her steadily. “I thought disrespect was the creed you prayed to, Cornelia. I have never had much else from you.”
She flushed, whether in anger or consternation he could not tell.
Brutus picked up a fresh waistband and waistcloth, of fine ivory linen threaded through with gold, and Cornelia—awkwardly—leaned down to pick up his discarded and sweat-stained waistcloth.
“I will wash this for you,” she said.
Now it was Brutus’ eyebrows which raised. “And you know how?”
When she flushed again he was almost certain it was because of embarrassment. “I shall ask Aethylla,” she said. “To show me the means, not to wash it herself,” she added hastily, seeing his expression.
Brutus tied the waistband about his waist, then threaded the waistcloth through from the back, between his legs, and folded it over the waistband at the front. He adjusted its folds, then slid his feet into some sandals.
“Aethylla can teach you a great deal,” he said, twisting the golden band above his left elbow into a more comfortable position.
“I know she can,” Cornelia said, dropping her eyes.
He laughed, although it was difficult to tell if there was any humour behind it. “The first lesson in the art of deception, my dear, is not to take the act too far.”
Her eyes flew up, but he had already turned away, and was talking quietly with Membricus.
Brutus dipped the paddle gently into the water, guiding the boat toward
s the small beach. His eyes were fixed on the island, his body rigid, and he ignored the ever more frantic bleating of the goat.
As the bottom of the boat scraped the sandy bottom of the small bay, Brutus climbed out, careful not to splash his clean waistcloth. He grabbed the rope from the stem and tugged the boat closer to the beach, grunting as he eventually hauled it above the high tide mark in the sand.
Once he’d secured the boat, Brutus glanced one last time at the forest of black-hulled ships standing out to sea, then turned and studied the landscape beyond the beach.
The sand rose gently for some twenty-five paces towards rocky ground sparsely foliaged with grey-green spiky-leaved shrubs which, after another thirty paces, gave way to a dark forest of pine.
Even through the thickness of the trees Brutus could see that the ground rose steeply towards the island’s central peak, which he’d seen from the ship.
He’d have a climb ahead of him.
It didn’t matter.
Brutus carefully lifted the struggling goat from the boat, untied its legs, and set it on its feet, keeping tight hold of the rope attached to its halter. Then he leaned into the boat, took the flask of wine and the bag of herbs, and carefully slung them over a shoulder.
Once he was set, Brutus gave a tug on the goat’s rope, and led it up the beach towards the forest.
He climbed upwards for what felt like hours but which, Brutus realised from the occasional glimpses he could see of the sun through the pines, was probably not much past mid-morning. The going was steep, but not otherwise difficult. No vegetation grew beneath the pines, and the forest floor was soft and thick with millennia of discarded pine needles. Apart from the occasional movement of birds overhead, there was little evidence of life. No smoke from village fires, no soft whistles from wandering shepherds, no sound of domesticated animals, not even any sound of the wildlife he might have expected in the forest—squirrels, foxes, hares.