For the Most Beautiful (13 page)

Cassandra gleamed a smile at me, her blue eyes dancing. ‘I am sure it will make him even more certain of it.'

I took a deep breath. ‘Very well,' I said, turning towards the mirror and meeting her gaze in the reflection. ‘Then we had better begin, had we not?'

Lysianassa stepped forwards, her hands quick and deft with Cassandra's ivory comb.

I held the beautiful bronze hand-mirror to watch her as she pinned up my hair with white rock-crystal pins, then wound a golden ribbon around it and tied it at the nape of my neck. She set large spiral golden earrings inlaid with lapis lazuli from Cassandra's own jewellery box in my ears and draped a delicate gold necklace around my throat, then bent over me to outline my eyes with black kohl and paint my eyelids with blue azurite.

‘Wait,' Cassandra said, running over to her chest and opening it. She drew out a flounced skirt and bodice, both spun from rich gold thread and embroidered all over with tiny golden birds and flowers.

‘I cannot wear that!' I gasped. ‘There are Greeks outside the walls, Cassandra! I should be helping your brothers prepare for the war or – or pounding barley for the grain-stores, not dressing like a peacock. Besides, it is far too costly. I cannot wear your clothes as well as your cosmetics and perfume! They will think I am trying to look like a princess!'

She handed the gown to Lysianassa and bent down to the mirror so that our faces were both reflected in it, cheek to cheek. ‘If all goes well tonight, you will be a princess, and my sister, no matter what happens outside the walls,' she said, with a smile.

By the time I approached the doors of the Great Hall it was well into the night, and the sounds of merriment and feasting could be heard from across the courtyard. I paused. I had never worn anything so beautiful in all my life, and Cassandra had further heightened my nervousness by refusing to allow me to see myself in her hand-mirror, saying merely, ‘You will see soon enough.'

I reached down and smoothed the material, feeling the richness of the thread beneath my fingers and the tiny forms of the birds and flowers embroidered on it. My hair in its elaborate style was heavy on my head, and the scent of the perfume at my neck spicy in the evening air. I took a deep breath and stepped forwards, fear and anticipation bubbling up inside me, like a clear mountain spring.

The guards swung the brightly painted blue and red doors open and I entered the Great Hall. It was filled with low tables and cushions, benches and stools, each occupied by a noble dressed in a tasselled tunic or a white-robed priest. Slaves hurried past me, bearing gold-embossed platters loaded with roasted meat garnished with herbs, jugs full of iced pomegranate water and red wine, grapes, apricots and sweet, plump figs. The fire in the open circular hearth at the centre of the room was burning brightly, and above it a spit bearing a large boar was being turned by two young slaves.

I saw the king and queen seated on their carved stone thrones to the side of the hearth, and moved over to pay my respects. ‘My king,' I said when I reached them, bowing and touching my head to the ground. ‘My queen.'

I looked up to see Troilus sitting at the king's side with his brothers Paris, Deiphobus, Aeneas and Hector, and beside him Hector's wife, Andromache, and their son Astyanax. Troilus was gazing down at me, at my tightly laced bodice, following the curves of my body and the forward tilt of my breasts, his eyes fixed upon me like those of a sailor staring at the stars.

‘Daughter of Polydamas,' King Priam said, acknowledging me. ‘You are welcome.' There was a pause as the king surveyed me, his eyes narrowing a little as he took in my gorgeous robes. ‘Your father told me he has selected you for the position of priestess of the Great God Apulunas, and that you will be initiated in a few days,' he said.

I felt myself stiffen.

‘You are a fortunate daughter, to have a father who cares for you so well,' the king continued drily, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth. ‘Few women are given the chance to become a priestess of Apulunas.'

I bowed my head, biting my lip to prevent myself saying the wrong thing. ‘My father does his best to provide for me,' I said carefully, trying not to allow my dread at the king's words to show in my face, images of white-robed priestesses gliding in dark temples flooding my thoughts, large lonely halls and cold chambers where there was no Cassandra to laugh with before we slept, no Troilus to love, no life at all …

‘The king and I will be delighted to have such a pretty priestess serving the Great God,' Queen Hecuba said.

I bowed again, then stood and backed away from them, unable to say anything by way of reply. I sat on a stool between a noble lord's daughter and the High Priestess of Atana, and accepted a platter of crisp bread, shiny dark olives, fresh-pressed cheese and roasted boar from a slave, but all the joy had gone from the evening. I could no longer bear to sit there and watch Troilus with the royals on their thrones, knowing that they thought so little of me – not when I had just been so forcefully reminded of the ordeal that lay ahead.

I glanced around. I had not eaten anything but, then again, I thought, remembering King Priam's words, I was only the daughter of a priest. I would not be missed. Plucking an olive from the platter in front of me, I slipped past the great central hearth to the far corner of the hall and through a side door that led out to the terrace and the palace's grape arbour.

I walked through the archway into the garden and around the little path between the thick withes of the vines, heavy with their ripe fruit overhead, my heart full with disappointment. The arbour was empty, the sounds of the feast – the clattering of goblets and the loud chatter of the nobles – just audible through the windows from the Great Hall. The scent of grapes, sweet like violets, drifted on the breeze. A nightingale was singing at the top of one of the vines, its little throat stretched up as it heralded the night. I walked over to the limestone fountain in the centre and sank down on to the stone bench beside it, watching the crystal drops of water leap and splash against a small bronze statue of Arinniti without truly noticing them.

‘Krisayis.'

I gasped. ‘Troilus?'

I turned to find him almost upon me. He looked around quickly to check there was no one who might see us, then swept me into his arms and kissed me deeply, longingly, full on the lips. At last he pulled back to gaze at me. ‘You are so beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world.'

‘I thought you would not want to speak with me, after what your father said.' I lowered my voice. ‘You know we cannot do this for much longer. We have only twenty-five days until my sixteenth year—'

Troilus silenced me with another kiss. ‘Krisayis,' he said. ‘I have to have you. I simply have to.'

I shook my head. ‘Later, perhaps. You cannot be seen to be missing from the feast too long, and if someone comes into the arbour …'

‘I did not mean that.'

I looked up at him, very slowly. ‘What did you mean?' I asked softly.

He pulled me again towards him, his arms around me, his mouth deeply upon mine and his fine black beard grazing my chin. Then he broke apart from me and leant forwards to whisper in my ear. ‘Meet me here tomorrow at the Hour of the Rising Sun. There is something I would ask you.'

We were walking, but I did not know where. My wrists were chafing under the knotted rope that bound my hands together. My feet dragged on the ground, my hair covered my face as my head lolled forwards with exhaustion and throbbed in pain. I could smell the ashes of Lyrnessus on the wind; I could taste them on the tip of my tongue. The smut and smoke of the ruined city poured black rivers of tears from my eyes. My city, my home, my love were dust and air and carrion for the birds: a pile of blackened ashes heaped on the plain, like an accursed sacrifice to the gods. My husband, the only person who had ever believed in me, the single shining light in the darkness that had been the prophecy, was gone. And now the blackness threatened to envelop me entirely.

I panted with effort, pulling my feet through the sand. Each breath I took was a curse. A curse, for as long as I lived, on the gods who sat upon Mount Ida and looked down on us while Achilles had destroyed everything I had ever loved. And I promised myself that every breath I took for the rest of my life would be a reminder of what the gods had done to me. What their son had done to me.

The night was clearing now, but I saw only one thing.

Mynes. Mynes, on his back, looking up at the canopy over our bed and his arms around my waist, smiling at me. Mynes, with his sword raised above his head, his lips still framing my name.

And I saw another person. A man with skin like a snake's and glinting black eyes that never left my face. A man who would kill to get what he wanted and who killed like a god. The man who sent a blade through my husband's heart, not even blinking as he did it. The man who had killed the man I loved.

Without warning, silent and deadly, a whip came flying through the air and made contact. My body buckled and I cried out with the pain. I moved unsteadily forwards, pushed and kicked by the slave-driver, my wrists pulled forwards by the rope. The line of prisoners continued across the plain and away from the burnt corpse of the city.

My breath escaped my lips, ragged and uneven, like a curse. And it had the sound of a name:
Achilles.

It took us two nights to reach the enemy camp. Dawn was breaking over the horizon when we finally arrived. I was exhausted. Anger and grief seemed to have drained me of all energy. Now I did not even care, and it felt good to be numb. All I had to do was to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, and that I could do without thought. Much easier to have someone else tell you what to do. Much easier to ignore your shattered world and your rage and your pain if you could just keep walking.

At that moment, the woman in front of me, bent double and grey-haired, slowed and came to a halt.

The ropes around my wrists slackened.
No, don't stop
, I thought dully.
Just keep walking. Don't think, don't stand still. One foot in front of the other
. I tried to keep moving, but there was no way around. For the first time since that night, I raised my eyes from the old woman's heels.

I strained to focus. We were standing on a beach. Huge ships were lined along the shore, their prows ploughed into the sand for at least three thousand paces, like black, sleeping beasts. On the shore before them was a motley array of driftwood huts topped with thatched roofs and tents, made from ships' sails draped over stakes in the sand and tied down with rope. At the camp's edge a circular palisade of sharp-tipped wooden spikes had been driven into the beach, encircled within by a wooden walkway, which guards were using to patrol the gates. Warriors were wandering about, sharpening spears, laughing and talking, hardly glancing at us as they passed. Slaves stirred pots over open fires that sent steaming spirals of smoke into the air. Mules brayed, dogs barked, bronze armour clanked as it was thrown on to heaps for mending. A citadel grew out of the mist on the horizon to the east, its high walls glowing pink in the morning light.

‘You there,' the slave-driver shouted. He was short and runty, with scrawny tufts of ginger hair patching his head and a leering, mocking smile, which he was directing at me. ‘To the hut of Achilles.'

I looked at him coldly. ‘My name is Princess Briseis, soldier,' I said.

His smile broadened as he capered towards me, and I noticed several missing teeth. ‘Princess, is it?' he asked, jeering. ‘Did you hear that, men? Apparently it's
Princess
Briseis to us unworthies.'

Several of the Greeks who were nearby, watching, waiting for their pick of the haul, laughed. There were catcalls and jeers of ‘Your Royal Highness' and other, dirtier, variations.

‘Do you think the princess will need an escort to Achilles' hut, boys?' the slave-driver shouted, prodding me in the back with his whip.

I kept my face impassive, though my whole body was riddled with pain, and a rage I had never felt before bubbled in my veins. I stood straight and did not flinch when he took a sharp dagger to the rope around my wrists and, with a swift movement, sliced through it so that it fell off. My skin was raw and red underneath, cut into bracelets of blood. He grabbed me by the arm and thrust me forwards, into the middle of the circle of soldiers.

‘Come, men, where are your manners?' he called. ‘An escort for the princess!'

The soldiers jumped to their feet and ran forwards, making mock bows, dancing around me in pretended servility. One darted out from the crowd, took my hair and dragged me towards him. Another pulled on my wrist, his fingers cutting into the weals from the rope. My eyes smarted in pain.

‘Make way for Her Royal Highness!' taunted the slave-driver. ‘Make way for the princess of the camp!'

The other soldiers roared with laughter and resumed their bowing and jeering.

The slave-driver was grinning, toothless maw gaping wide.

Suddenly there was a flash past my cheek. A spear, long and slim, had whistled past my face and buried itself in the slave-driver's chest, breaking through the ribcage. He stumbled back, the inane smile still spread across his face, eyebrows raised in foolish surprise. His grin faltered. Then, slowly, deliberately, his knees loosening beneath him, he crumpled backwards, and fell on to the sand.

At once the men around me stopped jeering. They stood still, taking in the slender ash shaft of the spear still quivering in his body.

Then a commanding voice thundered through the crowd. ‘
Leave my prize.
'

I turned.