Mood Riders (26 page)

She frowned at the sight. “Are the slave women still locked up at night?” she asked Cassandra.

The princess looked shamefaced, but she nodded. “I cannot manage to get them real freedom,” she said. “My father insists that they are still slaves. He sees them as the last of the booty that is left to him, for he gave his gold to Achilles when he begged him to return Hector’s body. You cannot know how terrible . . .”

“Oh yes, I do know.” Myrina touched her friend’s shoulder in compassion. All of Anatolia had heard how Achilles had not been satisfied by killing Troy’s bravest warrior, but had abused Hector’s battered body by dragging it behind his chariot in the dust, while his parents and sisters, watching from the tower, wept helplessly; how Priam had taken all the gold and jewels left to him and humiliated himself before the Achaean warrior, before he had at last been given his son’s body.

But then Myrina’s critical gaze went back to the slave women, who quietly served food with hands stained red and purple. Why should they suffer more than anyone else in this miserable place? Cassandra picked up on her thoughts. “It isn’t simple,” she said quietly. “I could go to the guards and order them to release the slaves, and even though it would be against my father’s wishes, I would do it. But then where would they go? If we let them out of the city, they’d walk straight into the path of Achaean raiding gangs and Ant Men. That would be worse than anything.”

“Yes,” Myrina had to agree. “That would be worse than anything.”

Cassandra looked more troubled than ever. “I know a little of that from my friend Chryseis,” she whispered.

“Where is Chryseis?” Myrina asked, remembering with warmth the serene and gentle priestess of Apollo, who had always been a true friend to Cassandra.

Cassandra’s mouth was grim. “I will take you to her after we have eaten,” she said.

Yildiz could hardly eat for staring about her. For a child who until these last few weeks had known nothing but her home-tent, this palace and its wild mixture of people was astonishing. Still her admiring gaze kept going back to Helen. “Does Queen Helen have her mother with her?” she asked.

Myrina shook her head uncertainly and asked Cassandra, “Who is the old woman who sits at Helen’s left side? She seems to help her as though she were her own mother, but I know it cannot be.”

“No,” Cassandra agreed. “Her name is Aethra. Have you never heard of her?”

Myrina frowned. “I’ve heard that name, yes . . . but I thought that Aethra was the mother of Theseus, the fierce warrior lord who stole away Antiope the Moon Rider?”

Cassandra nodded. “This war brings together many strange people, and Theseus stole women wherever he went. Just like Antiope, he once stole Helen from her home, when she was naught but a child. Her brothers fought to get her back and they won. Part of the punishment they insisted on was that Theseus’s queenly mother, Aethra, should be forced to work as handmaid to Helen for the rest of her life.”

“That’s not fair,” Yildiz butted in. “Why should his mother have to suffer the blame?”

“Many things are not fair, Little Star,” Myrina told her. “So that fragile old woman is the mother of Theseus?”

“Yes.” Cassandra nodded. “She came here as Helen’s servant, but . . .” She sighed. “You know Helen—she finds a way to get on with everyone—she truly has a gift for it—and over the years the two have become friends and Helen does indeed look after her as though she were her mother.”

Myrina sighed. “It seems that you cannot be angry with Helen, no matter how hard you try.”

“That’s not all,” Cassandra continued. “Aethra’s two grandsons camp outside the walls and fight with the Achaeans. The old woman has seen them from the walls and Helen and I have begged my father to let the old one go free. I understand the confusion that those young men must struggle with: one of them is the son of your Moon Rider Antiope, the child she refused to leave. Those two Achaean lords would sail away at once, were their grandmother freed, but my father can still be a very stubborn man.”

Myrina shook her head, her own thoughts in confusion. Such a terrible muddle this war had brought.

After the meal Cassandra took a bowl of bread and olive oil for Chryseis and asked Myrina to go with her. Yildiz followed them, as ever, but Cassandra shook her head in concern. “Leave the child with Bremusa,” she insisted. “This is not for her to see.”

Myrina persuaded the girl to go with Bremusa to the stables to see that Isatis and Silene were well cared for, then followed her friend up to the sleeping chambers, feeling more troubled at every step. “What is it that Yildiz may not see?” she asked.

Cassandra stopped. “Chryseis was captured—did you know?”

Myrina shook her head. “In my mirror-visions I looked only for you.”

“Well . . . she was taken from Apollo’s temple on the island of Tenedos by Agamemnon himself and used by him as a concubine.”

“Oh! Poor priestess,” Myrina whispered. She remembered the quiet dignity that had always surrounded Chryseis.

“Well,” Cassandra continued, “her father had taken refuge on the island of Sminthe, where he was building a new temple to Apollo. But he left the safety of that place and went bravely to the camp to demand her return—and surprisingly she was handed over. They say that the crazy priest Chalcis swore that all the Achaeans’ troubles and the sickness in their camps were due to the taking of Chryseis; her capture had offended the sun god. So she was escorted back here by Odysseus and her father was allowed to return safely to Sminthe.”

Myrina was amazed. “So this time Chalcis was of some use to us?”

Cassandra’s blue and green eyes glinted with scorn. “We know that the sickness in the Achaeans’ camp is due to the fact that their tents and huts are set up in the middle of a marsh, with mists and mosquitoes on every side. I cannot understand how that man thinks—but still, we got Chryseis, though she came back to us a different person. She was pregnant with Agamemnon’s child and now she has a son, but the bitter humiliation of her treatment has changed her beyond recognition. Her father left her in my care, for he could do nothing to comfort her.”

Myrina frowned and shook her head. “But none of this is blame to her.”

“No,” Cassandra agreed grimly, “but I cannot seem to make her see it that way. She will barely eat or drink and never leaves her room, seeing none but me. I hoped that maybe your presence might take her back to a happier time, before all this trouble came. She always used to ask after you and remembered with pleasure the girl who danced on horseback.”

Myrina was apprehensive, but she nodded. “Let us see her,” she said.

Chryseis was indeed a shocking sight. Though Cassandra had kept her bedding clean and decent, she lay staring blankly at the bottom of her bed, her once silky hair falling all over her face in a wild, rumpled mess. Her bedgown was askew and her bony fingers constantly picked at her arms, so that raw, scaly wounds covered her skin. She was very thin.

Myrina was deeply shaken to see her in such a state, but went to sit on the bed beside her. “Priestess,” she murmured. “Lady Priestess, do you know me—Myrina the Moon Rider?”

For a moment a look of recognition came, but then Chryseis turned her head away and would look only at the wall.

“I must try to feed her,” Cassandra said.

Myrina watched uncomfortably as Cassandra put the bowl down beside the bed. Then, talking gently all the time, she forced a small piece of oil-soaked bread between her friend’s lips; a few sips of wine followed. Myrina could think of nothing else to do but take Chryseis’s scabby hand in hers and stroke it.

Cassandra nodded encouragement as the priestess’s fierce glare began to soften and her eyelids drooped. At last she fell asleep and they went quietly from her room.

“It seems a small thing, but that was good,” Cassandra told Myrina. “She rarely sleeps and I think it does at least bring her a little relief.”

“Where is the child?” Myrina asked.

“One of the slave women is acting as wet nurse.” Cassandra dropped her voice to a whisper. “Chryseis will not feed the child; she will not even look at him.”

Myrina sank for a moment into deep despair. Seeing Chryseis brought so low was a terrible thing and she felt a heavy lump of pain dragging at her stomach. The joy at the success of the horse stampede had fled.

But Cassandra hadn’t finished yet. “I have something else I wish to show you. Can you manage a short walk, or do you need to sleep? You must be exhausted.”

“Is it more misery?” Myrina asked uncertainly.

Cassandra looked thoughtful. “Yes and no,” she said, and for a moment Myrina remembered the irritation that she had once felt toward this strange princess who sometimes insisted on speaking in riddles.

Cassandra saw it and smiled. “Yes, there is misery,” she explained. “But there is hope, too, and something that I am sure will interest you.”

C
URIOSITY GOT THE
better of exhaustion and Myrina followed Cassandra down through the citadel past once elegant palaces, now squatters’ camps. Smoking fires were everywhere, and the smell of cooked salt fish from the Sea of Marmara. Around every corner they met with greetings and thanks to the Snake Lady. They turned away from the main route and went down toward the Southern Gate through a narrow back alley. As they walked Myrina became aware of a repetitive, rhythmic sound—the beat of a drum and women’s voices rising in song. They came to the long, low weaving sheds, where once the women slaves had worked all day and which were still their sleeping quarters.

Myrina stopped, listening with wonder, for there was something familiar about the sound, though the melody and words were quite unknown to her.

“This happens every night,” Cassandra whispered.

“They almost sound like . . .” Myrina murmured. “They almost sound like the Moon Riders.”

“Yes,” Cassandra agreed. “I think it is something very like.”

As they moved closer to the sheds, a slight movement could be seen through the wooden slatted gateway. Two guards sat there, wearily playing knucklebones, ignoring the sounds that were so unexpected here in the back streets of war-torn Troy. Myrina went straight up to press her face against the wooden slats of the gates. The guards looked up at her a little uncertainly. “We ought to start to charge.” One of them guffawed. “A coin or a kiss to see the bitches howling at the moon.” But then they saw Cassandra and scrambled to their feet to bow.

“That is the Snake Lady who brought us food,” another man whispered, roughly nudging his loud-mouthed companion.

The joker turned serious at once and bowed to Myrina respectfully. “Forgive me, Snake Lady. I would do anything to please you.”

Myrina ignored them as she stared through the locked gates at the rows of women, the moonlight full on their faces. They were fastened to hard wooden sleeping boards by ropes tied around their ankles, which meant that they could move very little. But still the sense of movement was very powerful. They swung their hips from side to side as one, their feet shuffling to the left, then to the right. Each one held hands with the women next but one, so that a crisscross pattern of linked arms formed in front of their bodies. Heads swung to the right, then to the left, then rolled down toward their chests and up to the right again, following the shape of a crescent moon.

Myrina gasped. “They move and sing in perfect time,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Cassandra answered. “And look at their faces.”

“Yes! What faces . . . rapt, serene . . . almost happy. Is this a sacred dance for them? Where do they come from?”

Cassandra shook her head. “They hail from distant regions and speak in different tongues. This singing and dancing is a patchwork of their many traditions, but I think it has indeed become a sacred dance for them.”

Myrina turned back to watch them again, seeing that some were pale skinned, some dark and others black as obsidian.

“I often come down here to watch them,” Cassandra told her. “There is some strange comfort in their music and their dance. I use them in my own service each day—as many as I can. It is my way of protecting them from warriors who think they may use them as they like. I have learned that each woman brings something of her own to the dance and their ritual grows more powerful with every step and turn.”

“Yes.” Myrina understood at once. As the Moon Riders drew power from their own dancing, so these desperate women had also found a way to give one another strength, enough to carry them through the hardships they must bear.