Mood Riders (32 page)

The little boy fretted and weak cries filled the room, but Myrina ignored the small sounds and began to talk.

“I was looking in my mirror today,” she said, “and I saw in my vision the Princess Iphigenia. I saw that she is on the banks of the River Thermodon and is taking good care of the Moon Riders’ Old Woman, who is sick. Do you remember the Princess Iphigenia?”

Chryseis made no reply, but a small movement of her head told them that she was listening. Myrina looked up at Cassandra, who nodded her encouragement.

“Do you remember the young princess who came to Troy with her mother? The little girl who delighted in the beautiful gowns that were brought for her, and who followed you and Cassandra about like a faithful, loving shadow?”

Still no word passed the priestess’s lips, but they both saw that a tear trickled slowly down her cheek. She did remember the little girl, that was certain, and the sadness that went with that memory told them that she remembered the terrible plight that Iphigenia had found herself in when her father had agreed to sacrifice his daughter.

“You must remember how we rode down through Thrace,” Myrina went on insistently, as though she were telling a story. “We were led by our dear Penthesilea and we saved the princess. We snatched her away from Chalcis’s knife.”

There was silence for a moment and then once again the baby mewed his tiny cry. “Well.” Myrina took a deep breath and plunged in again. “Have you ever thought, Priestess, that this little one you bore is Iphigenia’s brother? Never mind who his father is, we care naught for that man, but his sister matters very much to us!”

The silence that followed was very tense. Both Myrina and Cassandra held their breaths and once again the child whimpered pitifully, breaking into the quiet with his pathetic sounds.

As he cried on, Chryseis at last turned slowly around and looked at her child. She looked at him properly as he struggled in Myrina’s arms, and at last she spoke. “But . . . he’s so thin!”

“He needs his mother.” Myrina tried to make the words sound free of any judgment.

“Then give him to me!” Chryseis held out her arms.

Myrina passed him over at once and she and Cassandra, with tears in their eyes, watched the priestess awkwardly cradling her child, concern showing in her face at last. “Iphigenia’s little brother,” she murmured.

Cassandra put her hands on Myrina’s shoulders. “You are a very clever Snake,” she whispered in her ear.

Chryseis looked up at them. “What is his name?” she asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “It is his mother’s right to name him.”

“Well, then . . . I shall call him Chryse, after my father, priest of Sminthean Apollo,” she told them.

“A good name,” Myrina agreed.

Chryseis swung her feet around and got up from the bed. She stood there, wobbly-legged, and Myrina reached out to steady her. “I must find food for him,” the priestess told them with motherly concern.

Cassandra opened her mouth to say that she would have some sent up to the room, but then, as she saw Chryseis’s shaky but determined progress toward the door, she held the words back.

Chryseis turned back to Myrina. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I shall try to be a good mother to him. You have made me see how I may regain my honor.”

I
T WAS NOT
long before Chryseis was to be seen striding about Troy as she used to, giving help and encouragement to all who needed it. She met with concern and kindness in return and was touched to find that the people still referred to her respectfully as Priestess. She was never without the now thriving baby strapped to her back.

Myrina confided her plans for the slave women to Chryseis and begged her to join them. She was quite surprised when the priestess shook her head. “My father has taken refuge on the isle of Sminthe,” she said. “Whatever happens to Troy, I shall do my best to return to him and take his grandson home to the sanctuary there.”

Questions and plans whirled through Myrina’s head and she could get little sleep. One moment she was miserable and hopeless, the next full of wild excitement and a belief that she could succeed.

One night she woke from a troubled dream. She had seen herself nursing Penthesilea in her arms once again, while Achilles stood above them, huge and terrible, and a small brown viper coiled itself unnoticed around his ankle. She got up too disturbed to sleep, leaving the chamber that she shared with Coronilla and went out of the slumbering palace. The quiet streets of the citadel were bathed in moonlight.

A few guards stepped out to challenge her, but when they saw that it was the Snake Lady, they bowed and let her pass. She made her way to the Southern Tower and crept up the stairway to the lookout point. She stood there for a while, looking down across the quiet plain. All along the distant seaboard torches burned where the tents and huts of the Achaeans lay. It was hard to believe in the silver moonlight that so much terror and destruction could be wrought here, in this beautiful landscape.

There was a sigh and a scuffling sound behind her and a voice that she knew: “I see the Snake Lady cannot sleep either!”

She turned sharply and saw a silhouette of broad shoulders and a glint of golden silver hair above. She recognized the shape and voice of Paris. Though he was not her favorite person, he seemed very subdued and unthreatening here in the dark. “You are right, I could not sleep,” she agreed.

“Such a beautiful site for so much pain and misery,” he said, and his words so closely echoed Myrina’s own thoughts that she was startled and couldn’t think how to reply. “And so much of it must be borne here, on these shoulders,” he went on.

Myrina still could not think what to say. She had never imagined that he cared or was bothered by the responsibility that he should indeed feel.

Paris sighed. “Do you know what the worst thing is? If I could go back in time and change it all, I know that I would still do the same. I would do anything to be with Helen, however high the cost.”

Myrina was touched by his honest words. This was not the boastful favorite prince whom she remembered from long ago. This was a man worn by harsh experience, who had grown to know himself and face his faults, however bad they were.

“Helen wins everyone’s heart,” she told him gently. “Somehow she makes you love her even if you do not want to.”

“Even the fierce Moon Riders?” Paris teased.

“Even them,” Myrina agreed.

Then Paris’s voice became serious again. “I am so sorry for the loss of your brave Penthesilea.”

Myrina nodded. “You should not think yourself responsible for that. Penthesilea always did exactly what she wanted. Nothing could have stopped her riding out that day.”

Paris moved to stand beside her, and they both stared out toward the farthest end of the shore, where Achilles’ tents and huts were sited.

“How can we defeat him?” Paris murmured. “A man like a bear, who leads his poisoned ants so that they swarm around us in every direction. It seems that no one can defeat him, not Penthesilea, not even my brave brother Hector.”

“Of course they can’t; the man is protected like a tortoise,” Myrina agreed. “That gleaming armor covers him from head to toe.”

Then suddenly she remembered something from her dream: the small brown snake around Achilles’ ankle. She saw herself sitting on the ground, rocking Penthesilea once again, with the great warrior towering above her so close that she could smell his sweat. She also remembered that in that moment she’d seen bare, brown flesh and muscle showing beneath his highly polished leg armor.

“Except . . . for his heels,” she said, frowning and trying to recall them to her mind carefully. “His heels are vulnerable. The heavy armor doesn’t cover there.”

“His heels?” Paris was puzzled. “But even a direct sword cut there would do little to harm such a man.”

“That’s true,” Myrina agreed, then she suddenly laughed. “But we horsewomen see our greatest weapon as the bow. An arrow might bury itself deep in a man’s heel, and, were that arrow tipped with snake venom, I doubt he’d live.”

Paris was thoughtful and interested. “And would a snake lady have such a thing as snake venom?” he asked.

Myrina hesitated for a moment, but Penthesilea’s white face rose before her. Would it be dishonorable to kill a man so? Then she remembered with fury the bowing and courtesy of the three-day truce. The anger that it had brought rose in her again. “We Moon Riders do not fight for honor or gain,” she said grimly, “but for freedom.” She unfastened one of the smallest vials that swung from her belt, the stopper sealed well in place. It was Atisha’s most deadly weapon and she had never used it. “Here is your snake venom,” she said, holding it out to Paris. “The one who uses it must make a very accurate shot.”

“It shall be so,” said Paris.

Myrina turned to go, but then remembered a question that had been there in her mind since her talks with Akasya. “Why does not the great Hittite king send his warriors to rescue you?”

“Ah.” Paris smiled. “The Snake Lady knows everything. I had hoped that it would be so. When I stole Helen away from her home, I did it with confidence that such support would be given me, but . . . times have changed. The Hittite king has sent his armies to defend his lands in the south and in the east. The great Hittite empire itself must now fight off invasion. They have no warriors to spare for little, struggling Troy.”

Myrina sighed. It seemed that loyalty was as changeable as the wind these days.

“Those slave women who languish in the old weaving sheds—are they not your slaves? Did you not bring them back to Troy as your reward? Might you spare them and set them free?”

Paris shook his head. “Alas, they are my father’s slaves now, not mine. And though he is very old, my father is still the king of Troy.”

“Well . . . I have given you the means to take a great and powerful life. Might you not pay me back in kind? What I wish is to save many humble lives.”

Paris looked at her thoughtfully. “You make strange requests, Snake Lady, but if I am successful with my snake venom, then I swear that I will do all I can to help you.”

Myrina nodded her head. That sounded fair. It gave her a rather shivery feeling to be in league with the handsome cause of all the trouble.

Then at last as she went to leave he bowed and kissed her hand. “I have still never seen anyone dance on horseback like you,” he whispered.

Myrina wandered back to her chamber, her mind spinning with new possibilities.

The next day at noon Myrina was in her chamber when she heard the Trojans in the streets below cheering wildly. “What is that?” Coronilla murmured.

Cassandra came running up the palace stairs. “Achilles is dead,” she cried. “I can’t believe it! My brother Paris has shot him in the heel and he struggled for a while to get up, but then suddenly fell down dead.”

Wild singing and cheering was heard all about the citadel.

“They carry Paris through Troy shoulder high. He was never so popular before!”

Myrina nodded, unsurprised.

Cassandra came close to look at her face. “You knew!”

Myrina smiled up at her. “You are not the only one whose visions may speak the truth,” she said.

The joy inside the walls did not last for long, for it was only a few days afterward that Paris himself was brought back wounded by a deadly sword thrust. He lingered for a while but then died in Helen’s arms.

Myrina saw the terrible constriction there on the beautiful face, just for a moment, but very quickly the Queen of Sparta seemed to master her feelings and regain her composure. She retained her dignity throughout the prince’s funeral rites, but as the pyre burnt low, Deiphobus, Paris’s younger brother, stood up before the whole gathering and claimed the right to take Helen as his wife now that his brother was gone.

Helen’s composure slipped at last and an expression of terrified loathing was there for all to see. But then the queenly manner returned and Helen declined politely, saying that she must spend time in mourning for Paris.

But Deiphobus would not let it be: he was on his feet again, insisting that it was the tradition in Troy that a younger brother might claim his older brother’s widow.

King Priam bowed his head in agreement and declared that it was indeed the Trojan custom to take a dead brother’s wife if a man so wished, and he added sharply that the mourning must not last too long.