Back in the main room Gershom lay back on a couch and closed his eyes. He had taken to sleeping in the afternoon and then remaining awake and watchful through the night. He slept a little, but bad dreams haunted him.
He was awakened just before dusk by a servant who told him that Prince Deiphobos had arrived to see King Aeneas.
Bleary-eyed, Gershom sent the servant to wake Helikaon and walked out to greet the slim, dark-haired young prince. Dios seemed troubled but said nothing as they returned to the main room. Another servant brought a tray of food and a pitcher of watered wine. Dios refused both and sat quietly.
When Helikaon entered, Dios rose and embraced him warmly. “You look better each day, my friend,” he said.
Gershom sat silently as the two men chatted, but there was tension in the air. Finally Dios said: “Odysseus is to be declared an enemy of Troy.”
“What?” Helikaon exclaimed. “Why would he be an enemy?”
Dios seemed surprised. “For ordering the murder of your father, of course.”
All color leached from Helikaon’s face. “Priam ordered this?”
“Yes.”
“How could he know?”
“He came to see you when you were sick and delirious. You told him about Karpophorus.”
“I have no memory of it,” Helikaon said. “And this is the worst news I have heard in a long time. Priam is about to make a terrible mistake and one he will come to regret unless we can get him to change his mind.”
“On that day the sun will turn green,” Dios said. “But I don’t understand you, Helikaon. What mistake? Odysseus had your father killed.”
“Only according to Attalus,” Helikaon replied, desperation in his voice. “We should at least give Odysseus the opportunity to deny it.”
“Hektor urged exactly that,” Dios said. “Father would not listen. However, such thoughts are academic now. You believed the assassin, and you passed on that belief to Father. He will not be swayed, Helikaon. Honor demands vengeance, he said. Blood must avenge blood.”
Gershom needed to hear no more. Rising from his seat, he left the two men alone and wandered out into the fading light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A QUEEN OF POISON
Hekabe the queen felt like one of the gods aloft on Olympos as she gazed down upon the two bays far below. From her high vantage point at King’s Joy she could see to her right the shallow Bay of Troy, its water brown and brackish, churned by ships still jostling for beach space. To her left was the deeper Bay of Herakles, the water there sparkling and blue. Even there she could see scores of ships, the beaches being swiftly filled. Hekabe seldom smiled now, but the thought of all those angry ships’ captains and flustered beachmasters brought a dry chuckle to her throat.
Pain, sharp and hot, began to seep through her belly and into her lower back. These days she thought of herself as a vessel that was filled each day with fresh agony. With trembling fingers she reached for the medicine phial, running a sharp fingernail through the thin wax that sealed it. Once it was opened, she lifted it to her dry lips, then paused. Not yet, she decided, for she could still see the ships in the bays and the people swarming across the beaches. Once the opiates began their work, those ships would become great monsters, the people merely magical insects flying and swooping across the line of her vision. Despite the temporary relief from pain, Hekabe loathed those moments when her mind was dulled and confused. Age and illness wrecking her body she could tolerate, but not this. Her fame had once been based on her beauty, but during these last twenty years she had become known, revered, and feared for the power of her mind: her ability to outwit, outplan, and outmaneuver the enemies of Troy. To see dangers almost before they arose and nip them out like pricking weeds from a garden.
She sat very still and sought to detach her mind from the agony of the spreading cancer, allowing her thoughts to drift back to her childhood, to her early glorious years with Priam, to her son’s wedding in just a few days’ time. Her work was almost complete, and the prophecy was about to be fulfilled. Once Andromache was pregnant, Hekabe could die at last, the future of Troy secure.
The crocus-yellow canopy raised above her head to shade her from the bright morning sun gave everything a garish, violent hue. Hot knives began to pierce her belly, causing her to cry out. Taking a deep breath, she reluctantly lifted the phial to her lips and drank. The medicine was bitter, burning her tongue. Then the pain began to fade a little. When first she had been given these phials, they had eliminated the suffering altogether. Now the cancer was stronger, and nothing could entirely mask its effects. She could hardly remember a day without suffering.
From time to time slow figures crossed her vision. Sometimes they seemed to swim in the air. She had no idea who most of them were. People spoke to her, but their voices were hollow and distant. She ignored them.
A figure moved across her, blocking the sun. Irritably she blinked and tried to focus. She started to speak, but her mouth was as dry and crusty as an old sandal. The figure came closer, a hand extending a goblet to her. It was filled with cool water. Hekabe drank gratefully, the taste of the medicine washing away. Her vision cleared, and she saw the visitor was her new daughter, the flame-haired Andromache.
So like me, she thought, fierce and proud and full of life and vitality. She gazed fondly at the girl. “Andromache,” she whispered. “One of the few visitors I can tolerate.”
“How are you today, Mother?” the girl asked.
“Still dying. But by Hera’s will and my own strength, I am making Hades wait for me.” Hekabe took another sip from the goblet. It writhed in her hand, becoming a sharp-fanged serpent. Hekabe held fast to its throat. “You will not bite me, viper,” she told it. “I can still crush you.”
Andromache gently took the serpent from her. “Be careful, girl,” the queen warned, “its bite is deadly.” Then she saw it had become a goblet again and relaxed. Andromache kissed the queen’s dry cheek, then sat down beside her. Hekabe reached out and patted the girl’s arm. “So alike, you and I,” she said. “Even more now.”
“Why now?” Andromache asked.
“My spies tell me Priam has taken you to his bed. I told you he would. Now you have experienced the joy that has been denied me for so long.”
“It was not joyous,” Andromache said. “Merely necessary.”
Hekabe laughed. “Not joyous? Priam has many faults, but being a bad lover is not among them.”
“I do not wish to talk of it, Mother.”
“Soon you will be pregnant, and the child will ensure the future of Troy. The prophecy will be fulfilled. Another son for Priam,” the queen said with satisfaction. “The people will love the boy because they will believe he is Hektor’s son. They will call him Lord of the City.”
She looked assessingly at Andromache. “Hmm. You are slender, like me. Childbirth is never easy for us, not like the big-hipped women of the countryside. You will suffer, girl, but you are strong. I bore Priam eight children. Each one of them I wrestled into the world with blood and pain. Each time I was victorious. Now look at me…”
Her voice drifted away, and she sat in silence for a while. She saw the dark figures of gods stalking across the horizon. There were horses and bears walking with them and a great horned creature she did not recognize. She could feel the vibrations of their footsteps tremble through her spine.
She leaned toward the girl, her voice low and insistent. “The house of Priam will go on for a thousand years, and I played my part in that. I played my part well. I did what I had to do.” She nodded to herself, remembering that day nearly a year ago, the slender Paleste writhing in agony on the floor of the queen’s apartments, her vomit staining the rugs, her screams muffled by an old shawl.