“How’s Nestor?” I asked.
She pulled a face. “Not good.”
I couldn’t believe Nestor was really ill. He was like an ancient tree that bends in every gale—you think at any moment it’s going over, but next morning there it is, still standing, surrounded by acres of healthy saplings uprooted in the night. Though I could see why this illness, whatever it was, might be preying on Hecamede’s mind. If Nestor died, what would become of her? If she was lucky, one or other of his surviving sons might take her, though sons don’t normally inherit their father’s concubines; more likely, she’d be awarded as a prize in Nestor’s funeral games. Exactly what would have happened to me if Achilles hadn’t given me to Alcimus.
We finished laying the rushes and sat on one of the benches. There was a smell of burnt sugar and cinnamon and further along the table were two trays of small cakes, scarcely more than a mouthful each, but utterly delicious. The popular name for them was “come-again cakes,” because nobody ever managed to stop at one. “Can’t be much the matter with him if he’s eating those.”
“Oh, they’re not for him—they’re for Hecuba. I was just going to take them across if you’d like to come?”
“Yes, of course. I was on my way to see her anyway. I just couldn’t resist coming to see you first.”
“Good, we can go together. I’ll just need to check on Nestor first.”
Apparently, he’d been talking of sitting out on the veranda, but when we put our heads round the door, we found him asleep—snoring loudly, his upper lip pouting on every breath. Even at this distance, I could see his nose and lips were blue. “It’s the sharpness I don’t like,” Hecamede said, touching the tip of her own nose. “They get like that before they go.”
It was a relief to leave the room, with its smell of old, sick flesh. Outside, in the hall again, I took several deep breaths. Then, Hecamede picked up one tray, I took the other, and with Amina lagging as usual several yards behind, we set off across the arena where long shadows cast by the gods’ statues slanted over the freshly raked sand. Dazzled, we moved from light to shade to light again—a short, brisk walk in the gritty wind—and then, ducking our heads, emerged into the frowsty darkness of Hecuba’s hut. One sickroom to another, I thought. There the resemblance ended: Nestor slept in a king’s bed surrounded by all the trappings of wealth and power; Hecuba’s hut was more like a dog kennel than a human habitation. Though at least she had it to herself—a rare luxury in that overcrowded camp. Odysseus did seem to be treating her reasonably well. When the royal women were shared out among the kings, there’d been a lot of joking at Odysseus’s expense. Agamemnon and several of the other kings had got Priam’s virgin daughters, Pyrrhus a sprightly young widow—plenty of go in that one, if she’d only cheer up a bit—whereas Odysseus was left with a scraggy old woman. Odysseus just shrugged, brushing the laughter aside. He knew he’d be taking home the only woman his wife, Penelope, would have accepted—and, with any luck, he might be able to convince her that he’d slept alone for the last ten years with nothing to while away his lonely evenings beyond the occasional game of skittles with his men. He was clever enough to make it sound convincing—and, from all accounts, Penelope was quite clever enough to pretend to believe it. Everybody you spoke to praised Penelope’s wit and kindness. I could easily imagine Hecuba sitting in a warm room doing light embroidery and not, as so many older women were forced to do, scrubbing stone floors while being shouted at because they weren’t working fast enough. Oh, it might be a life of misery, ravaged by grief, but at least she’d be physically comfortable, for however many weeks or months she might have left.
All nonsense, these imaginings. Hecuba never, from the minute she saw Priam killed, intended to live.
At first sight, she was a bag of bones, huddled under a dirty blanket. The one arm lying outside the cover was so wrinkled and brown-spotted it looked more like the pelt of an animal than human skin. She stirred when she heard our voices and started trying to sit up, blinking in the sudden light. I was horrified to see how frail she’d become; even in the short time since her arrival in the camp, she seemed to have shrunk. I wondered how much she was eating. Hecamede touched her feet and offered the tray of cakes. Hecuba thanked her profusely, but immediately set it aside and peered up at me.
“This is Briseis,” Hecamede said.
I too knelt and touched Hecuba’s feet. I didn’t expect her to remember me. We’d met often enough during the two years I’d spent in Troy, but I’d been a child then. I must have changed out of all recognition since—and she did look puzzled for a moment, but then reached up and laid one thin hand on the side of my face. “I want to thank you, my dear.”
“Why? Hecamede baked the cakes.”
“You were kind to Priam when he went to see Achilles. He remembered you, he remembered Helen bringing you to the citadel. ‘Helen’s little friend.’ You must have been quite a child back then?”
“I was twelve.”
“He talked about you when he came back. He said you’d been kind.”
I couldn’t speak, I was so close to tears.
“Well, well.” Hecuba patted my arm. “Let’s have some cakes.” She was peering into the shadows where Amina stood, ostentatiously obliterating herself, as usual. I realized Hecuba couldn’t see very well.
“Amina?” I said.
She came forward then, knelt and touched Hecuba’s feet. To my surprise, Hecuba said, “Amina. My poor child. How are you?”
“All right.”
“You were given to Pyrrhus?”
“Yes—not what I’d have chosen…”
Hecuba made a curious sound midway between a snort and a laugh. “No, well, I think choice is a thing of the past.”
Hecamede handed round the cakes while I poured the wine. Hecuba was too excited to eat, though I noticed she drank rapidly. Well, let her drink. In her position, I’d have drunk the sea dry. Within minutes there were two red spots on her cheeks, contrasting garishly with the general greyness of her skin and hair. At first, she concentrated solely on the wine, but then she began to talk about Helen. Did we know Menelaus was sleeping with her again? She had a whole hut to herself—“not like this, three rooms!”—maids to wait on her, pick up after her. Oh, and a loom. Helen weaving again, like a spider waiting for the vibration that would tell her another fly had landed. Another victim sucked dry…Oh, the hatred in Hecuba’s voice as she spoke of these things. I wondered how she knew about the loom, but gossip flew round that camp—and of course Helen’s maids would be Trojans. Probably it all came from them. They’d be pressing their ears to the wall to hear Menelaus’s grunts, Helen’s ecstatic cries…And there’d be plenty of ecstatic cries; Helen was no fool. The whole camp resented his taking her back. Greek fighters and Trojan slaves united in one thing and one thing only: hatred of Helen. Menelaus had sworn so many times he was going to kill her—the minute he set eyes on her again! Then, that he was going to take her back to Argos and let the women stone her to death—and there’d have been no lack of volunteers. So many widows, so many women who’d lost sons…And yet there he was, back in bed with her. “All night,” Hecuba said. “What’s he trying to do—fuck her to death?”
I think I may have been shocked; I didn’t know Hecuba as well then as I did later.
“Oh, and the lies she comes out with! She was raped—my son raped her? She couldn’t get enough of him! Oh, and saying we kept her a prisoner in Troy. Nothing of the sort; she could’ve gone home any time she liked. Who did she think wanted her there? My idiot son—nobody else! Any one of my girls would have taken her across the battlefield if she’d been too frightened to go on her own. I’d have taken her.”