As soon as night fell, three of the girls helped me carry trays of food and jugs of wine into the yard and we spread them on rugs around the fire. Wary at first, the other girls emerged from the hut like animals let out of a pen, sniffing the air. One or two of them actually looked back at the hut as if they’d felt safer indoors, but most seemed to enjoy the extra freedom. The fire was sulky, but they crouched round it, blowing on twigs, feeding handfuls of dry grass into the flames, finally whooping with triumph when a big log started to burn.
I’d been hoping Andromache might join us, but she stayed in her room. I tapped on her door and asked if she was all right, but got only a grunt in reply. Going back outside, I saw the fire was roaring now, sparks whirling up into the sky, shadows flickering across the girls’ faces. The air was clear, but chilly; we gathered close round the flames, our toes only inches away from the hearth stones. I’d brought drums and pipes—Alcimus kept a great collection of instruments in his hut. I thought one or two of the girls might know how to play the pipes and the rest of us could surely manage to beat time on the drums. I’d also brought Alcimus’s lyre—with his permission, of course—though I’d need to be careful with that and wipe off any sticky fingerprints, because it was a good instrument, valuable. Not the equal of Achilles’s lyre, but better than most—and it was kind of him to lend it to us. Amina, it turned out, could play the lyre—rather well, in fact—but the real find was Helle, who could play not only the lyre but the pipes as well. In her previous life, she’d been a public entertainer, a dancer, musician and acrobat, her experience as far removed from the sheltered existence of the other girls as you could possibly imagine. She’d been a slave, as such performers generally were, though the best of them were famous throughout the city.
At last, we were all settled. Amina and Helle nodded to show they were ready. “Nothing sad,” I said. The girls began calling out their favourites—and many of them were happy, even jolly, songs; but as soon as the singing started, they all sounded sad. Perhaps all songs do when they’re sung in exile. Soon, many of the girls were in tears. Maire—a lumpish girl whose eyebrows met in the middle—positively wailed. But still, they went on singing; even the two girls who still couldn’t speak at all, sang. And that amazed me. I hadn’t realized till then that people who’ve been shocked into muteness can still sing.
Helle, who was far from sympathetic, stared incredulously at the sobbing girls, and began playing something so fast and furious they struggled to keep up, clapping and gabbling until, with a final flourish of the drums, they collapsed into helpless giggles.
“Again!” I stood up, raising my arms to encourage them to do the same, and one by one they got to their feet. The music started again—only now there was foot-stamping as well, and our shadows, thrown by the flames, leapt over the walls that fenced us in and escaped into the night.
As we all sat down again, I glanced across at Amina, but she was busy adjusting the strings on the lyre and neatly avoided my gaze. This was becoming a pattern and she was very good at it. She never seemed to be avoiding me, but somehow, she always happened to be on the other side of the room or, in this case, the fire. It made me uneasy, but I brushed it aside. I didn’t want anything to spoil this evening.
When she’d finished fiddling with the strings, she began singing a love song. She had a high, clear voice, like a boy’s before it breaks; you don’t often find that quality in a woman’s voice and it’s heartbreaking when you do. Many of the girls were crying again; I wondered how many of them had been promised in marriage to young men whose bodies now lay rotting inside the walls of Troy. They needed to grieve, but after a while I began to feel the weeping had gone on long enough. I looked at Helle, who pulled a face and shrugged: What can you do with them? But then, a moment later, she was on her feet and dancing, clapping her hands above her head in time with the stamping of her feet. I picked up a drum, as did several others, and the rest started clapping. Soon, all of us, in various ways, were carrying the beat.
I’ve never seen any girl dance the way Helle danced that night. At weddings and religious festivals, girls do dance, but always modestly, covered from collarbone to ankle in flowing robes, careful not to let their gaze stray beyond the movements of their feet. Helle was wearing a sleeveless tunic, the hem well above her knees—basically, a man’s tunic. Her oiled skin gleamed in the firelight, her elaborately braided hair swung around her shoulders, as the stamping and clapping gathered pace.
Of all the girls—well, apart from Amina—Helle was the one who stood out. There weren’t many in the camp who hadn’t lost all their male relatives and, since older women were sent to the slave markets, the younger girls had lost their mothers as well. Only Helle showed no sign of grief. She’d seen her owner speared in the throat, flapping on the floor like a landed fish, the life choked out of him in front of her eyes. When I murmured some tentative words of sympathy, she’d laughed out loud. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’d been wanting to do that for years.”
She’d been bought when she was very young, no more than six or seven years old, and she had no memory of her life before that day in the slave market, so, in effect, she’d been born into a life of physical pain. Her owner selected her by forcing her thumbs back till they touched her wrists and then making her lie on her back while he twisted her legs round and round in their sockets. He’d trained her as an acrobat, a singer, a dancer, a musician; she’d been the star performer in a troupe that regularly appeared at Priam’s court. Of course, her owner made her available for other services too, but only to the most prestigious clients, and even then, at an exorbitant price. Poor Helle. She was, in some ways, the most pitiable of all the girls—though she would certainly not have said so!—free from grief, yes, but only because her previous life had been devoid of love.
The drumbeats and clapping were getting faster, keeping pace with Helle’s dancing feet. I wondered why she was putting so much effort into this performance for an all-female audience when she’d always treated the other girls with such contempt. For the sheer joy of it, perhaps? Her dance had become a flirtation with the fire. She’d approach close enough to draw oohs from the girls, then retreat a little, only to flutter back like a moth drawn to a flame. The firelight gleamed on her arms and legs, which were slender but muscular. She looked like a boy—graceful, even beautiful—but still a boy. And this was a warrior’s dance.
Outside the circle of light, her shadow kept her company, flickering along the fence. The fire lit up the faces of the watching girls, who were entirely lost in the music. One or two of them even stood up and began to stamp their feet too, though that just served to throw Helle’s grace and power into sharper relief. I looked around the circle, and then again at Helle’s dancing shadow. I was aware of something on the fringes of my vision. At first, I couldn’t think what it was, but then a movement from inside the hut caught my eye. I hoped it was Andromache, that she’d decided to join us, after all—but a second later, peering into the darkness, I recognized Pyrrhus. He had a perfect right to be there, since he owned the hut and everybody in it. Except me. I nursed that thought, cradling it against the dark. Except me.
The drums were pounding now. Seeing Helle measure the height of the fire, I tried to shout No! but she was already running and, before I could say anything, she’d leapt high in the air and landed lightly on the other side. The flames whirled in the wind of her passing, as if they were reaching out to get her, but she just stood there, laughing, punching the air, as men do after they’ve won a race. “Are you all right?” I asked. By way of reply, she extended one beautiful leg towards me. At first, I couldn’t see anything, but then I noticed a shiny, red patch above the ankle.