Moving with care Helikaon descended to the beach below, then gazed out across the waves, seeing Kassandra’s dark head bobbing alongside the sleek grey forms of two dolphins. The sun was high and hot in a brilliant blue sky. The girl saw him and waved. Helikaon returned the wave, then walked to a shelf of rock and sat.
The meeting with Priam had unsettled him. The king was arrogant and Helikaon had never liked him. Yet he was also canny. He believed the Mykene were preparing to raid the east in force somewhere, and his arguments were persuasive. A people who lived for war would always be seeking fresh areas of conquest and plunder.
And the east was ripe for such a venture. The Hittites were engaged in several wars. Battles with the Ashurians, the Elamites and the Kassites had sapped their strength, and now an Egypteian invasion into Phoenicia had further stretched their waning resources.
A fresh breeze blew off the sea and Helikaon drew in a deep breath, tasting the salt in the air. Kassandra was still swimming, but he did not call out to her.
In the happy days when he had lived with Hektor, and Kassandra had come to stay with them, he had learned she was not a child who took well to commands.
He sat quietly in the sunshine and waited. After a little while he saw Kassandra swim smoothly back to the shore and wade from the water. Lifting a white knee-length tunic from the rock over which she had draped it she clothed herself and ran over the sand to where Helikaon waited. Slim and small, her face delicate and fine-boned, Kassandra would one day be a beautiful woman. Her long dark hair was thick and lustrous, her eyes a soft blend of grey and blue.
‘The dolphins are worried,’ she said. ‘The sea is changing.’
‘Changing?’
‘It is getting warmer. They don’t like it.’
He had almost forgotten how fey the child was, and how she could not tell fantasy from reality. Sometimes at night she used to wander the gardens chatting as if to old friends, though there was no-one with her.
‘It is good to see you again, Kassandra,’ he told her.
‘Why?’ Her eyes were wide, the question asked with great innocence.
‘Because you are my friend, and it is always good to see friends.’
She sat down on the rock beside him, drawing up her knees and resting her arms on them, and stared out to sea. ‘The big one is Cavala,’ she said, pointing to the dolphins. ‘That is his wife, Vora. They have been together for five migrations. I don’t know how long that is. Do you think it is a long time?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Your mother has guests. She was wondering if you would like to meet them.’
‘I don’t like guests,’ said the girl, shaking back her long black hair. Droplets of water sprayed out.
‘I am a guest,’ he pointed out.
She nodded, her expression, as always, serious. ‘Yes, I suppose that you are.
Then I am wrong, Helikaon, for I like you. Who are the others?’
‘Laodike, and Hektor’s betrothed, the lady Andromache.’
‘She shoots a bow,’ said Kassandra. ‘She is very skilled.’
‘Andromache?’
‘Yes.’
‘I did not know that.’
‘Mother will be dead soon.’ The words were spoken without feeling, cold and detached.
He kept his voice calm. With anyone else he would have grown angry, but Kassandra could not be judged against any normal standards of behaviour. ‘Does it not make you sad?’
‘Why would it make me sad?’
‘Do you not love her?’
‘Of course I love her. She is my greatest friend. Mother, you and Hektor. I love you all.’
‘But when she is dead you will not be able to see her, or hug her.’
‘Of course I will, silly! When I am dead too.’
Helikaon fell silent. The sea was calm and beautiful, and sitting here in the quiet of the Bay of Herakles it seemed that all the world was at peace. ‘I used to dream that you would marry me,’ said Kassandra. ‘When I was little. Before I knew better. I thought it would be wonderful to live with you in a palace.’
He laughed. ‘As I recall you also wanted to marry Hektor.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That would have been wonderful too. Egypteian brothers and sisters marry, you know.’
‘But you changed your mind about me,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Was it because you heard me snore?’
‘You don’t snore, Helikaon. You sleep on your back, with your arms spread out. I used to sit and watch you sleep. And I listened to your dreams. They were always frightening.’
‘How do you listen to dreams?’
‘I don’t know. I just do. I love this bay,’ she said. ‘It is very peaceful.’
‘So, are you going to tell me why you decided not to marry me?’
‘I will never marry. It is not in my destiny.’
‘In a few years you may change your mind. When you are grown. You are only eleven. I would wager that by the time you are my age the world will look very different to you.’
‘It will look different to everyone,’ she said. ‘But I will be dead before then, and I will be with mother.’
Helikaon shivered. ‘Don’t say that! Children should not talk of death so lightly.’
Her grey eyes met his own, and he saw the sadness there. ‘I will be on a rock,’
she said, ‘high in the sky, and three kings will be with me. And I will see you far below. The rock will carry me to the stars. It will be a great journey.’
Helikaon pushed himself to his feet. ‘I must attend your mother. She would be happy if you came with me.’
‘Then I shall make her happy,’ said Kassandra.
Swinging back she gazed at the bay. ‘This is where they will come,’ she whispered. ‘Just like Herakles did. Only this time their ships will fill the bay. As far as can be seen, all the way to the horizon. And there will be blood and death upon the beach.’
iii
For Laodike the afternoon was one of unremitting sadness. And it had started so well. She had been laughing and joking with Andromache in her high apartments overlooking the northern plains. Andromache had been trying on various hats and clothes presented to Laodike by foreign ambassadors. Most of them were ludicrous, and showed how stupid and primitive were the peoples of other nations: a wooden hat from Phrygia, with an integral veil so heavy that any woman wearing it would be half blind; a tall, conical Babylonian hat, made up of beaten rings of silver, that perched precariously on top of the head, held in place only by chin straps. She and Andromache had cavorted around the apartments, shrieking with laughter. At one point Andromache had donned a Kretan dress of heavy linen, embroidered with gold thread. It was designed so that the breasts could stand free, and a corset of bone drew in the waist, emphasising the curves of the wearer.
‘It is the most uncomfortable clothing I’ve ever worn,’ said Andromache, pulling back her shoulders, her breasts jutting proud and high. Laodike’s good humour had begun to evaporate at that moment. Standing there, in a stupid dress, the flame-haired Andromache looked like a goddess, and Laodike had felt unutterably plain.
Her mood had lifted as they were travelling to mother’s summer palace, but not by much. Mother had never liked her. Laodike’s childhood had been one of constant scolding. She could never remember the names of all the countries of the Great Green, and even when she did recall them, she found that she got the cities mixed up. So many of them were similar – Maeonia, Mysia, Mykene, Kios and Kos. In the end they all blurred in her mind. In mother’s lessons she would panic, and the gates of her mind would close, denying all access – even to things she knew. Kreusa and Paris would always know the answers, just as – she had been told – Hektor did before them. She didn’t doubt that strange little Kassandra also pleased mother.
Perhaps now that she is ill she will be less harsh, she had thought, as the two-wheeled carriage crossed the Scamander bridge.
‘What is she like, your mother?’ Andromache asked.
