he prompted. “I’m listening.”

“Well, it all started when the goddess of discord lobbed a golden apple into the middle of a wedding feast on Mount Olympus. It had an inscription that read, ‘To the fairest.’”

She paused as a thought struck her. “The Greeks really had a thing about golden apples, didn’t they? They have all these myths with golden apples in them. Didn’t they ever hear of the fruit of the month? I mean, why not a nice kiwi once in a while for variety?”

Griffin sighed. “I know you’re being deliberately outrageous just to annoy me.”

“And I’m succeeding.” Cassie grinned. “Back to the wedding feast. Once the apple started rolling around the floor, three of the goddesses pounced on it like cats on a ball of string. They all started arguing about who was the prettiest. Since nobody could decide, they asked Zeus’s opinion. For somebody who claimed to be the king of the gods, Zeus was something of a weenie. He didn’t want to get into the middle of that discussion any more than your boyfriend wants to answer the question, ‘Does this dress make me look fat?’”

“I’m not gay!” Griffin protested indignantly.

“Relax. I didn’t mean your boyfriend.” She emphasized the word “your.” “I was just being generic.”

“Perhaps you could confine yourself to gender-specific generalities,” the scrivener sniffed.

“Fine.” The pythia shrugged. “Anyway, Zeus didn’t want to answer the question, so he sent the goddesses off to some hapless redneck tending sheep on this very mountainside who was appointed to judge the beauty contest.” Cassie frowned in concentration. “I should remember the shepherd’s name because it was a city. Was it London?” She paused, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Maybe it was Detroit.”

“Detroit?” Griffin echoed in disbelief. “It was Paris! The hapless redneck, as you describe him, was a youth named Paris. And the three female deities in question are the very famous Aphrodite—goddess of love, Hera—Zeus’s wife and patron of women, and Athena—goddess of wisdom.”

“Right. As I was saying, the three goddesses try bribing Paris to win the Miss Aegean beauty pageant, but he likes Aphrodite’s offer best. She says if he gives her the title, she’ll make the most beautiful woman in the world fall in love with him.” Cassie turned to the scrivener for confirmation. “How am I doing so far?”

“Quite well if one overlooks the appalling cheekiness of your narrative style. Do continue.”

She nodded. “After that, Aphrodite gets the apple and Paris sails off to Greece to collect his bride bribe.” She chuckled at her own witticism. “Bride bribe. Get it?”

Her companion rolled his eyes.

“Anyhow, the prize is a queen named Helen. Of course, Aphrodite forgot to mention that Helen is already married to the King of Sparta. This little detail doesn’t seem to bother anybody very much except for Helen’s husband. When he finds out his wife has run off to Troy with a guy who likes spending quality time with sheep, he rallies all his cronies. They jump on their ships and sail off in hot pursuit. After a ten-year slug fest, lots of manly battles, much chest-thumping, and many big speeches, Greece wins. Troy gets burnt to the ground, and Helen gets bundled back home.” Cassie grinned impishly. “What do you think? Did I get it right?”

“I’m speechless.”

Erik twisted around in his seat and called over the loud growl of the engine, “What are you two gabbing about back there?”

“The Trojan War,” Griffin answered. “Cassie has just managed to reduce the epic to the length of a sardonic soundbyte. If only Homer had been alive to hear her, it would certainly have killed the old sod.”

“How upset can you get about my irreverent take on a long-winded overlord poem anyway?” Cassie objected. “I wasn’t wrong about any of the facts, was I?”

“In essence, no,” the scrivener conceded. “The facts are as you’ve stated them.”

Cassie tilted her head, considering. “But maybe fact isn’t the right word. Are they facts? I mean, did any of it really happen?” She peered around at her companions, waiting for an answer.

Fred remained silent, concentrating fiercely on navigating the Jeep up a steep slope.

Erik had hooked his arm around the headrest and was following the exchange in the back seat. “Some of it really happened,” he said.

Cassie stared at him. “You mean gods sitting on top of Mount Ida waving pennants and rooting for their favorite team? Go Trojans!”

The security coordinator laughed. “No, not that part. But there really was a Troy. It’s near the coast just a little northwest of here.”

“And the archaeological evidence suggests the city was burned around 1200 BCE,” added Griffin. “That timeframe is consistent with Homer’s epic.”

“It’s odd though that the Greeks would pick a fight in this place,” Cassie remarked. “Turkey used to be goddess-worship central.”

“That’s why the Iliad is so important a piece of overlord propaganda,” offered Griffin. “The Trojan War wasn’t about recapturing a stray woman. It was about capturing all women in legally sanctioned matrimonial alliances. The overlord Greeks fighting the matristic Trojans.”

“Too bad it ended the way it did,” Cassie commented gloomily.

“Cheer up.” Griffin tried to comfort her. “Despite the Greek victory, this section of the Aegean remained a goddess stronghold for millennia afterward. In fact, there’s an amusing story in the Iliad wherein Hera seduces her husband Zeus to distract him from the battle long enough to tip the scales in favor of Hera’s team. Mount Ida was the home of the goddess, so Hera’s power here was very strong. Even the all-powerful father of the gods couldn’t win in this place.”

“Still, she was rooting for the Greeks and their patriarchal new world order,” Cassie objected. “What kind of crazy sense does that make?”

“Not sense,” Erik replied. “Propaganda. It’s always more effective when you can make it look like your former enemy has been convinced of the error of her ways and defects to your side. Hera used to be an all-powerful Mother Goddess. Another version of Cybele until she got demoted by the Hellenic tribes and had

Вы читаете The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату