Chapter 46 First Blood
Danae stared at the blood oozing from the Trojan guard’s body, glistening in the moonlight like spilt ink.
She flinched as Odysseus grabbed her arm, pulling her to face him. Her gaze caught on the dark flecks splattered across his neck.
‘What did she say to you?’ His fingers dug into her flesh.
She ripped her limb from his grasp and backed away staring at the blade still clenched in his fist.
‘How did you know …’
‘I heard your window open. When I discovered you gone, I followed.’ Odysseus pointed the knife at the guard. ‘I slipped this from his belt while he threatened you.’ He glanced about the shadowy street. ‘What did that woman want?’
Danae drew a breath, her pulse still thundering. ‘That was Cassandra, a princess of Troy. She told me that Helen has slipped Paris a sleeping draught to keep him away from the peace talks tomorrow. Helen wishes to return to Menelaus to avoid war.’
Odysseus digested her news, looking again to the slain guard. Then his head snapped up, his gaze sharp and bright as starlight.
‘The guard attacked you in your chamber while you slept. I heard the commotion then pushed him out onto the street, where we fought. Before I killed him, he confessed he was sent by Paris to slay us in our beds. You will tell Antenor that, to avoid the wrath of Zeus, he must see us safely out of the city tonight.’
‘What of Nestor?’
‘Even he must agree that war is the only response to an attack on a chosen mouthpiece of the gods.’ He paused, eyeing her. ‘We will need to present them with signs of a struggle.’
After a breath of hesitation, she nodded. ‘Do what you must.’
Everything seemed sharper in the moonlight. A city of cut-glass edges.
Antenor had been horrified at Paris’ betrayal and agreed to lead the Greek envoy out through the city’s old tombs to safety, the gates being watched night and day by sentries.
Danae’s torn dress and the guard’s blood artfully smeared on her limbs by Odysseus had sealed the old councillor’s decision.
Nestor had been unable to hide his disappointment, but even he accepted that peace could no longer be salvaged.
Danae tugged her cloak tight around her as the chill of night chased Antenor and the Greek envoy through Troy’s deserted streets. Her limbs thrummed with a hollow exhilaration born of danger and lack of sleep.
She could not banish the image of Odysseus slaying the guard from her mind. He had cut the man down as easily as scything wheat.
At a sharp hiss of breath, she turned to see Hylas grimacing as he strode beside her, leaning heavily on his crutch.
‘Are you all right?’
‘At night I wrap my leg in an ointment made from bitter root. It helps with the chafing. Didn’t have time to before we left.’
‘We can stop while you –’
‘No.’ Hylas set his jaw and quickened his pace.
The shadows seemed to stretch towards them with each turn, every new square crossed and alley traversed.
Danae’s eyes darted about so swiftly, the moon-brightened stones and their dark counterparts seemed to blur into monstrous shapes.
She was not the only one whose nerves lay exposed.
At one point a black cat leapt across their path, and Palamedes cried out then aimed a kick at the animal as it fled into the darkness.
She was acutely aware of how exposed they were without their weapons, and she was forbidden from revealing her power, Odysseus’ order another collar about her neck.
Finally, they reached a building unmistakeable as a temple of Athena, given the bronze statue of the goddess presiding outside its columned entrance. Antenor ushered them into the shadow of a side wall and heaved open a plain oak door.
‘This passage leads out through the old tombs. When the tunnel branches, take a right turn, then right again, and you will emerge onto a hill overlooking the Trojan Plain. My slaves will meet you there with your horses.’
Danae’s pulse quickened. Tunnel. Underground. But she had no time to dwell on her fear as Odysseus, Hylas and Palamedes vanished into the passage.
‘Thank you,’ said Nestor, clasping Antenor’s hand. ‘I pray the gods look kindly on you. I’m sorry it has come to this.’
Antenor laid his fingers over Nestor’s. ‘I am too. I may well face punishment for helping you, but I will not stand by and see everything I hold dear torn down. Most of us Trojans are honourable people, we love the gods – remember that.’
Nestor nodded and disappeared into the passage.
Danae followed him, forcing herself to edge closer to her companions for fear of losing them in the gloom. Then the door shut behind them, and darkness reigned.
It was like being swallowed by the sea, yet instead of muffling sound, the blackness amplified all: the scrape of their sandals on the rough stone floor, the rasp of their breath, the blood pulsing in Danae’s ears.
She tried to concentrate on the movement of her feet and the texture of the stone beneath her fingertips. Dry, crumbling. Not damp, like the Underworld. She held on to that difference, all the while her heart stammering with ever-increasing speed.
‘Are we all still here?’ Odysseus called after a while.
‘Yes,’ replied Palamedes and Hylas.
‘Here,’ said Nestor.
‘Dione?’
‘Yes,’ she breathed, willing her voice not to betray her.
‘We turn right.’ Odysseus’ words rang clear through the tunnel.
Danae did not know how she forced her legs to keep moving. Her thoughts raced so fast, they blurred into images she could not divine.
The group turned right again, and Danae stopped, her breath raking over her dry lips. She could no longer feel stone beneath her fingers but damp earth.
‘No,’ she hissed to herself between gritted teeth. ‘Keep moving.’
Her leaden legs obeyed, and soon the terrain of the wall changed once more. She felt a groove in the earth, then a lip of stone. She lay her palms flat to the wall. The stone bore markings.
They must have reached the tombs.
In Danae’s sight-starved mind, her imagination caught fire. She pictured the corpses coming alive and dragging their bones to dance with the living. She saw ghostly trees and people with no skin, the laugh of a dead man echoing through her skull.
Her legs gave way, and her lungs shrank to the size of oranges.
Lights flashed across her vision, sparks that elongated as they burst, stretching into glowing threads that scurried away in the darkness.
Almost feverish with terror, she believed she had become trapped in the omphalos shard, her life fleeing from her until there would be nothing left but a sightless husk floating endlessly through time.
All the while, her life-threads pulsed from her in waves, shooting uncontrollably into the earth.
‘Dione!’
The ground shook, clods of earth and pieces of stone raining down on them.
‘Dione!’
‘Danae.’ Her true name. Barely a whisper, spoken so close only she could hear. ‘Danae, stop.’
Arms lifted her from the ground. She did not know when she had fallen.
‘I’ve got her,’ said Hylas. She clung to his voice, the warmth of his body pressed against hers.
‘Run!’ shouted Odysseus as the passage behind them collapsed with an almighty crash.
They hurried through the blackness, half sprinting half stumbling, Hylas’ arm firm around Danae’s shoulders.
Then the darkness shattered, and starlight bled through the cracks.
They emerged from the mouth of the tombs in a gust of dirt and dust, halfway up a hillside overlooking the fortress city. Behind them, the tunnel groaned like a dying beast, and they all fell to the ground as the last of the passage collapsed.
Beyond, the sea was like a sleeping beast, silver light dancing on its watery scales. The wind had chased the clouds from the sky, and the moonlit world was colder for it.
‘What in Tartarus is going on?’ called Palamedes.
‘Poseidon, earth-shaker!’ replied Nestor, unaware that his god’s body rotted at the bottom of a lake on Delos.
‘Dione,’ Odysseus’ voice rang out like a bell. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m all right,’ Danae called weakly.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Palamedes, pushing himself to his feet. ‘That was a god’s doing back there. If not Poseidon, then one who clearly loves the Trojans and has set their will against us.’
‘If a god wished us dead, we would not be standing here now,’ said Nestor.
As the rest of them heaved themselves up, Odysseus moved towards Danae.
‘Do you not remember what I said to you before we left the Greek camp?’
Frail as she felt, a rod of defiance straightened her spine. ‘I remember.’
His eyes swept over her, searching.
‘What say you, Seer?’ Nestor staggered over to them. ‘Did you sense the gods as we passed through the tombs?’
She was so weary she could barely think of a lie. ‘Olympus looks to Troy, but the Twelve have not yet chosen sides. That was a warning.’
The wrinkles deepened between Nestor’s brows as his thoughts turned inward, mulling over her words. Odysseus’ frown remained, but he nodded.
‘There!’ Palamedes pointed to the city. Far to the right of the Scaean Gates, another entrance punctuated the great stone wall.
It was difficult to tell in the moonlight, but it looked as though a crack had appeared at its centre.
Then five horses emerged, two ridden, the rest tethered behind the leading pair.
‘Praise the gods,’ breathed Nestor.
Danae’s heart lifted as the mounts charged towards them. But her elation was short-lived.
Hundreds of flames burst into light across Troy’s battlements, then the dissonant clanging of bells rippled across the plain.
‘Go,’ shouted Odysseus. ‘Get the horses!’
They pelted down the hillside, sprinting across the stretch of land towards the cantering horses.
Battered and bruised, the Greeks heaved themselves onto their mounts, untied the ropes that bound them together and set off across the Trojan Plain as the slaves retreated towards the city.
The drum of her mare’s hooves thundered through Danae like it were her own heartbeat. Then another sound pricked her ears, a whistle cutting through the rush of the wind and clamouring bells. She looked back.
A swarm of arrows flecked the dark sky, their bronze tips glinting in the moonlight. Time slowed as they seemed to pierce the night then turn and fall towards the Greeks. Danae’s eyes widened as the shafts gathered speed, plummeting downwards.
There was no time to think. Calming her breath, she imagined melting into her mind river, channelled a rope of life-threads into her hand and flung it at the sky. She would not lose control this time.
‘Please, wind,’ she whispered, ‘carry them away.’
So, this is faith, she thought, as she watched the arrows continue to fall, the night sky webbed by threads of golden light.
She was suspended somewhere between petrifying fear and a calm deeper than the widest ocean.
Then the balance tipped, threatening to send her careering back into a maelstrom of panic.
It wasn’t working. Her unquestioning trust was going to kill them.
The tapestry of life flickered, threatening to vanish from her sight.
Then, just as she was about to force her will through her life-threads, the wind answered her plea.
A power greater than herself surged through her, and her threads split, twisting across the sky as a blast of salty air scattered the arrows, sending them into a chaotic spin to land in an arc behind the horses.
Nestor laughed, a desperate expulsion of relief. ‘The gods have spared us!’
Another fleet of arrows came, but their horses were now safely out of range. Odysseus looked back, his gaze settling on Danae. A thrill rippled through her at the realization brightening his face.
He may be a wolf, but she was a lion.