I worked fast, scattering more kindling on the ground, and then knelt at one foreleg. I stared up at the curved wood above me, imagining for a moment that my eyes could penetrate its thickness and see the soldiers crouched there, poised to rain down destruction on our sleeping city.
My jaw set with silent satisfaction as I lowered the torch and flames began to lick at the first wooden limb.
‘Cassandra! No!’
The shout came a fraction of a second before he barrelled into me, the heavy weight of his body crushing the air from my lungs so that I lay dazed for a moment against the stone floor of the square. He was stamping out the fire, and I clawed at his legs, trying to pull him back, but there were more hands on my body, and I screamed and tried to lunge away, but they held me fast. Someone yanked the axe from my clenched fist, the torch was extinguished and kicked away. As they pulled me back, I saw only a pathetic little wisp of smoke rising from the horse’s leg.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ My father’s voice.
I struggled against the guards that held me. ‘Burn it!’ I screamed. ‘Burn it now!’
It was Deiphobus who stamped out the flames, Deiphobus who had knocked me aside. He turned, panting slightly from his exertions, to face Priam. ‘You were right,’ he said grimly. ‘She was waiting in the shadows to harm it.’
I twisted and turned, but the hands that clamped my arm held fast in an implacable grip. ‘It is full of Greeks! You must believe me! Please, burn it – please!’
‘And bring down the rage of Athena, right into the heart of Troy!’ My father clutched at his head as though he would pull the sparse grey hair right out of it in exasperation at me. ‘Was it not enough to see what happened to Laocoon and his sons?’
Foam was bubbling at my lips as I screamed, pure fury coursing through my body. My brother’s fist struck me, a starburst of pain exploding in my temple, and my shriek subsided to a shocked whimper.
‘Do you truly think there are soldiers in there?’ Her voice spilled cool from the shadows, taking us all aback.
‘Helen?’
She stepped forward, into the square. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, her eyes serious and set upon the great horse. The flames from those torches still burning cast a flickering light across her face as she turned it upwards, contemplating.
‘We will not damage this horse!’ The anger frayed Priam’s voice, and I could hear the catch of exhaustion and despair as he spoke, desperate to avert yet another catastrophe from boiling over and engulfing us all. ‘We brought it here for our protection; we will not tear it apart on the say-so of a dead priest and a madwoman!’
Helen shook her head. ‘No need to tear it apart to find out what you want to know,’ she said, softly. Her steps were purposeful and measured as she made her way steadily closer.
My chest heaved as I watched her, the panic still clogging my throat, making it hard to breathe.
She laid a hand on the closest leg of the horse and closed her eyes. ‘Menelaus?’ she breathed. ‘Menelaus, I am here, alone in the heart of Troy. You have come here for me, Menelaus, my husband. It has been ten years, but I have waited for you to come.’ She spoke in Greek, the words unused for all this time, but falling smoothly from her lips. ‘Don’t make me wait any longer.’ She stood, motionless in the gloaming, her profile stark against the dim bulk of the wooden structure. The silence stretched on. All of us were poised for the sound of any movement, any response from within its cavernous bowels.
When she spoke again, her voice changed. Now deeper, a different tang to her words, perhaps accented, certainly with the quaver of a much older woman speaking, not like Helen’s mellifluous tones at all. ‘Diomedes? Diomedes? How I, your mother, long to see you, to behold my son again before I die. Diomedes, make yourself known to Deipyle, your aged mother, once more!’
I saw Deiphobus’ hand tighten on his sword as he watched her begin to pace around the horse, calling out to the impassive wooden planks in a cascade of changing tones and voices. ‘Odysseus,’ she said, her voice clear and ringing with a note of impatience. ‘Penelope begs you to be done with this, to end it now and come home to me and to your son, Telemachus, no longer the baby you left behind. Do not linger, waiting in the dark any longer, it’s time to strike!’ Then in a younger, sweeter voice, she appealed to another. ‘Anticlus, come to Laodamia, your lonely wife. Do not hide from me, Anticlus.’
We watched, transfixed, as she made her way around the silent creature, the eerie harmony of the different voices weaving a spell around us all, a spell that must be so much more powerful to the hidden Greeks. After ten years of fighting so far away from their homes, the tempting sound of her pleas was surely more seductive than any of them could withstand.