The youngest man in the Greek contingent was not satisfied. He paced back and forth along the shore, casting a baleful look out towards the sea.
‘What troubles you, Neoptolomus?’ It was Odysseus who spoke. It was to Neoptolomus, this son of Achilles, that the Greeks addressed their questions, and to Odysseus that they looked for advice. Not to King Agamemnon, who swaggered in his purple cloak, his chest puffed out with his own importance.
‘My father gave his life for the glory of this war,’ Neoptolomus replied. His brooding gaze swept across us, his eyes like the coldest depths of the ocean, black sands that have never known the sun.
‘We will honour him always,’ Odysseus said. He shifted from foot to foot, eager even in his exhaustion to be on his way.
‘It is not enough.’
Agamemnon huffed, his attention caught by this. ‘Not enough?’ he snapped. ‘Achilles died with every honour heaped upon him. The greatest warrior of Troy died at his hands before Achilles fell. You have avenged your father over and over. You hurled Hector’s son from the city walls.’ I turned my eyes away from Andromache, too cowardly to see her face at this. ‘You can have Hector’s wife for your own. Troy is conquered. What more honour can Achilles have?’
The young man stared at him; a long, insolent gaze. I saw the heat of anger flush Agamemnon’s cheeks, but he didn’t speak. Perhaps he didn’t dare. The silence extended painfully. At last, Neoptolomus broke it. ‘I’ve heard how you sailed to Troy,’ he said softly. ‘What you paid for safe passage, how you won a fair wind from the gods. My father must be honoured likewise. His shade will not look kindly upon us from Hades’ realm if we do not.’
Odysseus sighed. ‘Achilles wouldn’t demand—’
‘My father slit twelve Trojan throats at Patroklos’ tomb. Why shouldn’t he have the same?’
‘You wish to take twelve of them?’
A ripple of horror shimmered through the women, but I think we all wondered which would truly be worse: to have our throats slit on Trojan land and our bones buried in Trojan soil, or to be led away in chains.
‘Just one will do. One will satisfy my father,’ he answered.
And his eyes landed on Polyxena.
I heard my mother’s stifled cry as her youngest daughter stared back at him. The blood drained from her cheeks, but Polyxena tilted up her chin and did not look away.
The soldiers moved quickly, one at each of her elbows in the matter of a moment.
‘She’s young,’ Neoptolomus said. ‘She must be like your daughter was.’ He smiled at Agamemnon. ‘I’ve heard that Iphigenia didn’t scream.’
They marched my little sister down the beach and Neoptolomus drew his blade: the knife that had torn apart so much Trojan flesh already.
I closed my eyes.
Somehow, even after that, the day wore on. The sun climbed higher in the sky, but the air stayed grey, plumes of smoke still rising from the city. Birds shrieked and wheeled out over the sea. On the sand, we women tended to one another’s cuts and bruises, though we had no herbs or ointments to ease the pain. I wondered when any of us would know the touch of a loving hand again after this was done. I held my mother’s hand wordlessly.
‘She wasn’t touched by any of them,’ I heard Andromache say to her. ‘She is safe from them all.’
At this, Hecabe nodded, a little gasp breaking in her throat. Apollo, a god of the sun, would never show me the dark shadows of Hades’ realm, a place where his light could never penetrate. If my visions could show me that, at last I would have some comfort to offer my mother – if she would believe me. If only I could see my little sister in that dim and peaceful land, a world that no invaders would ever shatter, the memory of her pain washed away in the silver-shining waters of the Lethe.
As dusk began to gather, so did the men, a hostile circle closing in around us. They began forcing us into lines. One of them grabbed my elbow, yanking me into place. Hecabe was pulled away from me, down to the other end of the line from where I stood. She didn’t look back.
Agamemnon, in his fussy purple cloak, stepped forward and cast an assessing glance across us all. Someone was offering some kind of commentary, telling him who we all were. The fires they had lit around the beach gleamed in the dim evening air, pools of light scattered around. How do they know? I wondered dizzily. Who told them our names? Have they made a list, weighed up our attributes, our status, considered who we belonged to before, to help them decide how we are to be most fittingly distributed? I heard my own name: ‘Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecabe, a priestess. Beautiful, apparently.’ His tone was dry and matter-of-fact. I was glad of my tangled hair, the streaks of dirt and dried blood, the dust-stained dress that obscured me, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever I looked like in that moment, he had heard who I was.