He was a man, I discovered as I washed down the body; a young man so like my Lady Cassandra that he must have been her twin. His scalp was cut but his skull was sound; his many bruises had been inflicted with feet and fists but they had broken no bones. He opened his eyes and registered where he was, then remembered how he had come there.
He moaned, in frustration and grief but not fear, and struggled against my embrace. I said soothingly, `Hush, I am a friend, I am Chryse the Healer. Lie still now; you are not badly hurt but you are captive. Tell me, how many fingers do you see?'
`Five,' he said. `How many do you have?' His voice was like hers, too, decisive and sweet.
`Good. They have left your head intact. Don't move or you will bleed again.'
His hand wavered up to touch the bandage, then fell open on my shoulder.
`Chryse?' he whispered. `Yes, Chryse, "Golden" in Achaean, I've heard the name. My sister talked to you; the healer, they said, the Achaean healer priest.'
`I am Chryse the asclepid, but I am only half-Achaean. The other half is Carian, and I am wholly your friend.'
`Why?'
`Your sister saved my life,' I said absently, wondering why I was so instantly moved to take the part of this foolish youth who was now a hostage of Agamemnon.
`Kill me,' he begged, grabbing my wrist. `Once Agamemnon learns who I am, he will hold me hostage for the city.'
`Would the city surrender for the life of one prince?' I was dabbing vervain ointment on the bruises. He thought about it, moving as I requested.
`No, you are right. Well, get it over with,' he said, sitting up and trying to draw the rents in his tunic together. `Tell the kings.'
`I will tell the kings nothing until you are healed,' I said softly. `All you need to do is be witless and unremembering until your scalp wound knits. Now, drink this.'
I wrapped his fingers around a wooden cup filled with an infusion of honey, vervain and poppy. He did not drink but looked at me narrowly. I had seen just such an expression on his sister's face. Then the eyes grew abstracted as though he was listening. The dark brows drew in, the full lip was caught by the upper teeth.
`I would not poison you,' I said.
He smiled at me. He was beautiful when he smiled. `It would not matter if it was poisoned. I am trying to find her, to find Cassandra. We share the same sort of mind,' he explained. `She would have felt the blow that struck me down. But we were parted for a long time and grew away from each other. I only found her again when she stuck her hand into an adder's mouth and almost scared me to death. Oh, my sister, my honey, my heart,' he whispered under his breath, then seemed to give up. `I cannot find her. Poor Cassandra. Hector will be angry with her! She smuggled me out of Troy without asking his leave.'
I had heard of the bond between twins. Apollo was clearly still with this one, even though his sister said that she was cursed. I wondered very much how that had come about.
My patient drank the infusion and lay down to sleep. I covered him, dropping a fold of cloak artlessly across his face, then went to the door and said to the guards, `He sleeps, and is wandering in his wits. What came to you to hit him so hard? You are lucky that he is still alive, but so he is, barely. He must have rest to repair his addled brain.'
`He struggled and the Lord of Men told us to secure any person leaving the city,' mumbled one sullenly. `He should not have fought us so fiercely. Ten against one, how could he hope to win? What will you tell Agamemnon?'
`What I have said; that he fell hard from the horse and needs time to recover; he could not even tell me his name. One of you go and tell him that it may be several days before the Lord of Men can question this prisoner. And bring me Arion the Bard; I want to soothe the suppliant with music.' The guard grasped instantly that my message was meant to exonerate him from mishandling the valuable captive, and he was off before I could change my mind.
I went back inside. It was freezing.
Princess Cassandra's twin was sleeping. I listened to his breathing, which was slightly ragged, and ransacked my memory for pectoral herbs, though the wheezing was probably produced by damage to his ribs.
Arion came in through the door like a snowstorm. He apologised, stepped back and shook his cloak outside, then tiptoed past the sleeper and sat down on a bench next to the brazier, warming his hands. Menon, his shadow, sat down on the floor.
`What have we here?' asked the old man. `I've seen that face before. Beautiful as Aphrodite. It is...' I waved at him and he lowered his voice, `Eleni, Prince of Troy, true son of Priam and Hecube the Queen. Twin of the lady Cassandra.'
I pointed at Menon and the old man rumbled, `He is my apprentice and my trusted follower, asclepid, he keeps secrets as well as I; and I keep them well, as you know. Is the boy badly hurt?'
`No, but his wits are shaken by a blow on the head. I want you to sing to him. Or perhaps Menon can play the lyre, while we talk.' I wanted some suitable noise to cover the silence and occupy the sentry's ears. Menon caught on, took the lyre and leaned against the door, tuning it, before he began to play a loud, twanging, discordant dance.
`The music of Caria,' observed Arion. `It should make you feel at home.'
`I am only half-Carian, so half of me thinks it barbaric. This is a prophet, Arion, a priest in favour with Apollo. The god may want to save the Argive army. All will die if he stays here.'
`What can a prophet do?' asked Arion, rubbing his hands.
`Why, prophesy,' I said. `If these beaches are swept clean by the winter waves then they will not all die come spring. But if they are not, then the corpses will mount so high that there will not be enough Argives left alive to bury them.'
`Apollo?' asked Arion.
`Or someone. Polidarius foresaw it. It will be like a village I once saw in the Argolid. Almost everyone died there. I would not see that again.'
`I can prophesy if you wish,' said Eleni sleepily. `But it will be a true sending. My sister offended the god when she bought Poseidon back into the city of Ilium. I would not risk that. She suffers still under the displeasure of Apollo; she knows, but cannot speak. Visions of death haunt her all the time. She is in constant pain, but she cannot tell. Her tongue cleaves to the roof of her mouth and she falls and convulses.'
This sounded less like the anger of a god than the falling sickness to me, but I did not want to interrupt him.
`So, what says Apollo?' asked Arion as Menon began to howl some uncouth chorus about sheep-stealing.
Eleni closed his clear grey eyes, so unlike Achilles' and said, `There are three things which must be done to bring about the fall of Troy; to steal the Pallathi of the Maiden from the temple of the Mother; to bring an archer who is abandoned somewhere on an island; to sacrifice to Apollo in the temple in Tauris called the Temple of Doomed Things and Fates.'
`The third is simple; to Tauris the whole host must go. Does an archer marooned on an island mean anything to you, Arion?' I asked.
`Philoctetes, poor beast. He was stung in the heel by a snake and gangrene set in. He stank so much that the men of his ship could not endure his company, and they left him on a little island off Lesbos. He is, or was - surely he cannot still be alive - a great bowman, one of the few that can draw the Scythian bow.'
`The Lord Apollo says that he is still alive,' said the priest, `therefore he is alive. That is all I can see, apart from my own city in flames.'
`And that, later in the winter, is what you will say to Agamemnon,' I said. `For now you must lie warm, remember that you are witless, and recover.'
`Beware Calchas,' whispered Arion. `High Priest, he calls himself; an arrogant and dangerous man. He has someone in the city who sends him a message to come to the Scaean Gate; I do not know who it is.'
`Mysion, the priest of Apollo,' said the prisoner wearily. `He may even have betrayed me to the Argives. He is a proud man, and Hector gave him no voice at the king's council. He hates my sister especially, because she brought a new god into the city which threatens his power. Hopeless. Soon he will have no power.'
`Boy, have you no wish to save your city?' hissed Arion.
`I would save it if I could, but I cannot. Troy will fall.' His eyes closed, long lashes lying on an unlined cheek. `The gods have spoken.'
The fever came. They called it the arrows of Apollo. It spread quickly among the groups which sheltered together in the tents and who lay close embraced against the cold around the fires.
The plague of Apollo kills seven out of every ten who catch it. There is a high fever, delirium, madness and collapse. The nights were made hideous by soldiers who rose up to fight and slay their visions, who had to be restrained. Sweating did not help them, nor any herb. They killed themselves or were killed by their friends.
One morning I saw the spotted rash on the chest of the prince of Troy.
He had been playing at being witless; now he was witless indeed. In the cold, I lay close by him to keep his covers on, for a fever patient chills into coma and death very quickly. When I could not stay, I deputed Menon, who had suffered an attack of this fever before and would not catch it again. Like lightning, Apollo's most lethal arrow never strikes the same person twice.
The Atreidae were so concerned for their army that they paid no attention to the prisoner. Arion was immune; he stayed with me, playing the lyre, sleeping on the bench in the corner. He said he was too old to go forth into the cold, so I left him slumbering like an old badger while I brewed potions to bring down fevers and tended the one patient I had to save.
Of all of them, I desperately wanted to save Eleni.
One night, fourteen days after the onset, I had to hold him down, so fierce were his struggles. He cried on the god, moaning, `Burning, burning - the city is burning. Oh Ilium. Oh my sister, my sister...' until I hushed him into my arms and I fell asleep with his head on my breast.
I did not think he would live to see Eos trail her garment over the horizon. I wondered how I would tell the woman who waited in the shut-fast city that her brother was dead.
I woke wet with sweat. The face in the small light was as smooth as a child's. I thought he might have gone, so I moved, and he embraced me tighter, his mouth seeking mine. `Oh Cassandra,' he murmured. `Cassandra my sister, my love,' and I returned his kiss, feeling warmth flow into my veins, and long-abandoned feelings made my skin glow.
I heard myself gasp and I shuddered. My seed had spilled in his fingers. It had been so long since anyone had touched me in love. I remembered Eumides the Trojan and his body and his love; but I could not allow my own lust to exhaust this prince of Ilium when he seemed to have recovered. His god had saved him; I would not kill him in my embrace.
`Sleep,' I said, freeing my mouth and stroking his hair. `Sleep, my... my dear, my brother.'
Arion had heard all of this; he lay down on the other side of the prince of Ilium and took my hand.
`Chryse, you are healing yourself,' was all he said, then we fell asleep again.
The next morning I went and called to the daughter of Priam, and told her that her brother was a captive.
She was so beautiful. Her hair and the shape of her face, the delicate bones and the full mouth, were identical to her brother's. But her eyes - her eyes were deep, wise with knowledge too great for a mortal to endure. She had the lines between her brows and the set of jaw seen in patients in constant, chronic pain. Taking my hand under the threat of the archers, she said, `Is he well?'
`Lady, he has been ill, but he is recovering.'
`What was it?'
`The spotted fever.'
`No,' she said, her strong fingers clenching hard. `They do not recover from the spotted fever. Yet he is not dead; I would know that. I know many things I would rather not know. The god has no reason to spare me.'
`Fourteen days he lay delirious, Lady, and then he fell into a sleep and the fever broke. You must have seen this, Healer of Troy.'
`Yes, but rarely,' she said. The wise eyes searched me; she needed to see into my soul. I knew that I could hide nothing from this golden-haired lady and I straightened under her gaze. She held me with her eyes, then nodded and sighed with relief. Her face softened. She and her brother had the same enchanting smile.
`Yes, you are telling the truth. I thank you for your care of my twin, Priest of Asclepius,' and she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, as is the custom with Trojan maidens. Her breath was warm. For a moment I felt the soft curve of her breast against my arm and I trembled.
Then she was gone. I pondered my fate, bitterly. What point was there in falling in love with the princess of Troy, Cassandra the cursed, who looked like a goddess and who was the Achaean's chief prize and spoil when the city fell? No share of loot would come to me; she would be allotted to one of the kings.
Yet I loved her. And she could never love me. I was an enemy.
I went back to care for Eleni and tried not to think of her.
Agamemnon sent for him two days later. In the diminished circle of fever-struck, dull and bright-eyed Achaeans, he declaimed his prophecy. Surprisingly, Calchas the High Priest agreed.
`There is need of persuasion in the matter of Philoctetes, who may feel that he has been abandoned,' said Menelaus. `Therefore you must go there, Odysseus; you of the nimble wits and the golden tongue. If the priests of Apollo have spoken a true sending of the god, and not some utterance of policy-' he glared at Calchas, then at Eleni, `then I will sacrifice in Tauris and my army with me; my brother will do the same. But who can get into the city of Troy and steal the Pallathi?'
`That I can do,' said Odysseus quickly, before the gaze could rest on Eleni. `Leave theft to me. Was not my grandfather Autolycus, who named me Odysseus, "surrounded by hatred"? You shall have the Pallathi before you sail.'
He went that night with Diomedes, presumably for his muscle as he was not the brightest of warriors. I do not know how they had got into the city until I saw them return, or rather smelt them. Their path must have led through the sewers.
`Stand upwind, asclepid, and fetch me boiling water,' said Odysseus, filthy beyond recognition.
I poured hot lychnis solution and sea water over his head - fresh water had gone up to nine obols a bucket - and sluiced off the scum. It took eight buckets before he was clean, and eleven for Diomedes, who was bigger. Then we washed a small image, a maiden with an apple in her hand.
`That is the Pallathi,' Odysseus grinned, pulling on a clean tunic and a cloak. `It was in a temple crammed with copies, large and small, metal and wood, carved and painted and draped.'
`It was the smallest and the plainest. Is this the image, Apollo Priest?'
`It is,' Eleni whispered and bowed to the Maiden.
`Then we sail tomorrow,' affirmed Odysseus. Diomedes, once disinfected, had already gone to the kings. He and the elegant thief did not seem to be friends anymore. I wondered what Odysseus had done to him.
The ships set out - the army to Tauris; Odysseus and three ships to the island of the marooned archer. I gave him clean salt, several infusions and soothing ointment for Philoctetes. It is possible to live for a long time with gangrene, if the diet is spare and the living conditions not too harsh. But, of course, if the flesh is dead no treatment can re-animate it.
Arion, Menon and Eleni were taken with Agamemnon's host. I fear that the Atreidae did not entirely trust me.
Once they had left, I moved all the remaining men off the beaches and onto the lowest slopes of Mount Idus. I did not want to risk the mysterious sickness which had killed those first woodcutters, but I had to get them off those infected sands. Then I ordered the building of huts, the digging of drains, the collection of clean water and the systematic burning of the dead. The bodies in the burial pit had fallen mostly to bones; they had been keeping the local vultures fed all winter, but no more would be laid there. I used the authority of the god freely and soon the number of deaths diminished. Because more of them now lived than died, the soldiers began to trust me.
`The commander ought to have ordered a watch on the city,' commented one, flexing a hand which I had nursed back into use. `They could come forth and massacre us; there are only about four hundred of us until the kings return, and that won't be for at least a month with the winds as they are.'
`Why should the Trojans do that?' I asked. `Can you feel this finger, now?'
`Ouch, yes. Why shouldn't they, healer? The men of Ilium have reason to hate us. Our tents are full of gold and captives. Achilles raids up and down this coast and his camp is full of weeping maidens. That reminds me, Asclepid. The Lord Achilles has sent you a gift. It's outside. I'll get it.'
I had treated the myrmidons for injuries sustained in practice or inflicted by some maddened goatherd trying to defend his flock, and their captain Achilles had occasionally sent me presents of looted wine or dried fruit.
I had gone when he wanted to talk to me, which was rarely. He spent most of his time staring out to sea. Once he had revealed his philosophy. `Beware how you give your heart to a man, Chryse,' he had mused, `lest you change love for hate.' He had been holding Patroclus' hand as he spoke, and the other man gave no sign that he had heard.
What gift would the Lord of the Myrmidons have sent to a healer? More figs? More wine? It was to be a different present, however.
The soldier pushed a girl into my house, a bundle of ripped tunic, torn hair and damaged flesh, said `Enjoy yourself,' and went out, closing the door.