4

I can’t help laughing. “When Amazons are outnumbered, our horses carry us away. We shoot at our enemies as we go. Do the Greeks cast spells on horses?”

Her placid, sad expression doesn’t change.

She shouldn’t waste her worries on us! “We’re the best archers.” I pat my gorytos. “Everyone envies our bows. Our arrows are poisoned with asp venom. Our foes weaken before they can even raise their spears. But should one get close, we fight with our battle-axes too.”

She doesn’t argue. “In a moment, brave Hector, my favorite brother, will come out. He’ll die an instant before your mother does.”

“No one will come out until my mother returns.” It would be rude to. “Pen commands attention.” Pity softens my tone. “Your brother won’t die.” I don’t know why I believe this. The brother may not be skilled in battle, but I don’t question my certainty.

She looks up at the sky. “He’ll die three days after the fighting starts again.”

“When will it begin?”

“In fifteen days. He’s my best brother out of many. You’ll like him. Everyone does. He’s called Tamer of Horses.”

Amazons are all horse tamers, but here it must be unusual.

She continues. “He’s killed more Greeks than any other warrior.”

Maera barks and wags her tail. A man leaves the palace carrying a young boy on his shoulders. The man, I suppose, is Hector, who must come out at this time every day. Cassandra didn’t say he’d have a child with him, proof, as it appears to me, she doesn’t see the future.

He smiles down at us from the top step, a wide smile under a slightly crooked nose, which makes his face friendly. Cassandra smiles back. She introduces me to him as he descends the steps.

He raises his right hand in greeting. This seems like a solemn moment. I raise my hand back, though I’ve never done so before.

He’s my height, tall for a Trojan. When he sits on the lowest step, he doesn’t groan. He must not spend his life on horseback, no matter how many horses he trains. Cassandra sits next to him.

His eyes go to my gorytos. “Your mother told us what a warrior you’ll be.” He lowers the toddler to his lap.

The boy squirms away to Cassandra and stands on her thighs. He tugs her hair, laughing. She catches his hand and kisses his fingers. Her face is sad. Does she think this child is going to die soon too? He won’t be fighting!

Hector says, “Your mother told us that anyone else would have been crippled by the fall you took.”

I wonder if that’s true. My mind passes over Cassandra’s correct prediction that Pen would speak of me.

He says, “I’ll be proud to go into battle at your side.”

I like him. Most others would say with you at MY side.

I return the compliment. “We’ll keep each other safe.” I hope to reassure Cassandra.

“Would you mind . . . May I . . . see your bow?”

I pull it out of my gorytos and give it to him.

He stands and holds the bow by the riser. “Isn’t it beautiful, Cassandra?”

“Mm.”

“Oak, right?”

I nod.

“Cassandra, it isn’t all wood, though. There’s goat horn and sinew and glue, a little army assembled to help the archer.”

Soon, he’ll be my favorite of her brothers too.

“Very nice.” She makes her nephew sit.

“Cassandra! Listen!” Hector hasn’t finished his enthusiasm. “An Amazon’s bow compared to ours is like Father’s palace compared to a mud hut.”

He probably wouldn’t admire the wagons we sleep in.

He draws back the string. “So flexible you can feel it gathering its power.”

I’m won over. I confide, “I could shoot when I was just eight.”

“The bow helped you, right?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t hit anything.”

“It taught you!”

True. I hadn’t expected to find understanding among these barbarians.

He returns the bow, sits, and takes the boy again. “This is my son, Astyanax. He won’t be strong enough to pull back our bows until he’s ten at least.” He lifts the boy’s chin. “Nax, call on the Amazons when you go to war, and stay in Rin’s shadow.”

The boy leans against his father’s chest, regarding me solemnly.

Maera puts her head in Cassandra’s lap.

“I’ll come if you need me, any of you.” I’ve never felt so important.

“As will I.”

This, I think, is what it means to be allies. We’ve just made a compact. I’m behaving as a future queen. Pen will be proud—I hope.

Hector’s hand keeps petting his son’s head while Cassandra does the same to Maera. I half wish I had a brother.

“My sister says I won’t live much longer and Nax won’t survive to grow into a man.” He turns to her. “You might have spared me that foolishness, love.”

At least one Trojan doesn’t believe her or make such prophecies.

Her voice is level. “Achilles will kill you, and Rin here won’t be alive to protect Nax. Rin’s mother will die the same day you do.” Her hands pause in the air above Maera. “Leave Troy! Now! Save yourself and Nax.”

Nax propels himself out of his father’s lap and runs away from us, windmilling his arms, laughing as he goes. Cassandra goes back to stroking Maera.

“She speaks nonsense, Rin, but I wish she’d make up more pleasant lies.”

“Helenus will become a king eventually—not of Troy—after he betrays us. That will be pleasant for him.”

I don’t know who Helenus is.

Hector sobers. “He’d never be a traitor.”

“Helenus is my twin,” Cassandra tells me.

“Rin, I’m sure I have more life left than she says, but I don’t expect to be an old man. This war will finish me.”

Now I don’t want to fight near him. Foreboding will slow his arm. If the Trojans are all like these two, no wonder this war has dragged on.

He raises his eyebrows. “How serious we are! Not always.” He stands. “Nax!” He runs and picks up his son, holding the boy around his middle and gliding him in the air. While the child shouts with laughter, Hector sings, hitting high notes and plummeting to low, “Up. Down. Round around. Swimming like a lark. Flying like a trout.”

I smile. Cassandra does too, while a few tears trickle down her cheeks.

Hector brings Nax back to us. He sits and stands his son next to him. Then he wipes Cassandra’s tears away. “Rin, my sister may be strange, but there’s no one more loving or worthy of love. Will you befriend her as well as fight beside me?”

I laugh nervously. “I think I know how to be a comrade in war.” Even though I’ve never fought. But I don’t know how to be a friend—only a daughter, niece, or cousin. “I’ve never had a friend.”

His eyebrows rise. “There’s no difference. If we’re comrades in war, I’ll keep track of you and watch out for your enemies. You’ll guess what I may need and be ready. If we’re separated, we’ll try to reunite. We won’t linger on our missteps. That’s friendship too.” He turns to his sister. “Will you be Rin’s friend, sister?”

She sounds resentful. “I already tried to persuade her to leave Troy and not be killed.”

“Not that!”

“A friend is someone you weep to lose.” Cassandra shakes out her hair. “Rin is a worthy child, but I already have too many people to grieve.”

Her head is stuffed with felt.

“I’ll be your friend. You don’t have to be mine.” I’d learn to be one by doing it, just as I’d learned to hunt and ride and make glue.

They both smile at me.

Cassandra says, “Hec, when we were her age, did either of us have such an open, unguarded face?”

Embarrassed, I crouch and pet Old Tan—Maera. I feel a twinge in my hip, and my ribs hurt.

Pen and the others come out of the palace. Feeling strange and liking it, I introduce Cassandra and Hector to them. I’ve never introduced people before.

Cassandra doesn’t predict everyone’s death, which I’m glad for. I don’t want my friend to be laughed at.

As we start off, she calls after me, “Rin—friend—I’ll welcome your company tomorrow and every day until you fight.”

Another prediction that won’t come true. Pen will want me at our camp to help with chores. But I promised to be Cassandra’s friend, which means being with her. And I would like more time with the Trojans. Maybe I can make the prophecy come to pass.

We stride through the streets and endure the gate again. As we make camp, I tell Pen about the alliance with Hector.

To my delight, she is proud of me. “When you’re queen, we’ll be up to our horses’ bellies in plunder and tribute.”

At night, I bed down near her on my leopard skin blanket. The air is mild and smells of the sea.

“Pen?”

“Mm?”

“Can I go back to Troy tomorrow? Cassandra, the princess, told me things—mostly foolishness, but not all. I want to learn about the Trojans.”

“Go. You can stay with them until you’re well enough to fight.” She sounds sleepy. “Such a queen you’ll be.”

Cassandra’s prediction that I’d return to Troy tomorrow will come true, but not because she foresaw it. The other prophecies coming from her madful mind won’t come true at all.