‘An order, Major.’
He paused, but I was right. It made no sense at all for them to fight their way up here, snatch me up and then fight their way back again to the pods. Let the Greeks get me down there and they could just grab me as I passed.
‘Understood.’
We sat there all day in the hot sun. The occasional aftershock brought more walls down, but we were safe enough in the middle of the square. I hunched my shoulders and made sure I stayed behind everyone else. At first, I tried to watch what was going on around me. I even considered activating my little recorder, but that was just asking for trouble. I stowed it carefully away in my hidden pocket because the last thing I wanted was for some future archaeologist to dig up a three and a half thousand-year-old, state of the art, digital 3D recorder with my initials illegally scratched on the bottom.
As I say, at first I tried to watch, but as the hours passed the sights and sounds of so many people dying were just too much. The old, the sick, the wounded, anyone they didn’t like the look of were just executed on the spot. A quick spear thrust, and down they went into the blood-soaked dust. The streets echoed to the screams of the terrified and the dying.
I did as the other women did. I drew my stole across my face and apparently gave myself up to despair.
They moved us as the afternoon thought about becoming evening. The stifling heat had not let up for one second. I was parched, and, when the moment came, not at all sure I could get my stiff legs to work.
A couple of pokes with the butt end of a spear convinced me that I could.
I said softly, ‘We’re on the move.’
A voice said, ‘We’re ready.’
And off we went.
The trouble began at what was left of the Dardanian Gate.
I was at the rear and couldn’t see clearly, but, as we approached the gate, the leading women suddenly broke their silence and set up a keening wail that lifted the hairs on my arms. Other women took up the cry. I craned my neck to see what was going on.
Our guards, obviously anticipating difficulties, waded in, using their spear butts to prod and club us onwards, shouting all the time.
It was no use. Our ragged line shambled to a halt. Wailing women tore their garments and scratched their faces.
Spread-eagled against the gate hung the naked body of Paris. They’d hacked off his genitals. He had been impaled by over thirty arrows, including one through each eye. They’d used him as target practice. Judging by the fly-infested pools of blood at his feet, he’d taken a long time to die.
Not a warrior’s death.
Bastards.
One woman broke ranks and ran to dip her stole into his blood. For a moment, it looked as if our little procession would end in chaos. Other women surged forwards, too. Ajax barked an order and they were cut down without mercy. They lay like broken dolls, their blood hideously red against the grey dust.
We huddled together in shock. The girl next to me was trembling violently. She was only very young. Her dust-covered hair hung around her face and her huge dark eyes were jerking wildly. Her breath came in short, sharp pants. Any minute now she would succumb to hysterics. Others would follow suit and then we’d all be in trouble.
I took her hand and pinched the webbing between her thumb and first finger. She jerked violently, caught her breath in a kind of gasp, and then, to my relief, the tears started to fall. She pulled her stole across her face and turned away.
I never saw her again. I sometimes wonder what became of her.
We edged our way past the bodies, out through the gate and along the main street, heading towards the gap in the walls.
I’ve never seen a city die before. I never want to again.
The lower town was almost gone. Fires still burned and we coughed our way through the smoke. Half-burned bodies sprawled everywhere. One woman hung out of a window, her upper torso completely untouched and her legs burned away to the bone. I remembered women locking their children in outhouses or cellars and wondered how they had fared. Dead and dismembered soldiers lay everywhere. I could smell the metallic stench of blood. We climbed over bodies. I could hear buzzing flies. Away off to my left a woman screamed repeatedly. I kept my eyes forward, watching where I put my feet. What I had to stand in.
The smoke made us cough. The air was thick with ash and dust which settled in the folds of our clothes and coated our hair. I had no spit with which to swallow and the taste in my mouth was of burning metal. Everyone, everything, was coated in thick layers of grey grime.
Apart from other lines of women and children, I saw no other living person anywhere in the lower city. I began to fear for my team. All around me, the other women were crying and wailing. I used the noise.
‘Major?’