The night before Paris came back to Troy, I slept even more fitfully than usual. The next morning, I could feel the tenderness around my eyes, the gritty soreness that told of the hours I had spent awake in the bowels of the night. Everything that day seemed like an illusion, as though the city itself was made of rippling cloth; as though the ancient foundations of the mighty walls could sink at any moment into quicksand and disappear. I longed for the fresh salt of the air outside the walls, for the quiet murmuring of the breeze and the soft surge of the seawater staining the sand dark. But my duties at the temple took so much longer than usual, my fingers fumbling as I tried to light the incense and melt the scented wax to oil, to crush the flowers and create sweet fragrances to please the god who tormented me. If I could appease him, perhaps he would let me use what he had given me to help my fellow Trojans, since he loved us so dearly. I felt the stifling darkness of the room close in about me at Apollo’s altar; the eyes of his statue narrowed in silent contempt, making me drop the blooms across the stone floor.
I could tell by the blaze of the sun on the flagstones that it burned at its zenith, and I knew I was expected at the palace, but I could not turn my feet towards it. I felt that pull, stronger than ever, drowning out my sense of duty, drawing me from the city towards the shore.
I wanted the solitude, the peace, of that quiet expanse of sand, the gleam of the water in the distance whilst the city broiled behind me, full of chatter and bustle and noise. But as I peered down from the high city walls, I could see movement. A figure – a man – walking towards the gates of Troy.
I felt a swoop in my stomach, the familiar rolling lurch of insight. I wanted this man to turn around, to walk away, but he kept coming with a confident swing in his stride. My throat burned with the sour foretaste of vomit, and I closed my eyes, but still I saw him, coming towards Troy with disaster at his heels.
I heard the gates rolling back for him, even as I whimpered for them to stop. No one was there to hear me; no one would have listened or cared if they had been. The stone wall dragged roughly against my face as I sagged downwards against it, pulling my hands about my head, desperate for it to stop. I could not see the shape of it yet, but I knew this man carried the collapse of the world with him.
Could I run? In front of Troy there was nothing: just the long plains giving way to the beach and the vast seas beyond. Behind us rose the mountains, sparse and scrubby. I saw myself set upon by wild beasts, my bones picked apart by vultures, or suffocated by the heavy water, my carcass gnawed by fish.
And if I ran, who would warn my parents of what had come for them, for us all? This, surely, was why Apollo had given me his insight. A chance to save my city. A chance to earn the gratitude of my people, and a place among them at last.
Nothing burned around me, but I could taste ashes in the air. I put one foot in front of the other, dragged myself towards the palace. I was late. My cheek was torn by scratches where the stones had grazed my face; my white dress was stained with dust. No wonder people looked away from me: the princess of Troy, arriving at a banquet looking ragged and haunted and strange. But I could feel the power thrumming in my body, at last in alignment with my brain. Prophecy, as I had always imagined it would be: a power and a privilege.
Paris, my brother, sat between my mother and father, returned to the bosom of his family. His dark eyes sparkled, his nut-brown skin gleamed with health and vitality, his hair clustered in shining curls about his head. Hecabe’s hand lay across his on the table, her goblet of wine pushed aside as she drank in his presence instead. Priam, laughing and carefree as he embraced his son. The sprawling spread of my family filled the hall, the sons and daughters of Priam by my mother in the foremost seats, and the rest thronging on the long wooden benches.
I made my way towards them through the crowded hall. I knew it was all wrong; that I should not approach like this, that I was doing everything badly. But still, my feet moved on. Paris looked up and saw me.
‘My sister,’ he said. ‘Are you Cassandra? You must be, surely.’
I stared at him steadily.
‘The rumours of your beauty are true,’ he said, standing, holding his arms out to me.
He breathed sincerity, this Paris. No flicker of horror as he took in my puffy eyelids and tangled hair. He was not disconcerted by this silent sister, this apparition that loomed before him at his triumphant homecoming. I searched his face and saw his honesty. And yet I could hear the shrieks echoing in his wake, the howls of despair that would ring through the smoking ruins of Troy. I could see the flickers of a fire that would rampage unconstrained behind him when I looked into those warm eyes.
He dropped his arms as I stayed motionless. ‘You are surprised, of course. I know that everyone believed me dead. When I came to this hall today, everyone was as astonished as you are. You hear this news late and it shocks you, but I will tell you, Cassandra, who I am and where—’
‘You are Paris,’ I said. ‘My baby brother, cast out to die. Did the herdsman take pity on you, save you from your fate?’
At this, he could not help but look a little taken aback. ‘Your intellect is sharp,’ he said, and I could see he had thought me a simple idiot.
Priam took my elbow, gestured for me to sit. I did not move. ‘Paris has indeed returned to us,’ he said. ‘And our joy is complete: to have our son, whom we believed dead, restored to our home.’
‘But he was supposed to die,’ I said. My words rang more harshly than I intended. ‘The prophecy said he must die.’
Hecabe frowned. ‘The prophecy told us to leave him on the mountains,’ she said. ‘We followed the prophecy, and the gods saved our son in reward for our piety, for our sacrifice.’
She was lying to herself; I could see it. She had made a convincing case, but she was wrong. I opened my mouth to tell her so, but I looked at Paris’ face again before I spoke. I could see the fine shape of his bones, the exquisite beauty of his features jarring so discordantly with the horror he opened up within me, but the terrible jangle of despair and fear was beginning to separate into distinct notes, and I was distracted from my words. So much of it was still to come, but one strand of sorrow felt immediate. I saw a woman in my mind’s eye, weeping over the baby that gurgled in her arms. Flowers twisted through her hair, a spring bubbled beside her as though in sympathy, and the gnarled branches of an olive tree stretched over her like it wanted to offer her protection. No mortal woman: the spirit of the mountain itself infused her veins. The word for what she was came to me: Oread. Mountain nymph. The tears that she sobbed were for her husband, Paris. I knew it, and although I knew that a thousand women would wring their hands and scream in bitter grief because of this man in the years to come, this nymph cried now. Her baby reached up a chubby arm to bat clumsily at his mother’s face, and I saw his eyes open big and dark, just like his father’s.
Paris’ eyes were fixed on me, not the infant’s. The vision dissolved, leaving me only with the nymph’s name. Oenone. I could say it, see if the name of the wife he’d abandoned along with his newborn son brought a jolt of guilt to that calm, handsome face. I could feel the word dripping with poison on my tongue, but it caught in my mouth and I could not force it past my lips.