And then I was back, back at the square where the horse still stood, a gaping hole in its side, from which the Greeks had spilled into the silent, sleeping heart of Troy. The rest of the army must have crept back from the hidden bay to which they had sailed and waited under the cover of darkness at the foot of our walls for the gates to swing open.
Flames licked at the timber shell, too late. Through the fear that swamped me, I felt a rising tingle of rage. I had known, I had known it, and I could not stop it. The anguish twisted through me, an excruciating tide of despair and fury that I had not set it alight whilst they cowered inside its belly, that they had not burned alive in the dark, every last one of them. That my father and my brother had stopped me, and what would happen to them now? Were they already dead somewhere in the burning city, or did the Greeks hold them, gloating, making them watch the destruction of all we held dear before dispatching them to the Underworld?
The heat was like a solid wall, pressing in upon me from all sides, and if I stood in futile, frustrated rage any longer, then it would consume me, too. I don’t know why I sought to preserve my life. If Priam and Deiphobus and the men of the city would be slaughtered like sheep led to sacrifice, it was sweet mercy compared to what awaited me, my mother, my sister, and all the women and girls of Troy. The knowledge curdled in my veins, but still I didn’t dare to hurl myself into the fire and make it end, before what was to come.
The temple. The temple of Athena, no less, protector of the Greeks. Of all the immortals, they honoured her the most, their grey-eyed goddess of war who had bestowed her favour upon them so generously in this ten-year battle. If there was anything they might respect, it would be Athena. And it was her temple that stood, untouched by fire, by this very square. It was there that I could find sanctuary; there that I might be spared.
I ran between its columns, turning at the entrance to look back at what lay behind me. Monstrous. Unthinkable. The streets I had walked, the buildings that framed the sky, every familiar sight of my life, melting and collapsing to nothing but rubble and soot. My chest ached, my eyes streamed, and my head reeled from the incomprehensible enormity of it. Despite what I had seen in the bloodless visions Apollo had sent, I had not known the visceral truth of it; I had not felt the heat of it sear my flesh and scorch my hair.
I stumbled through the stone entrance, the cool air of the interior a shock against my raw, burned flesh. The statue of Athena was placed in the centre, her features serene, her painted eyes blank and fixed, staring dead ahead. I threw myself at the altar by her feet, pressed my forehead to it and squeezed my eyes shut. If the temple caves in above my head, make it happen quickly, I begged feverishly. Let me not know about it. This time, please let me not see the disaster before it happens.
There was nothing in the soldier’s eyes when he plunged into the temple and pulled me from the altar. No vestige of humanity to which I could appeal. Beneath the gaze of Athena, I screamed at him to stop, to think where he was, this sacred place in the midst of war, this sanctuary from desecration.
Once before, Apollo had come to me in a temple, and I had known his purpose and turned away from him. His wrath had been terrible; a price I had never dreamed I would have to pay. But this mortal, this Greek, this soldier streaked in blood and filth, did not have Apollo’s cold and cruel restraint. The god had not defiled his own sacred place of worship with force; he had taken a different revenge on me, and I had suffered every day since then. Perhaps that was why I did not believe what was about to happen; perhaps that was why my body froze as this man drove me down against the floor, and I thought: Any moment he will think of where he is, how Athena’s sacred image gazes upon him, and this will not be, it cannot be.
The pounding of the blood inside my head muffled any other sound. Pinned beneath his body, his weight crushing the breath from my lungs, my eyes flickered to Athena’s face. I could not speak, but mutely, I implored the goddess to make it stop, to halt him with her divine fury, for she could not let this happen in her temple.
The painted black irises stared back into my own, cold and fathomless as the ocean. I felt her chill contempt, her iron glare, pierce my soul.
Then, as I looked up at her helplessly, her glass eyes rolled to the sky, so she did not have to watch.
Down at the shoreline, the women were gathered, huddled together in weeping clusters. Just yesterday morning, they had flocked to this beach, full of wonderment and giddy disbelief.
From one knot of women, I heard a hiccupping gasp and my own name croaked out. ‘Cassandra?’
The men that had led me here shoved me towards her and I stumbled, just managing to catch myself before I fell. It was my mother. Crouched on the sand, hunched in upon herself, looking so much older, as though the years of war had passed again in one night. Around her were my sisters. I looked away, blinking back the burn of tears. Andromache. I had seen her widowed, forced to watch Hector’s corpse dragged through the dirt, and I had thought those were the depths of despair any woman could plumb. But there was so much worse than I had known to imagine. The shock pierced me with every detail I noticed.
The moment I saw that the cradle of her arms was empty.
My sister Polyxena, trembling like a reed, heartbreakingly young.
And Helen, there among us. Her dress was ripped, the fabric frayed and fluttering across her. When I looked unwillingly towards the Greeks, I couldn’t ignore the way their eyes lingered on her exposed skin, the gleam of covetousness mingling with something darker, yet to be unleashed. The waiting was agony, a drawn-out torment whilst the soldiers decided our fate.
I realised what it was they were waiting for when I saw the contingent striding towards us from the smoking ruins of the city. Four of them, purposeful and intent upon us. I glanced back at Helen. The colour drained from her face, and although she drew herself up as tall as she could, I saw how she trembled. I felt Andromache give way behind me, her sobs echoing across the eerie silence of the dawn. Where was Astyanax? I so desperately didn’t want to know the answer.
Other Greek soldiers followed these four, fanning out around the beach. The ocean had spread so vast and empty when we had spilled out of the city the day before. Now, the long ships filled the shallows, and the men went back and forth, loading up what they had stolen from Troy. I wondered how many of them had wives waiting for them, mothers and daughters perhaps. What would those women think if they could see their menfolk, as they stood guard over us, the weeping, grieving survivors of Troy? As they waited to discover which among us they could take as their prizes, just the same as the gold and jewels they piled up? Would the women of Greece recognise the little boys they had once cuddled, the tender husbands they had kissed goodbye, the kind fathers who had cradled them proudly?
I knew that I would never see most of these reunions, would never know whether the monsters that were ransacking my home and murdering the men and boys of my city would walk back into their lives as though this didn’t matter. But the Spartan king who had sailed here for his wife stood before us, and this was the moment of Helen’s reckoning. A circle widened around her; she stood alone as he advanced.
We were all there because of her. But I remembered the insistent press of her hand on my shoulder when I had thought of running away, how she had tried to save my life. Looking at her, so alone amid the carnage wrought in her name, I wished that I could do the same for her.
Menelaus spoke at last. ‘I’ll take her back. She can face justice in Sparta.’
Somebody snorted. The men whipped around, their accusing stares fastening firmly on Hecabe. My mother hauled herself to stand, leaning heavily on the arms of Polyxena on one side and Andromache on the other. ‘She’s going home,’ my mother spat. ‘After all of this, she’s going home.’
Menelaus drew himself up. ‘Helen will face justice in Sparta,’ he repeated.
Hecabe laughed, a gritty cackle that made me flinch. ‘No, she won’t.’