The Women of Troy: A Novel by Pat Barker

Author:Pat Barker [Barker, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385546690
Amazon: 0385546696
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2021-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

19

We were led away from the grave and marched through the stable yard. By now, the sun was climbing steeply above the horizon, throwing a harsh light on the faces of the grooms who turned to watch us pass. Through the stable yard and on to Pyrrhus’s hall, where there were more guards, Myrmidons this time, who recognized me as Lord Alcimus’s wife.

“We should fetch Alcimus,” one of them said.

“No,” said the guard holding me. “Lord Pyrrhus was quite clear. They’re to go straight to him.”

And so, they pushed us up the steps onto the veranda, where they hammered on the door—and went on hammering for some considerable time before Pyrrhus himself came to answer it. He’d draped the purple-and-silver coverlet from his bed loosely round his shoulders but was otherwise naked. He peered from face to face, bleary-eyed from sleep, foul-tempered and bewildered by the sudden intrusion. “What’s this?”

“We found them burying Priam.”

Pyrrhus stepped aside and the guards pushed us ahead of them into the hall.

“Women?” Pyrrhus said, staring at us incredulously. “Are you sure?”

“We all saw them, sir—and heard them. They were saying the prayers for the dead.”

Many of the Myrmidon fighters had followed us into the hall. One of them coughed and pointed to me. “That’s Lord Alcimus’s wife.”

“Is it?”

Pyrrhus had no reason to know I was married to Alcimus. Even if he’d noticed me on one of his rare visits to Alcimus’s hut, he’d probably have assumed I was just another slave girl.

“She was there?”

The young men looked at each other, uneasy now, but then the one holding me nodded.

“Well, I suppose you’d better find Alcimus, then.” Pyrrhus, obviously feeling he had to seize control, jabbed his finger at one of the guards. “You—stay here. Rest of you, get back there—DIG THE BUGGER UP!”

I saw Amina flinch, but when Pyrrhus looked directly at her she met his eyes defiantly. I stared at my feet, dreading the moment when Alcimus would appear.

“I’ll get dressed,” Pyrrhus said. “Keep an eye on them.”

He strode out of the room. Feeling suddenly faint, I looked longingly at the bench by the table. I knew there was no point appealing to the Myrmidon fighters; they had no power to set against Pyrrhus. They just gawped at me in astonishment. God knows how long it would take to find Alcimus; he could be anywhere in the camp, feasting, drinking…Or in some other woman’s bed. So, I simply stared around the hall, which, as always in the aftermath of the previous night’s feasting, looked desolate and slightly mad. Smells of rancid fat, resin from the walls, smoking oil lamps—the rushes, though freshly laid the day before, were too tired to sweeten the air. Feeling dizzy, I started to edge towards the bench, but at that moment Pyrrhus came back into the room, his face knotted in anger. “Why?” he said.

Amina stared straight at him. “I buried my king. I don’t have to explain that.”

Immediately—no pause for thought—he hit her. The sound of the slap echoed round the room.

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