Deimas, having made his own respects to the deities, waved Brutus to a chair, where a young woman wearing a similar haircut to Deimas’ waited with two bowls of scented water, several vials of oils, and some thick towels. Brutus sat, and allowed the woman to take off his sandals and place his feet into the first bowl of pleasantly warmed water.
‘This is a Dorian house,” Brutus said to Deimas as the woman carefully dried his feet before using her gentle hands to rub them with scented oils. “Why have you brought me here?”
Deimas looked at him oddly, then looked pointedly at the woman, now washing Brutus’ face and hands with water from the second bowl.
Brutus looked at her, then back to Deimas. “I would trust a fellow Trojan with my life, even though she be a stranger to me.”
The woman paused, staring at Brutus in surprise.
He smiled at her. “I know my fellow brothers and sisters by their blood,” he said. “By the arcs of their brows and the planes of their faces and the sweet curls of their hair. I am glad to see you in good health, sister, although saddened by the cut”—he touched the line of her short brown hair where it swung against her left cheek—”of slavery.”
‘Then perchance you will recognize me as a brother and not as a stranger of whom to be wary,” said a new voice, and Brutus turned his eyes to the man who had emerged from one of the interior doorways.
He was much younger than Deimas, but carried himself with even more authority—and why not? thought Brutus, for unlike Deimas and the voune woman he carried no mark of slaverv.
The female slave, her cheeks now prettily stained with a little color, hurriedly finished drying Brutus’
hands and face, before backing away and exiting the room.
‘You are Assaracus,” Brutus said.
Assaracus inclined his head. “Aye,” he said, “I am he. Will you attend me, and the dinner I have had caused to be made, in the andron of my house?”
‘Gladly,” said Brutus, rising from his chair.
The andron, or dining chamber, of Assaracus’ house was truly magnificent. Its roofline rose fully the height of three men, supported by well-spaced and proportioned columns, and covered a large chamber whose walls had been painted with exquisite scenes of the gods’ frolics and, Brutus was somewhat aggrieved to see, of some of the Greeks’ most devastating victories.
‘A poor view,” Assaracus said, waving nonchalantly at the eastern wall that held an unmistakable depiction of Greeks ravaging the streets of Troy, “but I hold as my excuse only that this was my father’s house before mine, and he enjoyed that view, while I do not. Please”—now he waved at one of the several couches laid about the laden low table—”take your ease.
‘Now,” he continued as all three men each reclined upon a couch, “you say that you are Brutus. Of Aeneas’ lineage?”
‘Aye,” said Brutus, accepting the cup of watered wine that Assaracus handed him, but declining to sip from it. “He is my father twice removed. I am his heir.” He paused. “To all that Aeneas could claim.”
Now Brutus did sip from his cup of wine. “And now you know of my lineage, might I ask yours?
Your features bear the unmistakable stamp of Troy, you associate with Deimas, who I understand to speak for all Trojan slaves here in Mesopotama, and yet you live in a Greek house painted with gaudy representations of Troy’s ill fate, and you wear your hair in the Greek style… not ir the style of slavery. I am curious.”
‘As you should be. Deimas, perhaps you might answer for me?”
‘Assaracus is the son of my sister,” Deimas said, his eyes cast down. “Lav inia was most beautiful, and
was thus taken as concubine to Assaracus’ father Thymbraeceus. He so honored her that when she bore him a son”—Deima: nodded at Assaracus—”Thymbraeceus caused the boy to be named as his heir above the sons of his Dorian wife.”
‘And thus my allegiance to Deimas, and my mother’s people,” Assaracu: said. “I am well hated within Mesopotama for my Trojan blood, and only nr inherited wealth, and the swords I can buy with that, keeps my person am home safe from harm.”
Assaracus saw the interest on Brutus’ face at the mention of swords, am tKrvürrk K«a half cmilprl r>r*»ff»rrf»rl tr» ‘ t’tar’t’tnre it fnr the moment. “Mv true friend remain among my mother’s people, Brutus.
Not with the Dorian Greeks of my father’s lineage.”
‘Assaracus is our friend and our ally,” said Deimas, now helping himself to several spoonfuls of maza and some of the raw vegetables, “in a world where we have few friends or allies.”
He paused, crunched on some celery, then said, “As you must well know.”
‘Does any Trojan have a friend or ally save among his own people?” Brutus replied.
‘I have heard,” Deimas said slowly and very deliberately, “that even your own people, your own family , turned against you after your father’s untimely death.”
‘I—” Brutus began,
‘For which you were undoubtedly responsible,” Deimas finished.
‘My father’s death was an accident,” Brutus said. His voice remained even, but there was no doubt in either Deimas’ or Assaracus’ mind that he was angry at the mention of his father’s death.
‘With your arrow through his eye?” Assaracus said. He drained his wine cup, and refilled it.
‘But then you did think he was a—what was it? Ah yes—a stag,” Deimas said.
Brutus said nothing, gazing back at the two men with a calm regard. The manner of his father’s death was, in the end, nothing to do with them.
‘And now,” Assaracus interrupted, placing his wine cup down on the table so hard that red wine spilled across its surface, “having killed your father, accidentally or otherwise, then having been exiled from your home community for the act, and then having wandered only the gods know where for the next fifteen years, you arrive off the coast of Epirus and say to your fellow Trojans, ‘I am your savior, I will lead you from bondage into Troy.’ You are lucky, Brutus, that you even received the courtesy of an invitation to meet with Deimas and myself.”
‘I am my father’s heir, and through him my great-grandfather’s heir,” Brutus said, his demeanor remaining cool. “I am the heir to all that was lost at Troy. If you had not recognized that then you would not have responded to my message.”
‘We could just have been curious,” Deimas murmured, staring at the wine as he swirled it about his cup.
‘Troy is dead and gone,” Assaracus said, ignoring Deimas’ remark. “It is nothing but a rubble of
smoking ash and broken dreams. There is nothing to be heir to. Claim what you want, Brutus, it means nothing to us.”
‘And do you say the same to these?” Brutus said, and reaching for an ewer of water that stood to one side, wet a piece of linen and rubbed away the and ash that obscured the golden band on his left biceps.
‘Very pretty,” Assaracus muttered, but Deimas’ eyes widened at the sig and Brutus did not miss it.
‘I say to you,” Brutus said to the two men, “that while there are still n who call themselves Trojans, then there is a Troy to be heir to! Not the Troy”—now he included both men in his gaze—”but a new Troy. When I’sthat I would lead you into Troy I meant not the ancient Troy, but a new o alive with the hopes and dreams and the heritage of all those who still themselves Trojans.”
‘And where might this new Troy be?” Deimas said. His tone was aggress his manner confrontational, but Brutus thought he saw a gleam of despei hope in the man’s eye.
Deimas wanted to believe, but could not yet find the means to do so.
‘Not in this world,” Brutus said. “All the great cities of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and the Trojans—and the Egyptians as well for all I know—now rubble. Troy, Atlantis, Knossos, Tarsus, Pylos, lolkos, Thebes, Midea, a score more that I could name. They have been destroyed by invasion upheavals of the earth, and by fiery mountainous eruptions. What further the gods do to voice their displeasure? It is time for a new beginning, ai new Troy, but one very, very far from here.”
‘Where?” said Deimas softly. ” Where?”
‘The gods will show me.”
Deimas threw up his hands, disbelief winning out, and Assaracus gru derisively. “I say to you again, Brutus,” Assaracus said, “what do you 1 saying you wish to lead your brethren to a new beginning? Why should an; follow you?”
” Because of my lineage! I was born to lead, and I have the right to clair heritage. I am born of the god-favored… my own great-great-grandm< was Aphrodite, and my line is favored by the gods!”