I managed to rise to my feet, surreptitiously trying to wipe the mess off my thigh with a corner of my skirts as I did so. But Tavia was fussing too much, so I gave up the effort, and let my skirts drop down to cover my nakedness.
His clothes now in some order, Melanthus looked at me, his mouth opening and closing as he fought to find something to say. He gave up, gave me a lopsided grin, and fled out the door.
By this time I was so embarrassed I succumbed to a shameful display of waspishness. “Be quiet, Tavia! Do you want to attract the entire household with your fuss?”
She did quieten, although it took her several gulping breaths to do so. She looked at me, noting well the stain on my robe. “Princess, did he… did he ‘Yes,” I said, wishing it were so, then decided to tell the truth. “But not in me. You may rest assured, Tavia, that I am as yet still intact. It was but play.”
There. Let her think what she would. I brushed past her and marched back to my chamber, trying to ignore the increasingly uncomfortable stickiness between my thighs and Tavia’s fussing at my back. But by the time I’d washed and changed, my good humor had returned. Melanthus did desire me. It was only my inexperience that had thwarted him.
Tonight, when he had returned victorious from battle, I would ensure that I was better prepared and that we would have the time, the privacy, and the comfort to more fully consummate our passion.
Tavia, unfortunately, would have to take her snores elsewhere,
I smiled, happy once more, and slipped back into my fantasies.
ecevejMRUTUS MOVED CAUTIOUSLY ACROSS THE SLOPE of the hill, ducking behind the trunks of the thick beech, elm, and oak trees and the occasional outcrop of limestone rock that had erupted forth from the earth.
All about him, hidden within shadows and behind trees, stood still, silent men armed with swords, daggers, and lances, their bodies protected with hardened leather corsets, greaves, and helmets. Small circular shields were slung across their backs, ready to be pulled about and used at a moment’s notice.
Their faces, as any reflective surface on their bodies or armor, were dulled with dirt.
Warriors similarly lined the shadowy spaces of the forest on the other side of the gorge. There were almost eight hundred all told, Assaracus’ men as well as Brutus’.
Between the two slopes of the gorge gurgled the shallow River Acheron. Its clear waters slipped over the sand and gravel of its bed as if it had not a care in creation, and yet, watching, some of the waiting warriors wondered how that could be, given that surely the Acheron’s waters carried within them the moans of warriors long dead and trapped by Hades.
Even if not contemplating the waters that flowed from Hades’ realm, every one of the silent warriors
was tense with the waiting.
Surely Pandrasus would not ignore Brutus’ taunting letter? Surely he must soon issue forth from his citadel?
‘He will not ride up this gorge.” Assaracus slid on his haunches down the slope to join Brutus. “He will know it is a trap. Pandrasus maybe many things, but he is not stupid; he will have his brother Antigonus with him, a tried and true general.”
‘He will come,” Brutus said, knowing the doubts that riddled Assaracus.
The man had chanced everything on Brutus’ plan. “They both will. And they will both slip into the trap.”
What trap? Assaracus wondered. We have the advantage of height, to be sure, but the floor of the gorge is flat, and wide, and Pandrasus and Antigonus will have their chariots filled with archers.
Moreover, who is trapped? Not a hundred paces farther into the gorge the river sank into a sheer face of rock, descending into Hades’ realm, and if Pandrasus blocked the entry to the gorge, then Brutus’ and Assaracus’ men were dead, trapped here for Pandrasus’ army to pick off at their leisure.
‘Brutus—” Assaracus began, his nerve finally failing as he realized he wanted to be anywhere but here, and then stopped as one of the forward scouts waved a coded message.
‘They’re coming,” Brutus said and signaled the men on both sides of the gorge to move slowly down the slopes to prearranged locations. He moved his head so he could stare Assaracus full in the face. “It is too late to change our plan now, my friend.”
ANTIGONUS RODE IN THE LEAD SIXTY-FIVE CHARIOTS. He clung to the handrail, his feet firm against the stiffened leather-and-wood deck, bracing his body against the lurching, jolting movement of the chariot. Beside him the charioteer hung on to the reins of the team of three horses, his shoulders bunched against the strain, his eyes narrowed in concentration, keeping the horses to a slow trot, even though they wanted to race.
On either side of Antigonus chariots fanned out, archers braced beside the charioteers, their quivers of arrows tied firmly before them to the front walls of the chariots.
Behind this forward wave came Pandrasus, leading the second wave of some fifty chariots. And behind this came almost a thousand men, jogging easily, their shields across their backs, swords sheathed, helmets firmly placed, minds and hearts set on proving their own glory against the descendants of the Trojans their forefathers had defeated.
Among them jogged Melanthus, desperately trying to keep the grin from his face, his two elder brothers on either side of him.
From the gates of Mesopotama they had turned to the wide road that led east along the banks of the Acheron. Two thousand paces from the city the road began to narrow and then climb, slowly at first, but then more steadily, and Antigonus waved the forward movement of the army back to a more sedate walk: no point in having his fighters arrive breathless. The ground rose to either side of the river, thickly wooded, and Antigonus peered closely at it, not wanting to be surprised by a sudden attack from the trees.
Nothing. The day was as still as a grave.
Antigonus put up his hand, halting the column. Before him the Acheron issued forth from a gorge, the floor wide and easy to maneuver in to be sure, but still a good place for a trap. If he were Brutus, this would be where he would set it.
There was movement behind him, and Antigonus turned.
Pandrasus, directing his chariot forward to view for himself.
‘They must be in there,” Antigonus said to his brother. “The fool said he’d wait in the eastern forests.
But where? Would we be better riding in, or sending the infantry?”
Pandrasus grinned. “They think themselves cunning, but perhaps they have outmaneuvered themselves. We leave a squad of chariot here, should they think to come running out toward us, and the other chariots, and all the infantry, we divide into two forces and take the back tracks behind the hills.
They surely have not the numbers to cover both the gorge and the back paths—even if they know they’re there. Then we come on them from above with both arrows and swords.”
‘They are trapped. They cannot escape this gorge from the other end, for the mountains are too steep, and we have this single escape plugged.”
‘They are truly a worthless foe,” Pandrasus said, swiveling where he stood in the chariot to give the signal for the men to break into two groups and climb the paths behind the Trojans.
‘Wait!” said Antigonus in a most peculiar voice.
‘THEY WILL NOT COME IN,” ASSARACUS SAID TO BRU tus, staring with squinted eyes down the distance of the gorge to where the Dorian army stood. “They are not that foolish. Look! Even now Pandrasus turns to give the signal that will see us dead!”
But Brutus did not respond.
Assaracus turned to him, and gasped.
There was a woman now standing beside the crouched Brutus, a bow and a quiver of arrows across her back, her hand on his shoulder, and she was surely no mortal woman.
She turned her head toward Assaracus, and bared her teeth, and her face was as Death.
‘WAIT,” ANTIGONUS SAID AGAIN, HIS VOICE SLOW, lazy, seeming almost drugged. “I think we have been mistaken, brother. See?
This is no gorge, not at all, but a flat field, newly harvested of barley. Even a mouse cannot hide among that stubble.”
Pandrasus looked, not understanding, then blinked. How could they have been so mistaken as to have seen a gorge before them? There were no mountains, no forests, no river. Instead there lay before them a flat stubbled field, and see! There lay the Trojans, unprepared, sitting about campfires drinking cups of unwatered wine!
These fools could be overcome with a squad of toddlers wielding nothing but their bone teething rings.
‘Ride!” whispered Pandrasus. Then, screaming, “Ride! Run! Mow them down!”