Hades’ Daughter. Book One of the Troy Game by Sara Douglass

‘I am Brutus,” he repeated, his voice soft, his eyes holding the girl’s, “and I am god-favored. It is not wise to deny me.”

He began to move once more about the megaron. “I control Mesopotama. I control this palace. I control you . Be wise. Do not deny me.”

Abruptly Brutus turned on his heel and walked back to stand before Pandrasus.

‘My price for your freedom, and the freedom of your people, is but a small one,” Brutus said, and Pandrasus finally lifted his face to Brutus. “Give the Trojans their freedom from slavery, as graciously as you may. And”—his mouth twitched—”as a mark of your sincerity, I ask that you give to them the means of their freedom.” He paused, his grin growing wider, more substantial, as he saw the hatred in Pandrasus’ face.

‘The means to their freedom, being one hundred ships, and provisions and I’vestock for their sustenance for one year, as well as seven hundred talents in gold, silver, and other jewelry.”

Pandrasus laughed, a big belly laugh, his body shaking with the strength of its merriment. “Who do you think you are? A god yourself, to demand such things of me? Ah!” He spat on the floor before him.

“You are nothing but a dung merchant who has let the stink of the shit he peddles addle his wits.”

Brutus gave a small nod in the direction of a guard, and Pandrasus suddenly stiffened, his laughter vanished, as he heard his daughter shriek in protest.

The guard dragged Cornelia over, his hand once more in her hair, and Brutus grabbed her from the guard’s grip.

Before Cornelia could react, Brutus twisted her neck with a vicious force, subduing all her fight, then forced her to her knees.

Then, one hand in her hair as it had once been in Melanthus’, with the other Brutus put his sword to Cornelia’s rib cage, just under her breast.

She reflexively jerked away from its cold touch, but Brutus easily managed to keep it pressed against her.

‘With one movement,” he said, noting Pandrasus’ frantic eyes, “I can slide this blade deep into her heart. And if you doubt me, for one instant…”

‘He will do it.” Antigonus, heretofore kept in the shadows at the back of the megaron, now stepped forward.

Pandrasus looked over his shoulder, shocked, and Cornelia stiffened in Brutus’ grasp, her eyes, impossibly, growing even wider than they had been.

Antigonus walked forward, each step a shuffling testament to his own sense of shame, his face haggard.

‘He will do it,” Antigonus repeated softly as he finally halted a few paces away from Brutus, Cornelia, and Pandrasus. “He took my beloved Melanthus from me, and taunted me, and put his sword to Melanthus’ throat… and then he tore it out. He killed him.” Antigonus’ voice broke. “He killed him,” he whispered.

‘And he died badly,” Brutus said, giving Cornelia’s head another twist as she let out an appalled sob.

“He was so terrified he pissed himself. Do you want that for your daughter? In front of all these people?”

Silence, save for Cornelia, who was moaning.

‘Freedom for my people,” Brutus said, his voice dangerously quiet. “One hundred ships. Provisions for a year. Gold and jewelry… and…”

He had not meant to add that “and” but suddenly, stunningly, he was overwhelmed by a staggering desire and need. It was almost as if he had been god-struck.

‘… and your daughter as my wife, for I find in these past few minutes that I have grown accustomed to her flesh.”

‘No!” Cornelia screamed, struggling, heedless of the blade. “No!”

Standing forgotten behind the throne, Membricus was again overwhelmed with the vision he’d had when first he’d cast his eyes on the distant city of Mesopotama. Shadows. Death. Bewilderment. “No,”

he whispered, his eyes blank, but no one heard him.

‘No!” Cornelia shrieked yet again, writhing desperately.

” All of this!” Brutus hissed, his hand tightening in Cornelia’s hair in the struggle to hold her, and his other hand tightened as well, and the sword shifted, and Cornelia screamed as it bit across the flesh of her rib cage. ” All of this!”

‘All is yours,” whispered Pandrasus, his eyes on Cornelia.

‘Say it! Stand and say it to these people, who shall bear witness!”

Pandrasus stood, almost slipping, his eyes unable to tear themselves from the sight of his daughter unsuccessfully trying to pull away from the blade, her pathetic efforts only serving to add more cuts to the one already marring her flesh.

‘All is his!” he shouted. “Freedom for the Trojan slaves, one hundred ships and provisions for a year.

Gold and precious gems. And… and, oh gods, oh gods… and my daughter, whom I hereby give to him as wife.” And with those words, Pandrasus knew that he had, surely, killed his daughter.

Brutus nodded, satisfied, and lifted the sword away from his wife’s body as he had failed to lift it from that of the boy she’d loved.

sevejsiceejsi coRnelia speaks ONCEMY FATHER HAD DECLARED BRUTUS MY HUSband (and what choice had he? Hold his tongue, and watch me die?), Brutus had taken the sword from my breast, dropped my head so suddenly I fell to the floor, and wiped my blood from his blade in my hair before sheathing it.

Tavia, who’d been watching distraught from the walls of the megaron, rushed to my side and aided me to my feet. She carried a light cloak, which she’d snatched from someone else, and she threw it about my shoulders before hastening me from the chamber (Brutus sent guards after us, as would come naturally to such a savage), taking me to my chamber, where she cleansed and dressed the wounds underneath my breast. They were stingingly painful, but they were not deep enough to require stitches, and so once she had cleaned them Tavia gently rubbed an unguent over them, and kissed my brow, as if I were a child, and as if that single kiss would make better all the grief and shock and humiliation of the past day.

Having attended my wounds and my heart as best she could, Tavia then sat with me in my chamber.

We waited together all day, waiting for… well, I am not sure for what we waited. We merely sat, holding hands tightly, jumping at every sudden noise. Every so often there would be the sound of running feet in the corridors, and shouts, and once a scream—no doubt of some hapless woman being raped. The streets were similarly frenzied, filled from time to time with screams and shouts and noises that I did not care to clearly identify. By the evening, however, both the palace and the city streets beyond had quietened.

Eventually, of course, Brutus remembered me.

As night fell he came to this chamber, and ordered Tavia to begone. Ser vants fell to his bidding (I could not begrudge them their terrified willingness) and arrayed the low table by the window with food and fine wines.

He asked me to sit with him (I was by this time standing in the farthest corner of my chamber), and when I refused with a mute shake of my head, dragged me with a hard, repulsive hand to the chair by the table of food.

So we sat, watching each other wordlessly, the table standing between us.

Of course, so much more stood between us.

He watched me with an air of slight puzzlement combined with amused speculation. He wore nothing but a somewhat sweat-stained gold and scarlet waistcloth and what even at this moment I recognized as exquisitely worked golden bands about his tightly muscled limbs. Used only to the soft, slim bodies of courtiers—and the beautiful fineness of my beloved Melanthus—I found his warrior musculature and sun-browned skin displeasing, almost ostentatious. He was physically suited to guard duty, perhaps, to the receiving of orders, not to sitting here before me, so relaxed and confident, as if he had… as if he had the right .

He continued to watch me with measured deliberation, and I stared at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away, my apparent calmness hiding a tumultuous cauldron of emotion. I was humiliated, angry, terrified, shocked, grief-stricken, and guilty, and of all these, the guilt was the worst.

If only I had not so thoughtlessly sent my father “a-hunting” after this Brutus. If I had thought, and been more circumspect, if I had begged my father to listen to the prudent wisdom of Sarpedon, would then Melanthus still be alive? Would my father still be laughing, proud and strong, in his megaron? Would

my fellow Mesopotamians not be subject to the brutality and rape I was sure was being enacted in every house within the city as this man, this Brutus, and I sat in silence, staring at each other?

My guilt was too terrible to bear, and so I used it to fan my outrage and anger. Who was this man, this piece of filth, to so humiliate myself and my father? Who was he to so carelessly murder Melanthus?