Who was he who had so completely destroyed my life?
In a moment of horror I remembered my vision of Hera.
She had tried to warn me, and I had forgotten it.
I swallowed, almost totally consumed with guilt now, and, horribly, he saw it.
‘Eat,” he said, and I shook my head in a single jerky motion.
He bent forward, picked up an apple, then leaned back in his chair and considered me as he bit into the fruit. The sound of his teeth biting into the crispness of the apple was shocking in the otherwise silent chamber, the steadiness of his eyes as they regarded me alarming, and the juice of the apple as it trickled down his stubbled chin made my mouth and throat dry out in sheer terror.
For some reason, it reminded me that this man had declared himself my husband, and if now he was here in my chamber, then there was a good reason for that.
My hands clenched together in my lap, and I concentrated on my anger. If he knew of my terror, then he had surely won.
As he finished the apple, he signaled a servant standing by the door, and the man came running.
‘I would bathe,” Brutus said. “Fill the tub, if you please.”
The servant scurried away, and Brutus slurped the last of his wine, banging the empty cup on the table.
Oh, Hera, I hated him! Everything about him repulsed me. His barely clothed body, his sweat, his blunt, unattractive Trojan features, his stableyard manners, his sheer, damned confidence.
‘What is your name?”
My mouth dropped open. He didn’t know my name? He had taken me as wife, he had murdered my lover, he had humiliated my entire world, and he didn’t know my name ? It was, I think, the ultimate insult, and at that moment my anger won out over all my other emotions.
He raised his eyebrows, no doubt thinking he was being patient.
I compressed my lips, refusing to speak.
He sighed. “I have a wife, but I do not know her name.” He shrugged, his dark eyes very still. “What shall I call her, then, when I cry out in my passion?”
Furious, my entire face flaming, I refused to answer. I could not believe this brute thought he was
going to bed me. He was a Trojan , for Hera’s sake. He could not possibly think that he could… that he could…
He smiled. It gentled his face, and I turned my eyes from him, not wanting to fall for such trickery.
‘I am sorry for what has happened,” he said. “You must be scared.”
‘I am not!” I said, stung finally to speech. “I am a princess, a daughter of Mesopotama, and a Dorian of proud lineage. I do not’scare.'”
He managed to dampen his smile. “Please, tell me your name.”
I hesitated, then, because he might construe my continued refusal to tell him as childish, I finally relented. “I am Cornelia.”
‘Cornelia.” He tried it out in his mouth. “It is a strange name, and not beautiful enough for you.”
‘It is a proud name!”
‘For a proud and most indignant girl,” he said, the laughter escaping now, and I was so enraged I would have leaned the distance between us and slapped him had not a bevy of servants filled the room with their scurrying and pails of hot water to fill the bath.
Once they had done, and scented the water and laid out the best of our towels he nodded a dismissal, and they left us.
I too, rose to my feet, meaning to follow them, but he rose as swiftly as a striking snake and caught at my wrist.
He was a head taller than I, and I found myself hating him or that. «e twisted my wrist, just very slightly, enough to make me take a step closer , “Stav ” he said, “and aid your husband in his bath.
t0*You a!Tnot my husband!” I spat. “I refuse you! Melanthus will be my-” I stopped, suddenly remembering that Melanthus was dead, and that h Id never be my husband. Unbidden, childish tears sprang to my eyes, and Thled it It thil man standing so close to me would see them, and wouldkn whose throat I slit. Antigonus’ young son.”
I sobbed, and tried to twist my wrist free from h It did not budge.
‘You loved him?” he said.
-He was honorable, and beautiful, and noble. All the dungs you are notl H.”-I allowed my eyes to sweep down Brutus’ form contemptmn ‘dl do not whimper and piss myself in childish terror,” he said veryS0 ftly, and I knew 1 had at last nettled him. “Do you think that he would be a more deserving husband for you than I?”
‘Alwavs!” I hissed.
-VaL theonly one you have,” he said. “Stink or not, I am the only husbanc Mwt a he grabbed me to him, and made as if he would kiss me.
it his face as hard as I could with my free hand. “No!” I lussed. I have ,owed my mouth to Melanthus alone. If he can no longer kiss me, then no ma: hll ‘ L^t me go. Let me go, you… you…” I struggled against mm, even 1 e fur 11 because I could find no word vile enough for him. “You goad TLver will lay my mouth to yours,” he said, in a voice so low and ag wHh fury that I could not help but tremble.
“Never! So long as we no matter how much you beg me! But see what I can do to you, what I beat at his shoulders with my fist, and carried s me down against the mattress, I kicked and scratched at him, shrieking, hoping that the sound would bring the servanta Te down to the bed, then stood back. He shook out his wild hair down his back, then reached his hands to his waist to divest himself of his waistband and waistcloth.
I rolled away, thinking to escape from the other side of the bed, then cried out as the wounds in my rib cage bit deep.
‘Hera!” I cried, but there was no answer. It were as if she had never been.
I heard the rustle as Brutus dropped his waistcloth and band to one side, then a surprisingly gentle hand touched my shoulder as I lay, curled about my wounds and weeping in pain and humiliation.
He rolled me back to face him—I turned my face away from his nakedness—and he touched the newly bloodstained cuts beneath my breast.
‘I am sorry I had to do that to you,” he said softly, climbing in beside me. “Cornelia, I—”
‘I find you loathsome,” I sobbed. “Horrid. You killed Melanthus!” Then, to my everlasting shame, I burst into childish sobs, hiccuping and snuffling as if half the Acheron had flooded my nose.
He rolled himself close to me, and I drew away from his hateful, coarse flesh. He pulled me yet closer, his unkempt hair surrounding me—a torment of ten thousand fingers dragging slowly across my skin. His arms tightened, brooking no resistance, and he began to caress my breasts, my belly, and those parts that hitherto had felt only Melanthus’ probing.
It was repulsive. I cringed under his hand and I tightened my legs against the intrusion of his fingers. I twisted my face away from his and I tried to tear his hands from my body.
All to no avail.
He never did manage to lay his mouth to mine… but he did far, far worse.
I swore, as he knelt over me, both my wrists held tight above my head in one of his great hands and the other forcing my legs apart, that I would not cry out, that I would not give him that satisfaction. I screwed my eyes tight shut, that at least I might not see, and I bucked beneath him all I might, but he was too strong and too determined in his aim to humiliate and subjugate me.
‘If you did not fight me,” he said, “then I would not have to hurt you so badly.”
But I continued to fight, of course I did, and he hurt me so horribly that I swore as the burning, brutal agony coursed through my body that I would hate him forever, that he would spend his life regretting that ever he thought to do this to me. The feel of him forcing his way inside me, thrusting unbelievably deep, was so vile, so obscene, that at one point I held my breath, hoping that somehow I could escape him through death.
But I had to breathe, I couldn’t stop myself, and my entire world collapsed into nothing but the wild thrusting of his body, the wretched stink of his sweaty I3O flesh rubbing and pressing against mine, the harsh sound of his gasping lust, and—finally, despicably, the ultimate humiliation—the spurting wetness of his seed inside me.