At least Brutus was not there to witness my continuing humiliation. He spent most of the morning shouting and gesturing; doing what all men must, I suppose, when they direct a fleet so large toward a suitable anchorage point. By noon all the shouting and gesturing had paid dividends, for the entire fleet had anchored in shallow waters off a long sandy beach that appeared to extend for a lifetime to either side of our ships. Beyond the beach rose a low range of hills, covered with brush and topped at one point with two strange stone pillars. These, Pelopan informed me, were what was known as the Altars of the Philistines.
When I asked why, he shrugged, but said they were well known among sailors for the natural spring at their base.
The entire afternoon was spent in rafting people to the shore. The word was that this was, indeed, only a temporary stop. We were to camp here some days to stretch our legs, replenish our supplies both with water and with fresh game, and to hear what Brutus had in store for us.
Many of the adults and some of the older children would not wait for theirO place on the rafts, and jumped overboard from their ships to wade through the shallows to the beach, but I, naturally considering my dignity and my pregnancy, waited for my place on a raft.
I was surprised when Brutus came to me and indicated he would aid me to the first of the rafts.
‘Will you behave yourself?” he asked me.
‘Do I have much choice?” I said.
He did not smile, and he regarded me a moment with uncomfortable speculation, but then he nodded as if I’d somehow answered a question in his mind and helped me down the side of the ship to the raft with a little more consideration than the manner in which he’d bundled me aboard.
Membricus and Deimas were already waiting on the raft, and Deimas stood and aided me, stone-faced, to a clear spot. I murmured my thanks, and prayed that my plan to win Brutus might actually be having some effect.
I cheered considerably, and did not even mind when Aethylla dropped aboard so inelegantly that the raft rocked and I was splashed all down my right side with a wash of seawater.
She was the last to board, and so, waving a good-bye to Brutus who was staying aboard to supervise the loading of subsequent raft-loads, I turned to this strange new land where we were to rest for some days, at the least.
I WAS GLAD THIS WAS NOT WHERE BRUTUS MEANT US TO stay permanently. Although the beach itself was pleasant enough, the wind that blew from the interior of the land was hot and dry, and carried with it the stink of hardship and toil. I walked slowly up the beach, enjoying the coolness of the water that swirled about my ankles, my hands in the small of my back, trying to ease some of the discomfort of the child. About me groups of Trojans, clearly relieved to be on dry land once again, were moving tents and cooking pots a little distance into the low hills beyond the beach to set up sheltered camps.
I stopped, and closed my eyes, and sighed in pleasure. Even the hard soil of this land would prove a more comfortable bed than that damned sleeping pallet onboard ship.
‘Cornelia.”
I opened my eyes and turned, a twist of discomfort in my stomach.
It was Membricus, Brutus’ never far distant friend. I feared him more than I did Brutus. I sensed that where Brutus might be swayed, Membricus was implacable.
There were no charms I could use against this man, and so I employed none.
‘Yes?” I said.
‘You are needed,” he began, and his cold eyes slid to my belly, reminding me of exactly why I was needed. “Brutus has landed with the last of our people,” not my people, “and is now asking that you join him at his side while he speaks to the assembled gathering.”
My eyes widened slightly, and I smiled spontaneously. Brutus wanted me at his side while he stood and addressed his people?
And it was Membricus who must bring me this news, when he undoubtedly would prefer it to be he standing at Brutus’ side?
Ever mindful of the precariousness of my position, I repressed my smile, nodded, and followed Membricus back to where the Trojans gathered.
‘I AM GRACED WITH THE WILL OF ARTEMIS,” BRUTUS said, his voice clear and strong. I stood slightly to one side of him on a small rise that faced the beach; before us were spread the assembled mass of the Trojans. Although it looked as if I had my eyes on the crowd, I was surreptitiously watching Brutus. Even though I feared him greatly, I had to admit he looked magnificent as he stood in the last rays of the afternoon. Even my father had never commanded so much authority, nor exuded so much confidence. Brutus had apparently waded or swum ashore, for his waistcloth clung to him wetly, and his skin gleamed with droplets from the sea.
About his limbs the golden bands glistened, and for no apparent reason I remembered how, when
Brutus lay with me, those bands had always felt hot against my skin. I shuddered, and saw Brutus’ eyes shift my way momentarily, and I dropped my eyes too quickly.
‘We are to travel far to the west,” he continued after a moment, “to a land of great beauty and riches.
It is called Llangarlia.”
Llangarlia! At the articulation of that one word it was if I were back in that strange stone hall of my vision listening to my daughter’s laughter, staring through the stone of the arches into the wondrous landscape beyond.
And this is where we were going? No wonder I’d dreamed of the stone hall so often since leaving Mesopotama!
I felt a surge of excitement. That wondrous land… where I’d felt such a sense of “home.” And it was no vision at all, but reality? It must be, surely, if that single word recalled the dream so vividly.
Llangarlia… I rolled it silently about my mouth, and found it wonderfully sweet.
Brutus was talking of how this Llangarlia occupied the southern part of a white-cliffed island called Albion. As he spoke I allowed myself to dream a little of this new land—my visionary land, and every time Brutus said the name of “Llangarlia” I felt another small surge of excitement. One of my hands strayed to my belly, and as Brutus’ voice spoke on, my mind drifted even further, dreaming of what it might be like to stand as queen beside Brutus in Llangarlia.
I was vaguely aware that under my hand my belly was unnaturally hot, and that my fingers and palm were throbbing with that heat, but that awareness did not distract me from my train of thought. Supposing I could make him like me enough not to kill me when this child was gone from my belly, could I then endure a life with him?
Strangely, impossibly, I wondered if that might not be too difficult at all.
How odd the difference a single word could make…
It was only when I heard the sound of another man’s voice that I blinked, and came back to the moment, dropping my hand from my belly. Brutus had apparently finished his address, and was now standing, answering some questions from the crowd.
One man asked if the people of Llangarlia would welcome the Trojans, and Brutus hesitated before answering.
‘It is possible they will not do so,” he said, “but we have the gods with us, and we will prevail.”
There was a murmuring at that, but from what I could see most people seemed reasonably accepting of what Brutus had told them.
I was not surprised. Brutus had seemed almost godlike as he’d talked to the crowd… I shook my head slightly. He’d even had me dreaming of him!
Brutus must have seen my slight movement from the corner of his eye, for he turned to me and told me to make my way down to the campfires, that I should eat and rest, and not weary myself overmuch in this desert air.
I ATE SPARINGLY OF THE RAISINS AND FIGS, WASHING them down with healthy draughts of the barely watered wine; justifying the wine as an antidote to the effects of the hot wind that blew continuously from the interior of this land.
When I had done, and had drunk enough to sate my thirst, I rose, and’tAethylla to leave me be, as I needed to relieve myself at some distance among the scrubby bushes of the hills.
She subsided, nodding sympathetically and remembering, I suppose, her own numerous pregnancies.
Sometimes it helped to be a breeding woman among breeding women.
I did indeed take the opportunity of the relative privacy to relive my needs amid a thankfully dense (but scratchy) patch of shrubs but then, instead of returning to the fireside, I walked farther into the hills, drawn as if mesmerized by the hot wind that blew in my face. The wine I had drunk throbbed in my blood, and I shook out my hair from its restraints and let it blow free, relishing its freedom.