I raised my hand, so recently on my son’s head, and grabbed the monster’s penis.
Then, infuriated with everything from Brutus’ cruelty to Aethylla’s insults, I yanked the repulsive member as hard as I could.
He screeched, his sword dropping from his hand. He half doubled over, his eyes popping, his mouth open and making funny gasping sounds.
I pulled again, really viciously this time, and the man toppled over, and fell directly on top of (stiU
screeching, for sweet Hera’s sake!) Membricus.
My attacker’s face was buried in Membricus’ disgusting, shredded entrails.
I put my hands to my mouth, looked at Aethylla who was now silent and staring at me, and began to giggle.
Only one semihysterical chortle managed to escape me, then suddenly the room was full of men.
Brutus, shouting something; Corineus, calling my name; someone else, Hicetaon perhaps, covered in blood and lacking an ear.
Someone sank a sword into the naked man’s back, and pulled him off Membricus.
There was a moment, very still, when Membricus looked at Brutus and saidsomething—-ft was my belly, not hers!” I think it was-and then, thankfully, he died. The moment spent, Brutus leaned over me.
He spared me a glance, his face shocked, then looked at the baby.
He reached down to pick him up, but Aethylla, who had finally regained her wits, brushed his hands aside. She twisted the cord that still connected my son to my body, tied it with something to hand (a piece of Membricus’ entrails, for all I know), and then bent her head down and bit it in two.
Then she tore a piece of cloth from Membricus’ cloak, wrapped my baby in it, and handed him to Brutus.
‘No!” I cried, reaching out, but Brutus was gone, and it was Corineus who reached down, wrapped me in my cloak as gently as Aethylla had wrapped my baby, lifted me up, and carried me outside.
THEN, SO STRANGELY, ANOTHER OF THOSE LIFE altering moments, just when I thought I would never have another.
Men, Trojans as well as more of those blue-clayed naked savages, lay in various poses of death, limbs hacked off, bellies peeled back as Membricus’ had been, throats opened to steam in the cold air.
I saw faces I knew, men who had died that I might give birth to my son.
Idaeus, his entire body torn apart by several sword strokes.
And beside his corpse, moaning quietly, was Aethylla’s husband Pelopan. He would be dead soon, for there was a gaping wound in his left flank through which blood spurted, and his left arm had been severed completely below the elbow.
Poor, innocent Pelopan. He would die also, that I might sate my desire to give birth on land.
And all to what purpose? I had only insisted on giving birth on dry land because it would force Brutus to my will, and I had so hungered for a single small victory over my husband that I would have done anything to accomplish it.
But this? These men, dead and dying so that I could have one pointless, foolish victory over my husband?
Oh, Hera, had I done this? Had I learned nothing from my father’s death, and that of all of
Mesopotama?
‘Look you at the death you have wrought,” Brutus’ soft voice said to one side, and I twisted my head in Corineus’ arm, and saw him standing several paces away, our son curled quiet in his arms. “See the lives you have destroyed. Remember, Cornelia, what you accepted. Responsibility for all that your demands spawned.”
Corineus’ arms tightened about me, and ever my savior, I think, he said to Brutus, “You agreed to it, Brutus. You rushed to agree to it. You and Membri-cus. Why? Did you know this was going to happen?
What did Membricus say back there… ‘my belly, not hers’? You knew? Your responsibility as well, Brutus. Yours as well.”
There was no reply from my husband save the cold glint of his eye on me.
And then I heard Aethylla cry out, and saw her rush to her husband’s side, and I also cried out, undone.
THE TRIP BACK TO THE BOAT WAS A JOURNEY INTO HA des’ hateful realm itself.
Corineus carried me the entire way, as gently as he could, but as he stepped into the first of the rolling waves at the shore’s edge, my belly cramped with pain again, and I twisted in his arms.
‘She is expelling the afterbirth,” Aethylla said. “It will not kill her.” Her eyes were hard, hateful, and I could not blame her for any particle of that hardness and hatred.
Corineus carried me, through the rising surf that drenched me, up the side of the ship, and all the time I bit my lip to keep my cries muted, hoping that the pain would overwhelm me and I could lose myself in it. It would be better than facing my guilt.
He carried me to the cabin, and laid me on the bed, and then retired as Aethylla, hard-handed, took the afterbirth from me (Blangan, I think, was with her husband, and I thanked every god there was that he had not been killed as well; Siangan’s grief I could not have faced). Once my afterbirth was gone, Aethylla fetched a bowl of water, and cloths, and washed and attended me, and all the time I wept, and cried out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” but I think that she never heard me.
When she was done, and I dry and well blanketed again, she went outside, and when she returned she brought with her Brutus, still carrying our son.
‘He will need to feed,” Aethylla said and Brutus leaned down and handed the baby to me.
I could not look at my husband’s face.
I concentrated on my baby, folding back a corner of the blanket, and lifting his dear face to the nipple of my breast.
He grabbed hold of it, his mouth strong, and I gasped in delight.
He suckled, then again, hard and demanding, and then he let go my breast and wailed.
I tried again, pushing the nipple into his mouth.
Again he suckled, and then once more let go, and wailed his disappointment.
Aethylla leaned down and snatched him from my arms. “She has no milk,” she said, and with that single condemnation, lifted aside the bodice of her robe and put my son to her breast.
He suckled, and was instantly contented. All the happiness of his birth vanished, and I was left a husk, a failed mother, and a woman who trailed death behind her at every turn.
, hadn’t Brutus once called me?
, indeed.
VERY MUCH LATER, WELL AFTER DAWN, BRUTUS CAME to see me.
I had my son back from Aethylla then, and I was weeping that the smell of milk from his mouth was not the smell of my milk.
I raised my head as I heard his step in the door.
‘You’re still awake,” he said.
‘Yes.”
‘Aethylla?”
‘She has gone, perhaps to mourn her husband.” My voice trembled as I said that last, and Brutus walked over to the bed.
He stood a long moment, then pulled up a stool and sat, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs.
His face was haggard.
I thought I was surely dead, and I thought also that I deserved it.
GG And what need had he of me? Aethylla could feed his son.
Brutus reached out a hand, and touched the baby’s face. “It has been a hard night,” he said.
‘Brutus—”
‘Say nothing. I do not need to hear what you have to say.”
He paused, and his hand strayed from his son’s face to mine. He lifted my chin so he could the better look me in the face, then he dropped his hand away from me.
‘We are doomed to each other,” he said. “By the gods, I think. It was you who should have died in that hut. Membricus had seen it.”
‘No wonder you were so willing to allow me ashore,” I said, alittle surprised there was no bitterness in my voice.
‘Cornelia, Corineus spoke truly outside that hut. I knew from Membricus’ vision what would happen, and I ordered those men to accompany us, not to protect you, but to ensure that you died. I ordered them to their deaths, for a foul reason. In all of this, you were as much the victim as the instigator. I have just come from talking with Aethylla, and I have told her what I have just told you. If her husband lies dead, then his death lies on my soul, not yours.”
I closed my eyes, almost unable to bear what he confessed to me. I ordered those men to accompany us, not to protect you, but to ensure that you died . Strangely, that degree of honesty comforted me. It did not hurt.