Electra. Kerry Greenwood

a partly-armoured man lift his helmet from a pile of broken potsherds and cry a warning. Shouts rose from the wreckage. Three men with spears came running.

      I sat down on Banthos, kicked him hard, and he responded. I could see the opening between two burning houses, and in a gush of flame which singed my veil we were through the gap and into the road. I would have turned back, but Banthos had been goaded into galloping, and he kept galloping, despite my tugging at the reins. I was jolted and bounced out of breath and so bruised that I could hardly find a spot that didn't hurt by the time I brought him to a halt.

      He walked a little onto the verge and began grazing. I did not want to get off, because I doubted if I could get back on again, so I sat uncomfortably in the saddle and listened for a sound on the road, as the heartless beast cropped mouthfuls of rich grass.

      I was just telling Banthos that I was a princess and that he ought to do as I so civilly requested, when the others caught up. Orestes was wrapped around Diomenes, his head against the Asclepid's chest and his arms around his neck.

      I hauled Banthos out of the hedge and turned him.

      Diomenes saw my face and said quickly, 'No, maiden, he's not hurt, I bade him hide his face. There, boy, you can look now. We are all safe and we'd better keep going.'

      'The village? Who did it?' I asked. 'Surely not the victorious army?'

      'Bandits. Agamemnon was gone so long that the old order has almost broken down. There was a drought two years ago, and the crops failed. Since then it has been banditry on the land and piracy on the sea. The state of the Argolid is very evil. Luckily Cassandra is Amazon-trained and a dead shot.'

      He turned to Cassandra. 'I would have been more careful, Lady, when I spoke to you over the walls at Troy, had I known you were so good an archer.'

      'Even an unskillful archer cannot miss a target an arm's length away. I fought with Hector in the battles, of course, but only as a rear-guard. I was never more than a passable shot.'

      'You fought in the battles, Cassandra?' I asked, nearly dropping a rein.

      'Yes, that is our custom. Trojan women fight in their own defence, Electra.'

      'Are there really such people as Amazons?' asked Orestes. 'Surely there are no women who can fight.'

      'If I had not hidden your face, boy, you would have seen the Lady Cassandra fighting. Of course the Amazons are real. I myself saw them at Troy.'

      'Tell me about them,' insisted Orestes.

      'As we ride,' said Diomenes. 'We've got a long way to go before dark.'

      III

      I have won my bet. Cassandra and Diomenes are lovers now,' Aphrodite said.

      'Very well, Lady of Cyprus,' said Apollo, baring perfect teeth. 'You may keep the apple, but I will not forget. Your Princess is not safe yet. There are many perils between Mycenae and Delphi.'

      'Make your peace,' grumbled Demeter, Earth-Mother. 'Leave the poor mortals alone. Their life is short enough, their danger immediate, their chance of lasting satisfaction sketchy at best. They have suffered enough. Merciless and cruel, that is the nature of the children of Zeus.

      'Besides, you are bidden to attend to the fate of the House of Atreus, more wicked, more dreadful even than the Gods.

      'Did not Atreus cook his wife's adulterous fruit in a banquet for his brother Thyestes? Did not Thyestes then rape his own virgin daughter, Poseidon's Priestess, to father the revenge-child Aegisthus? And isn't that Aegisthus now lying with the Queen Clytemnestra in her husband's heart's blood?

      'Do these outrages, and your Divine Father's order, mean nothing to you, children of Chaos and Death?'

      'The child Orestes and the maiden Electra are alive,' said Athena. 'There will be revenge.'

      'There has been too much revenge,' said Demeter.

      Apollo's laugh was as child-like and as sweet as the sound of little bells.

      Cassandra

      I don't like war. I shot that bandit when he was so close that I could see every missing scale on his stolen mail-shirt. They weren't soldiers; they were just hungry men, driven to desperation by Agamemnon's neglect of his kingdom. But I killed the man, anyway, before he could throw the spear which was aimed directly at Eumides' back. The others ran away, which was sensible of them.

      We came without harm through the ruin of the small village and I wondered how many more would lie between us and the Isthmus of Corinth. Eumides took my hand as we rode along narrow paths.

      'I owe you my life,' he said. I patted his unshaven, olive-tinted cheek.

      'And I owe you mine. That Queen of Mycenae was going to kill me.'

      'Oh, those eyes - those hawk's eyes - yes, she would have killed us all,' he shuddered.

      I changed the subject. I was curious about our travelling companion. 'Eumides, what do they say about Argive women?'

      'That they are so lustful and uncontrollable that their husbands lock them in their houses and chain a big dog across the stairs to discourage adulterers. Seduction is punished by death. Achaean women are never allowed out, not even to go to the market, not even to fetch water if there is a slave to do it for them.'

      'That sounds more like the husband's fears than the wife's unfaithfulness,' I commented.

      'Yes, I never believed it, and the maiden Electra is proof - cold as ice. She squeals at the slightest approach. You're a living affront to her, Lady.'

      'Me? Why?'

      'You are Trojan, Lady, and Trojans are free women,' he said patiently. 'Achaean women don't even see each other, except at festivals. They never see another man, only their fathers and brothers and husbands. There was an Argive once whose friends told him that his breath was foul and bade him clean his mouth. He went home angrily to his wife and demanded to know why she hadn't told him. She said, "I thought all men smelt like that".'

      We had come up to the others, and they heard this anecdote.

      'She was a good wife,' commented Princess Electra approvingly, silencing my incredulous laughter.

      'Because she had never been near another man?' I asked.

      'Yes. I was never in the presence of a young man except my brother until I travelled with you,' she said. 'All my life I have lived with women, my family and the slaves. But I used to look out of the window into the city sometimes, though it was forbidden.'

      'Oh, Electra,' I said, filled with pity. No wonder she was narrow, prudish and uneducated. 'The Trojans believe that there is no virtue in ignorance.'

      'Chryseis was the same,' said Diomenes, then fell silent.

      'Who is Chryseis?' I asked, after we had clopped along mutely for some time.

      'My wife. Palamedes gave her to me. She is dead,' he said, and we did not talk any more until Orestes demanded first a drink and then to get down, so we stopped at a convenient stream which leapt down the cliff.

      It was snow water, chill and delicious. Chryse and I spoke, almost together.

      'Don't drink it too fast or,' we stopped and looked at each other. 'You'll get cramps,' we concluded.

      'Don't get sick on this journey, Orestes,' said Eumides. 'We have two healers, and they'll probably quarrel about the treatment.'

      'Tell me about Trojan medicine,' said Chryse. He seemed unsettled since the mention of his wife. I wondered if he had loved her, this human reward whom someone had given him, who cannot have seen him before she lay with him, and to whom 'consent' was only a word. I began to ransack my knowledge of herbs, identifying them from horseback. I saw a cluster of familiar dark leaves.

      'Solanos,' I said, and he said, 'Nightshade.'

      'Poisonous and to be used in the last resort,' I continued.