Hades Daughter (30 page)

He did not answer, not with words, but he drew me in close to him, our bodies pressed hard against each other, one of his hands buried in my hair as mine was buried in his.

I found my breath short, and my throat dry.

His hair whipped about me like a swarm of barbarous, biting bees, devouring me in its wildness until there was nothing but his warmth and the scent of his maleness and his hand hard on the back of my head, and over and above all of this there were his dark fathomless eyes, centering my universe. His mouth was parted, and I could see the glint of his tongue, and smell the sweet musk of his breath.

My own breath grew even shorter, and I relaxed in his arms and against the entire length of his body.

His face drew closer, and I felt his lips brush my forehead and my cheek, and then the rough wetness of his tongue sliding along the line of my jaw.

“Sometimes you can be so sweet,” he whispered. “Why not always, Cornelia? Why not always?”

As his mouth moved very close to mine, one of his hands rubbed deliciously at my breasts, tugging at the nipple through the thin linen of my gown, and I pressed myself hard into his hand.

“Brutus,” I whispered, and raised my face to his.

Our mouths grazed, I felt the warm slipperiness of his tongue as it slid briefly, tantalisingly, between my lips, and I relaxed completely, utterly, and opened my mouth to his.

And almost fell to the ground as, abruptly, he let me go and stood back.

“What?” he said, and I quailed at the harshness in his voice. “What? You would allow me to kiss the mouth vowed only to Melanthus?”

I held out a hand. “Brutus—”

“I thought I repulsed you…or was it that the only reason you could bear me so close just now was because you were screaming Melanthus’ name over and over in your mind?”

I sobbed. “Brutus…please…”

“You bitch,” he said. “Did you think that your sudden display of wantonness would fool me?”

I was crying hard now, scared, desperate, my hands shaking. “I never meant those words, Brutus.”

“Yes! Yes, you
did
! Those words must be the only truths I’ve ever had from your mouth. Look at you, a snivelling, cowering child. Do you think that now
I
could possibly want
you
?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, so desperate I risked all by placing one of my trembling hands on his arm. His muscles tensed at my touch, but he did not throw me off, and I drew a little closer. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you think I am going to kill you? Do you?”

“Yes,” I sobbed.

“Good,” he said, and the coldness in his tone was horrifying. “I think you can only be trusted when you are terrified.”

I lifted my hand from his arm, and placed both it and its companion over my face, hiding it from him as I wept. How could I have been so stupid, so arrogant, as to taunt him in that manner?

We stood there a long time, he completely still, his eyes on me as I cried.

Then, finally, he sighed, stepped closer, pulled my hands away from my face and, with his own hands cupped gently about my cheeks, tipped it up so that he might look me in the eye.

“If you had loved Melanthus that much, and he you, then why were you still a virgin when I took you to bed?”

He waited, and I fought desperately for the right answer.

“I…” I said, wondering where this was leading. Was he not glad of the fact? Didn’t all men desperately desire virgins?

What did he want me to say?

“If I had been the oh-so-virile Melanthus,” he said, “I would not have left you a virgin for another man’s conquest.”

I remembered that embarrassing fumbling in the storeroom, the awkwardness, the haste, the sudden, unexpected spurt of wetness against my thigh, his gasping of relief, and mine of horrid embarrassment.

“Ah,” he said. “He tried, didn’t he?”

I nodded, too scared to lie to him any more.

“What happened?”

I closed my eyes one more brief, humiliated time, and told him in as few words as possible.

He gave a short bark of laughter. “He had no control at all, did he? No wonder he pissed himself when I killed him. He’d probably dribbled his way through his entire, short life. And it was with
this
that you taunted me? It was with this that you
dared
to compare me?”

His hands were still about my face, but they had lost their gentleness. He lowered his face close and said, his mouth barely above mine, his breath hot and forceful, “I will never kiss you, Cornelia. No matter how much
you beg me, no matter what you say, no matter how desperately you offer yourself to me. Never.
Never!
”

Then he was gone, walking back to the camp without me, and I was left to sink to the sand and weep and mourn, but for what I did not know.

B
rutus kept his people five days in the hills surrounding the Altars of the Philistines. Each day hunting parties ventured into the wild lands beyond the hills, bringing back fresh kills of stringy hare and the small antelope that fed off the shrubs.

The fresh meat was welcomed. Most of it was dried in the sun for eating once the fleet put to sea again; some of it was consumed within hours of being brought back to camp, roasted on open fires with the herbs and oils the Trojans had packed in their ships.

On the sixth day, at dawn, Brutus gave the order to re-embark. The loading went quickly—people were now used to the rafts and loading procedures—and by late morning the fleet was under way again, sailing due west.

Artemis kept her word to Brutus, for as soon as he’d given the order to weigh anchor, a stiff easterly breeze sprang up. Ship captains raised their square, linen sails, and the oarsmen stowed their oars and reclined on their benches, enjoying the feel of their ships slicing through the blue-green waters of the great central sea.

They kept the line of the coast on their port beam, and many a curious eye ran over the landscape that they passed. Now desert, now more verdant oasis, now hilly, now flat, many among the Trojans wondered what lay deeper within this vast continent they sailed
past. Sometimes the wind carried the howls of exotic beasts, sometimes the scents of spices strange and rare. Sometimes people appeared on the beaches, watching the massive fleet as it sailed past. They wore long, hooded and brightly coloured robes, and leaned on long staffs similar to shepherds’ crooks.

They never waved, nor shouted. They merely watched; praying, perhaps, that this fleet would continue onwards, and not stop to ravage their lands.

Brutus kept the ships at sail for eight days and nights. His people slept as best they could among the press of other bodies, bundles of clothing and blankets, amphorae of water and wine, and the constantly fidgeting animals they carried with them. During the day there was little else to do save watch the passing coastline, peer over the sides of the ship into the deep, clear waters of the sea in an effort to spy sea monsters, play at dice or boral stones, pass the time idly gossiping with their neighbours, or wonder at what awaited them in the new land.

Very few people had any complaints about where Brutus led them. They knew they might well be sailing into possible hardship, even conflict, but they were sailing into freedom, and in doing so they were reclaiming their proud heritage and nobility.

Brutus had made them
Trojans
again. He had handed back to them their self-respect.

Brutus did not spend his entire time shouting orders, or contemplating his future building Troia Nova. Sometimes, when he had time to rest, and sit and enjoy the sun and the sea spray that washed over the sides of the ship, Brutus followed Cornelia with his eyes. Watching her. Thinking.

He’d left Aethylla to share her bed since that first night at the Altars of the Philistines, preferring to bed down with the single men and warriors.

He was still furious with her: for those hurtful, spiteful words to him in their bed, for her treachery that had caused so many deaths in Mesopotama, and, most of all, for her false seductiveness in the hills behind the Altars of the Philistines. He’d followed her into the hills because he’d wondered, despite his words to Membricus, if she had some new treachery planned, or if she thought of escape. To have her turn to him, and touch him as if she truly desired him, and press herself against him was beyond belief.

Gods! He had been aroused by her (which deepened his anger), but he’d not been fooled. She’d spent the past seven months making it perfectly plain to him that she despised him, and that she preferred that immature child-boy Melanthus’ fumblings to what he could offer (and he
knew
he could arouse her, he knew it!). What was she doing? What game was she playing? Was it just as Membricus had said? She so much feared for her own life since her treacheries had gone awry that she would play any part to save it?

Well, he would not play it with her. He would not allow himself to be fooled by her. Another awaited him, a woman who could truly partner him…the true antithesis to Cornelia’s shallow childishness.

Yet Brutus continually found his eyes drawn to Cornelia. Surreptitiously, whenever she was unaware of his regard, Brutus would watch her. Cornelia’s belly was large now, ungainly, but even though she was so far into her pregnancy, she’d still found the time to continue growing herself. She’d gained a little height, and both her face and her limbs had lost much of their childish plumpness.

There was a growing grace and beauty to her movements—the tilt of her head as she laughed (pretence, undoubtedly); the languid sweep of her hand through the air as she pointed out something to Aethylla—and, perversely, that only added to Brutus’
animosity. He wanted her to grow fat and ugly, so that he could truly despise her.

He hated it that, in almost everything she did, she only made him want her more.

He hated it that, when she turned and saw him looking at her, the light faded from her face.

He hated it that, whenever he thought of Membricus’ prophecy that she would die in childbed, he felt a sickening sense of loss.

On the eleventh day after leaving the Altars of the Philistines the fleet approached a green and verdant land on their port beam. For the next day and a half they sailed past large towns, even cities, which appeared at regular intervals along the coast or just inland.

In mid-afternoon of the twelfth day a large port city appeared at the mouth of a sluggish river, and Brutus called to the captains of the fleet to lower their sails and to set the anchors.

He, accompanied by five other men, set out in a small rowboat to the port from where he did not return until the next morning at dawn.

With him came several moderately sized sailing vessels well staffed with men who were, the Trojans were relieved to note, only lightly armed.

Brutus climbed back into his flagship, smiling at Membricus and Deimas who stood anxiously by.

Behind them Cornelia, face and body still, waited with Aethylla.

Her eyes did not once leave Brutus.

“We have made new friends,” Brutus said, grinning as Membricus, then Deimas, clasped his hand and arm. “This land is called Mauritania, and it is a rich and well-ordered and -supplied realm.”

His grin widened. “But not so rich that they are not willing to part with some of their supplies for a portion of the gold and jewels I said I carried with me.”

“Will we stop here?” Cornelia said, her eyes now moving past Brutus to the city about the port.

He looked at her thoughtfully, wondering at her motives for the question. “No. We stay only the length of time it takes the Mauritanians to ferry out to each of our ships fresh supplies of water, grain and fruit.” He looked back to Membricus and Deimas, and the ship’s captain with them. “It is too late in the summer to linger. We leave as soon as we can.”

They sailed the next day in the hour after dawn.

Far, far away, Genvissa stood by a still pond, staring at the vision she could see in its mirrored waters.

A hundred black-hulled ships, sailing towards the Pillars of Hercules.

Closing her eyes and summoning her power, Genvissa called on the sprites of the water, Mag’s familiars, and stirred them into turmoil.

For all her kind words and reassurances to Brutus in her guise as Artemis, Genvissa intended to cripple this fleet long before it reached Llangarlia…and perhaps even finally rid herself of this mewling child Brutus had taken to wife.

Genvissa hated the way thoughts of Cornelia constantly filled Brutus’ mind. It was beyond time that Cornelia died. Brutus would have to survive without his precious son.

Late in the afternoon, landmasses to the north and south had closed in upon the fleet so that ahead lay only a relatively narrow strait of sea between two headlands.

Brutus, standing in the stem of his ship with the captain, Membricus, Deimas and two other experienced sailors, looked ahead, clearly worried. Then he glanced upwards towards the sky which had, in the past hour, clouded over until the boats were as
crowded by low-hanging black clouds as they were by the headlands.

“So much for Artemis’ pledge for calm seas,” Membricus muttered, and Brutus threw him a dirty look.

“I have been through the Pillars of Hercules once before,” said the captain, Aldros. “It can be a perilous journey in the best of seasons, let alone when a storm threatens to close in about us.”

“How many ships abreast?” said Brutus. If he sailed the fleet through single file it would take hours to get them all to safety.

“Five, possibly six,” said Aldros, his grey eyes narrowed in his weather-beaten face as he stared ahead, “but even then the captains of the ships on the outer extremities will need to be careful. There are rocks there,” he pointed, “and there, and there.”

“Do we sail, or row?” said Brutus, now watching Aldros more carefully than either the sea ahead or the sky above.

“We row,” said Aldros. “At the Pillars of Hercules is the meeting point of two great seas: the central sea, which we leave, and the grey infinity that stretches to the west, into which we enter. Tides and waves pull and push in every direction. If we depend on sail, we are likely to be dashed on the rocks to either side of the pillars. The oarsmen must prove their worth if we are to survive. Ye gods, Brutus, I hope you trained the new crews well in the months we waited in Mesopotama.”