Cassandra

(Cassandra; Princess of ill-fated Troy. She was loved by Apollo who gave her many gifts including prophecies but when she rejected him he turned this gift into a curse. She would be able to see the future but no one would believe a word she said. Thus she foresaw the Trojan war, at the end of which she was taken as a slave by Agamemnon and killed along with him by his wife, Clytemnestra)

I was beautiful

And, Gods, how I hated it.

My flawless skin opened the door

To old men with their leering looks

My dark tresses bought up

Every possible trading root

Trapping me in the curse of royal blood

But He, He was different

I could have been peasant or princess

He didn't mind

So long as I was his

Golden boy

He was young, could play, could sing

An expert shot, his aim?

My heart.

He wooed me with

Silks, diamonds, prophecies.

What more could a girl want?

Of course I was flattered

By the look of lust in his blue green eyes

But, girls, I was young, I was foolish

I thought I could do better

It's a shame really

He could have loved me.

I tried to let him down gently

Get it over and done with

And send him on his way

I should have known better

He blew his top

Every gift a flop

And in a rage

He cursed me

Condemned me

Damned me

To a life living in the future

To see the blue Aegean turn red.

Oh bugger.

I would hear them in the streets

No longer a marvel but a laughing stock

(That Cassandra- a regular crunchy nut)

When I wailed, when I raved

And begged them to listen

I was ignored

Waved on

The fools.

Along came Helen,

The face that launched a thousand ships

Straight at my city.

The useless twit.

Little did she know

That I had had an advanced screening

Before the idea had popped

Into her pea sized brain

Of her falling in 'love' with

My pillock of a brother

Paris, pride of Priam

The prat.

The moment she entered these walls of stone

I knew the field before me

Would be churned with the feet of fighters

Mud and blood would flow together

And stain the hands of thousand

Their faces lit by the flames of the funeral fires

The ferryman would grow rich from this war.

The hooves beat inside my head…

I used every trick in the book

To get them to listen

To make them sit up and listen

To beware Greeks bearing gifts

But though every word I uttered

Was proven correct

They scoffed at my tears and

Ridiculed my desperate pleas.

And yet I still tried

Until he died.

He was kind to me,

Tried to comfort my cries

With words of hope

In the safety of his strong arms

That did murder everyday

And yet I did love him more than any other.

Honourable, handsome, heir

Hero, horse tamer, hope…

Hector…

Brother.

My heart was ice as his fire burnt out

The smoulder of my eyes dimmed

I grew silent.

Not a tear was shed

As I watched death work

Cold as the stone of Troy

That trapped me.

I hated them, with their false hope,

Every single one

With more heat than a thousand suns

Every man on the field at my feet

Deserved the freezing fingers of death

About their feeble throats

The fate I knew was theirs…

And mine.

The hoof beats closed in.

That damned horse was dragged through the streets.

I did not stop them.

They danced and feasted about it.

I did not speak out.

And when they fell into a drunken sleep

I did not wake them

But let them slumber on in the innocence denied me.

I watch the city burn

Again and again

Feeling the heat of that huge pyre.

I could not resist

When I saw the faces of

My laughing father, my mocking mother

As their jewel turned to ash before them.

With a self-satisfied smirk

And a glint of glee in my all seeing eyes

I turned and spoke

three

little

words

Told you so.