The fires had been long since doused, each one finding death in the early hours of the night. Wind had joined the maelstrom and the position of the caves' openings lost their advantage. Though the storm had approached from the sea – opposite to the caves – the wind had quickly made such a position entirely irrelevant, as it carried the rain in every direction. Soon the fires were sputtering and valiantly trying to stay alive from the onslaught of the storm, alternately flaring to life from the wind and smothered by the rain. Andromache gauged that it was nearing mid-evening when she bid Iasemi put out the fire.
The morning was calm, just as it always was after such a storm. Iasemi nudged the cold, damp charred wood with a foot and tried to remember if there had been other branches and twigs where they had gathered the fuel the previous evening. She had been so exhausted that now she wasn't certain if there had been or not. She looked out through the cave and bit her lip in thought. The light was still dim, and she could see that there were dark shades of purples and greys covering the sky. The storm had ceased, but the gods weren't yet pleased to allow the sun to return. She hugged herself and tried to suppress a shiver. In this damp cave, matters would be more tolerable if there was some warmth to step out into. But, looking at the sky, it seemed unlikely that it would happen soon.
A soft whine from behind her met her ears and she turned quickly to see Astyanax's swaddling blanket doing a fussy dance as he kicked his feet and punched the air in a subdued fit of infant pique. She noticed that Andromache had rolled onto her side away from this unpleasant irritation, but nothing else about her mistress indicated that she was awake. Her loose-limbed pose was of one quite unconscious.
Iasemi tiptoed over to Astyanax and crouched beside him, a finger over her lips. "Hush," she whispered, "you must let your mother sleep."
Astyanax refused to heed her, instead intensifying the force of his rebellion. Iasemi scooped him up and hopped over the dead campfire out of the cave and into the murky dawn, whereupon she shook him once and scolded, "That wasn't very kingly, Your Majesty! Your mother needs her rest!" She sniffed. "But first, I think the royal clothes need changing. Then you can come along with me to fetch wood. In this meager light, if I can't see a good piece of kindling, then I rely on you to tell me."
The infant was uninterested in her admonishment, instead balling up his fists and jamming them against his eyes in further stirrings of a tantrum.
Iasemi quickly settled the baby into the crook of her arm and rocked him gently as she hied herself further away from the cave, not wanting his inevitable cries to reach his mother's ears. She cast another worried glance at the sky, wishing that the clouds would disperse somewhat so that the sun, when it rose, would have more effect. The desert from which they had come was featureless in this dim light. That was hardly any surprise, she thought. It was barren and unremarkable at the height of day.
She remembered the state of Astyanax's diapers and held him out before her gingerly as she trudged around the rock formations and slogged through the sand towards the water's edge. She was glad that she hadn't been so fastidious as to put her sandals on before leaving the cave, since the sand was burying her feet up to her ankles with every step.
There was a small pool created by rocks jutting knee height from the shore, ideal for her purpose, and Iasemi slowly made her way towards it in the cumbersome sand. Falling to her knees in the edge of the water, she unwrapped Astyanax's outer diapers and again marveled at the jewels and gold that had remained concealed for so many weary miles. She wondered if Prince Paris and his wife knew just how much her mistress had managed to secrete in the young king's clothes. Princess Andromache had taken no pains to inform them of the exact amount, and great pains at keeping Astyanax's diaper changing a quick and smoothly executed affair.
Twisting the edges of the cloth together, she set it on a rock to her right and went about the distasteful task of cleaning her king. "You won't punish me for having spoken so disrespectfully, I know," she murmured, "because you don't even know what your own name is, and so you can't understand a word I say. But you know what your mother's name is now, don't you? Did you hear us talking about it last night? Iasemi is so horrible at devising names for things. I could barely think of what to call those little kittens that Damaris kept insisting I adopt. 'Your quarters are so far away from the mistress,' she said. 'It's the perfect place for them,' she said. 'We'll come and visit them and no one ever need know,' she said. Nephele, little Astyanax. Can you say 'Nephele'? That is your mummy's name now. I hope I remember it. Maybe if I say it enough, it'll stick in my mind for more than a few minutes. Nephele…Nephele…"
Iasemi paused and stared at the infant, held out in her arms and dripping. On Astyanax's face was what she could only describe as bewilderment.
"At least you're not annoyed, Your Majesty, but, yes, I think poor Iasemi is going insane," she continued, twisting him back and forth in the breeze. "She's nervous as a cat, and that's no lie. That's no lie…"
Iasemi shook her head in a combination of worry, and rebuke to not worry. Simply change the baby, she told herself. One task at a time.
Astyanax calmed and allowed her to complete his changing with no difficulty. Even when she tied that onerous treasure bundle around him, he gave not a whimper. She fancied that he, in his own baby way, had taken pity on her during her hopeless ramblings and would, at least for a short while, cooperate with her in whatever she did.
She stood and gave Astyanax's padded bottom a final pat as she surveyed the land from the direction she had come. The previous night, she had searched for wood in the immediate vicinity and found adequate supply for one night. But she was certain there was little more to be had. She would have to search further afield and return soon. Andromache and the others would want something to huddle around, something to cook their meal over.
To her left, the rocky shore jutted out into the sea, a promontory from which she decided she could see exactly what she was looking for. Any deadwood would, hopefully, meet her eye and long, wasted minutes of searching by foot would be eliminated. Grasping a fold of her tunic, she fashioned a sling and settled Astyanax into it. Without further delay, she set off across the beach, her mind now set on her next task.
The climb took little effort. In steep places, there was always a rock or a piece of brush to grasp and haul herself up. Still, she nearly slipped twice and regretted that she had not returned Astyanax to the cave before embarking on this climb. From her position on the beach she hadn't realized that carrying a baby, even if in a sling, would be so cumbersome. Yet she was already this far, and it would take valuable time to relieve herself of him and re-attempt to scale the promontory. Gritting her teeth, Iasemi continued to make her way upwards and told herself over and over that there wasn't much further to go.
When she looked up and saw that the height was within her grasp, she rasped a ragged prayer of gratitude to Zeus and found sudden strength to clamber up to the top. Her exertions had set her head reeling, strange explosions of light and darkness veiling her eyes. She waved off this dizziness and stood still until her body accustomed itself to its new position. Only scant minutes had passed since her foot took its first step on the slope, but the sky had lightened considerably. Clouds still marched sluggishly above her, but their hues were not so leaden and oppressive.
The sights above her now in welcome focus, Iasemi turned her attention to the terrain on the other side of the promontory and realized that there was a cove at some distance, nestled in the shadows against the base of another, larger promontory further to the north. From where she stood, the cove appeared to be more hospitable than their mean shelter. At first glance, any sea-borne fury would be deflected by the location of surrounding rocks and trees.
She blinked, spots of darkness still stubbornly clinging to her vision, like the first drops of dye in water. But rather than being amorphous and dissipate, these were persistently solid and unmoving. She blinked several more times, but they would not disappear. As she was about to bring her hands to her eyes to rub away the irritation, more dark spots appeared. But these did not remain fixed. They scurried, they weaved, they spoke. They were in the distance, and others were on the slope beneath her. Coming closer.
Her skin leapt, prickling painfully like being enveloped in a sudden gust of sand and wind. Before she could try to pacify her wildly pounding heart with the thought that the men below were perhaps merchants or nearby villagers, her fear – far from blurring her senses – made each one clear with excruciating perfection. Above all, those spots along the shore took the unmistakable shape of warships, black sails slack against their masts as the eyes painted on the bow glared balefully at some fixed point before them. Iasemi had seen those ships before, careening madly towards Troy's beaches with the bloodlust of their occupants and immortal champions urging them on.
Myrmidons. The armor, gleaming dully on their backs, heads, and limbs, clanged as they scrambled up the brush-covered incline, like a nest of ants that had been stirred to activity with the poke of a stick. And she, appearing so suddenly, had been the stick.
Though fear relentlessly gripped every one of her limbs, Iasemi found it within herself to wrench her mind away from meekly submitting to this close encroaching doom. She couldn't cling to even the remotest hope that any fate would be tolerable at the hands of Myrmidons. She was already a slave, yes, but there were other forms of bondage she knew she could never endure.
Wrapping her arms tightly around Astyanax, she spun around and bolted down the way she had come. A chorus of shouts rose from her pursuers, and Iasemi redoubled her efforts to outpace them. She leapt over brush and rocks, trusting in her legs to not buckle or her ankles to twist as she skittered down the slope. Yet a thorny bush stood perversely in her path and one of the branches gleefully snagged her gown when she failed to give it a wider berth on her headlong dash. The sharp rending of fabric pierced the dull pounding of blood in her ears, but only momentarily. The branch had her garment in a stubborn hold and, when she reached the end of this tether, the cloth, far from ripping free, refused to surrender. Iasemi pitched forward, screaming half in fear for herself, and half for the bundle in her arms.
Iasemi crumpled around Astyanax, hoping she would bear the brunt of the fall, no matter where she landed. A white-hot pain shot through her left shoulder and arm as it slammed into the rough and unforgiving terrain. She screamed in naked agony, then her mind became a whirl as she tumbled, bounced, and slid down the remainder of the slope. All the while, some shred of her reason kept itself fixed on Astyanax, praying that the bundle would not emerge lifeless.
She slid into the deep sand that nestled at the base of the promontory and lay there for precious seconds as she struggled to regain her breath and her senses. She felt thoroughly rattled, like a puny toy in the hand of angry Zeus.
A muted and distressed wail stirred her. She feebly lifted her head and saw that Astyanax had rolled from her arms and now lay in a tangle of swaddling. His cry didn't have an audible edge of pain, though no doubt he felt somewhat battered as she. When she tried to creep forward, her left shoulder flooded in excruciating pain and she could hear dislocated bone scrape on bone. It numbed her from head to foot and she despaired of ever moving again, but with a final effort, she flopped into her back. She could now see her pursuers on the brow of the hill, and their pace visibly slowed. What reason was there for them to rush? She, their quarry, was trapped and made helpless by her injuries, like a wounded deer watching the hounds approach.
Iasemi flung out her right arm, but her fingers only barely brushed Astyanax. Short, panting cries keened through teeth gritted in pain and terror. Her mind, what little was left rational, raced. What to do? What would her mistress do if she were in her place? Swallow the pain – any pain – and stagger away? A foolish and brave act. Capture was inevitable.
Thought left Iasemi. She was no princess or queen. She had not one lofty drop of blood in her veins. She didn't care how such people would face this situation. She was a slave, with little left to sacrifice. She gave herself over to her fears and screamed, an animal cry that sheared through the smooth, undulating rumble of the waves.
It's my plan to have Briseis & Aeneas reappear, though that probably won't be for some time yet. The bulk of the story will be following Andromache in captivity, and Paris and Helen on the run. The Aeneas & Briseis thread will converge with the other two near the end. Pursuing three separate threads successfully is way beyond my skills, so I'm not even going to try. I'm not all that familiar with The Aeneid anyway. I had to read it in college, but I don't remember a thing – Part II of Meyerbeer's opera "Les Troyens" is just about all I know when it comes to Aeneas. (Cassandre's mad scene at the end of Part I is phenomenal, btw.) Since I'm writing 3 other fics, I can only do so much research. :-) I'll leave Briseis fic to those who like her. She's not my favorite. Though I despise Helen and Paris, they fascinate me at the same time.
I appreciate all your comments and feedback, and I take them into account when I write or revise! I hope this fic continues to be interesting as the chapters go on.
