I remembered it all in painstaking sharp-edged detail, though I never remembered calling out. I could bring the entire story back to mind clearly. And entirely. I watched it again with my eyes open. Then with each eye opened separately, to assure myself that this had been no ordinary dream. Dreams can be convincing to the waking mind, but the vision had taken root in my very soul. (And later bloomed into a blood black flower). My heart's beat had changed it's rhythm. Thirdly shaken was my mind—and my corporeal self. I quickly found that trying not to think about it was useless. I was trembling so violently that I thought my teeth would crack against each other. But I was not cold. My skin was burning, and inside I felt somehow singed.
My nurse came padding into my rooms seconds later, pulling her shawl up around her head and shoulders. "Princess, what is the matter? Is there another serpent in your room?" I realized momentarily then that I must have wailed before my scattered thoughts flicked elsewhere.
Why did she never remember that serpents did not frighten me? If only she had seen how Helenus and I would take turns in the garden, picking them up, delighting at the tickle of their tongues in our ears, at our necks. I clutched my blanket closer. I shook my head at her, knowing my eyes were like glass. I had not looked at her since she crossed my threshold. I had been thinking of my shepherd brother. The handsome one. The one I had only seen in the vision. I broke my silence after what seemed like a long time.
"Paris," I said, "was he sent away because he brought danger to Troy, or because he is so beautiful?"
The silly old woman shook her head and looked at the ground. "Because he was going to destroy it they say, in fire. I wouldn't know, maybe it's both things. The foolish girls who say they have seen him all say he's fair as a god." She turned away from me then altogether, but I stood and went to her. I put a hand on her shoulder because she looked troubled.
"Semrais, I know I am not supposed to speak of him," she looked up at me for a moment and I knew she wanted to admonish me, but was fighting with some other urge, I took my chances, "but I have heard the women talk of him. They say that he lives as a shepherd, that he has married a nymph." It was true, they said things like this when they fancied none of us could hear them, but I did not understand why birds of prey would harrow him for marrying a nymph on the gentle slopes before Mt. Ida. I was certain at the time that his nymphly wife was the woman I had seen in my vision.
"Like Oedipus and Zeus before him, he was supposed to have died out in the wild," she shed a tear then, "but he was spared for some reason, for ill or for good. And I hear he does have a nymph for a wife. Oenone will be with child anytime they say."
For a few brief moments we sat in ponderous silence. Then she seemed to remember herself. She ushered me back to my bed, and laid a smooth hand on my cheek once I had gotten myself underneath my lavender blankets again. "Do not worry about me, nurse," my voice sounded as hollow as the air between her brown eyes and my own, "I had a nightmare, that is all."
"Oh princess," she was relieved, I could tell by her voice, I gave her a problem that she could remedy with ease, "I have a tonic that will help you sleep and sweetly, let me go and get it." She did just that and I drank it in one draught. Essences of chamomile and rose with wine and honey. I did sleep, but when I woke I recalled the vision again and burned to see him. He reminded me of Hector, with a more refined and youthful face, a more carefree face. I wondered if he would be half as goodly. I wondered if his eyes carried the same quieted passion, the same unconditional warm embrace in them that Hector's did, or were they only filled with that unabashed lust? Such questions and other throughts of him plagued me until I contrived a way to see him.