The Women of Troy: A Novel Read online

  At last, the dishes were cleared away, the fire built up and the drums and pipes came out. Alcimus’s lyre had been returned to him—in pristine condition, I’d made sure of that—but he’d very kindly found another less impressive instrument for the girls to use. One of the quieter girls held up her hand and said she could play a little—“but not as well as Amina.” A shadow—I could almost see it—passed over the group at the mention of her name.

  Instantly, Helle was on her feet, clapping her hands for attention, announcing that they were all going to learn a new song. A drinking song. They looked at each other: women don’t sing drinking songs. So, Helle went on, they all had to raise their cups and have a good long drink first.

  It was, indeed, a drinking song: the kind sailors used to sing in Lyrnessus in taverns and brothels along the harbour front.

  When a man grows old, and his balls grow cold,

  And the tip of his prick turns blue.

  When the hole in the middle

  Refuses to piddle,

  He can tell you a tale or two.

  HE CAN TELL YOU A TALE OR TWO!

  The girls giggled; some looked shocked—but they all seemed perfectly willing to learn the song. You heard versions of this song being sung all over the camp, no two exactly the same, though they all concerned a woman of gargantuan sexual appetites. A woman who could not be satisfied and only managed to reach a climax when somebody thrust a spear into her vagina. Needless to say, this woman’s name was always Helen.

  I hoped Helle would have the sense to stop before the final verse. There were plenty of women in Troy who’d died like that—I knew one of the girls had seen her pregnant sister-in-law dragged out of hiding and speared. But I never did find out what Helle would have done, because she’d only got as far as verse three when Maire vomited. Everybody turned and stared.

  I knelt beside her, touched her forehead: she was sweating a little, but didn’t feel too hot. I probed under her jaw: no swelling. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you inside.”

  The beds were already made up. I got her to lie down and covered her with a blanket. I noticed Helle hovering in the doorway. “She’ll be all right,” I said. I wasn’t concerned at all; I just thought she had a stomach upset, which were extremely frequent in the camp. “Maire? Try to get some sleep.”

  I didn’t particularly want to return to the group round the fire. I was tired after serving in the hall, my ankles were starting to swell, I needed my bed. The singing had started up again—a rather more appropriate song, I was glad to hear—so I thought I could slip away.

  I’d actually got as far as the veranda when Helle burst out of the door behind me. “You can’t just GO! I don’t know what to do.”

  “She’ll be all right. Just put a bowl by the bed in case she’s sick again.”

  She stared at me. “You don’t know, do you? How can you not know?”

  And abruptly, like having a bucket of cold water thrown over me, I did know. Only of course, you’ve all got there before me, haven’t you? Can I just say, in my own defence, that pregnancy in a fat woman, a first pregnancy, particularly when the woman’s trying to hide it, is not as easy to spot as you might think. But all the same…I was pregnant myself. How could I not have seen?

  “Of course, I’ll stay. You go back to the others. Keep them out as long as you can.”

  I went back into the hut and squatted down beside Maire. She was really sweating now; her face was a shining full moon in the flickering rush lights between the beds. “Do you still feel sick?”

  She shook her head. Her lips moved; I had to lean in to catch the words. “I know how it ends.”

  Pregnancy? Well, no prizes for that…But then I realized: she meant the song.

  “That’s not going to happen to you!” Though even as I spoke, I thought: Why not? What’s changed? “You’re going to be all right,” I said, patting her leg.

  I needed Ritsa. More than ever in my life, I needed Ritsa, but I could hear groups of drunken fighters walking past—and there’d be plenty of others, in every other compound, all over the camp. I couldn’t go to get her, and I certainly wasn’t going to send one of the girls. Somehow, we’d just have to manage. Thousands of women give birth every day, some with no more help than a whelping bitch. How difficult could it be?

  I knelt beside Maire and asked if she was having regular pains. She nodded. When did they start? I asked. “This afternoon.” So, she’d been in labour for several hours already and hadn’t told anybody. The more I tried to understand her behaviour the more insane it seemed. Though I don’t suppose she was thinking straight at all, poor woman.

  Four or five of the girls came in to fetch their blankets, glancing sideways at Maire in a shy, curious, slightly embarrassed way. I could hear them chattering as they went back to the fire. They were so excited, staying up late, drinking wine under the stars…Children, really.

  Maire was restless. I sat beside her watching as each pain seized her, reached a peak and ebbed. She arched her back when the pain was bad, and grunted, but made no other sound. She’d need something to bite on later. We couldn’t risk the compound being woken by the unmistakable cries of a woman in labour. In the intervals between pains, she talked—more than she’d ever done before, at least to me. She’d been a slave in the kitchen of a great house; born into slavery. I’d assumed the baby’s father would be her owner—slaves, even those as unattractive as Maire, are routinely used for sexual relief—but I was wrong. The father was a fellow slave, a man who worked on the farm and regularly brought supplies of vegetables and fruit to the kitchen door. “And one day,” Maire said, “he brought me flowers.” You could see the wonder of that moment on her face. After that, she’d slipped away to see him as often as she could. In the orchard, in the hay barn, even in the fields…

  Do you know, I actually envied her? I’d been married twice, I’d been great Achilles’s prize of honour, but no man had ever brought me flowers.

  As she talked, I started to see why she and Helle got on. No two women could have been less alike, but they shared the experience of slavery. For neither of them did the fall of Troy mean a descent from freedom into bondage. They’d swapped one servitude for another, that was all.

  After a while, the girls began drifting back in, bringing with them the smell of woodsmoke. Whispering quietly together, they undressed and settled down for the night. One by one, the rush lights were extinguished until the only light remaining was the lamp beside Maire’s bed. In spite of all the excitement, most of the girls dropped off to sleep quickly. Hot food, wine and fresh air had knocked them out. Not all of them though. Looking around the room, I caught more than one glint of eye white in the darkness.

  * * *

  ——————

  The night dragged on. If anything, Maire’s pains got weaker and further apart; she even managed to doze off between them. I think I must have drifted off myself, because I jumped when Maire reached out and grabbed my hand. “I need a pee.”

  The bucket was at the far end of the room. How on earth…? Well, it would have to be done. Helle and I hoisted Maire into a sitting position and then onto her feet. I took the opportunity of stripping the black robe off her. Underneath, she was wearing only a thin white shift. My god, the size of her! Somehow, we managed to shuffle between two rows of beds, Helle pulling, me pushing from behind—and, in the process, waking everybody up. We supported Maire as she squatted over the bucket; Helle’s face was screwed up with the effort—and Helle was a lot stronger than me.

  What came out of Maire was no discreet ladylike trickle, but a gush like a pissing mare. For a moment, I was stunned, but then realized her waters had broken. It’s the one thing everybody knows about labour, isn’t it? The waters break. Helle and I looked at each other, then at the long road back to Maire’s bed—only a few yards, yes, but that was a
long, long way—and then Helle spoke to the nearest girl. “Sorry, love, we need your bed.”

  The girl looked shocked—she’d only just woken up, poor thing—but she stood up at once, and we lowered Maire onto her bed. Helle went to get the lantern and set it on the floor nearby. By now, all the girls were sitting up: I don’t think anybody slept again that night.

  After that, the pains got a lot stronger. Maire started to cry out; I tied a knot in my veil and gave it to her to bite on, but her mouth was dry and she kept spitting it out.

  “You’ve got to be quiet,” I whispered.

  I didn’t need to say any more; Maire knew only too well why, but with every pain it became harder. The girls lit their rush lights and we all settled down to wait. As each pain started, Maire bit into the knot. You could see her fighting her way to the crest of every wave, then floundering down the other side. A few moments’ peace, and the tightening started again. Helle kept giving her sips of water, but she couldn’t keep it down, so we just moistened her cracked lips—all this in front of an audience of shocked girls who weren’t able to help or do anything. Except be there.

  I don’t know how Maire managed not to scream, but she did—though some awful grunting sounds were coming from behind the veil. And then something new began to happen. I saw it first on Maire’s face; she looked puzzled. I glanced across at Helle for confirmation, but she just shook her head. Maire, who’d been so grateful for everything we did, suddenly became bad-tempered, tetchy. Nothing we said or did was right. The next time Helle tried to moisten her lips, she pushed the cup away so violently it skittered across the floor.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  She didn’t know what she wanted. And then, with the next pain, she started to push. I thought it would soon be over, that we were only minutes away. Each in-drawn breath was expelled in a shriek of effort. “Shush!” I kept saying, looking nervously at the door, but the shrieks were beyond Maire’s control.

  Helle stood up. “Sing!” she hissed at the girls. “Come on, don’t just sit there—bloody sing!” And sing they did. I think they must have sung every song they knew—even the old man with the hole in the middle that refused to piddle got a second outing. “Louder!” Helle cried. No doubt the fighters still drinking round the fires heard the singing and thought: They’re having a good time. Under cover of the noise, Helle and I kept glancing at each other, frightened by the extent of our own ignorance. So, we hung on from one pain to the next—and were rewarded, at last, by the sound of Andromache’s footsteps on the veranda.

  She came in, head down, jaw clenched, not seeing anything or anybody. When, finally, she looked up and found everybody awake and a woman on the floor, moaning, she seemed bewildered. “What’s going on?”

  Helle said, “She’s in labour.”

  “Labour?” Andromache looked down at Maire and shook her head, the gesture saying: I don’t care. “I’ve got to get washed.”

  And with that she walked through the frightened girls and out into the yard. A murmur ran around the room. Helle and I looked at each other and then I followed Andromache out into the night. The fire was still blazing; a cauldron of hot water stood on the grass beside it. Crouched over, splay-legged, Andromache was scrubbing herself viciously with a square of linen folded over to make a pad. Instinctively, I looked away—though she didn’t seem to mind my being there. She had no need for privacy now, since her body didn’t belong to her anymore. I knew that feeling, and the angry words I’d been about to speak shrivelled on my lips. Face averted, I waited for her to be ready.

  “Right, then,” she said, tossing the pad into the cauldron. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  I followed her into the hut, wincing again at the overcrowding, the smells, the heat of all those bodies. Andromache knelt at Maire’s feet, waited for the next pain and then, immediately, did what I hadn’t felt able to do: push Maire’s shift up round her waist and try to see what was going on. I was glad I hadn’t done it, because it would only have made me panic. What I was looking at simply didn’t seem possible. The pain ebbed; Maire gave that long grating shriek and let her head fall back.

  “You’re not trying,” Andromache said. “You’ve got to push!”

  “I AM PUSHING!”

  “Not hard enough.”

  That was harsh; but the roughness seemed to rouse Maire from her torpor and—whether coincidentally or not—the next pain was stronger. Andromache whispered to me, “Under all that fat, you know, she’s actually quite narrow.” She looked worried—and if she was worried, I was frantic. “Come on, Maire,” I said. “You can do it.”

  Maire shook her head. Andromache slapped her, not hard, but any slap at that time was brutal. “Look at me, Maire. Look at me—we’ve lost everything—homes, families, everything—but we are not going to lose you.”

  Poor Maire. We must have sounded like demons urging her on to do the impossible. She turned to Helle, who took her hand and said, “Come on.” And then, half laughing, trying for a joke: “What am I going to do without you?”

  Maire shook her head; the next pain had already started.

  “Good!” Andromache said. “I can see its head—lovely long black hair, just like you.”

  All I could see was a bloody ball, but the words seemed to encourage Maire.

  “Come on, it’ll soon be over,” Andromache said.

  We were all urging Maire on, unconsciously holding and blocking our breaths to the same rhythm as hers. Nobody heard her shrieks of effort now—we were too intent on the next pain. Andromache, who had her hand on the hard mound of Maire’s belly, nodded. “Make the most of this one. Go on, deep breath. Hold—and push.”

  And there was the baby’s head. As we watched, it turned—as if it were trying to help. As if it knew how to be born.

  “Shoulders now,” Andromache said. “Come on, just one more pain, and it’s over.”

  A gush, a flop. And there was a new person in the room, a person who’d never been there before. I’ve been present at so many births since then, and had children of my own, but nothing ever prepares you for that moment. Just as when somebody dies—that lengthening silence after the last breath always comes as a shock, no matter how long the death has been expected.

  Andromache picked him up and chafed his chest until he produced a thin, bewildered wail. To begin with, he was the bluish purple of ripe plums, but gradually, as he went on wailing, he began to change to a healthy-looking red.

  Picked him up.

  Chafed his chest.

  He began to change.

  The room was very quiet, no sound except for the baby’s reedy cry. I realized what was missing: the shout of triumph that follows the birth of a boy. I thought this might be the first time in the whole history of Troy that the birth of a healthy male child had been greeted with nothing but dismay. Andromache had still not given him to Maire to hold, and Maire was beginning to look anxious. Suddenly—even though only a moment before she’d been too exhausted even to raise her head—she reared up, snatched the baby from Andromache’s hands and put him to her breast. Her nipple was so big, I didn’t see how he could possibly get it into his mouth, but after a few frustrated cries he managed it, and his cheeks began working vigorously. After a little grunt of surprise—obviously the sensation wasn’t what she’d been expecting—Maire heaved a sigh of contentment and relief.

  Mechanically, Andromache went on attending to what else needed to be done, emerging from between Maire’s legs with what looked like a sheep’s liver in her hands. Mercifully, the girls were all craning to admire the baby. “Look at his fingernails!” I heard one of them say.

  Andromache gripped my arm. “We need to talk.”

  Helle and I glanced at each other, both of us, probably, thinking: This is a nightmare. We followed Andromache out into the yard where, under cover of burying the afterbirth, we could have
a few minutes’ private conversation.

  “You should have killed it,” Helle said. “It’ll only be worse for her if they do it.” She jerked her head to indicate the Greek fighters who were shouting on the other side of the fence.

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “They’re the enemy. We’re supposed to be her friends.”

  “It’s too late now anyway,” Andromache said.

  “Is it?” Helle said.

  There was a moment when we looked into the abyss.

  Then: “Yes,” I said. “She’s fed it.”

  Many newborn children are killed or left to die: deformed boys, obviously, but also a great many perfectly normal girls. The rule is it must be done before the mother feeds the child. In snatching her baby out of Andromache’s hands and putting him to her breast, Maire had saved his life.

  For now. As far as any of us knew, the edict that all Trojan boys must be killed was still in force. Pyrrhus had killed Andromache’s son: we had no reason to trust him. I didn’t know whether he’d have the stomach to kill a newborn baby, now, when the heat of battle had passed, but I certainly didn’t intend to find out.

  “Let’s get him swaddled,” I said.

  A Trojan baby was bound in swaddling bands for the first few weeks of its life, and strapped tightly to its mother’s chest. Nothing much was visible except for its face and hands—and even these were hidden in the folds of its mother’s shawl. Could we get away with hiding the baby’s sex? I thought we could, as long as the girls remembered to call the baby “it” or—better still—“she.”

  Speaking with complete authority, Helle said: “They’ll remember.” Did I detect the faintest trace of “or else”? We-ell, what if I did? I’d wanted her to be a leader—and a leader she was turning out to be.

  So that’s what we decided. I fetched a sheet and a pair of scissors from my hut and together Andromache, Helle and myself set about making swaddling bands. Once the baby had been wrapped, all three of us spoke to the girls. They nodded and murmured assent; nobody seemed to need convincing—many of them would have seen sights in Troy that nobody their age—or any age—should ever have to see.