Elektra(18)

‘My sister,’ he said. ‘Are you Cassandra? You must be, surely.’

I stared at him steadily.

‘The rumours of your beauty are true,’ he said, standing, holding his arms out to me.

He breathed sincerity, this Paris. No flicker of horror as he took in my puffy eyelids and tangled hair. He was not disconcerted by this silent sister, this apparition that loomed before him at his triumphant homecoming. I searched his face and saw his honesty. And yet I could hear the shrieks echoing in his wake, the howls of despair that would ring through the smoking ruins of Troy. I could see the flickers of a fire that would rampage unconstrained behind him when I looked into those warm eyes.

He dropped his arms as I stayed motionless. ‘You are surprised, of course. I know that everyone believed me dead. When I came to this hall today, everyone was as astonished as you are. You hear this news late and it shocks you, but I will tell you, Cassandra, who I am and where—’

‘You are Paris,’ I said. ‘My baby brother, cast out to die. Did the herdsman take pity on you, save you from your fate?’

At this, he could not help but look a little taken aback. ‘Your intellect is sharp,’ he said, and I could see he had thought me a simple idiot.

Priam took my elbow, gestured for me to sit. I did not move. ‘Paris has indeed returned to us,’ he said. ‘And our joy is complete: to have our son, whom we believed dead, restored to our home.’

‘But he was supposed to die,’ I said. My words rang more harshly than I intended. ‘The prophecy said he must die.’

Hecabe frowned. ‘The prophecy told us to leave him on the mountains,’ she said. ‘We followed the prophecy, and the gods saved our son in reward for our piety, for our sacrifice.’

She was lying to herself; I could see it. She had made a convincing case, but she was wrong. I opened my mouth to tell her so, but I looked at Paris’ face again before I spoke. I could see the fine shape of his bones, the exquisite beauty of his features jarring so discordantly with the horror he opened up within me, but the terrible jangle of despair and fear was beginning to separate into distinct notes, and I was distracted from my words. So much of it was still to come, but one strand of sorrow felt immediate. I saw a woman in my mind’s eye, weeping over the baby that gurgled in her arms. Flowers twisted through her hair, a spring bubbled beside her as though in sympathy, and the gnarled branches of an olive tree stretched over her like it wanted to offer her protection. No mortal woman: the spirit of the mountain itself infused her veins. The word for what she was came to me: Oread. Mountain nymph. The tears that she sobbed were for her husband, Paris. I knew it, and although I knew that a thousand women would wring their hands and scream in bitter grief because of this man in the years to come, this nymph cried now. Her baby reached up a chubby arm to bat clumsily at his mother’s face, and I saw his eyes open big and dark, just like his father’s.

Paris’ eyes were fixed on me, not the infant’s. The vision dissolved, leaving me only with the nymph’s name. Oenone. I could say it, see if the name of the wife he’d abandoned along with his newborn son brought a jolt of guilt to that calm, handsome face. I could feel the word dripping with poison on my tongue, but it caught in my mouth and I could not force it past my lips.

‘Take some wine, Cassandra,’ Paris said. The solicitude in his voice was real. How could he be so kind and so terrible all at once?

To the palpable relief of my parents, I sat down on a cushioned chair beside them, and I took the goblet that Paris slid towards me. The bronze gleamed, the jewels on its stem glittered, and the sweet scent of honey mingled with the rich aroma of the wine. I let it calm me and the conversation continued around me as I forced myself to look at nothing but the dark liquid.

‘And so, tell me why you are set on Sparta?’ my father was saying.

Paris leaned back in his chair. ‘If I tell you, I must warn you it will be a very strange story.’ His tone was light. He had no fear of their disbelief. They urged him to speak; my parents and my brothers and sisters all eager to hear him.

I wished him gone, swallowed up by the mountains that should have been his grave years ago. But he was so full of smiles, of joy, a bright beacon, and I, too, was drawn towards him, even as I shuddered at his presence.

‘I lived a simple life on the slopes of Mount Ida,’ he said. ‘I tended the goats and never dreamed of even entering this great walled city. I believed I was the son of a herdsman and nothing more. Until the day came when, before me on the mountainside, appeared three women – not human women, but goddesses. I knew them to be divine in a moment – they shimmered with radiance and their beauty was beyond compare.’

When I had told of my encounter with Apollo, I had been met with scoffing first, anger later. But everyone smiled at Paris’ story. I wasn’t sure that they believed him either, but they were happy to listen.

‘They were Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, and they told me they had come to me because they had heard of my honesty and my fair judgement. They wanted me to decide which of them was the most beautiful, for all three of them coveted a golden apple that would be awarded as the prize to the goddess I chose.’ He sighed, a dreamy smile spreading across his face. ‘They dropped their robes and revealed their nakedness to me so I could better decide.’

A flutter went around the table. I could see my brother Hector suppress a laugh, but Paris had sparked their interest surely enough and they all leaned forward to hear the details.