A Prince of Troy. Lindsay Clarke
to him as if from a far distance. The air wobbled about his head. His throat was very dry. ‘I had only two arrows left,’ he mumbled as he fought free of Agelaus’s embrace. Then he stood, looking down at where the dead leader lay with the spear-shaft through his lungs. Turning away in recoil, he saw the body of the man with the barb through his throat, and a third, who gazed up at him as if beseeching him to take back the arrow from his belly.
A nimbus of darkness circled behind the boy’s eyes. He was watching the dying rustler choke on a gush of blood from his mouth when that dark circle widened and thickened so swiftly that it consumed all the light in the day.
He woke to the sound of water running over stones. He was beside a river in the shade of a thatched awning, lying on a litter, and the flash of white rapids came harsh against his eyes. The air about his head was aromatic with herbs. Savouring the mingled scents of balm, camomile and lavender, he moved his head and moaned a little at the dizziness. Then he saw the grey haired man sitting on a nearby rock, fingering the long curls of his beard.
A girl’s voice said, ‘I think he’s awake.’ Paris turned to look at her. ‘Yes,’ she cried, ‘he is,’ and her face broke into a bright, gaptoothed smile. Her hair also hung in curls, but so fair and fine they might have been spun from the light about her head. Wearing a white smock marked with grass stains, she was playing with a mouse that ran between her small hands. She was perhaps six years old. At her back, some distance away, were two grassy hummocks with stone portals, which looked like burial mounds.
‘Bring him some water,’ her father said, putting a gently restraining hand to the boy’s shoulder. ‘Lie still for a while,’ he smiled. ‘All will be well.’
Paris tilted his face to watch the girl as she stretched out to hold a drinking cup under a freshet of water bursting from a dark cleft in the rocks. The inside of his head felt burned out with pain. It was as though his violent dreams of fire and smoke and blazing buildings were still smouldering in there.
The girl came back and lifted the cup to his lips. ‘You’ve been very sick, Alexander,’ she said with the air of one endowed with privileged knowledge, ‘but my father has the gift of healing. You’ll soon be strong again.’
The water flowed across his tongue to break like light in his throat. He licked his parched lips, drank some more, then laid his head back. Struggling to retrieve the recent past, he remembered how the flies had gathered round the bloody wounds of the men he had slaughtered. His breath whimpered a little. Then he said, ‘My name isn’t Alexander.’
‘No, it’s Paris, I know. But you’ve been given another name since you drove off those cattle-lifters. They say you may only be a boy but you’ve become a defender of men, so that’s what they call you now – Alexander. I like it better.’
‘That’s enough now,’ her father said. ‘Give him time to come to himself.’ He smiled down at the boy again. ‘I’m Apollo’s priest at this shrine. My name’s Cebren. Your father brought you here three days ago to be cured of the burning fever. He’ll be glad to learn that the mouse-god has looked kindly on you. In two days he’ll come to bring you home. All you need now is rest.’
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