'Used for malignant fevers and the ague. Brings down a terminal fever.'
'Causes a terminal fever,' he argued. 'Treatment if ingested; induce vomiting with mustard and water.'
'Or Lychnis. Aloe is good, too.'
'Yes,' he agreed, 'If you can get the patient to swallow it. What's Lychnis?'
'There's some, growing next to the Mentha near that stream.'
'Soap-leaf, growing next to mint,' he corrected me. 'Do you use Heracles' herb?'
'What's that?' I asked. He pointed to a tall plant with pea-shaped pink and white flowers. 'Oh, you mean wound-leaf.'
'This will be ongoing for the whole journey,' said Eumides. 'You're going to arrive at Delphi an expert on herbs, boy.'
'It's interesting,' responded Orestes. I looked at him properly for the first time. He was a thin child, with alert eyes, solemn and slightly frail, as though he might have been ill as a baby. I smiled at him and he smiled back, an enchanting, innocent smile which lit up his whole face and made his uncanny golden eyes shine.
'We used Eye-in-the-Grass for bleeding noses,' offered Electra.
'Yes, that's periwinkle. It's used in love potions, too,' said Chryse, smiling. It was an unwise thing to say, for the princess went straight back into her shell.
'I call it Vinea,' I said coldly, annoyed with him. He shot me a wary look.
'What about these?' He leaned from the horse and plucked a flower, which he handed to me with a flourish. 'We call it Orchis.'
'We also. We use it for scabies and cradle cap in babies - and for love potions, as well. But I've never seen Orchis this colour before. We used to go out and gather them in spring on the slopes of…'
A lump rose in my throat, cutting off speech. I would never see that mountain again. Troy was destroyed. The Lord Agamemnon had seen to that. The very stones of the city were scattered.
'The Orchis will bloom there again, Lady,' said Eumides. 'They grow fast on the bones of the Argive dead.'
'Yes, I saw them, a carpet of little wine-red points on the burial mounds,' said Chryse. 'Troy is avenged.'
'Avenged or unavenged, Troy is gone,' I said. 'Soon all who remember the city will be dead, and no one will speak her tongue again. We have been absorbed, swallowed.'
'You should not have stolen Elene,' said Orestes.
There was a silence. They were leaving it to me to explain, even Eumides, who was as Trojan as I was.
'We never had her, Orestes. My brother Pariki ran away with her from Sparta. It was a most dishonourable act, though I believe that she wanted to escape from Menelaus. She never entered the city of Troy and you have my oath on it. If we had had her, don't you think my father King Priam would have given her up to save the city?'
'Then, my father and my uncle must not have believed that you didn't have her,' he reasoned.
'They neither believed nor cared. They wanted the wealth of Troy, and they now have it. They wanted to obliterate Troy, and it has been wiped off the face of Earth as though it had never been.'
I was not going to tell this little son of Atreus that Troas, daughter of Troy was, I hoped, flourishing with those who had escaped long before the city was sacked. Little sons of Atreus grow up into monsters. Perhaps even this docile child would fall under the curse which had eaten the male issue of that most bloody of families.
'So it was just.' His brow was wrinkled. 'What my father and his brother did was just.'
'I think the Lady Cassandra has answered enough questions,' said Chryse.
'No, it was not just, Orestes. There are no just wars. only death and loss,' I said, and my vision blurred, though not with tears. The Gods were with me again. Not Hecate or the Maiden, that the Argives call Persephone, but Gaia the Earth, patient and generous.
'Daughter,' was all she said, but I was as suddenly cool as if I had bathed in spring water. I was soothed as though some ointment had been applied to my pine-cone nerves. I smelt woodbine.
When I was aware again, the others were discussing a place to rest.
'There is a village not too far from here - we have a reason for returning,' said Eumides. 'It is called Artemision. There we should also ask about other travellers.'
'We have heard nothing behind us,' objected Electra, looking nervously back.
'There are faster ways than the road. A runner on foot could be before us. Perhaps I should just ride into Artemision and see if there's any trouble,' he said airily, and then galloped off before we could stop him.
'Curse this Trojan courage,' fumed Chryse.
'We'd better wait here,' I decided, and drew Electra's horse off the road. It instantly dipped its head and began grazing, and I barely dismounted in time to snatch a nightshade plant from its hungry mouth.
'Foolish beast, that is poisonous,' I scolded, and Electra said, 'Banthos! I'm surprised at you.'
She was getting the idea about horse management, because Banthos knew her voice. He raised his head and looked at her, before returning to his ingestion of anything edible in the immediate area. He was the greediest horse I had ever met.
'You must have been bred from King Diomedes' stable,' she said, referring to the famous flesh-eating mares which Heracles had tamed.
'Oh, yes, this is Heracles' country, isn't it? I learnt about his labours from my nurse.'
'Was she an Argive?' asked Electra.
'Yes. She told my twin and me many tales about Heracles and his adventures. He must have walked this road,' I said, tugging at the spiritual cord which bound Eleni and me together.
It was thinned to spider web now, but he felt me and thought of me, as I thought of him.
'Heracles is bound up with Troy, too. My nurse Neptha told me of how he killed the sea monster and then, when the Trojans would not pay, he killed the King's family, all except one boy,' Electra replied.
'Whom Hesione, the Princess, ransomed with her maidenhead. Priamos, the ransomed one, they called him,' I explained. 'He was my father, King Priam the Old.'
'I miss Neptha,' she added, and Orestes said, 'Don't be sad, Electra.'
'I'm not sad.' She gulped and made herself smile. 'See? I'm smiling. Do you want another story, Orestes? I'll tell you about Heracles' first labour, the slaying of the Nemean Lion.'
I was very pleased when Eumides returned, because we had run out of the labours of even that indefatigable hero.
'Old Neleus has dug up some wine for us, in exchange for some metal work on the village's weapons,' he said. 'They're expecting trouble, it seems. He won't lodge our women with his women, he says, as they might get foreign ideas, but he's lent us his brother's house, which is new and empty. Don't look at me like that, Lady Cassandra, I am merely repeating the ignorant words of a stubborn Argive peasant, which do not reflect my own opinions.' He managed a creditable bow and kissed my hand.
We rode into Artemision. There are eleven villages called Artemision in the Argolid. It's very confusing, though devout, and I am sure that Artemis appreciates it.
One description will do for all. Artemision has a central square, with slightly-wobbly brick houses all around. The occasional house is of stone, but stone is usually reserved for temples to Artemis, of which there is always one; and sometimes a subsidiary temple to Zeus, Poseidon or Athena.
There is a well in the square, with a bucket and windlass, and a trough for washing (unless there is a river). There are benches made of wood outside a wine seller's shop, and there is some sort of storehouse for grain, olives and whatever the village sells collectively to Mycenae, Argos or Tiryns. Add to this a few dogs, the odd lost goat or ass, and a few females who vanish under their veils as soon as a stranger arrives,