Goddess of Yesterday Read Free Page B

horses. “You have more horses than anybody, don't you?” I said to him one day when we were feeding them windfall apples.
    Nicander laughed. “I have six horses. Menelaus, the king of Sparta, has fifty. And in Troy—they have a thousand horses twice the size of mine. They scorn our horses and call them ponies. Trojans tame wild horses and ride on them.”
    “No, they don't,” I said. “Men don't ride on horses.”
    “In Troy they do. And farther east, around the Third Sea, the one called Black, all the people ride horses. Even the women and children.”
    I could not believe that. Horses went too fast. You would fall off. And how could you get up on a horse to start with?
    “The Trojans stand on a stone,” Nicander explained, “so they're high enough to swing a leg over the horse's back. The rider clings with his knees and knots his hands in themane. The horse goes so fast a man's hair streams out behind him.”
    A donkey won't go any faster than you could walk. What would it be like to move so swiftly that your hair streamed out behind you? My father, Chrysaor, had long honeycolored hair. He preferred it loose, but when he was fighting, his slave braided it.
    Every memory of my father made my heart peel away from my ribs and thump in a lonely place. “Anyway, horses eat far too much grain,” I told the king, with the voice used by the queen when she scolded him for keeping six useless creatures. “How could those Trojans feed a thousand of them?”
    “Around Troy the grain fields stretch for miles, uninterrupted by rock and cliff. Troy does not have to buy wheat. They really can feed a thousand horses.”
    Talk of Troy made men's eyes distant and full of memory. “Troy's walls,” Nicander said, “are as high as a cliff. The houses are three stories high and the watchtowers two stories higher than that. I have one main gate; Troy has four. I have a brook that runs only in the spring; Troy has two rivers of her own and the Hellespont as well. I have two thousand sheep; Troy has a hundred flocks that large.”
    I pressed my cheek against the horse's beautiful neck. I did not believe any horse could be twice her size.
    “I have never been inside the gates of Troy,” said Nicander. “They are careful of their gates.”
    “Because the city is so full of treasure,” I said eagerly. “What if a sea captain like you refused to give them a share of his cargo?”
    “You could not outrow or outsail Troy's warships. They'd ram you. Then they'd have your cargo, your ship and you.”
    “Could Troy be taken?” I asked.
    “What a little warrior you are. Chrysaor must have grieved that you were born a girl. Taking Troy would require a vast fleet. Every king on the Main Land and every king from every island would have to join the attack. Such a thing has never happened. And an attack must have a general. To what man would kings submit? And even if such an army were put together, Troy would just sit behind her walls and wait till winter came.”
    “You could fight all winter and starve them out.”
    “Where would you get your own food? Your own firewood? You can't sail during the winter, so you couldn't go get what you needed. How many shiploads of supplies would it take for so huge an army? How could you man all those ships? If you built winter quarters, you'd have to bring tents and lumber, grain for flour, women to bake the bread. And what about the families you left behind, unguarded? While you froze on the beaches of Troy, your people would run out of food and be attacked by some other enemy.”
    I was impatient with details. “But these Trojans who ride horses,” I demanded, “are they good warriors or do they just have a good place on the water? Could you whip them?”
    Nicander grinned. “I would love to bring sobs and groaning to Trojan wives. But I do not think that I or anyone else can whip Troy.”
    Shortly after that, Nicander took half his fleet and sailed for the Third Sea, the one called Black.