Trojan Whores Read Free Page A

these two with the wet thongs they had
prepared for others. Let them feel the pain of the drying leather
as they come to terms with being in the thrall of Polydorus.'
    Sappho and
Chryseis were dragged outside. Polydorus marched behind them in
victory. The worshippers crowded around the door of the temple,
afraid to speak against Polydorus, fearful for their own lives.
Sappho blinked in the bright sunlight. Her robe was ripped from
her, and naked she was flung to her knees.
    Polydorus
climbed up into a small trap pulled by two tall women with large
feathered headdresses. They were both naked except for tight
leather thongs between their legs. These were secured at their
waists onto shiny leather belts with elegantly worked silver
buckles. They had metal bits in their mouths which led from rings
at the ends into leather reins, which were drawn through small
silver hoops on the front of the brightly painted trap.
    Polydorus
pulled the reins into his hands and tugged them. The two women's
heads were pulled back. They bit the reins. Their eyes opened wide
with expectation. They snorted as they fought with the frustration
of waiting for their orders to move.
    'Take these
pretenders away,' he shouted. 'They will serve me, and anyone who
cares to pay. I will use them as entertainment for anyone who can
afford it. That will be a fitting occupation for the "priestesses"
of Apollo - the slaves of Polydorus, the Trojan whores. Take them
away!'
    He snapped at
the reins and the women, relieved to move, pulled him away on the
ornate trap.
    A cage was
brought on the back of a cart and Sappho and Chryseis were forced
into it through an opening in the side. The door was slammed shut
and locked. There was barely enough room inside for the two of
them, and they were squashed together and unable to move as the
cart was pulled away.
    Sappho could
already feel the wet thongs shrinking. Her wrists were already
tight together but now they were being drawn against each other
with agonising pressure. She could not move, but with her eyes she
drew Chryseis' attention to them, showing her that she too shared
her friend's suffering. But now it was not a recognition of sharing
the pain required as an entrant to the priesthood. Now it was an
acknowledgement of sharing the suffering of being plunged into
servitude and slavery. Her bonds were testaments to a future which
promised only fear and the unknown.
     
     

Chapter 2
Torture in the Greek camp
     
    It had been ten
years since the Greek army had arrived at Troy. Their beached
ships, dark and forbidding against the turquoise sea, were dried
out, their planks shrunk. Armour, piled in heaps outside the now
ragged tents, was more dented, less bright than when it had first
been carried enthusiastically onto the Trojan sand. Swords, stained
with blood and entrails from defeated adversaries, and speared into
the ground like large crowns, had duller edges and were more
chipped. Achilles, though still angry at Agamemnon over his theft
of Sappho, no longer withheld his support. His friend and lover,
Patroclus, had been killed. Achilles had gained revenge with the
merciless killing of Priam's brave son, and the best warrior of
Troy, Hector. Defying the convention of respect to those fallen in
war, he then contemptuously trailed Hector's dead body behind his
chariot, beneath the walls of Troy. For two days he continued his
deathly parade, defiling the once perfect body, bringing terror and
anger and dishonouring the inhabitants of the great besieged
city.
    Achilles, the
greatest warrior Greece had ever known, his long black hair
streaming behind him, and reinvigorated by his conquest of Hector,
again led his ferocious Myrmidons into battle. But for all the
killing, all the sacrifice, there was no gain. Troy was too strong
to be entered, its walls too tall and thick, its army too brave and
determined to protect its sovereign right. And so still the war saw
no victory. The two armies opposed each other across the