War has raged outside the walls of Troy for the past seven years. Safe inside the royal palace, Briseis, a spirited young Trojan princess, sits back as her famous cousins, Hector and Paris, fight against the Greeks, who encroach upon Troy's borders...
On the list of things Briseis missed about home, the extensive bathing complex in the palace harem stood close to the top. The epitome of luxury and comfort with its vast halls of blush-colored marble and wide pools, lined with blue and white tiles. The steam in the hamam smelt of roses and jasmine. The water was always the right temperature in the bathing pools, neither too hot nor too cold. And most important of all, men weren't allowed anywhere near you. The men-at-arms always found excuses to pass by the bathing tent whenever Briseis and the other royal consorts were there. Some of the bolder of them would peek through the tent flaps to get a glimpse of what their betters enjoyed, though Agamemnon had declared it a flogging offense. Techmessa shrieked when two young longbow-men spied them huddled around a bucket of steaming coals. "My Lord Ajax will flay the skin off your backs." She stood up and threw a lump of hot coal at the two voyeurs. They fled but not before getting an eyeful of Techmessa's shapely, nude form. "May Apollo strike them blind," said Cressida. She wrapped her arms around her bare chest. Briseis rolled her eyes. What man would want to see Cressida, who was all freckled skin and gangly bones, naked? To get warmer, Briseis moved closer to the bucket of coals. The biggest problem with the bathing tent: drafts always managed to get through no matter how hard they tried to keep them out. It was all you could do not to catch a chill, even when the water in the tub was scalding hot rather than ice cold.
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"Sit still, child!" Hecamede swatted Briseis' shoulder. She picked up a fine-point brush she'd been using to paint designs in henna on Briseis' hands and continued where she left off. When Hecamede was done, Briseis admired her work. The tips of her fingers were stained. Vine-like designs of swirls and dots spread out across the backs of her hands and climbed up to her knuckles.
