The eternal and hateful Trojan wind had risen to a rough whine about the towers when someone knocked on the door. A herald was bowing to me.

‘Princess, the King summons you to the Throne Room.’

‘Thank you. Tell him I’ll come as quickly as I can.’

The huge hall was in semidarkness. Only around the dais were there lamps burning fitfully, casting a sheet of soft yellow light about the King as he sat on his chair, and about Deiphobos and Helenos as they stood one to either side of him, glaring at each other over the top of the King’s crystal hair.

I came to stand at the foot of the steps. ‘Yes, sire?’

Frowning, he leaned forwards, his displeasure overlying all the other pains stamped permanently into his features: the grief, the despair, the utter hopelessness.

‘Daughter, you have lost your husband and I have lost yet another son. I have begun to lose count,’ he quavered, voice a rustle in the gloom. ‘All the good ones have been snatched away. Now these two come to me snarling and snapping and bickering over their brother’s still warm body, each demanding the same thing, each determined to have his way.’

‘What is this about?’ I asked, exasperated beyond courtesy. ‘Why does a disagreement between this pair concern me?’

‘Oh, it definitely concerns you!’ the old man said harshly. ‘Deiphobos wants to marry you. Helenos wants to marry you. So tell me which one of them you prefer.’

‘Neither!’ I gasped, outraged.

‘One of them it has to be,’ said the King, suddenly looking as if he found the situation piquant, novel, invigorating. ‘Give me his name, madam! You’ll marry him at the end of six moons.’

‘Six moons!’ Deiphobos cried. ‘Why do I have to wait for six moons? I want her now, Father – now!’

Priam drew himself up. ‘Your brother isn’t cold,’ he said.

‘There’s no need to get upset, sire,’ I said before Deiphobos could erupt into one of his famous tantrums. ‘I’ve been married twice. I don’t wish to marry a third time. I intend to give myself into the service of the Mother and attend her altar for the rest of my days. So there will be no wedding.’

Helenos and Deiphobos broke into a babble of protestations, but Priam’s uplifted hand silenced them.

‘Be still and listen to me! Deiphobos, you’re my eldest imperial son and my designated Heir. At the end of six moons you may marry Helen, but not until then. As for you, Helenos, you belong to the Lord Apollo. You ought to hold him dearer than any woman, even this one.’

Deiphobos whooped. Helenos looked stunned, but even as I watched, stunned myself, Helenos seemed to grow and change, to melt in some parts and harden in others. It was very strange.

He looked at his father steadily then, and said, ‘All my life I’ve watched others satisfy themselves while I go hungry and thirsty, Father. No one asked me whether I wanted to serve the God – I was dedicated to him on the day of my birth. When Hektor died you would have made me Heir, except that Apollo got in the way. And after Troilos died you passed over me again! Now, when I ask you for such a little thing, I am denied once more.’ He drew himself up proudly. ‘Well, there comes a time when even the least of men will rebel. That time is now for me. I’m leaving Troy. I’m going into voluntary exile. Better to become a wandering nobody than have to stay here and watch Deiphobos ruin everything Troy has left. I hate to say it, Father, but you’re a fool.’

While Priam assimilated this, I tried again.

‘Sire, I entreat you, don’t force me to remarry!’ I cried. ‘Let me consecrate myself to the Goddess!’

But he shook his head. ‘You’ll marry Deiphobos.’

I couldn’t bear to be in the same room with them; I fled like one pursued by the Daughters of Kore. What happened to Helenos I do not know. Nor do I care.

I sent a note to Aineas, entreating him to come to my rooms. He was the only one left who might be moved to help me. Then doubt gnawed as I waited for him, pacing up and down, up and down. Though our affair was long over, I fancied he still had some affection for me. Or did he? Where was he? The time slipped away, each moment longer, more dreary, emptier. I listened vainly for his strong, decisive step in the corridor; since Hektor’s death the only footfalls which had the ability to inspire confidence in their owner.

‘What do you want, Helen?’ he asked, having entered the room so quietly I didn’t hear him. He drew the curtain carefully.

Laughing and weeping, I flew to embrace him. ‘I thought you wouldn’t come!’ I said, lifting my face for his kiss.

He moved away. ‘What do you want?’

I stared at him; when I spoke, my voice faltered. ‘Aineas, help me! Paris is dead!’

‘I know that.’

‘Then you must understand what it means to me! Paris is dead! I’m at their mercy! I’m ordered to wed Deiphobos! That slavering hound! Oh, Gods! In Lakedaimon they wouldn’t have deemed him fit to touch the hem of my skirt, yet Priam orders me to marry him! If you have any regard for me at all, Aineas, I implore you to see Priam and tell him I meant what I said – I have no desire to remarry! None!’

He looked like a man facing an unpalatable chore. ‘You ask the impossible, Helen.’

‘The impossible?’ I asked, stupefied. ‘Aineas, nothing is impossible for you! You’re the most powerful man in Troy!’

‘My advice is to marry Deiphobos and be done with it.’

‘But I thought – I thought – I thought that even if you didn’t want me for yourself, you’d feel enough for me to fight for me!’

Hand on the curtain, he laughed. ‘Helen, I won’t help you. Understand that, please. Every day creates a new gap in the ranks of Priam’s sons – every day brings me closer to the Trojan throne. I’m on the rise, and I won’t jeopardise my position for you. Is that quite clear?’

‘Remember what comes to men of such ambition, Aineas.’

He laughed again. ‘A throne, Helen! A throne!’

‘I’ll buy a curse just for you,’ I said dreamily. ‘I’ll spend everything I own on it. And I’ll ask that you never sit on any throne – that you never know peace – that you’re forced to wander the width of the world – that you end your days amid savages so poor they live in wicker huts.’

I think that frightened him. The curtain swung; he vanished.

After Aineas had gone I took stock of what I was looking forward to: marriage to a man I loathed, whose touch would set me to puking. Then I realised that for the first time in my life I had no resources beyond my own. That if I was to break free from this dreadful place, I would have to do so unaided.

Menelaos wasn’t far away, and two of Troy’s three gates were always open. But palace women were not used to walking, nor did they have access to sturdy shoes. To succeed in getting from the Dardanian Gate past the Skaian Gate to the Greek beach wasn’t possible. Unless, that is, I rode upon an animal! Women rode donkeys; they simply perched on the beast’s back with their legs to one side. Yes, I’d do it! I’d steal a donkey and ride to the beach while night still lay upon the city and the plain.

Stealing the donkey didn’t prove difficult. Nor did riding on its back. But when I reached the Dardanian Gate – much further from the Citadel than the Skaian – my transport refused to budge. A city beast, it smelled the open air of the countryside and misliked the perfumes floating on the wind – the tang of coming autumn, a whiff of the sea. When I whipped it with a switch it began to bray mournfully, and that was the end of me. The gate guards came to investigate. I was recognised and arrested.

‘I want to go to my husband!’ I wept. ‘Let me go to my husband, please!’

But of course they didn’t let me go, though the wretched donkey had now decided that it liked what it smelled. While it kicked up its hind legs and bolted to freedom, I was returned to the palace. But they didn’t wake Priam. They woke Deiphobos.