I emerged from the pillars, walked out into the yard. He knew who approached, though he never once looked my way.

‘You seek me, Prince Hektor?’

‘Yes, holy priest. The King wants you in the Throne Room.’

‘To interview the woman out of Greece. I will come.’

I preceded him – as was my right – for I had heard tell of priests who came to fancy themselves powers behind thrones; I wanted no such hope to enter Kalchas’s mind.

While Helen regarded him with uneasy revulsion, he kissed my father’s hand and awaited his pleasure.

‘Kalchas, my son Paris has brought home a bride. I want you to marry them tomorrow.’

‘As you command, sire.’

Next the King dismissed Paris and Helen. ‘Go now and show Helen her new home,’ he said to my stupid brother.

They went out hand in hand. I averted my eyes. Kalchas stood unmoving, silent.

‘Do you know who she is, priest?’ my father asked.

‘Yes, sire. Helen. The woman taken as a prize out of Greece. I have been expecting her.’

Had he? Or were his spies as efficient as always?

‘Kalchas, I have a mission for you.’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘I need the advice of the Pythoness at Delphi. Go there after the wedding ceremony and find out what Helen means to us.’

‘Yes, sire. I am to obey the Pythoness?’

‘Of course. She is the Mouth of Apollo.’

And what exactly was all that about? I wondered. Who was fooling whom? Back to Greece for the answers. It always seemed to go back to Greece. Was the Delphic Oracle the servant of Trojan Apollo or Grecian Apollo? Were they even the same God?

The priest gone, I was alone with Father at last.

‘You do a sorry thing, sire,’ I said.

‘No, Hektor, I do the only thing I can.’ His hands went out. ‘Surely you see that I cannot send her back? The damage is done, Hektor. It was done the moment she left her palace at Amyklai.’

‘Then don’t send all of her back, Father. Just her head.’

‘It is too late,’ he answered, already drifting away. ‘It is too late. Too late…’

8

NARRATED BY

Agamemnon

My wife stood at the high window, bathed in sunlight. It touched her hair with the blaze of new copper, as burning and brilliant as she was herself. She did not have Helen’s beauty, no, but for me her attractions were more interesting, her sex stronger. Klytemnestra was a living font of power, not a simple ornament.

The view always drew her, perhaps because it spoke of the exalted position Mykenai owned. Above all other citadels. It looked down the Lion Mountain to the Vale of Argos, green with crops, then up to the ranges all about us, heavily forested with pine above the olive groves.

A commotion began outside; I could hear the voices of my guards protesting that the King and Queen did not wish to be disturbed. Frowning, I got up, but had not taken a step before the door burst open and Menelaos stumbled in. He came straight to me, put his head against my thighs and sobbed. My eyes flew to Klytemnestra, staring at him in astonishment.

‘What is it?’ I asked, pulling him from his knees and settling him in a chair.

But all he could do was weep. His hair was matted and dirty, his clothing unkempt, and he wore a three days’ beard. Klytemnestra poured a full goblet of unwatered wine and handed it to me. When he had drunk he calmed a little, ceased to sob so wildly.

‘Menalaos, what is the matter?’

‘Helen is gone!’

Klytemnestra sprang away from the window. ‘Dead?’

‘No, gone! Gone! She has gone, Agamemnon! Left me!’ He sat up, made an effort to compose himself.

‘Tell me slowly, Menelaos,’ I said.

‘I returned from Crete three days ago. She wasn’t there… She’s run away, brother – gone to Troy with Paris.’

We gaped at him, mouths open.

‘Gone to Troy with Paris,’ I repeated when I was able.

‘Yes, yes! She took the contents of the treasury and fled!’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.

‘Oh, I do! The stupid, lusting harpy!’ Klytemnestra hissed. ‘What more could we expect, when she ran off with Theseus? Slut! Harlot! Amoral bitch!’

‘Hold your tongue, woman!’

She showed me her teeth, but she obeyed.

‘When was this, Menelaos? Surely not five moons ago!’

‘Almost six – the day after I left for Crete.’

‘That’s impossible! I admit I haven’t been to Amyklai in your absence, but I have good friends there – word of it would have been sent to me at once.’

‘She put the Evil Eye on them, Agamemnon. She went to the Oracle of Mother Kubaba and induced it to say that I had usurped her right to the throne of Lakedaimon. Then she induced Mother Kubaba to put a curse on my barons. No one dared to tell.’

I crushed my rage. ‘So they still lie under the thumb of the Mother and the Old Religion in Lakedaimon, do they? I’ll soon fix that! Over five moons gone…’ I shrugged. ‘Well, we won’t get her back now.’

‘Notget her back?’ Menelaos leaped to confront me. ‘Not get her back? Agamemnon, you are the High King! You must get her back!’

‘Did she take the children?’ Klytemnestra asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just the contents of the treasury.’

‘Which shows you whereabouts her priorities lie,’ my wife snarled. ‘Forget her! You’re better off without her, Menelaos.’

He went down on his knees, weeping again. ‘I want her back! I want her back, Agamemnon! Give me an army! Give me an army and let me sail for Troy!’

‘Get up, brother! Take hold of yourself.’

‘Give – me – an – army!’ he said through his teeth.

I sighed. ‘Menelaos, this is a personal thing. I can’t give you an army for the purpose of bringing a whore to justice! I admit every Greek has good reason to hate Troy and Trojans, but none of my subject Kings would deem the voluntary flight of Helen sufficient reason to go to war.’

‘All I’m asking for is an army made up of your troops and mine, Agamemnon!’

‘Troy would chew them up. Priam’s army is said to number fifty thousand soldiers,’ I said reasonably.

Klytemnestra’s elbow dug me sharply in the ribs. ‘Husband, have you forgotten the Oath?’ she asked. ‘Raise an army on the Oath of the Quartered Horse! A hundred Kings and Princes swore it.’

I opened my mouth to inform her that women were fools, then shut it with the words unsaid. The throne room was not far away; I walked to it and sat myself down on the Lion Chair, grasped its pawed arms and thought.

Only the day before I had received a deputation of kings from all over Greece, wailing to me that continued closure of the Hellespont had brought them to such a pass that they could no longer afford to buy tin and copper from the states of Asia Minor. Our reserves of the metals – particularly tin – had sunk to nothing; ploughshares were being made of wood and knives of bone. If the nations of Greece were to survive, Troy’s policy of deliberate exclusion from the Euxine could not be allowed to continue. To north and west the barbarian tribes were massing, ready to pour down and exterminate us, just as we had once poured down and exterminated the original Greeks. And where would we find the bronze to make the millions more of weapons we would need to fend them off?

I had listened, then promised to find a solution. Knowing that there was no solution short of war – but knowing too that many among the Kings who had made up that deputation would sheer away from the most desparate of measures. Now today I had the means. Klytemnestra had shown me how. I was a man in my prime and I had seen my fair share of war, been good at it too. I could lead an invasion of Troy! Helen would serve as my excuse. Sly Odysseus had foreseen it seven years ago when he had told dead Tyndareus to demand an oath of Helen’s suitors.

If my name was to endure after my death, I had to leave great deeds behind me. What greater deed than to invade and conquer Troy? The Oath would yield me close to a hundred thousand soldiers – enough men to do the job in ten days. And with Troy in ruins, what was to stop my turning my attention to the coastal states of Asia Minor, reduce them to satellites in a Greek empire? I thought of the bronze, the gold, the silver, the electrum, the jewels, the lands to be had. Mine for the taking if I invoked the Oath of the Quartered Horse. Yes, it lay in my power to carve out an empire for my people.