I never bothered to go to imperial headquarters, deeming it pointless. And when the second moon, a sliver, came into the sky, all of us began to assume that there would be no expedition to Troy. We simply waited for the command to disband.

On the first night the moon waxed full Patrokles went to spend the evening with Ajax, Teukros and Little Ajax. I had been invited, but elected to remain where I was, not in a mood for frivolity when the ignominious end of the grand enterprise loomed. For a while I played my lyre and sang, then lapsed into inertia.

The noise of someone entering my tent made me lift my head to see a woman holding the flap apart, a woman muffled in a wet, steaming cloak. I stared dumbfounded, hardly believing my eyes. Then she stepped inside, pulled the curtain across the entrance, twitched off the hood of her cloak and shook her head to free her hair of a few inquisitive drops of rain.

‘Achilles!’ she cried, eyes shining like clear, brownish amber. ‘I saw you at Mykenai when I peeped through the door behind Father’s throne. Oh, I am so happy!’

By this time I was on my feet, still gaping.

She was not more than fifteen or sixteen, that I saw before she took off her cloak to show me skin like milky marble faintly veined and two plump breasts. Her mouth was softly pink and tenderly curved, her hair the colour of the heart of a fire. So alive she made the air around her brittle, she had laughter in her face and a hidden strength beneath her extreme youth.

‘My mother didn’t need to persuade me,’ she hurried on when I said nothing. ‘I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to tell you how happy I am! Iphigenia will marry you gladly!’

I jumped. Iphigenia? The only Iphigenia I knew of was the daughter of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra! But what was she talking about? Whom could she have mistaken for me? I continued to stare at her like some shambling idiot, bereft of words.

My silence, the amazement in my face, finally altered her expression from glowing pleasure to uncertain anxiety.

‘What are you doing in Aulis?’ I managed to ask.

At which moment Patrokles walked in, saw, and propped. ‘A visitor, Achilles?’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I’ll go.’

I crossed the space between us quickly to take him by the arm. ‘Patrokles, she says she is Iphigenia!’ I whispered. ‘She must be Agamemnon’s daughter! And from what she says, she thinks I sent to her mother at Mykenai and asked to marry her!’

His amusement fled. ‘Ye Gods! Is it a plot to discredit you? Or a test of your loyalty?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shall we take her back to her father?’

Calmer now, I considered it. ‘No. Obviously she stole out to see me, no one knows she’s here. The best thing I can do is detain her while you try to get close enough to Agamemnon to learn what’s afoot. Be as quick as you can.’

He disappeared.

‘Sit, lady,’ I said to my visitor, and sank into a chair. ‘Would you like some water? A cake?’

The next thing she landed in my lap, wound her arms about my neck and pillowed her head on my shoulder with a soft sigh. Half inclined to tip her onto the floor, I looked down on her rioting curls and changed my mind. She was a child, and she was in love with me. To her I was immensely older, which was a novel sensation. It was half a year since I had seen Deidamia and this girl was arousing quite different emotions in me. My lazy, self-satisfied wife was seven years older than I, and she had done all the wooing. To a thirteen-year-old lad, just awakening to the sexual functions of his body, that had been marvellous. Now I found myself wondering what I would feel for Deidamia when I returned from Troy a battle-hardened man. It was very nice to hold Iphigenia, inhale not perfume but the sweet and natural smell of youth.

Smiling and content, she lifted her head to look at me, then laid it back against my shoulder. I felt her lips caressing my throat, and the breast flattened against my chest burned like a hot poker. Patrokles, Patrokles, hurry back! Then she said words I couldn’t hear; I put my hand in her thick flame hair and pulled her head up until I could see her enchanting face.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

She blushed. ‘I only asked if you were going to kiss me.’

I winced. ‘No. Look at my mouth, Iphigenia. It wasn’t made for kisses. The sensation for kissing is in the lips.’

‘Then let me kiss you all over.’

A statement which ought to have made me push her away, but I could not. Instead I let her lips, soft as swan’s down, roam around my face, press against my lowered eyelids, nestle into the side of my neck, where the nerves set a man’s heart to hammering. Longing to fold her into me and crush her against me until she gasped for breath, I had to fight myself to free her, look down into her eyes sternly.

‘Enough, Iphigenia. Sit still.’ I held her so until at last Patrokles returned.

He remained in the doorway, his derisive eyes quizzing me. I took my arms from about her and lifted them in the air, torn between laughter and annoyance. It was not like Patrokles to mock me. Then I touched her cheek, pushed her off my lap into the chair. The teasing look had faded from his face; he looked grim and very angry. Nor would he speak until he was sure she couldn’t hear.

‘They’ve hatched a pretty plot, Achilles.’

‘I never thought otherwise. What plot?’

‘I was lucky. Agamemnon and Kalchas were alone in his tent, talking. I managed to lie unobserved in its lee and overhear most of what they said.’ He drew a breath, trembled. ‘Achilles, they’ve used your name to lure this child from her mother! They told Klytemnestra that you had asked to marry Iphigenia before the sailing in order to get the girl to Aulis. Tomorrow she’s to be sacrificed to Artemis to expiate some old wrong Agamemnon did the Goddess.’

Anger is something every man experiences, though some men more than others. I had never thought of myself as an angry man, but now I shook with it, an anger so great it wiped out sense, ethics, principles, decency. The Gods on Olympos must have quailed. My mouth peeled back from my teeth, I shook as if the Spell had come upon me, and I would have gone out then and there into the rain to cut Agamemnon and the priest down with my axe had Patrokles not grasped my wrists with a strength I did not know he possessed.

‘Achilles, think!’ he whispered. ‘Think! What good will killing them do? Her blood is needed to allow the fleet to sail! From what passed between Agamemnon and Kalchas, it was plain to me that our High King has been cowed and badgered into this!’

I clenched my fists so hard that I broke his hold. ‘Do you expect me to stand aside and applaud, then? They’ve used my name to perpetuate a crime forbidden by the New Religion! The thing is barbaric! It fouls the very air we breathe! And they used my name!’ I shook him until his teeth rattled. ‘Look at her, Patrokles! Can you stand by and watch her sacrificed like a lamb?’

‘No, you mistake me!’ he said urgently. ‘All I meant was that we should approach this with cool heads, not in blind rage! Achilles, think! Think!’

I tried to. I fought to. The daimon of madness was boiling within me so violently that conquering it almost killed me. Grey in its wake, I found logic returning. Trick them! There had to be a way to trick them! I took his hands in mine.

‘Patrokles, would you do anything I asked of you?’

‘Anything, Achilles.’

‘Then go and find Automedon and Alkimos. We can trust them in any enterprise, they’re Myrmidons. Tell Alkimos he has to find a young deer, then paint its antlers gold. He must have the beast by morning! Take Automedon into your full confidence. Both of you must be hidden behind the altar tomorrow before the sacrifice is scheduled to begin. You’ll have the deer with you on a golden chain. Kalchas uses a great deal of smoke in his rituals. When Iphigenia is lying on the altar and the smoke billows – the priest wouldn’t dare cut her throat in full view of her father – snatch the girl away and leave the deer in her place. Kalchas will know, of course, but Kalchas likes living. He won’t say a thing beyond exclaiming at the miracle.’