‘Yes, it might work… But how do Automedon and I manage to get her away?’

‘There’s a little shelter behind the altar where they keep the victim. Hide her in there until after everyone leaves. Then bring her to my tent. I’ll send her back to Klytemnestra with a message explaining the plot. Can you see to all this?’

‘Yes, Achilles. What of you?’

‘I haven’t attended one of Kalchas’s auguries in many days, but tomorrow I’ll stroll up to headquarters just in time for the ceremony. For now, I’ll send her back to her tent. How she got here unobserved I’ll never know, but it’s just as important that she’s returned unobserved. I’ll take her myself.’

‘Perhaps she was seen coming here,’ Patrokles said.

‘No. They’d never permit her to spend enough time with me to deflower her. Artemis likes virgins.’

He frowned. ‘Achilles, wouldn’t it be better to send her back to her mother right now?’

‘I can’t, Patrokles. That would mean an open break with Agamemnon. If all goes well tomorrow at the sacrifice, we will have sailed before Klytemnestra knows.’

‘Then you believe that the death of Iphigenia is necessary to lift the weather?’ he asked, his tone peculiar.

‘No, I think the weather will lift of its own accord within the next day or two. Patrokles, I dare not risk an open break with Agamemnon, surely you can see that? I want to go to Troy!’

‘I see it.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I ought to go. Poor Alkimos will die of fright when he learns he has to find a young deer! I’ll stay with Automedon for the rest of the night. Unless I send word that our plan’s gone wrong, you may take it that we’re behind the altar at noon.’

‘Good.’

He slipped out into the rain.

Iphigenia had been watching us round-eyed. ‘Who was that?’ she asked, dying of curiosity.

‘My cousin Patrokles. There’s trouble with the men.’

‘Oh.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘He looks very like you, except that his eyes are blue and he’s smaller.’

‘And has lips.’

She chuckled. ‘That reduces him to an ordinary man. I love your mouth the way it is, Achilles.’

I hauled her to her feet. ‘Now I must get you back to your tent before someone discovers you’re not in it.’

‘Not yet,’ she cajoled, stroking my arm.

‘Yes, Iphigenia.’

‘We marry tomorrow. Why not let me stay the night?’

‘Because you’re the daughter of the High King of Mykenai, and the daughter of the High King of Mykenai must be a virgin on her wedding day. The priestesses will confirm it beforehand, and afterwards I must display the bridal sheet to prove I’m your husband in every way,’ I said firmly.

She pouted. ‘I don’t want to go!’

‘Want or not, go you will, Iphigenia.’ I put my hands one on either side of her face. ‘Before I take you home, I require a promise of you.’

‘Anything,’ she said, bright and brilliant.

‘Don’t mention this visit to your father or to anyone else. If you do, your virginity will be suspect.’

She smiled. ‘Only one more sleep, then! I can bear that. Take me back, Achilles.’

No word came from Patrokles that our plans had gone wrong. Well before noon I put on my dress armour, the suit my father had given me from the Minos hoard, and made my way to the altar beneath the plane tree. Things looked quite normal; I breathed a sigh of relief. Patrokles and Automedon were in place.

Oh, the looks on the Kings’ faces when they saw me! Odysseus took Agamemnon’s arm in a hard grasp immediately, Nestor shrank between Diomedes and Menelaos, while Idomeneus, the only other present, looked startled and uneasy. They were all in on it, then. Nodding a casual greeting to them, I ranged myself off to one side as if the impulse to attend today had been pure chance. Came the sound of footsteps in the sodden grass behind us; Odysseus shrugged, realising there was no time for them to persuade me to leave. Not that I saw his mind work. Being Odysseus, his very openness and normality were evidence of his subtlety. The most dangerous man in the world. Red-haired and left-handed. Omens of evil.

As if mildly curious, I turned round to see Iphigenia approaching the altar slowly and proudly, chin up, an occasional quiver of her lips betraying her inward terror. When she saw me she flinched as if I had struck her; I gazed down through the windows of her eyes to see her last hope destroy itself. Her shock became anger, a sour and corroding emotion having nothing to do with the kind of anger I had felt when Patrokles told me of the plot. She hated me, she despised me, she stared at me as my mother had. While I stood looking stolidly at the altar, longing for the moment when I could explain.

Odysseus had been joined by Diomedes. One on either side of him, their hands beneath his armpits, they held Agamemnon upright. His face was wrung out, ghastly. Kalchas pushed Iphigenia onwards with a finger in the small of her back. She wore no chains. I could imagine how she scorned them – she was daughter of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra, whose pride was unassailable.

At the foot of the altar she turned to look at us, eyes bright with contempt, then she ascended the few steps and lifted herself easily onto the table, lay with her hands clasped beneath her breasts, her profile etched against the grey, heaving sea. No rain had fallen that morning; her marble bed was dry.

Kalchas threw various powders on the flames in three tripods ranged about the altar; smoke billowed green and bilious yellow, giving off a stench of sulphur and decay. Brandishing a long, jewelled knife, Kalchas flittered back and forth like some huge, obscene bat. As his arm lifted and the knife glinted, I remained rooted where I was, horrified yet spellbound. The blade flashed downwards; smoke rolled across the priest, blotted him out. Someone screamed, a shrill, gurgling shriek of despair that died away into a rattle. We stood like statues. Then a gust of wind roared down and swept the smoke away. Iphigenia lay still on the altar, her blood coursing along a channel in the stone to where a great gold cup sat between Kalchas’s hands, catching it.

Agamemnon vomited. Even Odysseus gagged. But I could look nowhere except at Iphigenia, dying away into ashes, my mouth gaping open on a single howl of torment. Madness flooded my veins. My sword was in my hand as I sprang; if it had not been Odysseus and Diomedes who held Agamemnon I would have beheaded him as he hung between them with the sick dripping off his pampered beard. They dropped him like a stone to take hold of me, struggling desperately to wrench my sword off me while I flung them about like dolls. Idomeneus and Menelaos leaped to help them; even old Nestor waded into the fray. The five of them bore me to the ground, where I lay with my face not a handspan from Agamemnon’s, cursing him until my voice rose to a scream. Suddenly my strength drained away and I began to weep. Then they prised my fingers from my sword and lifted both of us to our feet.

‘You used my name to do this vile thing, Agamemnon,’ I said through my tears, the anger gone, the hatred remaining. ‘You allowed your daughter to be sacrificed to feed your pride. From this day forward you are less to me than the meanest slave. You are no better than I. Yet I am worse. If I had not yielded to my ambition, I could have prevented this. But this much I tell you, King of Kings! I’m going to send a message to Klytemnestra to tell her what’s happened here today. I’ll spare no one – not you, not the others here, and least of all myself. Our honour is stained beyond cleansing. We are accursed.’

‘I tried to stop it,’ he protested listlessly. ‘I sent a message to Klytemnestra to warn her, but the man was murdered. I did try, I did try… For sixteen years I’ve tried to avert this day. Blame it on the Gods. They tricked us all.’

I spat at his feet. ‘Don’t blame the Gods for your own failings, High King! The weakness lies in us. We are mortal.’