Glyn Iliffe - The Gates Of Troy (Adventures of Odysseus)

Eperitus pulled away.

‘You ask too much! If you’d seen what he did, Nestra – if you’d seen the look of relish in his eye when he brought that blade down . . .’

‘Enough!’ she shouted, and the echo of her voice rang off the sides of the amphitheatre. ‘Enough. I understand how hard it is for you to stay your hand, and that’s why I had to rely on the only force I knew could possibly restrain you – your own sense of honour. But I promise you, the time will come when you can take your revenge on Agamemnon – the gods have revealed it to me. His downfall will begin at Troy, by your hand.’

Eperitus smiled derisively.

‘Then haven’t your gods also told you Odysseus has given me leave to go home? He, at least, understands how difficult it will be for me to live in the shadow of Agamemnon after what he did to our daughter.’

‘But you must go,’ Clytaemnestra exclaimed. ‘And not because I want you to protect Agamemnon.’

‘Oh? Then for what? To be pulled apart by my sense of honour and my desire for revenge?’

‘You’re speaking like a fool, Eperitus. Don’t you realize your destiny is with Odysseus? Gaea has revealed to me that Troy will not fall unless both you and he are there. I knew it long before I asked you to run away with Iphigenia and me, but I chose to ignore what the goddess was telling me, just as Odysseus has been trying to ignore his own fate.’

Eperitus turned and walked further along the ledge, looking out over the vast Greek fleet. He kicked a stone and watched it disappear into the darkness below.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said caustically. ‘Your precious Agamemnon and the doom of Troy are safe. I’ve decided not to accept Odysseus’s offer: my place has always been at his side, so I’ve decided to go with him to Ilium. What else is there left for me to do? At least I can seek some form of vengeance in Trojan blood, even if you’ve ensured I can’t look for it in the death of your husband.’

Clytaemnestra approached and took his hand. ‘Don’t resent me, Eperitus. I did what I had to do. But another fate awaits you at Troy, a fate that has already been hinted at by Calchas. Have you forgotten the second secret he spoke of?’

Eperitus looked at Clytaemnestra, her face beautiful but cold under the starlight.

‘I’m tired of prophecies and secrets, Nestra. Let the cruel gods do as they please with me; after Iphigenia’s death, I don’t much care about anything any more.’

Clytaemnestra put her arms around him again and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You’ll care about this, my dear,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll care about this.’

Chapter Twenty-nine

TENEDOS

Helen stood on the battlements of Pergamos, looking out across the plains and the glittering sea to where the sun was setting in the west. But for the guards at the angles of the walls, she was alone, leaning her elbows on the parapet and thinking about the events of the previous few days. Since arriving in Troy she had been treated with reverence and even love by its citizens. Paris had made a deliberate point of wandering the streets of Pergamos and the lower city with her at his side, and wherever they went they were greeted with an uproar of delighted voices. People rushed from their houses to press around the couple, their faces bright with joy for the prince’s happiness, and yet awed at the sight of the mysterious woman he had brought back with him from Greece. Some of the older Trojans might have shaken their heads in disapproval as she passed, guessing that such beauty would only bring grief to Ilium, but after Priam had welcomed Helen no one would dare voice their opposition to her. And the whole city had come out to cheer the wedding procession that morning, dressed in their finest clothing and with baskets of flowers on their arms, ready to cast on the road before the feet of the newly married couple.

Helen smiled to herself at the memory. She still wore her wedding dress – a long white garment in the Trojan style – and as she ran her hands down it the light material felt smooth and rich beneath her fingertips. The delicate blooms that Andromache and Leothoë had woven into her hair remained fresh and bright, and she almost regretted the knowledge that they would be removed before she and Paris were alone later. But she also knew that Andromache and Leothoë had prepared something special for her wedding night: a dress made from layers of gossamer that could be removed one at a time to tease out Paris’s passions; and a blend of perfumes that they promised would keep her husband attentive until dawn. Trojan women, it seemed, had a gift for lovemaking. Their knowledge of how to please a man in bed stunned Helen, and her new friends were not timid when giving her their advice. All day long, even during the solemn religious ceremony that had formalized her union with Paris, her thoughts had returned repeatedly to the night ahead and the new ways in which she would stimulate Paris’s passion.

Though the quietly spoken Leothoë had shown nothing but kindness and love to Helen, she also had duties within the palace and was a wife to the king, so was often away performing her various tasks. Andromache, on the other hand, was a visitor and a newcomer to Troy, and she and Helen were able to spend most of every day together, quickly becoming good friends as they explored the city or ventured out on to the plain and the surrounding countryside. Andromache helped Helen improve her use of the Trojan tongue – something that little Pleisthenes was picking up rapidly in the company of Priam’s many grandchildren and their nurses – and together the two women would talk about their lives, past and present, and their hopes for the future.

Helen’s hopes were already being translated into reality. She could not recall a happier time. When Paris was with her, mostly in the evenings, she felt the joy of a love she had never experienced before; and when he was busy with affairs of state in a city now preparing for siege, Helen enjoyed a freedom she had not known since childhood. She was no longer constrained by the strict palace life of Sparta, and while she missed her three other children there was much to distract her from her unresolved grief. There was the much talked about threat of war looming over Ilium, yet Helen was hopeful it would never happen. Even if Menelaus and his brother could muster a strong enough force to attack Troy, they would be too afraid to leave their own cities unprotected in a divided Greece. And, if against all her expectations they did come, Paris had given her his word on Tenedos that his fighting days were over. There were more than enough fighting men to deal with any Spartan and Mycenaean armies that dared set foot on Trojan soil, and Paris had already done more than his fair share of fighting in the service of his country.

As for Andromache, she had but one hope – to marry Hector. They had known each other for many years through Hector’s close friendship with her brother, Podes, but Hector’s mind was always too bent on the advancement of Troy to be concerned with matters of love. Even though Andromache had finally persuaded her brother to take her to Troy, Hector had been so busy with matters of war that she had not even set eyes on him before Paris and Helen’s wedding, and then only briefly. But Helen could not tolerate the thought that her friend should not share in her happiness at being in love, so promised Andromache her help. She had already persuaded Paris that Hector needed children, and that Andromache would prove an ideal mother, and to that end Paris agreed to invite Hector to eat with him and his new wife the next night. Helen, of course, had already invited Andromache, and with a touch of her own blend of perfumes who knew what the result might be?