Authors: Colleen McCullough
I winced. Trust Hektor to find the vulnerable spot! He could gauge a man’s fatal weakness in the twinkling of an eye and pounce like a lion. Nor was he frightened to use his claws. Being the Heir had matured him. Gone was the exuberant, irritating youth of yesteryear, his undeniable powers safely channelled into useful work. Still, he was big enough to take it. I was no weakling, but Hektor towered over me and bulked twice as large. He dressed very plainly – and therefore with a certain compelling dignity – in a leather kilt and shirt, with his long black hair braided, tied back in a neat queue. All of us who were sons of Priam and Hekabe were famous for our good looks, but Hektor had something more. Natural authority.
The next moment I was jerked to my feet and removed from our father’s vicinity; old Antenor was peevishly indicating that he wished to speak to the King before dimissal. Hektor and I slipped away from the dais without being called back.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ my young brother said with quiet pleasure as we began to traverse the seemingly endless passages which connected the wings and minor palaces comprising the Citadel.
The Heir’s palace was right next door to our father’s, so the walk was not an unduly long one. When he led me into his big reception room I propped and stared about in astonishment.
‘Hektor! Where
is
she?’
What had been a warehouse cluttered with spears, shields, armour and swords was now a room. Nor did it stink of horses, though Hektor loved horses. I could not remember ever seeing enough of the walls to know how they were decorated, but this evening they glowed with curling trees in jade and blue, purple flowers, black-and-white horses gambolling. The floor was so clean its black-and-white marble tiles gleamed. Tripods and ornaments were polished, and beautifully embroidered purple curtains hung on golden rings from doorways and windows. ‘Where is she?’ I asked again.
He blushed. ‘She’s coming,’ he growled.
She entered on the echo of his words. I looked her over and had to commend his good taste; she was extremely handsome. As dark as he, tall and robust. And equally awkward with the social graces; she took one look at me, then looked anywhere else she could find.
‘This is my wife, Andromache,’ said Hektor.
I kissed her on the cheek. ‘I approve, little brother, I approve! But she’s not from these parts, surely.’
‘No. She’s the daughter of King Eetion of Kilikia. I was down there in the spring for Father, and brought her back with me. It wasn’t planned, but it’ – he drew a breath – ‘happened.’
She spoke at last, bashfully. ‘Hektor, who is this?’
The crack of Hektor’s slapping his thigh in exasperation made me jump. ‘Oh, when will I ever learn? This is Paris.’
Something that I didn’t like showed for a moment in her eyes. Ah! The girl might be a force to be reckoned with once discomfort and strangeness dissipated.
‘My Andromache has great courage,’ said Hektor proudly, one arm about her waist. ‘She left her home and family to come with me to Troy.’
‘Indeed,’ I said politely, and left it at that.
Soon I became inured to the monotony of life within the Citadel. While the sleet pattered against tortoiseshell shutters or the rain cascaded in sheets from the top of the walls or snow carpeted the courtyards, I sniffed and prowled among the women for someone new and interesting, someone a tenth as desirable as the least of Ida’s shepherdesses. Wearying work without challenge or good hard exercise. Hektor was right. Unless I found a better way to keep myself trim than skulking up and down forbidden corridors, I would develop a pot belly.
Four moons after I returned Helenos came into my rooms to settle himself comfortably into a cushioned window seat. The day was cheerful – quite warm for a change – and the view from my quarters was a fine one, down across the city to the port of Sigios and the isle of Tenedos.
‘I wish I had your clout with Father, Paris,’ Helenos said.
‘Well, you are very junior, even if you are an imperial son. The view comes later in life.’
Not yet shaving, he was a beautiful youth, dark haired and very dark of eye, as were all of us who owned Hekabe for mother and called ourselves imperial. A twin, he occupied a curious position; very strange things were said about him and his other half, Kassandra. They were seventeen years old, which made him too much my junior for any real intimacy to have developed. Besides which, he and Kassandra had the Second Sight. An aura hung about them which rendered others, even their brothers and sisters, uncomfortable. This air was not so marked in Helenos as it was in Kassandra – as well for Helenos, really. Kassandra was crazy.
They had been consecrated to the service of Apollo as babes, and if either of them ever resented this arbitrary settling of their destinies, they never said so. According to the laws laid down by King Dardanos, the Oracles of Troy had to be held by a son and daughter of the King and his Queen, preferably twins. Which had made Helenos and Kassandra automatic choices. At the moment they still enjoyed a certain amount of liberty, but when they turned twenty they would be formally handed into the care of the trio who ruled the worship of Apollo in Troy: Kalchas, Lakoon and Antenor’s wife, Theano.
Helenos wore the long, flowing robes of the Religious. With his dreamy expression allied to so much beauty he was sufficiently arresting to hold my attention as he sat surveying the city from my window. He liked me better than he did any of his other brothers – be they by Hekabe, by another wife, or by a concubine – because I had no taste for war and killing. Though his stern ascetic nature could not condone my philandering, he found my conversation much to his liking, more pacific than martial.
‘I have a message for you,’ he said without turning.
I sighed. ‘What have I done now?’
‘Nothing deserving censure. I was merely told to bid you to come to a meeting tonight after supper.’
‘I can’t. I have a prior engagement.’
‘You had better break it. The message comes from Father.’
‘Bother! Why me?’
‘I have no idea. It’s a very small group. Just a few of the imperial sons, plus Antenor and Kalchas.’
‘An odd assortment. I wonder what’s the matter?’
‘Go, and you’ll find out.’
‘Oh, I will, I will! Are you invited?’
Helenos did not answer. His face had twisted, his eyes taken on the peculiar inward gaze of the mystic. Having seen this visionary trance before, I recognised it for what it was, and stared in fascination. Suddenly he shuddered, looked normal again.
‘What did you see?’ I asked.
‘I could not see,’ he said slowly, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘A pattern, I sensed a pattern… The beginning of a twisting and turning that will go to an inevitable end.’
‘You must have seen something, Helenos!’
‘Flames… Greeks in armour… A woman so beautiful she must be Aphrodite… Ships – hundreds and hundreds of ships… You, Father, Hektor…’
‘Me?
But I’m not important!’
‘Believe me, Paris, you are important,’ he said in a tired voice, then got up abruptly. ‘I must find Kassandra. Quite often we see the same things, even when we are not together.’
But I too felt a little of that dark, webbed Presence, and shook my head. ‘No. Kassandra will destroy it.’
Helenos was correct in that the group was very small. I was the last to arrive, took a place on the end of the bench whereon sat my brothers Troilos and Ilios – why them? Troilos was eight years old, Ilios only seven. They were my mother’s last two children, both named for the shadow man who had taken the throne from King Dardanos. Hektor was there. So too was our eldest brother of all, Deiphobos. By rights Deiphobos ought to have been named the Heir, but everyone who knew him – including Father – understood that within a year of ascending the throne he would bring everything down. Greedy, thoughtless, passionate, selfish, intemperate – those words were used of Deiphobos. How he hated us! Especially Hektor, who had usurped his rightful place – or so he saw it.
The inclusion of Uncle Antenor was logical. As Chancellor he attended every meeting of any sort. But why Kalchas? A very disturbing man.
Uncle Antenor was glaring at me, and not because I arrived last. Two summers ago on Ida I had loosed an arrow at a target pinned to a tree just as a wind boiled up out of nowhere; it deflected my dart far off to one side. I found it lodged in the back of Uncle Antenor’s youngest son by his most beloved concubine; the poor lad had been hiding to spy on a shepherdess bathing naked in a spring. He was dead, and I guilty of involuntary murder. Not a crime in the true sense, but still a death which had to be expiated. The only way I could do that was to journey abroad and find a foreign king willing to undertake the ceremonies of purification. Uncle Antenor had not been able to demand vengeance, but he had not forgiven me. Which reminded me that I still had not taken that journey abroad to find that foreign king. Kings were the only priests qualified to conduct the rites of purification from accidental murder.
Father rapped the floor with the butt of his ivory sceptre, its round head flashing green because it contained a huge and perfect emerald. ‘I have called this meeting to discuss something which has gnawed at me for many years,’ he said in his firm, strong voice. ‘What brought it to the forefront of my mind was the realisation that my son Paris was born on the very day it happened, thirty-three years ago. A day of death and deprivation. My father Laomedon was murdered. So too were my four brothers. My sister Hesione was abducted, raped. Only the birth of Paris saved it from being the darkest day of my life.’
‘Father, why us?’ Hektor asked gently. Of late, I had noticed, he had take it upon himself to bring our sire back to the subject when his mind wandered; it was beginning to display a tendency to do that.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? You because you are the Heir, Hektor. Deiphobos because he is my oldest imperial son. Helenos because he will hold the Oracles of Troy. Kalchas because he caretakes the Oracles until Helenos comes of age. Troilos and Ilios because Kalchas says there are prophecies about them. Antenor because he was there that day. And Paris because he was born on it.’
‘Why are we here?’ Hektor asked then.
‘I intend to send a formal embassage to Telamon in Salamis as soon as the seas are safe,’ Father said, it seemed to me with proper logic, though Hektor frowned as if the answer troubled him. ‘That embassage will request that Telamon return my sister to Troy.’
A silence fell. Antenor went to stand between my bench and the other, then turned to my father on the throne. Poor man, he was bent almost double from a painful disease of the joints he had suffered time out of memory; everyone thought that its ravages were the reasons for his notoriously short temper. ‘Sire, this is a silly venture,’ he said flatly. ‘Why spend Troy’s gold on it? You know as well as I do that in all the thirty-three years of her exile, Hesione has never once indicated that she mourns her fate. Her son, Teukros, may be a bastard, but he stands very high in the Salaminian Court and acts as friend and mentor to the Salaminian Heir, Ajax. You will get no for an answer, Priam, so why go to the trouble?’
The King jumped to his feet, furious. ‘Are you accusing me of stupidity, Antenor? It’s news to me that Hesione is content in her exile! No, it’s Telamon prevents her asking us for help!’
Antenor shook his gnarled fist. ‘I have the floor, sire! I insist on the right of speech! Why do you go on thinking it was us wronged all those years ago? It was Herakles who was wronged, and in your heart you know it. I would also remind you that if Herakles had not slain the lion, Hesione would be dead.’
My father was trembling from head to foot. There was little love lost between him and Antenor, though they were brothers-in-law. Antenor remained a spiritual Dardanian, the enemy within.
‘If you and I were young men,’ my father said, biting off his words, ‘there would be some point to our continuous warring. We could take up shields and swords and make an end. But you are a cripple and I am too old. I repeat: I am sending an embassage to Salamis as soon as I can. Is that understood?’
Antenor sniffed. ‘You are the King, sire, the decision is yours. As for duels – you may like to call yourself too old, but how dare you assume that I am too crippled to make mincemeat of you? Nothing would give me greater pleasure!’
He walked out on the echo of his words; my father resumed his seat, chewing his beard.
I stood up, surprised that I did, but even more surprised by what I proceeded to say. ‘Sire, I will volunteer to lead your embassage. I have to go abroad to seek purification for the death of Uncle Antenor’s son anyway.’
Hektor laughed, clapped. ‘Paris, I salute you!’
But Deiphobos scowled. ‘Why not me, sire? It
ought
to be me! I am the eldest.’
Helenos entered the fray in Deiphobos’s favour; I could hardly believe my ears, knowing how much Helenos detested our oldest brother.
‘Father, send Deiphobos, please! If Paris goes, I know in my bones that Troy will weep tears of blood!’
Tears of blood or no, King Priam’s mind was made up. He gave the task to me.
After the others had gone I lingered with him.
‘Paris, I am delighted,’ he said, stroking my hair.
‘Then I am rewarded, Father.’ Suddenly I laughed. ‘If I cannot bring back my Aunt Hesione, perhaps I can bring back a Greek princess in her stead.’
Chuckling, he rocked back and forth in his chair; my little joke sat well with him. ‘Greece abounds in princesses, my son. I admit it would twist the Greek tail perfectly if we made it an eye for an eye.’
I kissed his hand. His implacable hatred of Greece and all things Greek was a byword in Troy; I had made him happy. What matter if the pleasantry was empty, provided it made him chuckle?
Since it seemed the mild winter was going to end early, I went down to Sigios several days later to discuss the marshalling of a fleet with the captains and merchants who would comprise it. I wanted twenty big ships with full crews and empty holds; as the state was paying the bill, I knew I would have a host of eager applicants. Though I had not understood at the time what daimon prompted me to volunteer, I now found myself excited at the prospect of this adventure. Soon I would see places far away, places a Trojan did not hope ever to see. Greek places.