In the space at the centre of the courtyard were a handful of men. The figure of Priam stood tallest, his purple robe resplendent in the sunshine and his black wig and face powder belying the age that had so rapidly caught up with him since the death of Hector. On one side of the king were his herald, Idaeus, and Antenor, the elder; while on the other were Deiphobus and Apheidas, the highest-ranking commanders in his army. Before them all was a tall, powerfully built warrior with a broad black beard and long hair that flowed from beneath his plumed helmet. A sword was slung from a scabbard under his arm and a shield hung from his back.
Helen sensed Cassandra’s presence over her shoulder.
‘That’s Eurypylus,’ she said with certainty. ‘And is he not as ugly as I told you?’
Helen stared down at his broken nose and crooked teeth, and at the cruel, selfish eyes that squinted against the bright sunshine. As she watched, Eurypylus took the hand his grandfather offered him, though with deliberate hesitation and without warmth.
‘Looks are not everything,’ she said. ‘No-one thought Paris handsome, not with that scar; but he was the noblest man in Troy – except perhaps Hector – and for a while he offered me freedom from everything that had tied me down. That’s why I fell in love with him, and love him still.’
‘Look at his eyes, Helen. How could Priam give his own daughter to a man with such evil eyes?’
‘Priam gives the women of his household to whomever he pleases,’ Helen answered, her gaze wandering to Deiphobus, whose once cheerful face was now stern and detached. ‘It’s the lot of a princess to be married to men not of her own choosing. Paris helped me escape from Menelaus, but now I’m married to Deiphobus against my will. And if the Greeks ever conquer these walls, I will be Menelaus’s again.’
‘Eurypylus will never have me.’
Helen was not listening. Her eyes were on Deiphobus and she wanted a cup of wine.
‘Marriage is inescapable,’ she muttered, half to herself.
‘In time, another man will take me against my will. But I will not marry Astyoche’s son.’
Helen caught Cassandra’s last words and turned to her.
‘There are worse husbands than Eurypylus. Deiphobus forced me to marry him while I was still in mourning for his brother. But if you’re planning to run away –’
Cassandra shook her head. ‘There’s no need, Sister. Eurypylus will be killed by Achilles before he can marry me. I have seen it.’
‘Achilles is dead.’
‘He will return.’
Helen looked pityingly at Cassandra’s sad, pretty face.
‘Well, whatever may or may not happen to Eurypylus, your mother still wants you to be ready to meet him at this evening’s feast. I’ll find your maid and send her to clear up the rest of this mess.’
She left Cassandra looking out at her husband-to-be and found her slave waiting outside the door. As the girl rushed off to attend to her mistress, Helen felt the darkness of her grief for Paris stealing up on her again. She lowered her head into her hands and succumbed to the sinking sense of loss once more. Then, with tears in her eyes, she went to find her own room, where she would bury her face in the single tunic of his that she had kept and cry until the mood passed. And then she would drink the wine she had hidden there and ease some of her pain.
The voyage to the island of Scyros, skirting the coastline of southern Greece, had been quiet and smooth. Water, provisions and shelter had been easy to find in the many harbours and coves along the way, though the few people who dared speak to them were at best suspicious, at worst hostile. But for the men of Ithaca and Argos it was a joy to be back in Greece again, to see her mountains and islands and every evening to sleep on her beaches. The survivors had quickly forgotten the horrors of Pelops’s tomb and put behind them their grief for the comrades who had been slain there; now their minds were on the end of the war and an imminent return to their families and homes. For a while, as they sailed beneath a Greek sun and ate Greek food, their spirits were bubbling with optimism, as if the defeat of Troy was now a mere formality.
It was not, of course, and none knew that more than Odysseus, Diomedes and Eperitus. In those long days, blessed by sun and wind that required them to do little between rowing out to deeper waters in the morning and finding a sheltering cove before dark, they had plenty of time to think about what now lay ahead of them. After retracing their way out of the maze – dragging the bodies of the dead Argives with them to be burned on a pyre beneath the evening stars – Odysseus had explained the significance of the bone to Eperitus and Diomedes.
‘The bone itself is nothing more than a token,’ he told them as they made camp by the banks of the Alpheius. ‘It will be an encouragement to the army, because the oracle Helenus gave us said Troy will not fall without it. However, it isn’t the reason the gods sent us to Pelops’s tomb.’
‘Then what is the point of it?’ Diomedes had asked.
They were sitting away from the others, around a small log fire of their own. The flames cast an orange glow over their faces, distorting their features with strange shadows. Eperitus looked at Odysseus and had absolute faith in the power of his friend’s mind. There was no situation he could not think his way out of, and no riddle he could not decipher. He had found a way through the maze, and he would know the meaning of the shoulder bone. That was why Athena, the goddess of wisdom, had chosen him.
‘The gods were giving us a clue to conquer Troy. The walls were built by Poseidon and Apollo: they can’t be smashed down or scaled, and as long as there are men to defend them the city can never be conquered from the outside. But if we could get men inside the walls – enough of them to capture the gates and hold them open until the rest of the army arrive –’
‘As simple as that,’ Diomedes said, sardonically. ‘And how do we get a large force of men into the city in the first place? Turn them into birds so they fly over the walls?’
‘The maze!’ Eperitus exclaimed, thinking he understood. ‘You mean we should dig a tunnel beneath the walls and into Troy. The gods sent you into the maze to give you inspiration!’
Odysseus shook his head.
‘No tunnels, Eperitus. The ground Troy is built on is too hard. Besides, the Trojans would see what we were up to and guess our intent. You’re right in one sense, though: we were sent into that tomb to see something, something that would show me how to get inside Troy. Do you remember I once said I’d been given an idea by Astynome smuggling herself into the Greek camp in the back of that farmer’s cart, and by Omeros’s retelling the story of how I got past those Taphian guards hidden in a pithos of wine? Well, Pelops’s tomb has finally shown me how I can smuggle an army into Troy.’
‘How?’ Eperitus and Diomedes asked.
‘You’ll see in time,’ Odysseus replied with a grin.
Despite having tantalised his comrades, Odysseus stubbornly refused to say any more about the inspiration he had received in Pelops’s tomb, so their thoughts and discussions now focussed on the two remaining oracles: how they would steal the Palladium from the temple of Athena in Troy and, more urgently, how they would persuade Achilles’s son, Neoptolemus, to join Agamemnon’s army. Eperitus remembered the small, light-haired boy he had seen in the palace gardens on Scyros the day Achilles had joined the expedition to Troy. He sympathised with the doubts of the ordinary soldiers who questioned the value of a fifteen-year-old lad who had never seen combat before, and who had been hidden away behind the skirts of his mother’s chiton all his young life. But these uncertainties never bothered Odysseus or Diomedes. The two kings understood that a son of Achilles would be worth all the effort spent in bringing him to the war. The only problem that concerned them was how to prise him away from the clutches of his deceitful grandfather and – a greater problem in Odysseus’s eyes – his jealous mother.