For the Most Beautiful by Emily Hauser

Author:Emily Hauser
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473525504
Publisher: Doubleday

The Parting of the Ways

Χρυσηíς

Krisayis, Greek Camp

The Hour of the Setting Sun

The Twenty-fifth Day of the Month of Threshing Wheat, 1250 BC

I could hardly believe it. I had discovered Achilles’ secret.

I knew how to save Troy.

I knew how to kill the greatest of the Greeks.

I almost ran back to King Agamemnon’s tent, my heart skipping with excitement. I half wished I could turn back and tell Idaeus what I had just learnt, but I knew I could not risk any more delay. If the king noticed I had been missing …

I was rounding the corner of the hut of King Agamemnon’s heralds, Talthybius and Eurybates, when I stopped short. There, ahead of me, standing before the heralds’ driftwood shelter, was none other than my father, his grey beard damp with water and his white priest’s robes flapping in the evening breeze.

‘Father!’

I stared at him, hardly able to believe that he was real. But surely no apparition or invention of the mind could look so solid.

‘Father?’ I asked again, a little hesitant. ‘It is you?’

He nodded.

I stepped forwards and knelt at his feet for his blessing, then felt the warmth of his hand touch my head. When he had finished, I stood up, looking into his old, lined face as if I would drink it in. ‘What are you doing here?’

He smiled at me, and the corners of his eyes creased in the familiar way. I saw with embarrassment that there were tears, and pretended I had not noticed.

‘My daughter,’ he said, pulling me close to him. I inhaled the familiar scent of incense and smoke from his robes. ‘Oh, my daughter. Thank the gods you are alive.’

A few soldiers passed nearby, talking between themselves and laughing. I let him hold me for a few moments, then pulled away, my mind flooded with a thousand questions. ‘But why did you come?’ I glanced over my shoulder at the warriors play-fighting beside the nearby huts, swords clashing on sharpened swords and spears burying themselves in targets of woven rushes with dull thuds. ‘Are you safe? Does King Priam know? Did you—?’

My father held up his hands with a faint smile. ‘Enough, daughter! Let me speak, and I will tell you all. I have come to deliver you from the Greeks. The herald Idaeus informed me that you were being held captive in the Greek camp, and I have brought with me a ransom with which to pay for your freedom. You are to go to Larisa, back to our home, where you will be safe.’

I felt my heart leap. No longer a slave. No more nightly torments in King Agamemnon’s bed. I shivered with relief.

But then I remembered Idaeus.

There will be no one to pass Idaeus information from the Greek camp. I thought of the war council, and Odysseus’ words echoed in my head: Troy shall be yours.

Troy shall be yours.

I felt the smile slide from my face.

‘Daughter?’ my father asked, a line appearing in his forehead.

I shook my head. There was a long pause.

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