Troy: Fall Of Kings by Gemmell David

Author:Gemmell, David [David and Stella Gemmell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409085362
Publisher: Transworld

XX

Andromache's choice

ANDROMACHE STOOD AT THE PROW OF THE XANTHOS AND breathed in the fresh salt air as the great ship glided through a light swell. She had always loved the days of spring, when the snows melted on great Ida and the rivers and streams around little Thebe filled and sparkled with clear icy water, its wooded hills and valleys clothed in pale green rain-washed leaves.

When she had been sent by her father as priestess to Thera she had thought of Thebe Under Plakos as her home. But by the time she was dispatched unhappily to Troy to marry Hektor, Thera had become home to her. Now here she was, on the Xanthos and less than a day's sail from the golden city, and where is your home now, Andromache, she thought? Is it Troy where you yearn to hold your son in your arms again? Or is it on this ship where you have lived, and loved, for long endless winter days of fear, and longing, and bliss?

Once the crew had got used to a woman aboard their ship, had stopped calling her princess or priestess, and had ceased glancing covertly at her legs and breasts at all opportunities, she had found a home on the big ship. She joined the men round their campfires at night, shared their meals, distributed water skins when the ship was under oars, helped sluice down the decks, and was even asked to sew up a ragged rip in the sail after a rough day in stormy seas.

'I am the daughter of a king, and wife to Hektor,' she had laughed, 'and you are sailors. You know more about sewing than I do!' Yet she had done her best with the sharp needle and sturdy thread they gave her, and pretended not to notice when her poor stitches were remade for her by a grizzled crewman whose fingers were more nimble than hers.

One calm day Oniacus had offered to teach her to row, and she had grasped the great oar and learned to pull with the motion of the sea, but within a short time her palms were covered with bleeding blisters, and Helikaon had told her angrily to stop.

Helikaon! She did not turn round, for she knew he would be standing at the stern of the ship, one arm on the great steering oar, watching her. Closing her eyes she could recall every detail of his face, the fine dark hairs of his eyebrows, the exact set of the corners of his mouth, the shape of his ears. In her mind's eye she could see his bronzed arm, with its soft sun-bleached hairs, draped across the steering oar, as she had seen it a hundred times. She knew every scar on his body, by touch and taste. He was wearing a long winter robe of blue wool, the same colour as his eyes when he was angry, and his feet were in old sandals stained by salt and time.

They had tried to

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