their gleam.
‘Does guilt or innocence not matter to you, King Priam?’ she asked him, her voice soft. ‘Are you not the First Magistrate of Troy? Does justice not flow from this throne? Had I been cavorting, as you call it, with a young servant, I would not hide it. I am who I am. I do not lie. Axa is the wife of Hektor’s shield bearer. Only days ago she gave birth to a son. In your long experience do you know of many women who desire to cavort so soon after childbirth, with their bodies torn and bruised, their breasts swollen with milk?’
Priam’s expression changed. He sat back on his throne, and rubbed his hand across his grey-gold beard. ‘I was not aware it was the wife of Mestares. Stand up. You have knelt long enough.’
She was surprised by this sudden change in him, and, pushing herself to her feet, remained silent. ‘There has been a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘I shall have a gift sent to her. You want her back?’
‘Indeed I do.’
He looked long at her. ‘You would not kneel to me when yourlife might have depended on it. Yet you abase yourself for a servant.’
‘It was my foolishness that caused her suffering. I ordered her into that bath.
I thought it would ease her pain.’
He nodded. ‘As you thought it would be good to swim naked with a Mykene warrior on my beach? Or to shoot arrows with my soldiers? You are a strange woman, Andromache.’ He rubbed his eyes, then reached for a cup of wine, which he drained. ‘You seem to arouse great passion in those who know you,’ he continued.
‘Deiphobos wants you expelled from Troy. Kreusa wanted you flogged and shamed.
Agathon wants to marry you. Even dull 1ittle Laodike has blossomed in your company. Answer me this, Andromache of Thebe: had I told you that the only way to rescue Axa was to have you come to my bed, would you have done so?’
‘Yes, I would,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘Why did you not?’
He shook his head. ‘A good question, Andromache, and one which you need to answer for yourself.’
‘How can I? I do not know your thoughts.’
Rising from his throne he beckoned her to follow him, then strode the length of the megaron, and up the stairway towards the queen’s apartments. Andromache was nervous, but not for fear that he might ravish her. In their conversation he had not once stared at her breasts or her legs, and his eyes had not possessed their normal hungry look. The King reached the top of the stairs and turned right, walking along the gallery to a balcony high above the royal gardens. Andromache joined him there.
People were milling in the gardens below, talking in low voices. Andromache saw Agathon and fat Antiphones talking together and, beyond them, Laodike sitting with Kreusa. Laodike’s head was bowed, and Kreusa was gesticulating with her hands. Around them were counsellors, in their white robes, and Trojan nobles, some with their wives or daughters.
‘Everyone you see,’ said Priam softly, ‘requires something from the king. Yet each gift to one will be seen as an insult to another. Among them will be those who are loyal to the king. Among them will be traitors. Some are loyal now, but will become traitors. Some could become traitors, but a gift from me will keep them loyal. How does the king know whom to trust and whom to kill, whom to reward and whom to punish?’
Andromache felt tense and uneasy. ‘I do not know,’ she said.
‘Then learn, Andromache,’ he told her. ‘For, if the gods will it, one day you will be queen of Troy. On that day you will look out from this balcony and all those below will be coming to you or your husband. You will need to know their thoughts, their dreams, their ambitions. For when they are before you the loyal and the treacherous will both sound the same. They will all laugh when you make a jest, they will weep when you are sad. They will pledge undying love for you.
Their words, therefore, will be meaningless. Unless you know the thoughts behind the words.’
‘And you know all their thoughts, King Priam?’
‘I know enough of their thoughts and their ambitions to keep me alive.’ He chuckled. ‘One day, though, one of them will surprise me. He will plunge a dagger through my heart, or slip poison into my cup, or raise a rebellion to overthrow me.’
‘Why do you smile at the thought?’
‘Why not? Whoever succeeds me as king will be strong and cunning, and therefore well equipped for the role.’
Now it was Andromache who smiled. ‘Or he might be stupid and lucky.’
Priam nodded. ‘If that proves true he won’t last long. Another of my cunning sons will overthrow him. However, let us return to your question. Why did I not demand your body in payment? Think on it, and we will talk again.’ He gazed down at the milling crowds below. ‘And now I must allow my subjects, both loyal and treacherous, to present their petitions to their king.’
Returning to her own rooms, Andromache wrapped herself in a hooded green cloak and left the palace, heading for the lower town and the poorer quarter where the soldiers’ wives were billeted. Asking directions from several women gathered round a well, she located the dwelling occupied by Axa and three other wives. It was small and cramped, with dirt floors. Axa was sitting at the back of the building, in the shade, her babe in her arms. She saw Andromache and struggled to rise.
‘Oh, sit, please,’ said Andromache, kneeling beside her. ‘I am so sorry, Axa. It was my fault.’
‘Mestares will be so angry with me when he gets home,’ said Axa. ‘I have shamed him.’
‘You shamed no-one. I have seen the king. He knows it was a mistake. He is sending a gift to you. And I want you back. Oh, Axa! Please say you will come!’
‘Of course I will,’ replied Axa dully. ‘How else could I feed myself and my son?
I will be there tomorrow.’
‘Can you forgive me?’
The babe in Axa’s arms began to make soft little mewing sounds. Axa opened her shift, exposing a heavy breast, and lifted the child to it. The babe nuzzled at the teat ineffectually, and then with more confidence. Axa sighed. She looked at Andromache.
‘What difference does it make whether I forgive or don’t forgive?’ she asked.
‘We are called servants, but we are slaves really. We live or die at the whim of others. I was flogged for being seen in a bath. Were you flogged for being with me?’
‘No, I wasn’t flogged. But believe me when I say I would rather it had been me.
Can we be friends, Axa?’
‘I am your servant. I must be whatever you want me to be.’
Andromache fell silent, watching as Axa finished feeding her babe and lifted the mite to her shoulder, gently rubbing his back. ‘Did they hurt you badly?’ she asked at last.
‘Yes, they hurt me,’ replied Axa, tears in her eyes. ‘But not with the blows from that knotted rope. I am the wife of Mestares the shield bearer. Ten battles he has fought for the king and for Troy. Now he might be dead, and I live every day fearing the news. And what do they do to ease my suffering? They flog me and throw me from the palace. I will never forgive that.’
‘No,’ said Andromache, rising to her feet. ‘Neither would I. I will see you tomorrow, Axa.’
The little woman looked up at her, and her expression softened.
‘You went to the king for me,’ she said. ‘You I will forgive. But no more baths.’
Andromache smiled. ‘No more baths,’ she agreed.
Returning to the palace Andromache walked through the private royal gardens.
There were still some twenty people there, enjoying the shade and the scent of the blooms. By the far wall, beneath a latticed bower, Kreusa was talking to Agathon. She was wearing a white gown edged with gold, and had thrown back her head in a parody of careless laughter, her raven hair rippling in the breeze.
As she approached them Agathon saw her, and gave a tight smile. He is embarrassed, thought Andromache. Kreusa, by contrast, looked at her with an expression of smug satisfaction.
‘How are you, beautiful lady?’ asked Agathon.
‘I am well, Prince Agathon. I saw the king this morning. You heard of the misunderstanding concerning my servant?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was sorry to hear of it.’
‘As was I. However, the king has reinstated her, and is sending her a gift in apology.’ She swung towards
