And Sparta’s small army cannot stand against Agamemnon’s forces.’
Just then there was a soft knocking at the outer door. The old general Pausanius entered.
‘My apologies for disturbing you, lord,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to you…
privately.’
Nasiq rose. ‘Matters of state must always take precedence,’ he said, with a smile at Pausanius. Then he left the room.
‘What is wrong?’ asked Helikaon.
‘The queen has left her apartments. Her handmaiden says she saw her walking towards Aphrodite’s Leap.’ The old general paled. ‘I am sorry, my king. That was crass of me.’
‘I will find her,’ said Helikaon.
iii
As she walked the high rocky path in the faint light of dawn, Halysia could barely distinguish between the mist rising from the crumbling cliff edge under her bare feet and the dark fog lying across her mind. People talked of broken hearts, but they were wrong. Broken was somehow complete. Finished. Over. The real sensation was of continual breaking. An everlasting wound, sharp and jagged, like claws of bronze biting into the soft tissue of the heart. The mind became a cruel enemy, closing off reality for brief periods. Sometimes she would forget that Dio had been murdered. She would look at the sunlit sky and smile, and wonder – just for a moment – where he was. Then the truth would plunge home, and the bronze talons cleave once more into her wounded heart. The dawn breeze was cool with the promise of rain. It was a long time since she had walked this path. Aphrodite’s Leap they called it, though the words had been whispered behind the old king’s back. His first wife had thrown herself from this cliff onto the unforgiving rocks hundreds of feet below. Halysia had heard the tale many times.
Wandering to the cliff edge she peered down. Mist was heavy upon the sea, and she wondered how it would feel to let go, to plummet down and end the agony of her life.
Thoughts of the past stirred in her. She remembered the bright days of her childhood in Zeleia when she and her brothers rode with the horse herds in summer, taking them from water pastures beside the dark river Aesipos to the cities of the coast. For days her feet would barely touch the ground as she travelled wrapped in a warm blanket on a gentle mare, listening to the night sounds across the plains.
Dio was already a fearless rider and she had planned to take him on a night journey, to camp out under the cold stars…
The sky was lightening, but the fog grew darker on her mind. She faltered to a halt and fell to her knees, her strength running out like water from a cup. She thought she heard a sound, running steps behind her, but she could not move to look round.
Her tortured mind returned again to the past, to comforting thoughts of her first arrival at Dardanos. True, she had not been happy then; she was just seventeen and homesick and frightened of the grey old man she was to marry. But now she always thought of it as a good time, because she was quickly pregnant with Dio. Anchises was not a bad husband, not unkind, and once Aeneas had been banished from his thoughts she was the mother of the son in whom he placed all his hopes. He gave Dio a toy horse, she recalled with a smile, that he had carved himself from pale wood. It was a crude thing, for he had little skill with his hands, but he had decorated it with gold leaf on mane and tail, and it had sky-blue chips of lapis lazuli for eyes.
She remembered the blue eyes of Garus, her personal bodyguard. He had soft blond eyelashes that lay gently on his cheek as he slept. She liked to wake him, to see the pale lashes open, to see his eyes rest on her in love and wonder.
He had fallen in the last desperate struggle, a spear through his chest, a sword in his belly, still trying to protect her and her son. He was dead before they all raped her. She was glad of that. He was dead before they flung Dio from the high walls.
She heard a thin keening sound. It was her own voice, but she knew of no way to stop it.
‘Halysia!’ Another voice in the fog. ‘Halysia!’
She thought back to her childhood and her father holding her in his arms, smiling down at her. He smelled of horses, of their pungent hides he always wore. She reached up and pulled the greasy braids of his beard. He laughed and clutched her fiercely to his chest.
She felt his arms round her now, gentle and tender.
‘Halysia. It is Aeneas. Come back to me.’
Aeneas. They called him Helikaon. There were many Aeneases, many Helikaons in her mind. There was the shy, frightened youth she had barely noticed, consumed as she was in her love for her baby. He disappeared one day on a foreign ship, and Anchises said he would not return. But he did, on a day of great terror.
With Anchises dead she was sure Aeneas would have her killed, or kill her himself, and her son with her. But he didn’t. He sailed away again after a few days, leaving Dio king and herself safe under the protection of Garus and old Pausanius. Those were the happiest years…
‘Halysia, look at me. Look at me!’
She looked up, but it was not her father who held her. His eyes had been brown; these were blue. She remembered blue eyes…
‘Halysia!’ She felt strong hands shaking her. ‘It is I, Aeneas. Say Aeneas.’
‘Aeneas.’ She frowned and looked around, at the treacherous cliff edge, and the grey sea far below their feet. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Your maid saw you walking here. She feared for your life.’
‘My life? I have no life.’ He pulled her into his arms again and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. ‘My son was my life, Aeneas,’ she said calmly. ‘I have no life without him.’
‘He walks in the green fields of Elysium now,’ he said. ‘He has your bodyguard… was it Garus?… to hold his hand.’
‘Do you believe that?’ she asked, searching his face.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you believe also in the power of dreams?’
‘Dreams?’
‘When I lay… as I thought… dying I had many dreams, Aeneas. And all but one of them were terrifying. I saw blood and fire, and a city burning. I saw the sea full of ships, carrying violent men. I saw war, Aeneas. I saw the fall of kings and the death of heroes. Oh… so much death.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you believe in the power of dreams?’
He led her away from the cliff top and they sat on a green slope. ‘Odysseus says there are two kinds of dreams. Some born of strong wine and rich food, and some sent by the gods. Of course you dreamt of blood and war. Evil men had attacked you. Your mind was full of visions of vileness.’
His words flowed over her, and she clung to the hope they were true. They sat in silence for a while. Then she sighed. ‘Garus loved me. I was going to ask if you would object to our marriage. They took both my loves that night, Aeneas. My Dio, and strong-hearted Garus.’
‘I did not know. And, no, I would have offered no objection. He was a good man.
But you are young still, Halysia, and beautiful. If the gods will it you will find love again.’
‘Love? I do so hope not, Aeneas. Yes, it was the only part of the dream that was bright and joyful. But if what I saw does come to pass, does it not mean that the other visions, of war and death, will also come?’
‘I have no answers for such fears,’ he said. ‘What I do know is that you are the queen of Dardania, and the people love you. No-one will supplant you, and, while I live, no-one will ever threaten you again.’
‘They love me now,’ she said sadly. ‘Will they love me still when the monster is born?’
‘What monster?’
‘The beast in my belly,’ she whispered to him. ‘It is evil, Aeneas. It is Mykene.’
He took her hand. ‘I did not know you were pregnant. I am sorry, Halysia.’ He sighed. ‘But it is not a monster. It is merely a child, who will love you as Dio did.’
‘It will be a boy, dark-haired and grey-eyed. I saw this too.’
