For the Most Beautiful (35 page)

That evening King Priam held a feast in Hector's honour. It seemed the king and queen were determined to celebrate the sacking of the Greek camp and Hector's defeat of Patroclus. No one, it seemed, cared very much that it had not been Achilles. One Greek dead was better than none, after all, and King Priam and Queen Hecuba were simply glad that their son was still alive.

But Hector had to know how to kill Achilles when he faced him: if he did not, then Troy would be destroyed.

‘Where are you going?'

Cassandra and I were preparing for the feast in her high-roofed, cedar-scented chambers. I had told her the whole story: my capture and Troilus' death, the prophecy of the fall of Troy, the secrets I had smuggled from the Greek camp, being sent to Larisa and Apulunas' awful revelation and curse. When I had reached this part of the story, she had let out a deep breath.

‘You were lucky.'

I gave her a rueful smile. ‘Lucky? I shall never be noticed by a man again.'

Cassandra shrugged her shoulders thoughtfully.

‘It could have been worse. Look,' she said, and she handed me the same small bronze hand-mirror.

I took it and held it up to my face, my fingers trembling, wondering what I would see there.

At first I did not notice any difference. My honey-brown eyes stared back at me, round and slightly fearful; my golden hair curled down over my shoulders, my full mouth was the same. And then, gradually, I saw it.

I was still me, and yet I was no longer myself. There was nothing memorable there any more. The spark in my eye, the colour in my cheeks were gone, as if I were a pale ghost – beautiful, but imperceptible. The eyes of any man would slide over me, as they would over a lacklustre spirit. Apulunas had not made me ugly. He had made me completely and utterly unremarkable.

‘Beauty has to be seen,' I breathed, my fingers trembling slightly as I handed the mirror back to her. ‘He has all but made me invisible.'

Now I turned back to her from the door. She was sitting before her dressing-table, her long red hair spread out over her shoulders, still holding the bronze mirror. ‘I must tell Hector how to kill Achilles.'

She sighed. ‘Yes. I have been thinking that too.'

I looked at her in surprise. ‘You have?'

She nodded. ‘Ever since you told me what Briseis said to you in the Greek camp.' I made to speak, but she shooed me away, smiling slightly. ‘Be on your way, Krisayis, or Hector will have left the feast and you will have no chance to fight with Fate this night.'

I smiled and pushed the door open, then walked quickly through my old chambers, out into the corridors towards the courtyard and the Great Hall. The sour smell of barley meal drifted towards me on the breeze as I crossed the courtyard, and the stars twinkled overhead, like bright oil-lamps flickering in the blackness of the sky. I remembered the last time I had stood before those doors in my golden dress, so sure of my beauty and of Troilus' love. And now I would never know either of those things again.

But that was in the past. There was no use regretting it now. There were more important things to be done.

I took a deep breath and pushed the doors open.

Hector was easy to find. The royals sat, as they always did, on the stone-carved thrones to the right of the hearth, and on that night Hector was the recipient of every toast, the subject of every prayer to the gods and every song sung by the bard on his three-legged stool by the fire. The Trojans were rejoicing as if they had won the war, not simply a battle and a duel.

I glanced around the hall and breathed a sigh of relief. The king and queen were busy greeting the nobles on the other side of the Great Hall. If I was quick I might escape the notice of the king. I made my way over to Prince Hector and bowed very low. ‘My congratulations to you on your victory, Prince.'

He looked over from his conversation with his brother, Paris. It felt strange not to see the flicker of appreciation upon their faces at my beauty. Most of the princes seemed hardly to have noticed I was there.

‘Krisayis,' Hector said, with a slight frown. ‘I thought you had been forbidden from the city by my father.'

I bowed my head further. ‘I was. I would not have returned, had I not been convinced that our city is in grave danger and that I might be of service to it.'

There was a short pause.

‘I beg you to listen to me,' I said, careful to keep my voice low. ‘We have known each other since we were young, have we not, Hector? I must speak with you immediately, before your father the king sees I am here. What I have to say concerns the fate of Troy.' I looked up at Paris. ‘Perhaps we might speak in private?'

Hector considered me. ‘The fate of Troy?' he asked, in a low voice. He leant forwards, lowering his voice even further. ‘The herald Idaeus informed me, in confidence, that you passed us information of great import from the camp of the Greeks. He thought it best not to reveal to my father and mother, the king and queen, that it was you who was the spy, for they might not have taken kindly to it after Troilus' death. But I know that it took great bravery on your part to spy for us among the Greeks, and for that I thank you. Do you bring me more news yourself?'

I nodded, keeping my eyes down.

Hector stood from his throne then and drew me to a corner of the hall, Paris watching us warily.

When I was sure we could not be heard over the loud cheers and laughter of the feast, I turned to Hector. ‘You know that they say Achilles cannot be killed,' I said, without preamble. ‘They are right. But he has a weakness.' Hector frowned, but I continued, determined to give him the news I had waited so long to tell. ‘His mother, whom the Greeks call the goddess Thetis, made him immortal in all his body but his heel.' I took a deep breath. ‘This is the only part in which he can be killed,' I said. ‘You must strike him in his heel and destroy our greatest enemy while Troy still stands.'

Hector had been silent while I spoke. Now, to my utter confusion, he was smiling. ‘Oh, my dear Krisayis,' he said gently. ‘You are right to say that we played together and grew up together here in the palace. You are as a sister to me, as Cassandra is, and as a brother, I honour your words. Yet you surely cannot still expect me to believe such stories. These are tales for children, not grown men and warriors. If I believed all the tales I heard I should have to run my sword through every inch of Achilles' body.'

My eyebrows knotted in a frown as I took in what he had said. ‘You – you do not believe me?'

He placed his hands on my shoulders. ‘My wife, Andromache – she, too, thinks that she can direct the orders of battle from her loom. I know it must be hard for you to sit here in the city while we fight upon the plain but, Krisayis, you must understand that I am far better versed in matters of battle. I have a council of war. I have been advised and trained in matters of the battlefield since before I could speak or write. I do not blame you for believing such a tale but,' he patted my shoulder, ‘you should not concern yourself with it.'

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. ‘Hector, you must listen to—'

But the prince had already turned away from me and was walking back to the royal thrones. As he reached his place and sat down to the feast again, I could clearly hear him retelling the tale of Achilles' heel with a smile, and Paris' shouts of laughter in response.

I sank down the smooth plaster of the wall to the floor, watching Hector and Paris laugh together with a sense of gathering frustration and dread. Would no one believe me except Cassandra? Did my words count for nothing, simply because I had been born the daughter of a priest and a woman? Would
no one
listen to what I had to say?

And if they did not, how could Troy survive?

Many weeks have passed. Achilles has returned to the war, as he promised he would, and the tides of battle have turned. The Trojan plain is unrecognizable, a blackened field of dust, littered with the dead, constantly ploughed by the feet of Greek and Trojan soldiers in the never-ending strife of war.

But the greatest loss of all is that of Hector. Hector, King Priam's son, his heir, his protector; Hector, tamer of horses, the greatest of the Trojans, father of the next Trojan king. He was killed at the hands of Achilles in the fury of his revenge. He ran the length of the walls of Troy before Achilles' deadly spear severed his throat and his life-blood ran into the earth. Achilles trussed up his corpse behind his chariot and dragged it through the dust of the Trojan plain, fouling his dark hair with dirt and blood. Hector's wife fainted when she heard the news. His mother cried. His sister prophesied in vain. Even the father of the gods mourned his passing, for with his death, the city of Troy must also fall.

But there is one more man who must die before that.

The gods are sitting on Mount Ida, watching the battle. All of them, that is, except Hermes.

‘I'll take a bet on the next one to go,' Hermes whispers, into Apollo's ear, from his seat in the back row of the council of the gods. ‘Ajax versus Aeneas. I'll give you good odds.' He looks slyly at Apollo. ‘Seven to one Aeneas wins.'

Apollo tries to pretend he's concentrating on the battle below, but the temptation is too much. He never could resist a good gamble, and Hermes knows it. ‘Seven to one? Against Ajax? He's the best Greek warrior, after Achilles.' He snorts under his breath. ‘Try ten to one, then I'll start listening.'

Hermes considers. ‘All right, ten to one, but if you lose, I get that water nymph we met last night.'

Apollo is about to protest, but Athena turns from the row in front and gives them a severe look. The pair falls silent for a while.