No love to be found

"I'm sorry", the king was saying where he stood by the window gazing out in the moonless night. A warm summer rain was falling outside and the town was peacefully calm. The only things heard were some late night walker's drunken voices and a restless dog barking somewhere.

"I'm sorry", he repeated himself, resting on his knuckles, back bent. Almost looking like an old man and still not facing his queen who was lying among the silken sheets in the bed. He didn't want her to see his shame.
"Honey?" she enquired and finally king Tyndareus turned, looking at the blond and slender beauty lying in the bed. She was still attractive, his queen Leda even though she was nearing the forties. It was definitely nothing wrong with her, on the very contrary. It was he who was faulty. It was he who didn't work like a man anymore. His body betraying him, refusing to perform the way it ought to.

He knew that this was probably their last chance. Their last chance to produce a new heir for the throne instead of the sons who had fallen on the battlefield. But if he could not make it work, if he could not go through with it, he would never be able to give Leda an heir and he would betray her, let her kingdom fall in the hands of strangers. Her power-hungry cousin who was already casting greedy glances upon Sparta's rich mines. If not…

"Tyn darling!" Leda spoke again, her pale gray eyes shining in the sparse light falling in from the window. "You should go to the temple of Aphrodite, ask for…"
"No", he cut her off, sounding harsher than he meant. "Aphrodite has never been a friend of mine, never been a friend of Sparta. She's… We turn our hearts to Artemis and Athena instead and they have given us richly of their mercy. Why should I spurn them for the unreliable goddess of love who you can trust one day and the next not? Who betray you because she fancies it?"

"Hush, Tyn!" Leda replied. "Don't speak like that about the gods. Who know they might hear us. And decide to punish you for what you just said."
"As if I haven't been punished enough, wife!" Tyndareus spat. "First they take our sons from us, the loved Acastos and Diosthenes. Then they take my manhood, make me week and soft and unable to give to you what a husband should give a wife."
"Perhaps it's just temporary, Tyn. Perhaps some other time…"
"I don't think so", Tyndareus sighed, turning his back to the queen again, looking out trough the castle window. "I don't think so."