Chapter 1

Hector

Hector sat at the desk in his guest room that had been provided for him by King Menelaus and wrote his letters to family and friends.

The letter to his father was always written first. Mostly just pragmatic stuff, like what was lost and what happened during the battles.

Writing to his wife was harder. His son had been born between this and the last letter and he didn't really know what to write to Andromache, when she wrote about the child having his eyes or her grandfather's chin. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her or his son, but it all felt so distant right now.

So he took a break from this letter and instead wrote an answer to his friend, Prince Deiru of the Hatti Empire.

"My dear young friend," he wrote. "It is always a pleasure to hear from you. Please, continue to write me as many letters as you can fit into your schedule. But don't ever skip your lessons again. I don't think the King would look at me as favorably as he does now, if he knew I was the reason." He wrote with a smile, remembering the part of the boy's last letter where he told Hector, that he had hid himself in a tree from Ilbani. Deiru did a lot of mistakes that reminded him of himself or Paris at that age. Apparently, there really were things that you only realize, when you're older. The only thing Hector could do, was spare the young one this hardship.

He continued:"Being a good king doesn't equal being a good warrior. It helps, but a good king isn't only measured by how many victories he has earned. Believe me, as I write this I realize that I sound like my father. Fitting, seeing how I became a father just a month ago. Soon you will probably tell this to my son." He let out a chuckle. He had to admit, he was curious how his child would turn out. Was there a way to tell? Hector had many younger brothers and sisters, but he didn't think one could figure a character out until the child was at least 4 years old. Around this age it became clear that Paris wasn't much of a warrior. It didn't matter that much to Hector. Paris had other strengths. Namely the lyre and words. He always knew what to say and when to say it. That was Paris' magic, his own charm. If he wanted to convey his feelings to someone he would just pull out his lyre and sing a song about how beautiful her hair moved in the wind.

Things Hector could only dream of. In front of women, Hector had always been a mumbling idiot. He had never really talked to girls before, outside of his family or the occasional servant girl, and as a boy, he was always happiest when his father took him to the royal stables to learn about the horses his city was so famous for. So, he didn't really want to devote time to charming women.

But when he met Andromache everything changed. She was a strong woman with an even stronger presence. He knew he loved her, when he had first entered the hall of her father with all these men who also asked for her hand in marriage. And out of all the other men, she chose him, the mumbling idiot. According to her, his low self esteem was adorable and his way with horses immediately peeked her interest.

"You always talk about battles as if they were something extravagant. Well, I don't blame you, since everything you heard were probably epic songs of heroes. Believe me when I say: You should be glad your father hasn't yet asked you to take up the arms. Don't be impatient, the moment to prove yourself to him will come. He wouldn't hold you back, if he didn't think that there's still things to be learned. Say thanks to your mother for praying for my brother's and my safety in battle. We are lucky to have Ishtar praying for our well-being. I hope to see you sometime, when I'm finally home, which when you receive this letter, will probably already be the case. Always your friend, Hector, Prince of Troy."

And that was that. He felt like the could write Andromache now. She was probably aching for his letter. Not that she would let anyone notice. But his last one was written on the battlefield. And it wasn't fair to let his wife and child wait even a second longer. Asking her how their son was seemed like a good question. He started to write: "Beloved Andromache, dearest wife, I'm glad that you and our son seem to be alright after the birth. How is he doing now? Is there anything to be concerned of? Are you alright? All this still seems a bit distant to me, I beg your forgiveness." He stopped for a moment. Was it really wise to write this to his wife? Well, it was better to be honest with her than not honest at all.

"Don't be concerned, Dearest." He continued to explain. "I was only a bit startled. I always expected to be there with you, when our child gets born. I'm happy now and I look forward to raising our son together. I need to make Apaliunas an offering as soon as I return. Be prepared, I will cover you both in gifts then." Hector smiled thinking of the large treasure they gave Troy as payment. Sure, there wouldn't be anything for a newborn baby but enough to buy his son something. Maybe a rocking horse? "Even though you're embarrassed by it, I'm glad Mother and my sisters help you so much. I hope you understand, they just want to relieve you and mean no harm. The fights are over now and Sparta remains victorious. I don't think they needed our help at all. With luck on my side, the next words we exchange should be face to face. Now that I have nothing to immense myself in my thoughts are constantly with you and my heart aches for your closeness. So I hope our reunion will be soon. Forever yours, Hector."

He was a bit surprised how easily he had just written that down.

His man servant already stood at the door, telling him that the King expected him for dinner. Hector sighed. It had been like that since they had returned. Every evening a feast. Every evening loads of exotic dancers everywhere. It had been fun, the first night. The second night, Hector started to hate it.

He remembered all of it. Helen sitting beside her husband, while he nibbled the breast of some lightly clothed woman on his lap. Her face was fighting back the tears of embarrassment. Hector had never seen a beauty so sad. It pained him, really, it did. So he was grateful that Paris started a conversation with her, while Hector kept Menelaus away from them. He really couldn't blame them for what happened afterwards. Paris, perhaps, was the only person that had been nice to her in a long while and Helen of Sparta was a beautiful and very charismatic girl. I didn't matter anyway, tomorrow it would all be over.

"I will be there shortly." Hector gave him the letters and ordered him to send them to his wife in Troy immediately.

The servant left and Hector packed his last things together and joined Menelaus in the Great Hall.

"Hector! There you are! Already packed?" Menelaus already was drunk from the looks of it.

"Yes, your Highness," he bowed his head. "The priests say that tomorrow before sunrise is a good time to start the journey home."

He put his hand on Hector's shoulder. "Ah, the Gods will it is then..."

And my own, the prince of Troy thought.

"Then tomorrow I have to find a new drinking mate. Sad matter. Very, very sad indeed. Come join me and these beautiful ladies for a drink."

Hector sighed when he saw the many guests. Apparently he wasn't even allowed to have dinner anymore.

He sat himself down beside the King and the women. "Ah, I wish I had my own harem. Your father must be swimming in gorgeous women." He took another sip from his cup.

"You have a beautiful wife," Hector mumbled more for himself.

But Menelaus heard it surprisingly and answered loud laughing: "Yes! Beautiful and delicate like a flower! But you can't really fuck a flower, if you know what I mean! She's great to look at, but nothing much in bed! Your father must've felt the same when he married the Queen! That's why he has so many concubines! Now she's probably to old to even satisfy him properly."

Hector grew angrier and angrier with each word. The only thing that kept from beheading Menelaus right here was that he probably would never leave this place otherwise. Why was it that Mycenaeans never were content with what they had? Why did they always strife for more? Maybe that was it that made them to great generals.

"Where is your brother?" Menelaus interrupted his thoughts.

"He-" Hector quickly thought about an appropriate answer, which wasn't easy when two seconds ago you stabbed the that person you were having a conversation with violently in the stomach. "-He's sick in bed. The wine yesterday..." Actually he wasn't really sure, where his Paris was. But he wasn't in his room and he didn't see Helen in the Great Hall either. And that usually meant that it was better not to know.

The other man laughed loud and afterwards gave the women his full attention.

Hector watched the drunken man embarrass himself and was sure, if Menelaus weren't such a good general he would've found himself very quickly sleeping with the rats in the sewers.

He let one servant fill him a glass of wine and took a piece of bread from the table. Couldn't his brother be here right now? He longed to talk with someone familiar. Let out his anger about King Menelaus. Talking about his mother like that. How dare him!

But Paris wasn't here, so Hector could only chew angrily on his bread and look at the Greeks, enjoying themselves. And he felt really alone in this foreign land.

The Trojan sighed. Tomorrow all of this would be over anyway. He picked a place near the window to glance out to the stars, as he and Paris had done so often when they were children.

Oddly enough he and Paris had been very close siblings. Maybe it was that they were roughly about the same age or because they were so different. But something held them together. Paris loved to play the lyre and Hector loved to listen. Hector loved to wrestle and Paris loved to watch him. But the earliest memory Hector had of them was the only time Hector had been sick with fever. He was six years old then and tried to sneak out to the palace garden to look for a shooting star in the night sky. Since a tree blocked his view out of the window.

"What are you doing?" the five year old Paris had asked, when they met in the large corridors. Hector hardly knew the boy that just returned to them a year ago. Why his brother was gone in the first place was never mentioned by anyone. But he was back now, and Mother and Father had cried tears of joy then.

Hector looked at him with great eyes. "I'm... I going to wash myself. Full of sweat. The fever."

Paris grinned. "Oh? But don't you have a bowl of water in your room?"

"Paris, please!"

"Tell me and I won't tell Mother about this." Paris crossed his arms.

What an annoying little brother. May the Gods curse the day he was born. "You tattletale! What have I ever done to you?"

"I don't know, maybe it is because you think you're better than anyone else?"

Hector felt like he had been hit directly in his face. Yes, people were jealous of him, but normally they wouldn't say it to his face. "Well, maybe I am!" Hector started yelling. He didn't really remember why. Maybe he wanted to be so loud he didn't hear his inner voice say: "He's right. Just look at your brother Paris. He is just five, and yet he plays the lyre as if he did it for fifty years. Soon he's going to be better in everything else too. He's going to overthrow you. And then you'll have nothing."

It didn't help, the voice was stronger. He wrestled the younger boy to the ground. Paris yelled and screamed under his grip.

But Hector got distracted by his cough, so that Paris could escape his hands.

Not soon after, half the palace was here, including his Mother and his Father. They were very disappointed in him. Hector could see in their eyes that they knew, even though Paris and Hector didn't speak a word after that.

No one talked about it. At least not when Hector was around. But Hector heard them whisper about it in the halls.

Paris and Hector didn't talk with each other until Paris whispered two days after the incident while the teacher had them write down several words on clay tablets: "Hector, sleep in my room today."

Hector thought he had misheard and looked at Paris, but Paris just smiled friendly.

"Hector! Pay attention!"

The evening came quicker than expected and Hector still hadn't decided whether he wanted to go to his brother's room or not.

A sudden knock interrupted his thoughts. Then the door opened. "What are you doing? I told you to come to my room." And Paris walked casually into his room and took his pillow and blanket and grabbed his older brother by the hand, pulling him along.

"This is my room," he said as they entered.

Paris threw the pillow and blanket on his bed.

Hector gulped. "So, what is it you wanted to talk about?" He looked at his hands.

"Me? Nothing. I just wanted someone spend time with."

Hector looked out of the window. And saw a clear horizon with stars shining bright in the night sky.

"The stars," he said a bit embarrassed. "You can't really see them from my window... Wanna watch?"

Paris laughed. "So, that really was the reason!" He took Hector's blanket and put it on the floor, then he took his own and packed Hector in it. "So you won't get sick again, watching the stars," he explained smiling.

This was probably the moment Hector understood, what people meant when they said "favored by the Gods". Paris was shining.

"We can share," Hector said and opened the blanket.

Paris didn't know what to say. "Really?" His eyes were widened. "Sure," he said then, sat down close to the young prince and put the blanket over his shoulder.

Hector didn't really remember what was said before. But after some exchange, they found themselves talking about the incident. "About that what happened... I'm sorry," Hector said, "It won't happen again."

"I know," Paris said simply. "You don't really like it."

"Huh?"

"Fighting, I mean. You're good at it and sometimes when you can't find the words, you rather let your fists speak." He grinned. "But afterwards you always feel sorry. And I think that makes a great king. The kind that does what he must."

Hector smiled embarrassed. "I promise, I'll be a good big brother to you in the future. I'll protect you, I'll be by your side, even if the whole world is against you."

"And I'll always have your back. I'll help you and be your right hand man. I promise you," Paris said in all honesty.

"Promise," Hector answered back.

Hector woke up in a room full of sleeping drunks. He didn't really remember when he had fallen asleep. His whole body hurt from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position. He sighed, tried to escape the pain with stretching and went up to his room to get his last stuff.

Looking down from his window he could see that dawn had broken and the ship was being loaded. Maybe I should help, he thought. Then he saw his brother, leading a cloaked figure to the ship. Weird, who could this be?

"It couldn't," he whispered to himself and took his sack and rushed down to the ship, which wasn't really difficult. Most of the guards were sleeping from the wine and those that weren't, were drunk.

When he arrived at the small harbor he saw Paris trying to hide the cloaked person in the ship.

"Paris! Hold it right now!" he yelled.

Paris turned around with a surprised look on his face. "Hector..."

"What are you doing?" Hector grabbed his brother's shoulders and shook him. "This isn't you! You're not a thief!"

Paris looked into his elder brother's eyes and grabbed his hand. "But I love her." It wasn't said pleadingly, like a little child wanting a toy it couldn't get, but firmly, like it was a universally acknowledged truth. As if he had just said "The sun is warm".

Hector pushed him away from himself: "Love," he laughed mockingly.

"Don't laugh about it," Paris said visibly more angry. His fists were clenched.

"But why wouldn't I? Paris, you love another women everyday of the week. This isn't love, it's a little brat being defiant!"

"But this time I really love her!"

"Again: You are more in love with the thought of being in love than with anything else!"

"You know that I'm honest about it! I will not leave her here with this tyrant!"

Paris was right. Hector really knew that this time it was different. And the more he denied it, the clearer it became. But Hector knew what this meant. King Menelaus was the younger brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. And they wouldn't bear this shame. There would be war. That was certain. And Hector, as the crown prince of Troy , couldn't allow this to happen. But was it right to sacrifice his brother's happiness for this purpose? Deep in his heart he knew he couldn't do that. Paris was his closest brother and a trusted friend.

Helen stepped forward. She had taken off her hood and seemed a bit afraid of Hector. "Can I say something now?"

Hector looked at her. "You may," he said sharper than intended.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I do love your brother. I don't like just because he was nice to me or because he is going to take me away from this place. I am not superficial like that. I have found the other 'half of my soul', as we say, in him. But I didn't want this. Paris always talked about how just and how responsible you are and how he admires you for all your traits. He loves you very much. I don't want to stand between that–"

"Then don't," Hector interrupted. "Tell him that you won't leave here, make your peace and leave us be! I have a son at home, whom I don't want to be raised inside a war like I was!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," she said, standing firm with an angry glance in her eyes.

"Good, I'll give you permission. But if you ever harm my brother's heart, be sure that I'll harm your pretty face in return," Hector threatened. Not knowing what to do. Maybe Father could talk some sense into Paris.

He got on board with the rest of the crew and they set sail to Troy. Home.

Author's Note: And so it begins... My magnum opus... or better yet my greatest disaster... This will be one big pile of work. But I love this epoch. Heroes, Gods and impossible tasks.

I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes. English is not my first language. But please let me know, if I made any grave mistake.

Hector is kind of the easiest for me to write. I don't know I just always liked him in the Iliad. Very righteous. And he always seemed like a family man.

Paris already gets a lot of shit from Homer and others, I think. And I always found that a bit harsh. Since Achilles is selfish too, it's just that the writers paint him in a better light. So I'm trying to make him sort of a free spirit.

Helen is more complicated. I don't really know how to write her. She is a Spartan, so I imagine her to be very proud, but on the other side she has been shoved to the most bidding like a cow and maybe treated as such in her marriage. You could make the argument that Menelaus treated her right but she was just being a bored bitch but I don't think you would risk a war, if you didn't really love the person you were eloping with. So I chose love over superficiality, also because it's easier to write.

Thank you for reading, if you have time, please feel free to comment.

Demochild