The feast was a great success, everyone agreed. The island had been full of game before the sphinx had turned virtually every creature it met into stone, and so, with the passing of the sphinx, a great many stone statues had been startled to find themselves turned back into animals and birds, and even more surprised to be turned into dinner shortly afterwards. Many of the courses were things the Greeks hadn't thought of eating, but at least none of them seemed to be human flesh, nor – to Achilles' relief – fish.

'This is nice,' said Cressida. 'What is it?'

'Tortoise in peanut sauce,' said Penthesilea.

'It's even better than the smoked porcupine. Could I have the recipe?'

'I'd never had tortoise before,' said Achilles. 'Is that what I'm eating? The one in the spicy sauce?'

'No, that's chicken,' said another Amazon.

Achilles' eyes widened in alarm. 'I'm eating a bird? Something that pecks in the dust? That's disgusting! Why didn't you warn me?'

'Take no notice, she's just teasing you,' said Penthesilea. 'It's crocodile really.'

'Oh, that's okay then. I must say, you Amazons have got the right idea about meals. Plenty of meat, and a few bits of fruit in between courses, but not overdoing it. Most of the women back home in Greece think a solid meal is a cheese and olive salad with a lump of bread, and maybe a few anchovies.'

'That's no way to feed a fighter,' agreed Penthesilea.

'Is it the other way round in your tribe?' asked Achilles. 'With the men staying at home and wanting people to eat more salad, and the women going out to fight and coming home and demanding meat?'

'Oh, we don't keep a lot of men,' said Penthesilea. 'We've learnt from the bees and the ants: if you've got a queen in charge, and women doing the work, all you need is a few males to breed from. So we tend to keep just the strongest of the boy-children, and leave the rest in the wilderness for the lions.'

'That's terrible,' said Cressida. 'They can't help being born boys, can they? None of us can help being what we are.'

'So? What about all the tribes where they prefer boys to girls, and leave unwanted baby daughters to die? We're just evening up the balance a bit.'

'Isn't "the Lions" the name of the tribe next door to you?' asked Helen. 'The ones who wear lion-skins, the way you hyena-skins?'

'That's right. I suppose our ancestors tossed with theirs for a totem animal, and we won. After all, hyenas might not look as noble as lions, or roar as loudly, but they're deadlier, better disciplined, and they've got jaws that can crunch bones. Mind you, the Lion tribe are a lot more soft-hearted than they'd want you to think. They're good to children – boys, anyway. They're not so fond of daughters – in fact, sometimes they'll even abandon baby girls in the wilderness.'

'Is that near where you leave the baby boys?' suggested Cressida.

'Fairly near. That's why we generally leave them without a nappy on, and the Lions do the same, so everyone knows what they're taking home.'

'But how do you actually bring up babies?' asked Cressida. 'Do you feed them on cows' milk or goats' milk as soon as they're born?'

'What? Of course not! Newborn babies can't drink cows' milk! They need women to feed them.'

'But – well, I always thought Amazons cut off just one of their – I mean, if you cut them both off, then how...?' Cressida gave up, in case her question seemed rude.

Penthesilea roared with laughter. 'By Demeter, you didn't think all our tribe were Amazons, did you? We're just the soldiers! I told you, it's like a nest of ants or bees: some women birth to babies, other women bring them up, some go out growing crops or herding cattle or hunting game or gathering fruit to feed the tribe, and some fight to protect the tribe. You see, you can have anything you want out of life, but you can't have everything you want.'

'But what if what you have isn't what you want?' asked Cressida. 'What if you were born to be an Amazon queen, but you'd rather stay at home and bring up children?'

'Then you don't make yourself an Amazon, and you stay at home and bring up children. Nobody has to become an Amazon just because her mother and grandmother were Amazons. But the point is, if you want to be a soldier, you can't prove that you have the right to shed your enemy's blood until you've shown that you have the courage to wound your own flesh, and cauterise the wounds and sew them up, without screaming. But, obviously, that means that if you decide to have children later on, you'll need to give them to another woman to nurse. And if you want to feed babies, that means deciding not to become an Amazon. Not everyone can do everything.'

'But why can't everyone have a family and a career? I always thought you Amazons were free, because you didn't have to do what men said.'

'We are free: as free as the goddesses themselves. Think about their choices. Athene and Artemis choose to be single and not have children, to concentrate on being goddesses of war or of hunting; Hestia chooses to be single and stay at home, guarding the hearth-fire. Demeter chooses to be a single mother, and be driven mad with grief for half of every year, when her daughter is gone from her; Persephone chooses to compromise, spending half the year in the sunlight and the growing crops with her mother, and the other half ruling the realm of the dead with her husband. Hera chooses to submit to marriage with Zeus, in order to be queen of the gods; Aphrodite chooses to have affairs with many gods and men, never being bound to one partner, and never having a very settled family life. Choosing one path means choosing not to take another.'

'And plenty of goddesses don't bring up their own children, either,' added Achilles. 'My mum was foster-mum to Hephaestus the god of metalwork, before I was born, because Hera, his own mother, had abandoned him. But then she got married to my dad and had me, and then they split up when I was a baby, so I suppose I must have been fed by a wet-nurse. I don't remember her, though. I just remember Phoenix, and Patroclus.'

'You did have a nurse: a girl called Chloe,' said Phoenix. 'But you didn't like having anyone except me looking after you, so I took over doing everything except feeding you, and as soon as you were on solid food, your dad gave Chloe her freedom. He said she'd more than earned it. She married Alexander, the blacksmith.'

'I remember Alexander,' said Achilles. 'I remember sitting in his forge, watching while he shod a horse. I remember he used to pray to Hephaestus, but he wouldn't believe me when I told him that my mum had looked after Hephaestus when he was a baby.' He paused. 'Was I that much of a brat? If my mum couldn't stand me and Chloe couldn't either?'

'You know it wasn't your fault,' said Phoenix. 'Your mum – well, she's a goddess, and it took her a long time to get used to the idea that her child was a mortal. And you were miserable after she'd gone, and wouldn't settle unless I was cuddling you. But I didn't mind. I'd always wished I could get married and have children of my own, but that didn't work out, so – well, having you and Patroclus to look after, and having you dribbling on me and being sick all over me and screaming blue murder if I tried to put you down, was the next best thing.'

'You were a little horror,' said Patroclus affectionately. 'You were always swiping my toys, and biting if I put my hand in your cot to take them back. Honestly, I don't know why I love you.'

'And what about you?' asked Briseis. 'Did Achilles' parents adopt you when you were a baby?'

'No, I was banished from my home kingdom when I was nine,' said Patroclus. 'I took refuge in King Peleus's palace, but that was after Thetis had left.'

'Nine?' exclaimed Briseis, wide-eyed. 'You couldn't have done anything bad enough to deserve that, could you? Not when you were a child.'

'I'd killed another child, a boy called Andreas,' said Patroclus flatly. 'I didn't mean to, of course; we'd had a fight because he was cheating at marbles, and I hadn't meant to do more than give him a black eye and make him give back the marbles he'd won, but we were fighting on the edge of a cliff, and I accidentally knocked him over the edge. I knew I ought to go and tell a grown-up, in case they could rescue Andreas if he wasn't quite dead yet, and at the very least I ought to tell Andreas's parents what had happened. But if I had, they'd have killed me, in revenge. So I just panicked, and ran away, without even leaving a message to tell my parents why I'd gone.'

'And you walked all the way to another kingdom on your own?' Briseis was now impressed as well as shocked. 'I'd never have had the courage to do that when I was nine. I don't think I would even now.'

'Well, I wasn't on my own for very long. It might have been a few days, maybe a few weeks, but I don't really remember very much about that bit. I met Phoenix on the road, because his father had banished him and he was looking for a new home, too. Phoenix protected me until we came to Pthia, but he made sure I sent a letter back to my parents to let them know I was safe, as soon as King Peleus had agreed to give us refuge.'

'I don't remember my dad being around when I was little, either,' said Achilles. 'I think he was mostly off on quests and adventures, like going in search of the Golden Fleece with Jason and the other Argonauts. My mum used to come and visit occasionally, and sometimes she brought other sea-nymphs with her, or other gods like Hephaestus, but mostly I was just with Phoenix and Patroclus. They're my real family.'

'I didn't know about that,' said Cressida. 'In Troy, there was a rumour that you'd been brought up by a centaur in a cave somewhere, or something. We thought that must be why you were much stronger than an ordinary man.'

Achilles laughed. 'Oh, no, that was much later – I'd have been about thirteen by then. Cheiron was another one who came to my dad for help, when people tried to stone him to death for practising medicine, because centaurs weren't allowed to treat humans.'

'But why not?' asked Troilus. 'I always thought centaurs were much wiser than humans, and knew a lot about medicine and the stars and prophecy and things.'

'Well – some do,' said Achilles. 'But a lot of the ones in Greece aren't very interested in anything much except drinking and sex – they're a lot like the satyrs, really, but they're much bigger and stronger, and they can be dangerous fighters. And because of that, when Cheiron was a colt, no centaurs were allowed to go to school with humans, in case they caused trouble, so Cheiron hadn't been able to qualify formally as a doctor. But he was allowed to work as a vet, and that involved treating other centaurs, and other half-human creatures like satyrs and fauns and werewolves, as well as horses and cows and dogs. And, obviously, a werewolf in full human mode isn't any different from a normal human, so he'd learnt quite as much about treating humans as any human doctor knew – or even more, because he'd lived so much longer than any human – and he wouldn't turn away humans who came to him for help because their own doctors couldn't cure them. So the doctors were jealous, and they wanted to have Cheiron slaughtered and used for dog-food, like any other animal that's become dangerous and uncontrollable.'

'What did your father do?' asked Cressida.

'Well, Cheiron had taken refuge in the palace gardens, so my dad told the doctors that as the centaur was a wild animal that was currently on his land, it was his property. He said, as it didn't have an owner, he didn't have to buy it, and he intended to tame it and keep it as a pet for me, and we would be responsible for its behaviour in future. And when the doctors had gone, my dad went and explained the situation to Cheiron, and offered to build him a luxury stable and bring him anything he needed – healing herbs, scientific instruments or anything else – if he'd stay on our grounds. So Cheiron was happy to stay with us, and he did his best to pass on some of his learning to Patroclus and me, but Patroclus was much better than I was at learning things like medicine and mathematics and astronomy. I just wanted to learn how to fight and how to play the lyre and tell stories.'

'But I thought you said centaurs weren't allowed to practise medicine,' pointed out Cressida.

'They weren't allowed to practise it,' said Patroclus. 'Nobody had thought to make a law saying centaurs couldn't teach medicine. In fact, by the time we left for Troy, Cheiron had started a school teaching lots of trainee doctors about medical ethics and how to deal with epidemics, and why they mustn't pass on anything a patient had told them in private. Even the doctors who used to make fun of him respect him now, and they've started calling him "Hippocrates" – the Horse-Master.'

'He's not half as wise as he thinks he is,' said Achilles. 'He won't accept anything that's happened that doesn't fit in with what he thinks the laws of nature are. When Heracles told him what had happened to Alcestis and Admetus, all Cheiron would say was that dead people don't come back to life, and Alcestis must just have been unconscious and then recovered. Even when the god Apollo himself told us what Alcestis had done for her husband, Cheiron just said there was probably a polluted well or something that gave Admetus and Alcestis an infection, but that by now they'd developed immunity, and there was nothing supernatural about it. He's got no poetry in his soul, that centaur.'

'What did Alcestis do?' asked Penthesilea.

'Well,' Achilles began, 'this is what Apollo told me...'