Timon intercepted her on her way over the dunes. He came running up the sand, his narrow face a picture of worry.
"My lady!" he cried. "Do not do it! My lady!"
Relta turned on him and grabbed his arm.
"Hush!" she scolded, glancing around.
The only other people nearby were those on the rough road that led to the little village north of the Achaean settlement. A man with a cart and oxen glanced at her curiously and she looked away.
"Achilles will – " he began.
"He knows," she said shortly. "He let me go. He did," she added crossly, seeing the doubt flit across his face. "I told him I didn't want to stay with him and he let me go."
"You are not lying?" Timon asked hesitantly.
"I give you my word of honour," she said squaring up to him. "I am free to leave. I just – "
Her voice faltered.
"- I just don't know where to go."

Timon drew a deep breath and looked around.
"The village – if you ask at the village, you might find someone willing to take you on one of the fishing boats. Maybe to the far shore. Have you gold?"
"Yes," she said. "I have enough."
She patted her leather pouch.
Timon smiled at her with a touch of pity.
"That might be enough for a man," he said, "but a woman travelling alone would need a case of gold to get across the sea unscathed."

Relta felt despair rise again.
"I can bargain," she said, with more conviction than she felt.
Timon smiled at her again, and again she saw that look of resigned pity on his face.
"My lady," he said quietly, "You will not even reach that village without one of the Greeks scooping you up and taking you back to his tent. As far as any man on this beach is concerned, you are a runaway slave. This much I can promise you."
She cursed silently, bit her lip.
Timon looked at her for a moment, considering, then said, "Very well. I will take you to the village and make sure you find a boat that will take you."
"Will you?" she cried. "Really? I can pay you – I have enough, I promise."
He patted her arm.
"Keep your gold," he said and started to trudge through the sand towards the road.
Relta scurried after him.
"Why are you helping me?" she called.
Timon's narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.
"I don't rightly know," he confessed. "Chances are, Achilles will have me whipped if he finds out."
"He won't find out," Relta said and fell into step beside him.
Timon looked towards the village in the distance and smiled grimly.
"He'll find out," he said. "He always does."

xXx

Timon negotiated passage for her with a wizened old fisherman and gave him a coin to let her spend the night in his shack with his equally wizened wife and their smelly dog. They would sail at daybreak.
"She will pay you when you land safely," Timon growled. "And if I ever hear that she did not land safely, I will hunt you down and kill you, then kill your wife and slit this stinking dog's throat!"
The old couple gasped and looked nervously from him to Relta, who tried to appear as unthreatening and benign as possible.
Then Timon planted a quick, shy kiss on her cheek, squeezed her arm and left her standing outside their door, feeling awkward.

The old woman gestured for her to come in and she went inside, blinking in darkness and coughing at the smoke from the fire.
"You a slave?" she asked gruffly.
"I am a freewoman," Relta replied.
The fisherwoman snorted.
"You look like one of their whores," she said.
"Well, I'm not."

It was hard to remain equable, but there was no point in antagonising her hosts, so Relta smiled at her politely.
The old woman raised an eyebrow and stirred a pot.
"What was you then, if you wasn't a slave?" she asked.
"I'm a ... I'm a seer," Relta said. The words popped out of her mouth.
It's what they had always said, she and her mother, they were seers. They read the runes, they saw the future.
"Oh?" the woman asked, looking up.
"Yes, I am just passing through, moving to the next town. I was planning to visit the Trojan court but I think I'll have to abandon that plan. The siege has even made it difficult for me to reach the mainland."

What a flimsy lie, she thought, but the old woman was already wiping down her hands on her shabby robe.
"Can you read my palm?" she asked, thrusting a dirty hand at Relta.
"I don't read palms," she said. "I have ... stones. Magic stones."
"Read me stones, then," the woman demanded.
Damn it, Relta thought crossly, annoyed with herself.
But she smiled and replied, "Certainly. Maybe we can go outside where there is more light?"

She squatted on the ground outside and carefully extracted the runestones from her pouch without jangling the coins. She sat on the leather bag and made herself comfortable. Then she began the routine she had done so often with her mother in attendance.

"What do you wish to know?" she said, lowering her voice so the old lady had to move closer to hear her.
Relta stared at her intently, concentrating on her lined face.
"My son," she whispered, "is he still alive?"
"Tell me about him," Relta said, cupping the stones in her hands.
The woman spoke of the boy, the young man, who had gone north to Abydos, to join the army and make his fortune, but Menelaus had sacked the city for supplies – had he survived?
Relta laid a cool hand on hers, placed the tips of two fingers on the old woman's forehead and said some nonsense in her own language – the words of a song her mother had sung her as a child. Then she silently laid the runestones.

"This one represents the yew," she said, "It represents the virtue of patience, of stoicism. He cannot be with you right now but he wishes he were, but he endures the separation with great courage. He thinks of home often because this stone shows the birch, which symbolises the family. Wherever he is now, he thinks of you often and would like to return, but something is preventing him from doing so..."
She glanced up. The old woman was hanging on her every word, her face anxious.
"But he will return?"

Relta made a show of selecting the next stone.
She turned it over and stroked the lines on its white surface. She paused, frowning.
"He will," she said finally.
The fisherwoman gasped.
"This represents the beacon, the light that shines in the darkness. He will find his way back to you but it will take some time. You must have faith in his return."
She scooped up the stones.
"That is all," she said solemnly.
The other woman stood up, gathering her robe in her worn hands. She rushed to the fence that separated the rough scrub in front of her house from the next and shouted,
"Lysa! Lysa, come here! We've got a seer staying with us!"
Curse me, gods, thought Relta grimly.
"Is she any good?" Lysa said, her broad face sun-reddened and veined.
"She is amazing," the fisherwoman said. "She has magic stones. Come quickly."

She read the runes of the neighbouring women and their men, when they came back from their boats. Listening carefully, she picked up titbits about the neighbours as the audience whispered and she recycled the information with a thoughtful frown.
"How could she know?" someone asked.
Because I have ears and I can hear you, she thought. People are so gullible.
Her host squatted in the sand opposite her and said,
"Tell me, seer, will this siege end soon?"
Relta felt her stomach twist. If only they knew. It might very well end faster than they imagined.
She laid out the stones and pretended to study them.
"This stone represents hail," she said.
The people looked at her blankly.
"Like rain, but very cold. Ice," she added, but they shook their heads.
She smiled to herself and tried to remember what her mother used to call it for these people who lived in a land of blue skies.

"This stone represents thunder," she improvised. "It can be heard in the distance, rumbling its warnings. It is the sound of coming destruction, a coming battle. And this – "
She paused for a moment and looked at the stone in her hand.
"This is the stone of change. Something will change: a death with occur or some obstacle will be scaled – "
"Like the walls of Troy?" the fisherman said quickly.

She hesitated.
Oh no.
"Perhaps not literally," she said. "Not necessarily an actual wall. It can also mean a challenge – "
"But it could also mean that walls will be scaled?"
"Yes, I suppose so but what it probably means is that – "

The fisherman sat back on his heels and nodded up at the men who stood around him.
"See?" he said gruffly.
"Aye."
"Aye, it's true then, what they say."
"Ivos saw them with his own eyes, he said something was up."
"What do the stones say about Achilles?" the fisherman snapped.
Relta felt her intestines turn to ice.
"Achilles?" she croaked.
"Aye, the Myrmidon. There's a rumour that he's going to attack the walls of Troy."
She felt her mouth open and close wordlessly.
Trying to buy time, she gathered the stones in her hand and clasped them, feeling their comforting coolness. She lay them facedown on the sand, let her fingers hover over them, then selected one at random.

She turned it over.
"Hey," one of the fishermen said excitedly, "That's the one we had already."
"That's right," her host said. "That one means thunder, doesn't it? The coming destruction?"
"Well, it might also mean change – " she tried again, but excited chatter had broken out among the villagers.
"We must take her to King Priam," the fisherwoman said decisively. "He will surely listen to her – look, she knew about the lump in Lysa's side – "
"No," Relta said, panicking. "No, I simply cannot – I couldn't possibly – "
"You said you had planned to go to Troy," the fisherwoman said. "We know of ways to smuggle you in. Now we knows you ain't no Achaean spy."
"Oh, I might still be a spy!" she laughed gaily, a note of hysteria in her voice. "I'm sure Priam won't have time for the ramblings of a humble seer!"
"We must take her," one of the men said and hauled her to her feet. "Come, seer, we will take you now so that they may be ready for those Greek sons of whores."
"Please," she began weakly but the man who had pulled her up was marching her towards the middle of the village, followed by a taggle of neighbours.
"Demos!" he cried, flagging a man with a cart down, "are you heading for the city?"
"Aye, to be sure," the man said.
"You have to take me and this woman with you," the fisherman said. "King Priam must hear what she has to say."

xXx

They did not head for the main gate, watched by the Achaean spies. Instead they wove their way around the side of the great walls where a small trickle of people was heading through a narrow and heavily-armed gate.

Relta looked about, confused. She was perched on a sack on the back of the cart, next to the bony frame of the fisherman.
"The city – I thought the city was under total siege?" she said.
The fisherman, Pel, and Demos laughed.
"Aye, total siege," Pel said scornfully. "As long as we pretend that's the case, eh, Demos?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"The Achaeans and the Trojans have been trading nigh-on three years now. 'Cept no one admits it, right? The Trojans have salt stores and horses, the Greeks have fish and weapons. Not to mention the fact that the Trojans have women – they're plenty valuable too, I hear."
Pel rubbed his shoulder against hers and she moved away, trying not to shudder.

The cart rumbled to a stop and two Trojan sentries came forward. Relta looked up the towering wall. Up close, it seemed to reach to the sky, its stone the same colour as the sand beneath their feet. On both of the two-level ramparts there was a line of archers, their arrows trained on their cart.

"We have a seer from – where are you from, girl?" Desos called and turned to poke her.
"North, the Northern Islands," she said.
Pel tugged the cloth on her head and showed some of her hair.
"She's really pale," he said. "Look at her! I think it's true."
"What does she want?" one of the sentries said.
"She has valuable information for the king," Desos said importantly.
"It's not information," Relta began, "More of a – "
"Is that so?" the sentry said, ignoring her.
"Aye, it is. It's information the king will want to hear. Believe me."
The sentry looked at them suspiciously.
"I don't know if I can really trouble the king with my little prophecies," she said with her most charming smile - but her demurral had the opposite effect to the one she'd hoped for.
The sentry eyed her and sneered, "You trying to withhold information from our king?"
"No, it's just that – it's just a prophecy."
"You don't believe in your own prophecies?" he asked sharply and she was momentarily at a loss for words.
"Proceed," the sentry said. "You can talk to Captain Lysander first and see if what you have to say needs to reach the king's ear."

Pel slid down off the back of the cart and Relta followed. They waited while the soldiers checked the cart and then followed it through heavy gate. Inside, she looked curiously around. The city's houses were neat, white cloth curtains hung at the windows to keep out the sun and the breeze, window boxes looked tended. The roads were clean and paved, the great city walls on the inside bore ornamental carvings, as though decoration might make them seem less like the fortification they were.

"Wait here," the sentry said sternly. "I will find Lysander – wait, there he is!"
Relta spun around and saw a man in the Trojan tunic coming down the rampart steps.
"Captain!" the sentry called out. "One of the villagers says this woman here has valuable information about the Achaeans' plan for attack."
Lysander stepped closer and behind him she spotted a slight young man, his dark hair bound back by gold rings. He wore the cobalt blue of royalty and he looked at her with open curiosity.
Relta felt an urge to run. He had to be one of Priam's sons and, given his relative youth, she guessed it was the younger one.
She was right.

"Prince Paris," the sentry said and bowed smartly. "This is a seer from the Northern Islands. This villager says she has prophesised an attack by the Greeks."
"I just interpret the stones," she said, shooting the prince a disarming smile. "My interpretation might well be wrong. It probably is."
"And what did these stones say?" said the Prince. He had a light, melodious voice and when he looked at her, his handsome eyes danced.
She searched for the words but Pel beat her to it.
"She said that Achilles is on the horizon, like the thunder of coming destruction, and that he will scale our walls."

Paris looked at her, his face a study in naked dismay, and Relta realised with a shock that he knew: he knew about the Achaeans' plan.
But how? How did he know?
He pressed his lips together.
"Take her to my quarters," he said. "I will question her personally. Myself. She is my prisoner. Do not tell my father of this until I establish whether she is telling the truth."
The sentry grabbed her arm and marched her down the street.
"But I – please, your majesty, Prince Paris – " she called, twisting around.
But Paris was deep in conversation with his captain of the guard. He simply glanced up and waved at the sentry to carry on.