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"You are by far the nicest gaoler I have ever had," Relta teased and she was rewarded with one of Andromache's radiant smiles.
"Have you had so many?" Hector's wife answered, pouring her some wine.
Relta winced. "You'd be surprised," she answered wryly.

Andromache glanced up at her and handed her a cup.
While the city of Troy celebrated Achilles' defeat at the end of Paris' arrow, Relta had been deposited in Andromache's chamber and Hector's wife had firmly closed the door behind them. She'd patted the divan next to her and placed her little boy on Relta's knee while she fetched wine and fruit from the table at the end of the room.

"Won't you be missed?" Relta had asked.
"Hector will say that Scamandrius has a fever," Andromache replied, nodding at the little boy. "I doubt that I will be very much missed in the midst of all the toasts and speeches to Paris' honour."
Her voice held a note of bitterness as she continued: "I can't recall my father-in-law ever throwing a feast to celebrate my husband's many victories. But Paris kills one man, one devil, and the whole city must rejoice."
She clapped a hand over her mouth in horror.
"I'm so sorry," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "Please forgive me, my lady. I don't know what came over me."

"It's fine," Relta said, releasing the little boy, who wriggled off her lap to grab some grapes. "Please do not trouble yourself. I understand, I truly do."

Andromache looked at her gratefully. "I love Priam, with all my heart. But when it comes to Paris, he has a blindness. It will be the death of my Hector, I am sure."
"I hope not," Relta said. "Your husband is a good man."
And Andromache gave her another smile, albeit a watery one.
"He is," she replied. "He is an honourable man, a far better opponent than Agamemnon deserves."
"That was evident the second I met him."
The Trojan princess sat down, arranging her robes around her.
"And Achilles? Did you find him honourable?"

Relta looked at her, tried not to freeze. Every time Andromache mentioned him, she felt her skeleton stiffen, as though the other woman had touched an open nerve on her spine.
"He was honourable," she replied carefully. "In his own way. But I did not get to know him well."
"I thought you were lovers?"
"Yes."
She could not say more. Hector's wife looked at her curiously, then leaned forward a little.
"My mother always said that you learned the measure of a man on the pillow," she said softly.
Relta swallowed.
"I thought I could read him," she said truthfully, "But I'm not sure I ever really could."
For the blink of an eye, she saw his sleeping face, hair falling over his forehead, his body moving softly with each breath.

Andromache nodded.
"Perhaps because he is of the gods," she said, nodding wisely.
"He's not immortal," Relta shook her head. "He bleeds like other men. It's just that ... he heals. It's as though the gods gave him that body to send men to Hades and they tend to it like any warrior minds and mends his weapon."
Andromache's narrow face crumpled in distress.
"So if Hector is right and Paris hasn't killed him, you think he will recover?"
"If he is not dead, he will definitely recover," Relta said. "But who could survive a fall from that wall?"

Andromache shook her head.
"Do you not wish to know?" she cried. "You shared a bed. Do you not hope that he is still alive?"
Golden skin. Warm breath on her jaw as he moved inside her. The soft sound he made when he came.
She swallowed.
"I had to choose," Relta said dully. "I have a daughter. She's not even ten. They let her leave Kalios with my husband's man and they're waiting for me in Carthage. How could I think of staying with Achilles when my child is waiting for me across the sea?"
She bit her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood.
Andromache nodded and took her hand.
"I understand," she said.

xXx

"They are looking for her," Lysander muttered into Hector's ear.
Hector nodded, smiled, pretended to listen to Aeneas. As soon as he could, he excused himself from the banquet table and hurried outside, where Lysander stood in the shadows behind a large column, his helmet under his arm.

"Tell me all, Lysander," Hector said.
His captain glanced around.
"The men who brought her here said the warrior that gave them money for her passage came back to find her this morning. They told him that she'd gotten away and he became quite angry. As soon as he'd left, they hurried to tell me."
"Why did he want her back?"
"He did not say."
"Agamemnon has heard of her escape or Achilles wants her," Hector said thoughtfully.
He paced back and forth.
Lysander looked at him curiously.
"What are you thinking, my lord?"
"I have a feeling that Achilles yet lives. I would almost stake my life on it. And for whatever reason, he wants the woman back – or perhaps his friends want her back for him. Either way, we have something the Greeks want."
"Something else," Lysander corrected.

Hector laughed drily.
"Yes, we are slowly accumulating woman that the Greeks desperately desire."
He chewed the corner of his thumbnail, thinking it over.
"I promised to let her leave," he said. "But perhaps she could be persuaded to do us a small favour before she does."
"How will you do that, my prince?"
"I can do something she wants, and she can do something I want," Hector said. "A straightforward exchange."
"You want her to kill Achilles?" Lysander asked.
Hector shook his head.
"No," he answered. "I want her to kill Agamemnon."

xXx

The sounds of the banquet had faded. There was an occasional drunk chorus as some of the last revellers made their way home on the street below Andromache's chambers, but for the most part, the music and euphoric cheering that had punctuated the entire day had slowly come to an end.

Hector sat opposite her, upright and calm. Relta found his presence slightly intimidating: she felt the desire to sit up straighter, fold her hands more neatly. The Trojan prince was kindly but solemn, enquiring politely about her well-being and apologising for keeping her cooped up all day.

"It's just that we had to -"
"Figure out what to do with me," she'd finished and smiled at him. "But I think you agreed to let me go on my way?"

Hector cleared his throat.
"Achilles is alive," he said.
There it was again; the ice that dropped down her back, freezing her.
"I know this because there has been no pyre lit, there has been no word from our spies that he has been laid out. Instead, they say the kings are agitated; there is much activity in Agamemnon's tent. They're probably deciding what to do."

He nodded at her.
"So I'd like you to go back to him."
"My lord!" she cried, shocked.
"Hear me out," he said, raising a hand. "They're looking for you, the Achaeans. There are reports coming in that the villages have been visited by men in grey armour – "
"Ithacans," she said hoarsely. "They're the Ithacans. Odysseus' men."
"- Ithacans, looking for you. Why is that?"
"The king of Ithaca is his friend," she said, looking down at her hands.
She felt a weight descend on her shoulders.
"Well, I want you to go back to him. Say you have returned to tend to him, heal him, whatever it is a seer does."
"I have no talent with herbs or potions," Relta scoffed. "My tending would only speed him on his way to the afterworld."
Hector laughed out loud.
"Well, your being there might just be enough," he said.

"Why?" she said, her face serious. "Why should I, Prince Hector? You promised to let me continue on my journey. Why do you think I would go back?"
Hector stretched his fingers, cracking his knuckles, and she winced at the sound.
"My wife has told me about your child," he said.
She flinched and the Trojan nodded.
"So I have an offer for you, Queen Relta. Go back to the Greeks," he said slowly. "And if you kill Agamemnon, I will put you on a boat to Carthage to pick up your daughter, and that boat will take you to very edge of the world if that is where you want to go."

There was a ringing in her ears.
"Kill Agamemnon?"
"Stab him. Poison him. Slit his throat," Hector said, shrugging. "I really don't care. Kill Agamemnon and the fastest ship in our fleet will be yours to command. This I promise you on my honour as a prince of Troy."
"I can't kill Agamemnon," she said, feeling a bubble of nervous laughter rise up in her throat.
"Why not?"
"I've never killed anyone."
"The legends say you rode into battle on a magnificent horse and slaughtered a dozen Phoenicians."
"They're legends," she said. "If I were capable of killing anyone, Achilles' body would be ash on the Trojan sand by now."

Hector stood up.
"You have a night to think on it," he said. "If you don't want to, you can walk out the gate tomorrow and make your way, unharmed, to wherever you want to go. I will not stop you, but I also will not help you."

He looked at her, his brown eyes serious.
"If you agree, we will see that you are returned to the Achaean camp immediately. You can tell them that you heard that Achilles had been injured and you had a change of heart. Your loving feelings for him overwhelmed you and you felt compelled to return to his side."
She rolled her eyes, but Hector just smiled at her.
"White Queen," he chided, "She-wolf of Kalios, I know you say you have no regard for the man, but every time I say his name, you stop breathing for a second or two."

He stood up.
"So maybe it will not be that hard to fake concern and affection for your fallen hero. And as soon as the opportunity arises, you will kill Agamemnon and end this damned war."
"I don't understand: why don't you want me to kill Achilles?"
Hector shrugged.
"If you want to kill a snake, you chop off its head," he said. "Killing Achilles would shorten the war, but I want to finish it. Let him live – as long as he goes back to Phtia and takes his damned Myrmidons with him, he can live to be a hundred as far as I'm concerned."

Relta stood up to, faced Hector and tipped her head to one side, trying to gauge the seriousness of his offer.
"And if I don't kill the king of kings?"
"I have men on that beach," Hector said. "They cannot kill a mighty warrior like Achilles or a powerful king like Agamemnon, but a small woman like you?"
He cracked his knuckles again and, again, she winced.
"Think it over, your majesty," he said. "We'll talk in the morning."