Page 50 of Odette's Vow

All, it appeared, except Hecuba, who gathered her blood-soaked skirts to straddle him. When I realised that she now intended to finish the castration, I finally moved. Striding over to her and wrapping my arms underneath her armpits, I pulled her off him as she kicked and screamed.

“Stop this madness!”

“He is a vile, greedy traitor who killed my son, to keep our treasures for himself! He deserves no less,” Hecuba hissed. “Let me GO!”

Gone was the gracious former Queen of Troy. In her place was a creature akin to a rabid dog, wriggling and straining against me with all her might.

“Then he shall be tried in a court of man. Not here, not like this.”

“She took my eyes! My eyyyesss!” Polymestor moaned. “It’s she who should be tried! She is nothing more than a slave. Both of them! Who are they to do this to a king?!” he continued to lament.

“I suggest you shut your mouth before one of them attempts to take your tongue, for I cannot restrain them both.”

It wasn’t a minute later before one of the messengers barged into the tent, undoubtedly to see the scene for himself. He looked to me, still restraining the former queen, his eyes bulging out of his rat-like face.

“Go and get King Agamemnon! And a doctor while you’re at it!” I barked at him.

He nodded, scurrying away.

“Odette – we don’t have much time. Who did this? Tell me it was Hecuba only, and let us be done with this.”

I felt the woman in question wriggle in my grasp. Then Odette’s eyes, bigger than I’d ever seen them, met mine.

“They killed her son. She thought she was entrusting him to them, that she was keeping him safe, and theykilledhim. Then theylaughedabout it, in this tent.”

I didn’t take my eyes off her face, but in my periphery I saw her fists clench.

She had done this.

The general in me would have had her seized, killed. There was no other way to deal with such a crime. But the man in me … The man in me knew her history, knew her temperament. She wasn’t just another woman in this war. She was Odette, and that changed everything.

When I heard the other kings’ forces arrive in my camp, I hauled Hecuba to her feet and dragged her outside with me, clasping Odette’s hand with my other, tugging her along with us. We left Polymestor in the tent, where a young doctor struggled to staunch the bleeding, struggling against the maimed king’s restless thrashing. I could still hear the doctor protesting, telling Polymestor to stay calm, when King Agamemnon approached. I dropped Odette’s hand.

“What is the meaning of this, Odysseus? I was getting my ships ready to leave when I got word there was a right royal skirmish in your area. What – can’t keep a woman under control?” He eyed Hecuba in front of me with a sneer. “You should do what I’ve done with mine,” he continued, giving a nod to the soldiers behind him. Between them stood Cassandra, who now had a necklace of heavy chains around her throat. On theend of one loop, another chain of metal followed down into a soldier’s hand.

A leash.

I felt Hecuba vibrate with anger against me.

“Come and see for yourself. But I suggest we leave the others out here, to spare the dignity of those inside.”

Agamemnon nodded, following as I escorted Hecuba back into the tent. This time, Odette followed of her own volition.

Good.

Now, Polymestor sat against the central pole of the tent, holding a damp towel to his crotch, his eye bandages bloody. The doctor had covered the sons’ bodies with sheets. The scene was a touch more civilised than it had first been.

“King Polymestor, I have King Agamemnon with me.”

“Andher, I take it. I can still smell her sickly perfume. That siren,” he spat. “I want her punished, you hear me? I want her and that other slave that was with her given to me. I’ll take them back to Thrace, where they can be whored out to the men for taking their princes from them. Then, once their children are ripped from their wombs, they will be strangled as punishment for their crimes against me!”

“What other slave?” Agamemnon asked.

“Mine,” I answered. “And she is mine to do with as I see fit.”

“I did you Greeks a favour,” Polymestor snivelled. “I made sure her boy couldn’t come back and avenge his brothers and his father. And you let THIS happen to me!”

“If I may speak, my lord?” Hecuba’s voice was once again that cold, gracious tone I had heard before. Gone was the raging, vengeful monster. In her place, a former royal who even now sought to bend King Agamemnon to her will, as she had with Polymestor an hour ago.

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