Page 47 of Odette's Vow

“Queen of Fallen Troy, Hecuba. The generals have gone to a great deal of effort and trouble to decide where each of you shall be placed now that your husbands, brothers, uncles, and cousins are dead,” Talthybius continued.

The unspoken words sat heavy between us all; they had to be placed with a male. They couldn’t hope to run a city without one. The thought was laughable, though not, it appeared, to the women standing in front of us, who scoffed.

Talthybius hesitated, so I stepped forward a foot, everyone’s attention turning to me. “Polyxena, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, seeing as you were requested by the great Achilles and he is now dead, you will be given to the gods at his tomb.”

The girl, no more than four and ten years of age, would have buckled on long legs to her knees had the two women either side of her not caught her by the elbows and kept her on small, shaky feet.

Her death would be a waste, for her skin was pure ivory, her hair a shade of raven braided across the crown of her head. She had large eyes, a good nose, pleasant lips. She was, by all standards, the truest definition of beauty to most men, and undoubtedly a virgin as she was not yet married. But, honour for honour’s sake had to be taken into account, at least at Pyrrhus’ insistence for his father, and so she would die. I had not been able to convince the men otherwise.

“Andromache,” I continued, for I could do nothing but. “As Hector’s wife, you will be given to Pyrrhus as a token of your husband’s rivalry with Achilles.”

“Was his death not enough?”

Andromache’s voice was as cold as Hecuba’s. She would have made a wonderful Queen of Troy. But where the Queen was dark and slim, with round honey-coloured eyes, a long nose, and a calm demeanour, Andromache was shorter with blondish hair and fuller features.

“No,” Pyrrhus interrupted. “It was – is – not. We should have every Trojan man killed, even the boy carried in a mother’s womb.”

A collective gasp fell from the group.

“It’s not as if we need to throw children from the battlements of the city,” I said quietly.

“What an excellent idea!” King Agamemnon boomed.

“You wouldn’t” Andromache breathed.

“No, we wouldn’t,” I confirmed, staring down Agamemnon.

“Well, there is one that must die,” Pyrrhus said, his beady eyes lighting up in delight.

“Who?” Agamemnon demanded.

My heart sunk into the pit of my stomach as I realised who exactly Pyrrhus was speaking of.

“Who?” Andromache echoed the king’s question.

When no one offered an answer, I took on the task. “A Trojan prince, even a babe, cannot be allowed to live.”

“No.” Her voice trembled but did not break. Impressive.

“Odysseus is quite right,” Agamemnon bleated. “It is the way of such things in war time. If you do not agree to hand the boy over, we will not allow him his burial rites. Now, where is he?”

“You are monsters,” Hecuba spat as she held Andromache in her arms.

“We are Greeks, taking what is rightfully ours. So say the gods by granting us this victory. You’d do well to obey them. Take the mother of the prince. Have her bring him back from whatever hole they’ve hidden him in,” Agamemnon barked at the guard behind Andromache, who grappled with the woman trying to shrug him off before forcefully grabbing her hair and pushing her back towards the smouldering city.

“As for the rest of you – what are we doing with them again, Odysseus?”

“Hecuba, Queen of Troy, will come with me back to Ithaca.”

“Of course it is my lot to be a slave to a vile and treacherous man,” she muttered, just loudly enough for it to carry across our strange group.

I clenched my jaw at the insult. In truth, the reason I’d requested her was because I saw a lot of Penelope in her. My wife would find a great friendship with Hecuba. Who better for a queen than the one who had ruled by her husband’s side for more than fifty years?

“Cassandra,” I continued, “has been requested by King Agamemnon.”

I looked at the woman, the one who it was said spoke false prophecies, yet had that clear-cut warning in her voice when I was in the belly of the wooden horse. She was the shortest and bulkiest of all of them, round-faced too, but with a noble nose and shrewd dark eyes that did not match her straw-coloured hair.

She didn’t say anything, which would have surprised me the most had it not been for the small quirk of her dark brow. That was the only indication she gave me that she had even heard the directive.

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