Troy 01 - Lord of the Silver Bow Read Online Free Page A

sea. That could prove a costly promise.”
    He leaned in and kissed her, then walked from the room.
    Phaedra sat down with Phia. “Do not be too disappointed, little one,” Phaedra said. “He
is
a god, really. He just doesn’t know it.”
    II
    Later, with the child bathed and in bed, Phaedra stood under the portico roof, watching the lightning. The wind was fresh and cool, gusting over the garden, filling the air with the scent of jasmine from the trees against the western wall. She was tired and strangely melancholy. This was Helikaon’s last night in Kypros. The season was almost over, and he would be sailing his new ship hundreds of miles to Troy and then north to Dardania for the winter. Phaedra had been anticipating a night of passion and warmth, the hardness of his body, the taste of his lips upon hers. Instead he had returned to the house with the half-starved, flea-bitten child of the toothless whore Ox had carried in earlier.
    At first Phaedra had been angry, but now she was merely unsettled.
    Sheltered from the rain, Phaedra closed her eyes and pictured the child, her shaven head covered by bites, her face thin and pinched, her eyes huge and frightened. The little girl was asleep now in the room next to her mother’s. Phaedra had felt the urge to hug her, to draw her close and kiss her cheek. She had wanted to take away the pain and fear from those large blue eyes. Yet she had not. She merely had drawn back the coverlet to allow the skinny girl to clamber into the wide bed and lay her head back on the soft bolster.
    “Sleep well, Phia. You will be safe here.”
    “Are you his wife?”
    “No. He is one of my gift givers. I am like your mother—one of Aphrodite’s maidens.”
    “There are no gift givers now,” Phia said sleepily.
    “Go to sleep.”
    Of course there are no gift givers, thought Phaedra. The mother was ugly and thin and old before her time.
    As you are getting old, she thought. Though blessed with a youthful appearance, Phaedra was approaching thirty-five. Soon her gift givers would fall away. Anger touched her. Who cares if they do? I have wealth now.
    Yet the sense of melancholy remained.
    In the eighteen years since she had become a Follower of Aphrodite, Phaedra had been pregnant nine times. On each occasion she had visited the temple of Asklepios and swallowed bitter herbs to end the pregnancies. The last time had been five years ago. She had delayed for a month, torn between the desire to increase her wealth and the growing need to be a mother. Next time, she had told herself. Next time I will bear the child.
    Only there had been no next time, and now she found herself dreaming of children crying in the dark, calling out to her. She would run around blindly trying to find them and then wake in a cold sweat. The tears would come then, and her sobs would echo the emptiness of her life.
    “My life is
not
empty,” she told herself aloud. “I have a palace and servants and wealth enough to live out my life without the need of men.”
    Yet was it true? she wondered.
    Her mood had been fragile all day, and she had felt close to tears when Helikaon had said he was going up to the shrine of Apollo. She had walked there with him once, a year ago, and had watched as he stood on the very edge of the cliff, arms raised, eyes closed.
    “Why did you do that?” she had asked him. “The cliff could give way. You could fall and be dashed on the rocks.”
    “Perhaps that is why,” he had answered.
    Phaedra had been mystified by the answer. It made no sense. But then, so much of Helikaon defied logic. She always struggled to understand the mysteries of the man. When he was with her, there was never a hint of the violence men whispered of: no harshness, no cruelty, no anger. In fact, he rarely carried a weapon when in Kypros, although she had seen the three bronze swords, the white-crested helmet, the breastplate, and the greaves he wore in battle. They were packed in a chest in the upper bedroom