She slipped away to the south. A few moments later, the steward, who was carrying a goose, came forwards. He dropped the bird, and, hissing, it waddled away among the women, who all started flapping their robes and shooing it. ‘Can’t you get that thing out of here?’ Erigone was shouting.

Quietly Elissa sidled to the north-eastern corner, and entered into another dark corridor. There she paused and looked at Silvius. The space between them was alive with anticipation. He was frowning, again fingering the chain.

Elissa sniffed. ‘Something’s tickling my nose.’ She grabbed at whatever it was, and gazed at it in the dim light. ‘It’s a feather …’

Before Silvius could reply, she was bombarded with them, as if someone were plucking a goose right next to her. She caught sight of Silvius’s astonished expression, before it was submerged in a whirl of blackness.

‘Silvius!’ Feathers were stuffing her mouth, so she kept it shut, and closed her eyes tight, feeling now that she was spinning round and round, into a vortex, and then being lifted bodily upwards. She uttered a silent prayer to the gods.

There was silence, and she was now standing on hard ground. Cautiously Elissa opened her eyes. They were in a large stone chamber, obviously underground, and she was relieved to see Hero waiting for them. Silvius was looking on with suspicion.

‘I think it’s all right,’ Elissa whispered.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Hero said. ‘You were brought here by the power of the Swallows. Silvius, you are my kin – I am also half-Trojan, though I never knew my mother, Cassandra.’ She half bowed to Silvius, who acknowledged it. ‘My grandfather was King Priam, your father’s cousin.’ Then she looked carefully at Silvius and Elissa, and seemed to acknowledge something to herself.

Elissa could not help feeling a little jealous of this family connection, but she did not show it.

‘And you have come to this place,’ Hero said. ‘The whole kinghouse reeks with slaughter. And now it is time to purify it.’ Her eyes glowed with a deep passion that Elissa found frightening.

Hero brought a grey robe from a wooden chest, which she held out to Elissa. ‘Erigone wants nothing more than to rid the city of Orestes. She burns with revenge for her father’s death. So you will go to her and explain that you are a new servant sent from Crete, with designs on Orestes’s life, to help Crete expand its power. You will offer her an alliance with the king there, and tell her to come with you to the beehive tombs.’ Elissa took off her own stained tunic and put on the soft grey robe. Hero gave her a ring, too, engraved with the bull insignia of the kings of Crete.