He wondered if he’d been led into a trap. He was the king’s son, after all. A tall man with heavy muscles was looking at him with a hostile expression, and suddenly the muscleman’s hand was at his throat, a knife edge pushing aside his costly tunic and grazing his belly.

‘Who’s this?’ said the thug. He was hard and lean, and he had a cold glint in his eye.

Tisamenos looked around wildly for the girl, but she had vanished. There was no sign either of Hero.

‘I followed someone in here,’ said Tisamenos, before realising that was an obvious thing to say. ‘I mean, I followed the swallow.’

The flat of the knife pressed further into his stomach. He stood rigid, aware of movement, talking, whispering. He thought that if he died here, it would be a while before anyone noticed. Would Orestes even do anything? Maybe not whilst he had his new son to think about.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said the thug, gripping his shoulder. ‘I’ll have to take you to the chief.’

Tisamenos was led through a low archway into an inner room. Light slanted through from a light well up above, and he could make out the edges of the chamber. There was no furniture, but a dozen or so people were standing there, features indistinguishable in the shadows. His whole body was trembling, and he did not want it to show.

He was pushed into the centre, and encircled by the group. The thug was joined by a wizened old lady, all shrunken and creased, and a small man with amber-coloured skin and long, drooping black moustaches. A monkey sat on his shoulder, chattering.

The stench of smoke and sweat was unbearable. He had no sweet herbs to put to his nose now. He felt ashamed of his fine clothes, and of the smallness of the room, and the people’s poor, torn, dirty rags.

A figure wearing a bird mask approached him, and knocked him hard on the shoulder so that he fell to his knees.

‘Who comes to the Temple of the Swallow?’

‘Tisamenos,’ he replied, looking up. The figure kicked him in the guts, and he grunted.

‘Who comes to the Temple of the Swallow?’

‘Tisamenos, son of Orestes, King of Mykenai; grandson of Agamemnon, High King of all the Achaeans, of the ancient and royal House of Atreos.’ He clenched his teeth, and tried to stand up. A ripple of mocking laughter shimmered round the room, and he was shoved back into the dirt.

‘I asked you before, and I will not ask you again. Think very carefully before you answer. If you answer wrongly once more, your tongue will be cut out, so that you will never be able to talk of what you have seen.’