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Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. About the Author
  4. Dedication
  5. By the Same Author
  6. Author’s Note
  7. Map
  8. Domus Libris
  9. House of the Wolf
  10. The House of the Wolf
  11. One
  12. Two
  13. Three
  14. Four
  15. Five
  16. Six
  17. Seven
  18. Eight
  19. Nine
  20. Ten
  21. Eleven
  22. Twelve
  23. Thirteen
  24. Fourteen
  25. Fifteen
  26. Sixteen
  27. Seventeen
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. Thirty-Eight
  49. Timeline of the Trojan Cycle
  50. Further Reading
  51. Acknowledgements
  52. Supporters

‘She is dead. But her head is still on her body, and her head is a powerful weapon. Bring it to us.’

‘What do you need weapons for?’ said Tisamenos.

‘We can’t tell you that,’ said Hero, curling her lip a little.

This was dangerous. Tisamenos was in a nest of rebels. They wanted power, but for what exactly? How could he do what they wanted? Did they mean harm to Orestes?

And yet they would help him. He thought again of Orestes, and of Erigone. He had to do it. He had to find out who killed his mother. ‘I – I don’t know where to find her …’

‘Then look.’

Someone blindfolded him, and a stinking hand was put over his mouth; he was spun round and round, and, his mind ringing, he was led in a zigzag way for what seemed like an age. Finally, he was shoved against a wall, and a voice said, ‘Wait till you hear the hoot of an owl, then take it off. Do it before then and we will kill you.’

He waited until he was sure he heard the sound, and then slowly removed the blindfold.

The chitter of a squirrel eating a nut. It scampered away from him. Some garments, fluttering from a window, left out to dry. A pool of dark water into which someone had thrown something that smelt revolting. His guts turned. He was in an unremarkable alley, somewhere near the far walls. A magpie was pecking about in the dirt.

He made his way slowly back to the kinghouse.

The Last Gorgon. It was a shadow, a legend.

And how could he bring back a shadow?

Seven

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Elissa Makes a Plan

LAVINIUM, ITALIA: HOUSE OF THE WOLF

The casket containing the Arrowhead drew all eyes as it sat on a trestle table in the middle of the forum. Everyone who could be spared had gathered there, Elissa noted. She saw fear in their eyes; fear in the faces of people she had known all her life. Little children clung to their mothers, sensing something was wrong. Older ones hung on hands, tugging to get away.

Though the forum was full, there was a ring of space around the Arrowhead. Nobody dared to go near it.

It was the day after the attack. Aeneas had doubled the guards on the walls, and work on the fortifications was continuing ever faster, the sounds of hammering and sawing rising into the air all around.

The night before, the people of Lavinium had built a funeral pyre and placed Stargazer’s body on it, and all the dozen others who had fallen. Watching the fire burn, Elissa saw the ashes rising into the clear night sky.

Now she was thoughtfully scratching the wolf cub’s belly, whilst watching Aeneas pace up and down, talking with Iulus and his advisors, playing with the handle of the short sword at his waist.