Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Title
- About the Author
- Dedication
- By the Same Author
- Author’s Note
- Map
- Domus Libris
- House of the Wolf
- The House of the Wolf
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Timeline of the Trojan Cycle
- Further Reading
- Acknowledgements
- Supporters
An arm, heavy, on his shoulder. It was a guard, the thickset one. ‘Time to go, Silvius. You’ve got to answer to Aeneas.’
At that name, the centaur’s body jerked. His chest rose and fell. Suddenly he took a great, deep horsey breath, and clutched at a casket that hung on a golden chain around his neck. Silvius had not noticed it before, but now his eye was drawn to it; it was about the size of a man’s fist, the surface black yet shining and polished.
With a roar, the centaur bellowed, ‘Danger. Danger in the hills. Take me to the Wolf. Take me to Aeneas. Now!’
Two
The Swallow
MYKENAI, ACHAEA: KINGHOUSE OF THE LION
A thousand miles away from Lavinium, beyond harsh mountains and across storm-wracked seas, the ancient royal city of Mykenai rose high, brooding between two hills overlooking the wide plains of Argos. The vast stone blocks of the wall, so big they were said to have been made by giants, encircled the whole, and a pair of enormous stone lions stood guard, set into the lintel over the way into the citadel.
Right in the centre of the citadel was the kinghouse, built in a time beyond living memory.
Here, in a corner of the entrance hall, obscured in shadows, the boy Tisamenos lurked.
His father Orestes was leading his new bride across the threshold. Leaning against the damp, crumbling stone wall, Tisamenos clenched his fist, though he was careful to stay out of the torchlight spilling from the many brackets lining the walls.
Orestes was already stumbling a little, his garland askew on his greying blond hair, cheeks flushed, whilst his slender young wife Erigone moved slowly, beaming, her hands proudly clasped on her heavily pregnant belly, fingers glinting with jewelled rings.
Finely dressed guests were thronging the bridal pair, throwing nuts and flowers at them, quaffing from golden goblets of wine, singing and belching. Somebody slipped on a grape and almost went sprawling, but was righted by a giggling flute player.
A lyre player, strolling about, sang of the wedding of a mortal to a sea goddess. Kinghouse servants flitted everywhere, carrying silver plates of dates and finely worked jugs brimming with the sweetest wine from the well-stocked cellars. The spits had been working overtime, and the delicious scent of roasting cattle drifted through the corridors.
Tisamenos bit his fingernail and tugged on a length of his blond hair, which fell down to his shoulders, until he felt a sharp pain on his scalp.
The bride was tall, with bony limbs and long brown hair. She must have sensed Tisamenos’s gaze, as, looking over her shoulder, whilst keeping Orestes in a tight grip, she addressed him.
‘Why do you skulk, my son? I can call you that now, can’t I?’ She spoke politely, and smiled, the thin, insipid smile that Tisamenos hated so much. He turned away, and Erigone made a little moue of disappointment.