Someone gripped Tisamenos firmly by the elbow, and dragged him away from Orestes, who remained silent, though slightly slumped, his expression unreadable.

Erigone still had one hand over her mouth and the other on her belly. She was gasping a little. Orestes tenderly stroked her cheek and whispered in her ear; she was then led away to her chambers.

Orestes approached his son, placed two fingers under his chin and forced him to look upwards. Tisamenos glared back, unrepentant.

‘If you have caused your mother any harm by this,’ he said coldly, ‘you will answer for it.’ Tisamenos looked for that flame. But now in his father’s eyes he could only see sadness.

Orestes swept away to the feast, without once looking back. The guests were flowing on already, their attention caught by something else, moving to the prancing tunes of the flute and lyre players.

Tisamenos sank back into a dark corner and wept, letting the sobs convulse his whole body, as he had not done since the day his mother had died.

As he slowed down, he heard someone calling his name. He took a deep pull of air right into his lungs. It calmed him a little.

‘Tisamenos … my pretty Tisamenos … I have something for you.’

He looked up and saw, emerging from the shadows, Hero, the half-Trojan. As usual she had refused to wear the robes of the Achaean women, instead preferring a short brown tunic and a simple leather kilt, with long purple hunting boots.

She showed her crooked teeth. Her dark skin was deeply flushed, as if she had been drinking wine. Though she was a little younger than Erigone, she looked older, as if she had seen and known things that nobody could hint at.

‘My pretty Tisamenos,’ she said. ‘With your beautiful blond hair and your lovely blue eyes.’ He flinched. ‘I heard what you were saying, dear one.’ She reached out and stroked his hair, whispering to him. ‘Your mother was torn from you too … I never knew mine. Cassandra.’

The prophetess. Tisamenos knew of her memory.

‘My mother saw the future. And much good it did her, murdered inside the walls of this kinghouse. Do you think she walks the halls still? Look up there. Look up – what do you see?’ She pointed into the shadowy recesses of the great entrance hall. ‘Can’t you see them? Your grandfather, Agamemnon, your grandmother, Clytemnestra, their hands dripping with blood?’

‘I have to go now,’ said Tisamenos, standing up. He was on a level with her face. Her eyes glinted.

‘Sometimes I hear things about you,’ she said, coming further into the light.

‘Who from?’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His cheeks were wet.