wheels groaning on the uneven road. I smelt dust and roasted meat and a waft of wine and swallowed tears, tasting salt. The Triumph was filling the flat space before the city and overflowing up the hills on either side, a confusion of animals and people. There was a hush as a bronze-clad man walked proudly and alone up the path. His helmet was plumed with bright feathers, he clanked as he moved, but I could not see his face.
Then my father passed out of sight and the noise came back.
Surely she did not really mean to kill him. She was just sharpening the axe for the sacrifice of the bull to welcome the king. Surely she could not manage to kill him, so tall and magnificent, so strong?
I could see all the way across the valley to the mountains beyond. Grey-green with white stones knuckling through thin earth, that is Mycenae. The wind always blows here.
Two young men looked up as I looked down. They were a contrast. One was a sailor, by the look of him. Curly dark hair, dark eyes, gold rings in his ears which glinted as he moved; compact and strong, like an oarsman. The other was taller, slimmer and chryselephantine. Ivory and gold. His skin was pale and smooth and his hair was as bright as the sun, like a statue of a God. He did not smile but looked at me gravely, and I did not retreat. He did not feel threatening.
The dark one was equipped with a long plaited line with a grappling hook on one end, dangling from his hand. They were actually attempting to climb into the women's quarters.
'The penalty for what you are intending is death,' I informed the golden man.
'The penalty for living is death,' he replied evenly. 'It is a common fate.'
'But not so surely or so soon,' I told him.
I should have called the guard, but they were all at the Triumph, welcoming my father back into the city.
'We have to get into Mycenae,' said the golden man.
'Why?' I asked, surprising myself. Ordinarily I never speak to men.
'It's a long story and this is an exposed place for tales. Let us in, maiden, and we'll tell you all about it,' said the golden man calmly.
I did not know what to do. A memory was trying to surface in my mind. I had seen that golden hair, that cool profile, somewhere before. A long time ago. When?
I had been waiting at the gate of the city with my mother and my sisters when Iphigenia was alive, when I first saw Argive Elene, the most beautiful woman in the world, or so she seemed to me, a little girl. We were handing out coins and bread to those who had survived the plague. There had been a very riotous bard called Arion, and a bearded Master of Epidavros called Glaucus. Prince Odysseus, who had just left, had brought me a sea-shell the colour of sunset from a shore on the other side of the Pillars of Heracles.
Yes. The memory was becoming clear. I do not like memory and try to avoid it if I can. But here it was. A sunny day, and the procession of cured ones are coming, led by a boy no taller than me, a boy with straight golden hair and tired eyes. Diomenes. They called him Chryse, 'golden', and he was made a healer priest because of that battle with the plague of Apollo on the hills outside Mycenae.
I winced and said, 'Chryse?'
'Princess,' said the golden man. 'Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, you know me. I am Diomenes, called Chryse the Healer, Priest of Asclepius. This is my friend Eumides, who was once a slave in this very city. We must enter. Help us, or at least do not call the soldiers.'
I stood in thought, rasping my palm over the clean edge of the tiled wall. They stared up at me, the dark man and the golden. I was powerful. I could scream - it was my duty to scream - and even amid the rejoicing the armed men would run to my aid, bronze weapons clattering on marble, and cut the intruders down on my order.
I exclaimed in pain. A sharp edge of tile had cut my hand. A little blood dropped onto the stone. It was an omen.
I did not speak but stepped away from the wall. The grappling hook flicked up, grounded, scraped and held under the weight of two climbing men.
They were over the wall in an instant, the agile Eumides hauling Diomenes up by the arm. They were taller than they had seemed on the ground. They loomed over me and I backed up until I came flat against a wall. The usual draperies were gone to furnish the Triumph, and the stone was very cold. The sun had not reached the megaron yet.
'Princess,' said Chryse, 'allow me.' He took my hand and turned it to examine the palm. There was a thin cut, already closing. His touch did not disgust as much as that of men usually did. His hands were deft, and he bound my wound with a strip of linen from his bag.
'Maiden,' begun Eumides hurriedly, 'we must find the Trojan prisoner Cassandra, daughter of Priam.'
'The captives will be brought to the Great King's hall, the audience chamber. Who is this Princess? Has my father taken a concubine?'
'Not if Princess Cassandra had anything to do with it,' grinned Eumides. I flinched away from his knowing smile.
Chryse Diomenes noticed this and said gently, 'She is a Priestess and has prophesied the death of Agamemnon your father. She has spoken truly for all of her life and she said in the gateway that a woman would kill both her and the King.'
'How do you know?'
'We heard her. We've followed the army from Troy, travelling among the traders. Watching all the way, looking for a chance at rescue,' said Eumides impatiently. 'We won't fail now, eh, brother?' Chryse took the offered hand and held it and I perceived that they were close - very close. Speech came to me in a rush. For some reason I wanted to help them.
'The King goes to bathe. I will show you the place. There's a server's door in a narrow passage, I know how it can be done. They'll bring the Trojan slave there to be purified if she's lain with the King. There will be no one else there, just my mother; she said she would tend him herself and she's sent all the slaves away. You can take her, this Trojan Princess. We don't need Trojan women here; Troy has fallen and is dust.'
They said nothing. The knowledge I had suppressed smashed through the barriers that guard me against feeling. This prophetess was telling the truth - they said she always did. My mother was going to murder my father. I froze, trying to find words, then gabbled, 'Save my father, Healer, you must save him.' I pleaded with him, even touching his shoulder in the suppliant's gesture.
A line of pain divided his smooth brow. 'We can try, Princess, but Cassandra prophesies truly, and we may not succeed.'
'We have to try, come, hurry!' I said. I ran through the maze of the women's quarters and they followed me, too slowly.
The palace of Mycenae may not have a labyrinth, like the fabled Palace of Minos, but it has been added to by successive kings since Perseus, and it is said that no one can find their way through unless they were born here.
The passages are unlit, except by occasional light wells. They dip below ground at unpredictable intervals, have distracting flights of stairs which seem to lead nowhere and odd corridors which conduct the poor lost ones out of their way and then strand them in the wine cellar. Without my help the men panting behind me would have been utterly confounded, but I had been playing in the mazes of the city since I was a child, and knew them like my own hand.
I slid to a halt before the water-carrier's door. I heard voices, one calm and one cold.
'Come, Princess,'
