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hair off my face, gathered my courage and started off across the precinct with determination. ‘We are going to the temple of Apulunas.’
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Βρισηíς
Briseis
,
Pedasus
The Hour of the Evening Meal
The First Day of the Month of Roses, 1250 BC
    I was standing in the palace herb garden, surrounded by fragrant lavender in the shade of a pomegranate tree, waiting, tall and proud as a princess should be. But my heart was quivering in my chest, like a small, frightened bird.
    He has to want to marry me
, I thought, standing there, trying not to show my desperation.
He has to. I must fulfil my duty before it is too late. I have to be chosen. I have to show to my family that I can still be a good daughter and a good wife and, if the gods will it, a mother of princes.
    Above all, above everything, he has to want me.
    I flicked back a stray lock of dark hair from my forehead, as my mother always told me to do, and tilted my slim figure slightly to one side, just like the statues I had seen of Arinniti, goddess of love. I could hardly remember a time when they had not told me I was beautiful. Indeed, my old nurse, Deiope, had sworn from when I was a child that I should make a great match and a great marriage. With my long, dark hair, pale skin and delicate features, she had often said I looked like the living embodiment of the women whose brightly coloured portraits decorated the palace walls, their black hair braided down their backs, their skirts tied tight around slim waists. If it had not been for the prophecy, no one would have been anxious at all.
    But, because of the prophecy, nothing was certain any more.
    I readied myself, drew myself up tall, like a queen, and tried to hide my quaking heart, which felt as if it had dropped all the way from my mouth to my slippered feet.
    The small oak-wood gate of the garden creaked and I turned. It was my mother, the Queen of Pedasus, a woman known as much for the firmness of her hand in ruling our city as for her beauty. ‘Now, Briseis,’ she said, without preamble, as she always spoke and especially to me. She walked towards me down the stone-lined path, straight-backed and stern, her flounced skirt brushing the herbs at the path’s edge and sending the soft scent of lavender and thyme into the evening air. ‘It is my expectation that you do your best.’
    I looked down at my hands, trying to be humble. ‘I do try,’ I said meekly. ‘I did not ask for the prophecy. I did not want—’
    â€˜Briseis, please,’ my mother said, folding her hands in front of her in her most regal stance and gazing sternly at me. ‘Not this again. We each deal with the fate the gods have dealt us. You will be silent and let your beauty speak for itself. Perhaps this time, at last, the gods will bless us with good fortune.’
    I touched my forefinger quietly to my thumb, sending a silent prayer to the goddess Luck that this might be so, then cast my eyes to the ground and tried to trust in my beauty and the gods.
    There were sounds of footsteps on stone beyond the garden gate. I took a deep breath. My suitor was approaching – and, if he chose me, he would have the power to change my life for ever.
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Χρυσηíς
Krisayis
,
Troy
The Hour of Evening
The First Day of the Month of Roses, 1250 BC
    â€˜Your father … High Priest Polydamas … he will be so angry … if he knows you are here,’ Cassandra panted beside me, as we climbed up to the temple of Apulunas. A slave dressed in a plain white tunic was brushing the steps with a broom, and he frowned at us as we passed.
    I swallowed. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I simply have to see what it is like for myself. I have to know. I have to know what it is to be a priestess, what my father is trying to give my life to when I reach my sixteenth year.’
    Cassandra was still breathing heavily with the climb and did not reply. The steps were