7

I left Eurus, greatly cheered. With the help of a god, even a lesser one, surely we could turn the dread ship of fate.

In the twilight, I stumbled over a branch that lay across the path out of the sacred grove. I picked it up and broke off a length.

At Troy’s gate, Maera leaped and bowed. I threw the stick for her as we entered the Way of the Immortals. The stars and a quarter moon were out. Maera dropped the branch and dashed away.

I peeked into the very near future and saw her with my brother Hector. Soon, I made out a tall shape ahead and a smaller one, jumping and prancing. Hector was on his way home too. I sprinted. Eurus and I would save him!

He straightened from petting Maera, and we hugged. How solid he felt!

When I’d gone to Helenus—before I knew he’d betray Troy—he and I had merely clasped hands.

Hector and I separated and set off again. Maera walked on his other side because she loved him too. Her nails clicked on the stone. Our sandals pattered softly.

“Brother! Why are you out late too?”

“I was planting in the new orchard. A ewe insisted on grazing wherever I was about to put a cutting. She slowed me down.” He laughed. “I kept letting her eat.”

He was kind to everyone, even a pesky sheep.

Troy was extending its olive orchard, a project Father had begun a year ago. All my brothers helped, but Hector was the most faithful to the task.

“Why is the brave kanephoros roaming Troy in the dark?”

“The former kanephoros.”

“But still brave. A poet will write a ballad called ‘The Princess and the Pebble.’”

“The ewe will write one called ‘The Prince and the Piggy Sheep.’”

He laughed. “She’s probably baaing it to her flock right now.”

How I loved to be with him. A lump rose in my throat. We crossed the plaza and mounted the palace steps. Inside, lamps had been lit in the colonnade. We stood together, and I believed he was as reluctant to part as I was.

He smiled down at me. “Helenus visited the orchard in the afternoon. He didn’t work, but he gave me good news. Tomorrow will be a wonderful day for me.”

I checked. It would be.

“He says he can see the future and I’ll meet my wife.”

Hector was twenty-five, eleven years older than I was.

I nodded. “Andromache. She’ll come from Thebe with her father and brothers.” Thebe was a city to the east of us. “Her father wants more trade.”

“Did Helenus tell you too?”

Oh! I could use Helenus’s uncursed gift!

“He said you’ll love each other very much. He said she’s as sweet as you are.”

His smile widened. “He told me she’s pretty.”

I sat on a bench between two columns. Maera sat at attention by my knees. Hector lowered himself next to me.

“You’ll have a son.”

“Really? He said that?”

“Yes.”

Doubt crept into his voice. “The babe may be a daughter.”

My idea was probably doomed. When the words came from my lips, no matter if I claimed someone else had said them first, they weren’t believed. Unwilling to give up, though, I added, “Not all he said was happy news. He told me you’ll die young”—my lips trembled—“in a battle with the Greeks.”

He regarded me for a long moment. “I’ve had a premonition of my early death, but now I think I’ll be old when I die.”

People thought me so wrong they believed the opposite!

“Helenus frightened me.” I tried to gain something. “If there is a war, will you be careful and not risk yourself when the tide is against you? Andromache will want to keep her husband!”

“I hope so!” He laughed. “But she hasn’t married me yet. I’m not an elegant eater. She may get sick of me.”

“She won’t!”

He sobered. “Be a coward? No. But there won’t be a war. You should be careful about believing your twin.” He kissed my forehead and stood.

I didn’t want him to go. “Have you heard of someone called Paris?” Hector had traveled as far as the city of Mygdonia in Thrace. He knew the world.

He sat again. His voice was tight. “He was our brother.”

Was?

A brother I’d never heard of?

“How do you know his name?”

I lied again. “Helenus mentioned him but didn’t explain.”

“I wonder how he knows.” Hector rubbed Maera’s shoulders. “I was too young to understand when it happened, but as I got older, I heard whispers. Finally, I asked Mother. Have you ever seen her look anguished?”

I tossed back my head. Only in the future.

“Paris was born three years after I was. A seer warned that the baby would bring down Troy when he grew up and said our parents should kill him.”

My hand crept to my chest and felt my thudding heart.

“They believed.” Hector looked at the painting on the ceiling, where Aphrodite’s swans flew against a blue-sky background. “But they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, so they told their chief herdsman to slay him. He took the baby and brought back his tongue. Mother said she wept for a year.”

I wet my lips. “No! Mother and Father wouldn’t!”

Hector stroked my back. “It’s true.”

Maera licked my hand. I petted her head.

He smiled grimly. “I’m glad the prediction wasn’t made about any of the rest of us.”

I could barely breathe.

“I’ve forgiven them. I’m sure they were thinking of me and their unborn children and everyone else in the city.”

“Couldn’t they have done something else? Sacrificed to Zeus? Gone to Delphi to see if a god or goddess could be appeased to save him and us?”

“They may have sacrificed to all the gods and gone to Delphi without changing the prophecy.” He paused. “Can you forgive them too? They love us.”

When Helenus and I were six and suffered a month-long fever, Mother never left us. She let us have honey cake three times a day if we could eat it. Father came often too and stayed to tell us long-ago stories of Troy. “I think I can forgive them. But . . .” I trailed off.

How was Paris still alive?

Hector left me. Maera and I mounted the stairs to the women’s quarters.

This brother, Paris, would enrage two goddesses. If he was bitter because Mother and Father had tried to kill him, would he direct the goddesses’ wrath at Troy?

Upstairs, Mother was the only one still weaving. I paused before she saw me. At her feet were a glowing lamp and a tray, the dinner she had kept for me, including two thick slices of honey cake. How good she was to me and my brothers and sisters! How frightened she must have been when she heard the seer’s prophecy all those years ago. I loved her too much to judge her.

She looked up. “You’ve been at the sacred grove all this time?”

“I was talking to Hector too.”

“My worthy children. Finish all the cake. Don’t give any to Maera. The dog is plump and you’re too thin.”

I hugged her and pressed my face into her shoulder.

She said I could return to the sacred grove tomorrow. “Go whenever you like. Suitors’ parents like a pious girl, but don’t neglect your weaving. They want a skillful girl too.” She laughed. “Suitors themselves don’t care much about skill or piety if the girl is as pretty as you are”—she chucked me under my chin—“and has your smile.”

I managed to smile back.

After I worked at my loom for an hour the next morning, I went to the pantry next to the kitchen and filled a basket with offerings and another meaty bone for Maera. At the gate, she seemed happier about the bone than sad that I was leaving her.

When I reached the sacred grove, I set a bowl of almonds on Apollo’s altar and again begged forgiveness for offending him. “Please let me turn the ship of fate.”

He didn’t appear.

I’ll do it without you, I thought.

As soon as I started for Eurus’s clearing, a wind sped me along.

He was sitting on his altar. “All for me?” He grinned at the basket.

I lowered it to the grass and stepped away.

He crouched over it, naming each item as he drew it out. “Barley griddle cake. Sheep cheese wrapped in leaves. Sweet onions mashed with lentils.”

I folded my arms. I had a question and could hardly wait to ask it.

“Pickled eel. I haven’t had any in six years and twelve days. Mm. Walnuts. What’s this?” He looked at me and lifted the last dish. “An entire baked chicken? For me?” He tore off a leg. With his mouth full, he added, “Help yourself.”

I nibbled a morsel of griddle cake. “Can your wind carry me to Mount Olympus?” If Zeus favored me, everything would stop before it began.

He tossed back his head, and his wind shook me. “Uninvited? Zeus would be so angry he’d create a new Eurus to replace me.”

Oh.

I let his wind carry my disappointment away. I’d think of other ideas, or we would. “I know who Paris is. But how is he still alive?”

Eurus held up a finger for me to wait. He finished the chicken drumstick, sampled the eel, and closed his eyes to savor it.

He finally wiped his hands on his tunic. “My wind goes everywhere. Like your parents, the chief herdsman couldn’t bring himself to kill the baby outright, so he left him on the mountain to die of cold or be eaten by an animal. Instead, a she-bear nursed him. When the herdsman found Paris still alive, he gave in and raised him.” Eurus grinned. “A prince of Troy brought up to be a shepherd!”

“What about the tongue the herdsman gave my parents?”

“A deer’s tongue.” Eurus shrugged. “A deer’s tongue is big. Maybe it was a fawn’s tongue.”

“Does Paris know he’s really a prince?”

“His wife told him.” Eurus explained that my brother had married Oenone, a mountain nymph who was also a seer.

Nymphs were deities but not immortal, though their lives could span hundreds of years. I’d never seen one. There were no statues of nymphs in our sacred grove. Oenone hadn’t been in my visions because she was both a goddess and a soothsayer.

Eurus added, “Paris makes a big show, but he isn’t much. A coward. Lazy. He let a wolf get a lamb when he was herding.”

I looked into the future an hour from now. Paris would be reclining on a couch in the cavern I’d seen when I’d received Apollo’s gift, but unlike in that vision, he seemed to be alone. Had he already judged the goddesses?

I peered another hour ahead and saw the boy in the cavern with him. One more hour brought forth the scene I’d watched outside the stable after Helenus and I had spoken. I believed that during that scene Paris would declare his judgment. “Eurus? Can your wind carry me to Mount Ida?”

“I can carry an ox that far!”

I laughed, imagining him bearing an enormous ox on the palm of one hand.

“An ox wouldn’t try to save Troy.” I shrugged. “Though I don’t know how to save the city any more than an ox would.” I didn’t understand what judging beauty had to do with Helen, the woman my twin said would cause the war.

“Come!” Eurus strode away from me, following the path to the far gate to the grove, which faced east.

I followed, pushed from behind. Beyond the gate, our grasslands began.

He stopped and crouched. His wind calmed. “Hold tight to my head.”

His curls were feather soft.

“Grip my back with your legs. Ready?” He jumped into the air without waiting.

A whirlwind whipped around us. He said, “Mustn’t drop her.”

The sacred grove descended, as if it was falling instead of us rising. My head bucked forward.

“Keep her in place, you clod!” Eurus yelled at himself.

Let me survive this wind-riding!

I clung to him as tight as I could, but the gale strengthened. My grip loosened. We were torn apart.

Beyond his wind, the air was calm. I hung for an instant. In that moment, I saw in my imagination Mother, Father, Hector, Helenus, Maera. I dropped.