Troy: A Brand of Fire

  *

  The message was simple, the wording blunt. Just like the Atreides, Peleus thought as he read.

  King of Thessaly

  The High King has called a gathering of all the Greek monarchs at Mycenae, two days after the next full moon. Your presence is required. Be sure to bring your son.

  On behalf of Agamemnon, Lion of Achaea

  “Lion of Achaea,” Thetis said mockingly. She was reading the missive over his shoulder. “He calls himself that because there are lions carved into the gates of his citadel. It’s not as though he earned the name.”

  “Hush,” he said. “You never know who might hear.”

  “In your own palace?” she asked, even more scornfully. “Well, if there are spies here, then let them hear me say Agamemnon is more the Great Bull men call him, than the Lion he calls himself.”

  “He hates that name.”

  “With his broad nose, so he might,” Thetis laughed.

  She had never really understood the way kingship worked. Thetis had been raised on Scyros, among coastal folk who spent as much time in the water as they did on land. She’d told him once that she was born in a boat, out of sight of land. Later she became a priestess of Dionysius on the island, giving herself over to a life of joy and abandon, spending as much time playing in the water as she did at the temple.

  Peleus had met her on the beach on summer night, during one of the festivals of wine and fertility. Priestesses often took men to their beds on such nights – or to a bed of sea-grass in the dunes, if that was closer – but it wasn’t compulsory. Peleus had been surprised when a lovely girl with dark hair took his hand and drew him into the darkness. He’d been even more astonished when he returned three months later to find she was pregnant with his child. Priestesses were supposed to have ways to stop that happening.

  She’d left the priesthood behind, and the island too, to become his wife. Peleus hadn’t even thought about rejecting her. There was a streak of white in her hair now, running back from above her right eye, but she was still beautiful. Like a sea-nymph whose veins were filled with brine, and who didn’t feel the passing years as mortal men did.

  He had felt too many, himself. Peleus was well past forty now, and every winter seemed to have added another ache to his body. In his knees, his shoulder from throwing a spear, in his hips. He didn’t want to go to war again. Raiding was one thing, but a struggle against a committed foe quite another. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  “Send to Achilles,” he said. “A letter from you will reach him quicker than one from me, on that island.”

  “And tell him what?” she asked.

  “You read the letter. You know what to say,” he replied evenly. “Tell him I wish to meet him in Mycenae, no later than a day after the full moon. Greece is going to war. He won’t want to miss it.”