Beyond the beach three low-slung warships bobbed gently in the ocean swells of the bay, uncaring witnesses to the enchantment settling upon the sleepers.
The waters at tide’s edge were calm one moment, bubbling silently the next. A woman rose from the shallows, strangely dry for the manner of her arrival.
For a heartbeat she shimmered, as if she were a mere apparition… then her figure hardened, and became as if real.
She was tall, and sturdily built, her dark auburn hair bundled carelessly into a knot on the top of her head, her small, high breasts left bare, her hips clad with a short green kirtle bound about her waist with a few twists of a leather thong.
Across her back rested a quiver of golden arrows, and over her left shoulder lay a silver hunting bow of exquisite workmanship.
The woman strode across the beach and paused at the edge of the first wave of sleepers. Her lip
curled, as if she found them not to her taste.
She stepped over them and walked loose-hipped and confident between the ranks of sleepers to the very far end of the beach.
Here, slightly apart from the others, lay a single warrior. To one side lay his clothes, a waistband of twisted leather wound about with scarlet and gold cords. His scarlet waistcloth, fresh-washed from the sea, lay folded neatly beside it.
He had thrown off his blanket, as if it constrained him, even in sleep, and his body lay naked save for the bands of gold he wore about his biceps, upper forearms, and just below his knees.
Fine craftsmen had wrought these golden bands, and on each of them they had embossed the same repeating symbol: a spinning crown over a stylized unicursal labyrinth.
They were the bands of kingship, yet this man ruled over no kingdom.
They were the bands of the Kingman, the only set left surviving from the catastrophes that had enveloped the Aegean world, yet this man had no partner with which to dance through the sorcerous twistings of the labyrinth.
The woman stood, her face expressionless, staring down at him.
He was not a handsome man, being too blunt of feature and his black eyebrows too straight, but he was well made with wide shoulders, flat belly, slim hips, and long, tightly muscled limbs, and she knew that when his eyes opened they would be of that liquid blackness she had always craved in her lovers.
And his hair. She smiled. His hair was long and black and tightly curled, jouncing out of the thong that held it at the back of his neck into a riot of wildness across the backs of his shoulders. She longed to free it, to perfume it with scented oils, to run her fingers through it and bring it to her lips, and to sink her fists into it so tightly that he could never escape her.
She could see Aphrodite’s blood in that hair, and it excited her.
Her body trembled, and suddenly sick of her silent watching, she bent down, grabbed the man’s beautiful hair, and gave his head a hard yank.
He jerked instantly out of dream and, as instantly, knew by the bow and arrows who it was bending down over him, staring at him intently.
‘Artemis?” he whispered. He rose on his elbows, his face showing both confusion and awe. “I thought you dead!”
She smiled, pleased with her deception. “Me? Dead? How so when I am so fully fleshed?” She pulled her hand from his hair. “Rise, and walk with me.”
He did so, not once taking his eyes off the Goddess of the Hunt, his movements fluid and graceful, warrior-trained and battle-honed.
He did not reach for his waistcloth, treating the goddess with the same respect he would one of his warriors.
Once he was standing Artemis turned and walked a few paces away, and the man followed, tense with excitement. They walked in silence, Artemis a pace or two ahead of the man, until they had reached the very end of the beach where rocks rose in a sheer face to the first of the forested slopes of the mountain.
‘You have been wandering now… for how long?” she asked as she turned to face him. She leaned back, resting her buttocks on a rock and folding her arms. She considered him carefully, not bothering to disguise the admiration with which she ran her eyes down his body.
It was, after all, what she and hers had been waiting for for so long.
‘Fifteen years.” He regarded her evenly. There was still awe in his eyes, but caution and speculation also, and that pleased Artemis.
This man was no fool.
‘Fifteen years. And what have you learned in those fifteen years?”
‘Hunger.”
She smiled, the expression predatory. “Hunger for what?”
He took a deep breath, his wonderful black eyes losing some focus, and she needed no more answer.
She laid a finger on one of the golden bands about his right arm. “You hunger for your heritage. You hunger for power. You hunger for Troy.”
‘Aye.” His voice was tight, almost breathless.
‘Yet how can this be? Troy has been ashes for over ninety years.”
‘Troy is in my blood.” He placed his left hand over her finger where it still lay on the golden band. It was a bold move, touching a goddess. “And I wear it about my arm. I cannot forget.”
‘No, of course you cannot.” She pulled her finger out from under his hand—slowly, teasingly—and rested her hand on the warm skin of his chest. “Brutus,” she said, rolling about her mouth the Latin name his dying mother had given him, “if I offered you power, would you take it?”
He hesitated, but she knew it was only because he was considering her, not because he was afraid.
“Yes.”
‘And if the path I showed you to this power was strange, but resulted in you reaching this power stronger than you have ever been before, would you nevertheless take it?”
This time no hesitation. “Oh, yes.”
‘If I tested your resolve and your courage and your training along this path, would you resent me for it?”
Her hand was still on his chest, and he leaned very slightly into it. “And what,” he said, “would be my
prize at the end of all this travail?”
She moved closer to him, her face barely an inch or two from his, their breath intermingling, their bodies touching at a half-dozen different places, their mouths a single dangerous moment away from a kiss.
Me. The word hung between them, and Artemis actually put her mouth against his to verbalize the word.
‘Troy,” she whispered.
He drew in a sharp, shocked breath, and his muscles jumped under her hand.
She moved away from him, just slightly, the better to see the incredulity, the lust , in his face.
Ofc, yes, this was the man she wanted .
‘Troy?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Do you not wear the kingship bands of Troy?” Her hand was moving in warm, slow circles over his chest.
‘Troy is gone. Ashes. Crumbled stone. It would take me a thousand years to rebuild it.”
‘And what if I offered you that thousand years?”
Now the look on his face made her laugh, and she relented. “Not the old Troy, Brutus, for this world is diseased and could no longer support the power and glory of— you—”such a magnificent and glorious city. No, I shall send you to a new land, a strong land, a bright land. Build me a new Troy, Brutus, and I can give you everything you could possibly want.”
Her tone, her wandering hand, the tip of her tongue between her teeth, left Brutus in no doubt whatsoever that the “everything” included Artemis.
‘Troia Nova,” he said. “And you.” All his life he’d felt that there was something toward which he should be moving, something that awaited him. His father had smiled at him, the companions of his childhood had jeered. Others had been indifferent. No one had believed him save these men who currently slept at his back.
Now… he swallowed, almost overcome both by the presence of the goddess and by what she offered him.
Artemis watched his reaction, and knew the thoughts that jumbled through his mind. She turned her hand so that its back was against his skin, and she let it drift lower, down to his belly where she could feel his muscles quivering in excitement.
‘Where?” he said, his voice almost breathless now in his excitement. “Where is this strong and bright land?”
‘You will reach it in time, Brutus. First, however, you must sail south for two days to a city called Mesopotama.”
‘My long and dangerous travail.”
‘Aye.” Her hand was moving more deliberately now, and she could feel how much her touch excited him; their eventual matching would be all she had hoped for. “Mesopotama is ruled by a king called Pandrasus. There is a great test for you in this city of Mesopotama, one you will pass only if you have the strength and ability to rebuild Troy.” And win me . “When—if—you have won through, and have set your fleet to sea once more, sail a further day’s journey south, and you will find an island. Seek me out there, and I will show you the path to your Troia Nova.” She pressed her hand deeply into his flesh, then withdrew it and stood away from him. She smiled, holding his eyes, then stepped forward and brushed past him.