Song of Princes (Homeric Chronicles #1) Read online

  Songs of Princes

  Copyright 2016 © Janell Rhiannon

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any format without the express permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction based on mythology. All characters are fictional. Any semblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design and photography by MaeIDesign and Photography

  Book design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing

  www.janellrhiannon.com

  PART 1

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PART 2

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  PART 3

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  My Myrmidons

  I am the son of Zeus and Leto, much to Hera’s dismay. That raving she-bitch of a step-mother left my mother no place on earth to birth my twin sister, Artemis, and myself. The island of Delos was the only speck of dirt offering my mother protection and sanctuary. We are fully immortal, so Hera could not prevent our eventual inclusion into the family fold. I am god of many things envied, even necessary, to mortals. Music. Poetry. Healing. I am god of plagues as well. Worship me and I may keep pestilence at bay and put sweet songs in your mouth. Refuse me? Well, you might regret that. Cassandra did. I gave her the gift of prophecy. Why humans want to know what the future is brings only heart-ache and danger, but they want to know. They beg to know. They pray and sacrifice to know. When Cassandra spurned me, I opened her mind to the future, but closed the ears of anyone to her meaning. So she suffers as a mortal should.

  I also built the famous walls of Troy with the aide of Poseidon and the Greek mortal, Aeacus. We quite enjoyed the pitiful grunts of his sweaty labor. Why a mortal man? To show our superiority, to give forewarning, why else? The goddess blessed the walls divinely built making them impervious to dragons, snakes and foreign assault. The portion built by the unfortunate Greek stood unblessed. In their stupidity, the mortals missed the omen, the god-sign we left behind. We gods speak in signs. A bird here. A snake there. An apparent oversight. After all, speaking to a mortal is dangerous, not for us, but for them. They are fragile and exhausted by the effect of us on their flesh. Close contact can drive some humans mad. So we must use god- signs to guide them, instruct them. Some mortals understand better than others. We compel them to our temples, calling them our oracles. We watch them closely, whisper fragmented phrases in their ears, and echo our voices in the temples they build, and in the caves they hollow.

  The Fate of Troy screamed furiously from the sands. Yet, no one, save poor Cassandra heard the warning. True, the Trojans revered me more than other gods, save Zeus, so I sided with them most often when the Great War burst through the Dardanelles in a fleet of Argive, Achaean, and Danaan triremes. But eventually, all mortals fail and Fate suffocates them despite our protection. I suppose Fate is goddess of us all.

  I am Artemis, the huntress, sister to Apollo. I am goddess of child birth and guardian of mortal women’s virginity. The sacred preservation of my own chastity I take with extreme seriousness. There is no mortal man worthy of plucking the ripe fruit between my thighs. And thought of mortal flesh crushing my prized flower serves only to induce vomiting. I find amusement in new life, but at times tire of it. Mortal women must bear the pains of birth and we gods must suffer their endless requests for protection, honor and relief.

  I, too, favor the Trojans and detest the western tribes of Greeks who think they can rise above the divine line drawn for them by Fate. Some of them, like Agamemnon, gorge on hubris until they are bloated like fattened pigs for butcher. Others believe themselves overly protected by one of us, like Odysseus and his precious Athena, goddess of wisdom. We all make war, but not all can bring forth life. Mortals are, in the end, all fools. Our favor is fickle at best. Their fortunes and their pains serve equally to delight and distress us.

  I am god of war. I exist for the battlefield, the blood, the gore. Triumph. Victory. These are the laurels I rest upon my head. I require nothing more, nothing less. The challenge of competition satisfies my need for amusement. I revel in the moment mortal men cry out my name in the headlong charge of battle. They all scream for victory, for my guidance to balance their far-flung spears. I dole out my gifts in battle as I see fit. I find some more worthy than others through the smoke and carnage of war. I tell you, I find the Greeks a miserable batch of fucking cunts. They would fuck their own mothers for a short victory. Fucking Greeks! The Trojans I find more honorable. They, at least, pay tribute to the tit that suckled them with life. They know that battle is a dance, a play of swords, a game where death is meted out as a reward born of passion. They fight for what they love, not for what they should hold dear.

  As for love, there is a battle I would rather forget. It is the only fight where victory is as illusive as a trail of lightning and will singe the hand that seizes it. Love hits gods and mortals alike. I see no happy arrangements in this arena. Love is lunacy among humans. For the gods, love moistens appetites, but we trample it with heavy foot. See Zeus. He cannot even maintain stability in his own assembly because his eyes stray from Hera’s thighs to mortal flesh. His lust is well-known, for it populates the world below with heroes.

  Some mortals earn respect for their acts of bravery or honesty. Be forewarned: never underestimate that a god may decide to test you at any moment. Beware or suffer.

  I am god of the thunderbolt. And I love all women, especially mortal women.

  I love their earthy essence, the feel of their human flesh entwined with my sexual forms, the way they shudder with ecstasy when I am with them. I revel in the flash of fear in their eyes when they realize it is I who beds them. My conquests being of mortal clay quickly bring my seed to ripen with children. Strange and beautiful children like Herakles and Perseus. They are helpless under my charms whatever guise I choose to assault them with. They moan and plead for me to stop or to continue—they cannot make up their minds. The pain of separation from the physical bond of our bizarre unions lingers with these women. They loath it and crave it when I am done with them. After union with a god, a sliver of desire remains with the mortal women that they will never quell.

  The essence of goddess and nymph also pleases. I take my fill when I can. They are harder prey to conquer. Thetis is the only nymph I never pleasured out of fear for myself because Themis, Titaness and oracle for the gods, warned me tha
t a son of Thetis would be greater than his father. No more mutinous wars of sons against fathers in Olympus.

  My husband’s wandering eye and taste for mortal women disgusts me. Every time he spawns offspring with these creatures, I can smell them like a rotting fish on a parched river bank. He may wield that dreaded thunderbolt and shake mortal bones, but he does not shake me or my resolve. For all his power and sight, he cannot see how the most dangerous weapons are thundered from the wombs of mortal women. I must forgive him because he is the supreme god, but I do not forget. I do not forget how he tricked me as a wounded bird to gain my sympathies and my heart. He forgets that the milky streak of stars across the sky spilled from my breasts and fell to earth as fields of lilies. There is power in creating life. He forgets we all played our part creating the world below.

  He is a magnificent specimen among immortals. He is father, lover, brother, supreme warrior, and he is also a murderer, a conspirator, a judge...a philanderer. He cannot be trusted... truth spoken, neither can any of us. We are all subject to our own particular passions and cruelties. Mortals pray and sacrifice in our honor. If it pleases us, we choose to answer with kindness. If we are displeased, retribution is almost certain and will usually come when least expected. We offer no reasons. Why should we? We are eternal, and humans but a flash in our eyes. I play my favorites, as much as he does.

  1295 BCE Hektor is born in Troy

  Agamemnon is born in Mycenae

  1290 BCE Paris is born in Troy

  1288 BCE Clytemnestra born in Sparta

  1285 BCE Andromache born

  1282 BCE Briseis is born in Pedasus

  Menelaus is born in Mycenae

  1279 BCE Odysseus is born in Ithaka

  1272 BCE Wedding of Thetis and Peleus

  Paris fights Ares’ Bull

  The Judgment of Paris (15 years old)

  1271 BCE Achilles born to Thetis and Peleus

  1270 BCE Penelope born

  Cassandra’s Curse

  Leda raped by Zeus in the form of a swan

  Clytemnestra (18) marries Agamemnon (25)

  Helen born

  1266 BCE Iphigenia born to Clytemnestra & Agamemnon

  Achilles (5) with Chiron the Centaur

  1265 BCE Hektor (30) marries Andromache (20)

  1257 BCE Achilles (14 yrs) returns to Peleus

  Studies under Phoenix

  Corythus born, son of Oenone and Paris

  Achilles (14) sent to Skyros by Thetis

  1254 BCE Achilles (17) marries pregnant Deidamia (16)

  Helen kidnapped by Theseus and Pirithous

  1253 BCE Neoptolemus (Achilles’ son) born

  1252 BCE Helen (18) marries Menelaus (30)

  Odysseus (27) marries Penelope (18)

  1251 BCE Hermione born to Helen and Menelaus

  Paris quests to rescue Hesione at

  Priam’s command

  Menelaus attends funeral of

  Catreus of Crete

  Paris (39) takes Helen (19), takes half

  Menelaus’ treasury

  Oenone is heartbroken, turns to her father for advice/comfort

  Telemachus born to Odysseus and Penelope

  Gathering at Aulis for Troy

  Odysseus to retrieve Achilles (20) at Skyros

  Sacrifice of Iphigenia (15)

  ** A note about the timeline. I have tried to the best of my ability to incorporate as many myths as necessary into these stories. The process has uncovered several surprises for me, first as an historian, and secondly as a writer. Sometimes these two halves of me clashed in the process. I have tweaked a few dates so the stories make the most sense in an historical timeline.

  Sing Muse, sing of the Forgotten Prince

  How regal visions of smoke and fire

  conspired with iron Fate

  to take the child

  Far and afield at Ida’s foothold

  rising from the earth’s good ground

  he abandoned

  wept

  Until gentle mercy came

  with silver fur to suckle

  heart-breaking cries

  to peaceful sleep

  ...and the silent lies

  tore the crown asunder

  Sing Muse, sing of the Forgotten Prince

  Sing of the bitter bite

  of judgment

  and sweet kisses

  of betrayal...

  THE RAMPARTS OF Troy shot skyward like the blunted teeth of a Titan snarling its way up from the center of the earth. Legends sang the praises of Apollo and Poseidon and their labors to reinforce each heavy block with divine precision and plumbed the great walls with their perfect celestial eyes. They piled the massive blocks set in perfect rows stretching around the great seafaring city as far as the eye could see. The brother gods planted its foundation deep into the shifting Asiatic sands of Troy. This sacred barrier protected the inhabitants from dragons, sea beasts and foreign invasion.

  Indeed, the city’s ramparts towered so high and so wide that only the gods themselves could scale them. When mood struck, they entered by holy mist or by raping mortals’ thoughts and dreams. Despite these occasional interruptions of mind, Troy slept peacefully behind an impregnable fortress teeming with trade and wealth. The knowledge that divine forces protected them from the outside world lulled them into false security. Inside the mouth of this giant city, complacency slipped easily into the hearts of its people. Rumors of the western tribes’ raiding ambitions had faded to ghostly whispers heard by a fearful few. Trojans feared no man, no ships, nor war and fell into a long easy peace worried only about appeasing their gods and goddesses with holy sacrifice and required homage.

  Storytellers recited songs recalling the glorious construction of the wall eons before the time of King Priam, forgetting that a weak link existed. A third pair of hands set the colossal stone blocks erect in the white sands of the Dardanelles. The mortal king, Aeacus, labored alongside Apollo and Poseidon. His labor, although beautiful to mortal eye, contained the poorest stone and cheapest mortar. Ancient hymns that warned of doom with every chisel strike and every drop of sweat Aeacus leaked into the good earth, in time, lay silent. His glorious section served only to seal the doom of Troy. The curse of Aeacus’ craftsmanship, decreed by Fate before time began, lay as a dormant asp that would one day rise to flare its cheeks and strike the city to its knees. Aeacus’ section of the protective stone contained no magic, no special invocation against attack from sea or sky. But, the pompous western tribes of Greece, the Argives, the Achaeans, and the Danaans, with their golden courage would stumble upon that tiny piece of forgotten lore. The foreign pirates would bring war to the infamous wall of Troy and breach it with their cunning and bleed Troy to death.

  Behind the legendary stonework lay a giant maze of adjoining royal palaces, markets and households bustling with life. Roads paved with sun baked bricks connected the city like an orderly spider web. In the center of the labyrinth, the palace of king Priam towered over everything set high on its own hill. The polished limestone walls of the palace flashed in the sun like the Egyptian pyramids. Traveling merchants regaled how the celebrated Trojan horses were not the only commodity exchanged between the Trojans and the outside world converging through the narrows of the Dardanelles. The Trojans desired knowledge and innovative ideas, and above all else, beauty. They paid no attention to the portents that war was coming...

  KING PRIAM BUILT his royal headquarters into the marble ruins of his ancient grandfather’s palace. Like the never-ending curves of the plumbed stone around his city, Priam’s lineage extended far beyond the memory of any living Trojan. Heroic deeds of the proud ancestral line Priam worshipped richly decorated every carved relief and every brightly painted wall.

  In the king’s private chamber, murals of brilliant azure blue, deep-sea green and coral red depicted Olympian and Trojan heroes tangled as one family. Gold hammered panels covered the entire ceiling and silver tiles veined with lapis lazuli edged the r
oom at the seam of the floor and the walls. The royal windows reached beyond the highest point of an Indian elephant’s back and stretched as wide as seven men standing shoulder to shoulder. In the summer, the dry cool breath of the gods swept the floor licking white silk curtains into smoky swirls of fabric. In the winter, heavy drapes weft with unbleached wool and warped with golden threads sealed the king and queen in warm slumber.

  Queen Hecuba awoke drenched in the sweat of a nightmare. What have I done to offend Artemis? Maybe, Apollo? The image of the burning log wedged between her thighs made her gasp. Her hands protectively caressed the swollen mound of her belly. The linen sheets, woven of the finest flax, lay heavy and suffocating on her skin. Her back ached with the child’s weight pressing against her lower spine. She could still hear herself screaming into the black void of the dream world. Hecuba awkwardly slid her legs over the bed’s edge trying not to wake her sleeping husband. Even as queen her body’s use and value lay in her ability to produce healthy sons for Troy.

  Being with child made her feel less regal. The last weeks of pregnancy reminded Hecuba that she was like other mortal woman. She vomited at the sight of figs, her body swelled beyond recognition and she tired from just sitting in front of her weaving loom. Hecuba’s limbs lacked the royal grace she’d cultivated over time and with much practice. Waddling side to side, attempting to delicately balance her posture with a slight backward arch certainly bore no semblance to her imperial station. Her gait was womanly. Customary. Expected. Pregnancy made Hecuba acutely aware of her ordinariness as a woman and less like the Queen of Troy.

  Silver moonlight pooled on the marble floor below the high window beckoning Hecuba into its glow. A cool breeze fluttered the privacy draping around the palace balcony. She craved the cool night air on her face and against her damp skin.

  Standing on the private veranda, Hecuba could see the outline of Troy all the way to the sea, reaching far into the blackness of the night. The orange glow of lit lamps dotted the palace windows, comforting her, reminding her of the peace Troy had enjoyed in recent months. The child stretched and kicked inside her, and her hands caressed the mound of her belly as the pull of the moon goddess stirred her unborn son to life.