‘One more word and I’ll cut off your head,’ repeated Myrsilus. The Hittite slave said nothing. The other men were laid out on the bottom of the ship and were sleeping under their cloaks.

The foreigner who had been taken aboard was sitting against the ship’s railing with his legs close against his chest and his head leaning on his knees. The Hittite slave watched him for a while, then approached him. The glow of the brazier at the stern lit up his dark face. ‘What kind of a man are you?’ he asked him in his own language.

The foreigner raised his head and in the same language answered: ‘I am a Chnan.’

‘A Chnan. . what are you doing here? And you speak Hittite. . where did you learn it?’

‘The Chnanspeak many languages because we take our wares to all the peoples of this earth.’

‘Then you’re not one of those wretches whose village they destroyed?’

‘No. We were pushed up here by a storm two months ago, at the end of the summer. My ship sank and I barely saved myself. They welcomed me, gave me food. They did not deserve to die.’

‘We do not deserve to die either. Do you know anyone who deserves to die? To sink into darkness, leaving behind forever the scent of the air and the sea, the colours of the sky, of the mountains and the meadows, the taste of bread and the love of women. . is there someone who deserves such horror, just because he was born? Who were those. . Dor. . you were talking about?’

‘That’s what the people who took me in called them. They are a powerful, ferocious race. They live on a great inland river called the Ister, but for some time now they have been restless, and they make continuous raids towards the sea. Those whom you saw were but a small group of them; if some day all of them decide to move, no one will be able to stop them. They have weapons of iron, they ride the bare backs of their horses. . did you see them?’

‘I did. Do you speak the language of the Achaeans as well?’

‘I can understand much more than I speak. But it is better they don’t learn that. . until I know them well. But tell me, what men are these that sail in this sea, in this season and in this direction? They must be mad, or desperate.’

The Hittite looked into the sky again. The strange lights had been extinguished and the vault of the heavens was as grey and smooth as a leaden bowl.

‘They are both,’ he said.

At that same hour, Clytemnestra lay on her wedding bed alongside Aegisthus. She was not sleeping; she lay with her eyes open and the lamp lit. She had killed her husband without hesitation, as he returned after years of war, but she could not bear the visions that crowded round her head if she closed her eyes. She could not bear the hate of Electra, the daughter who remained to her. Since that murdering night, she had often gone up to the tower of the chasm at night, in the wind, and there she had remembered the days of her wedding, the night in which a choir of maidens with flaming torches had accompanied her to the wedding bed of the king of Mycenae, the king of the Achaean kings.

They had undressed her and perfumed her. They had combed her hair and loosened her belt, laying her on the bed. She remembered how the king had appeared, the copper reflections on the thick locks that shaded his forehead and cheeks, mixing in with his full beard. She remembered his chest and his arms shining with scented oil, and she remembered how she had done her duty. How she had pretended to cry out with pleasure when his scourge lacerated her womb.

She had used her allure wilfully but without abandon, without ever letting herself be moved.

Men have to submit or die. As when the great queen, the Potinja, once reigned. Once a year she chose her bedmate, the male who would render her fertile, the strongest and most fearless, the most vital. He who after having fought duel after duel with the others had earned himself the privilege of being king for one day and one night before dying.

Clytemnestra got up and went to the throne room. She sat on the seat that had belonged to the Atreides and waited there for the sun to rise.

Even before the maidservants had left their beds and lit the fire in the hearth, the man whom she had been expecting for days arrived. He entered and, seeing that the room was still dark, he sat on the floor near the wall to wait for someone in the household to awaken. The queen saw him and called to him.

‘Come forward,’ she said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Did you see my cousin, the queen of Ithaca?’

‘Yes, wanaxa, I have met with her.’

‘And what did she tell you? Has she agreed to our requests?’

‘Yes. All will be done when Ulysses returns.’

‘But. . how? Did she tell you how? The king of Ithaca is the most cunning man on earth.’

‘She is no less able than he. Ulysses will never suspect anything.’

‘What of him, did you see him? Why didn’t you wait for his destiny to be fulfilled?’

‘I waited, but king Ulysses did not return. He should have reached Ithaca no longer than three days after Agamemnon and Diomedes returned. But when I left, a month had passed and there was no word of him.’

‘A month is too long. It couldn’t have taken him so long.’

‘Perhaps his ship foundered. Perhaps he is already dead. While I was in Ithaca, a ship arrived at port and a man came ashore and spoke with the queen. I learned that they were Achaeans and that they had come from Argos, but I could find out no more.’

‘Argos?’ repeated the queen, getting to her feet. ‘Did you see that man in the face?’

‘For just a moment, at the port, as he was boarding the ship.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He had long blond curls that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were dark, bright and watchful. His hands were strong and his gait was forceful, as if he were accustomed to carrying a weight on his shoulders.’

‘The weight of armour,’ said the queen. ‘Perhaps you saw a king escaping. . or preparing to return.’ The man shook his head without understanding. ‘My cousin is with us. I am sure of it. And when we have extinguished the mind of Ulysses, the last obstacle will have been brought down.’

The man left and the queen walked out on to the gallery of the tower of the chasm. The clouds were low on the mountains and swollen with rain. Suddenly, Clytemnestra saw a woman wrapped in a black cape leaving from one of the side gates below; she walked swiftly towards the bottom of the valley, and stopped at the old abandoned cistern. There she fell to her knees. She rocked back and forth, gripping her shoulders, and then she lay flat and placed her forehead against the bare stone that covered the opening. Electra. She mourned her father, contemptibly murdered and contemptibly buried, and the gusts of wind raised the soft echoes of her laments all the way up to the bastions of the tower.

Meanwhile, on the distant northern sea, Diomedes’s ships advanced in the light of dawn. Their beaked prows ploughed through the grey waves, passing between deserted islands and rugged promontories reaching out like hooked fingers into the sea. Little villages perched high above, surrounded by dry walls like nests of stone. They could see the inhabitants venturing out with their herds of goats, wild men these too, covered in fur like the animals they tended.

That night they found shelter near the mouth of a river, and the night after that as well. At dawn, Diomedes decided to walk upstream with Myrsilus and other companions in search of game. But they were soon to be confronted with the strangest of prodigies. Having gone round a hill and descending on the other side, they saw that the river had vanished. They searched and searched for it, but could find it nowhere. After a long stretch on foot they reached a place where the river reappeared but was immediately swallowed up into the ground, sucked into a sinkhole. Diomedes realized that the hole must lead to Hades and he sacrificed a black goat to Persephone so that she might propitiate his journey. The victim’s blood stained the river water red and disappeared into the ground.