Free Hades Daughter by Sara Douglass Page A

to his host, and over his shoulder he slung a larger rope sack containing wildonions, garlic and a measure of dried figs, as if he intended to sell them within the city.
    “Do I look like a hero?” he asked Membricus, ready finally to make the journey to Mesopotama through the afternoon heat.
    “No,” Membricus replied, with a half smile to take away any sting that might be construed in his words. “You look like a forest brigand. I hope this Assaracus has the nerve to admit you to his house.”
    Brutus approached Mesopotama just before dusk. The two-hour walk through forest and rocky slopes from his ships’ anchorage point had been hot, but not as tiring as Brutus had feared it might be.
    But perhaps Brutus’ own sense of excitement and purpose had rid his body of any tiredness it might have felt. For fifteen empty years, ever since his exile from Alba on the Tiber, Brutus had been wandering the central Mediterranean, seeking some sense of “home”. He’d met up with small groups of homeless Trojans, many of whom had joined his band of warriors, and he and his band had fought in the constant inter-city struggles and feuds that gripped the disintegrating Mediterranean world.
    But he’d never found a home. Never found a place where he felt any sense of belonging. Never found a true sense of purpose.
    Now, since Artemis’ visit, all had changed. Now he had purpose, a home to aspire to, and power beyond anything he’d dared hope for if the goddess was to be believed.
    And it was he, not his father, nor his grandfather, nor even his noble but ultimately luckless great-grandfather Aeneas, but he who was given the task of rebuilding Troy.
    For fifteen years Brutus had wandered; fifteen years since that terrible ( wonderful ) day when he had takenthe kingship bands from his dead father’s limbs. He’d taken a great risk that day—and had been exiled for it—but now that risk had been justified and rewarded.
    He looked at Mesopotama as it rose before him. Membricus might mutter about shadows, but all Brutus saw was the opportunity to prove conclusively to Artemis that he was fit for her trust and belief.
    Fit to rule over Troy.
    Mesopotama sat on a high hill some one hundred paces south of the River Acheron and some eight hundred paces north of where the river emptied into the bay. The walled city encompassed the entire hill, although a scattering of hovels, workshops and tanneries sprawled unprotected beyond the walls. Brutus looked closely at the hovels, and saw that the women wandering in and out of doorways, and the children who played in the dust, were Dorians rather than Trojans, confirming his earlier belief that the Trojan slaves lived inside the city.
    The Trojan slaves likely lived in the houses of their masters (most probably crowded into windowless, cramped rooms in basements) or in hovels set against the interior of the city’s walls where space and light were at a premium.
    He adjusted the sack over his shoulder as he paused to rest, leaning from one foot to the other so that any observer would think him merely tired, and studied the city as best he could. Most of the houses inside the walls, leading up to the civic buildings and the king’s palace at the very top of the hill, were well constructed of pale dressed stone, with guttered roofs of red tile. The city walls themselves were solid stone, the height of five men and, from what Brutus could see, almost as thick.
    His eyes watchful now, Brutus resumed his walk towards the city gates, marking their construction and defences as he neared.
    The gates, still open, were of reinforced thick planks of cypress, barred with bronze and hung so that when closed they would give little purchase to attackers.
    The outer gates opened into a narrow, dark roadway that broached the thick walls: anyone who managed to penetrate the outer gates would suffer heavily from the missiles of defenders positioned high above.
    Beyond this, on the inner face of the wall, were