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is still, or that I am still while the world moves around me.”
    “Are you with child?” she asked. “I felt like that with my first daughter. As though I were a drowsy cow out in a field, sleeping through the summer.”
    That elicited a smile from me. “I can’t see you as a cow. But no, I’m not with child. How could I be? I’ve never known a man.”
    She raised her chin. “Perhaps that’s the problem, then. You are not forbidden a lover, only a husband.”
    “I belong to Death, not life,” I said.
    “You are a young woman,” Cythera said. “Not a goddess. You are something more than a passive vessel for Her.”
    “There is no one I desire,” I said. And it was true. I could not think of anyone I had looked upon who kindled any desire in me, except in dreams. And how should I love some Achaian farmer, full of awe for Pythia, or worse yet a man like Neoptolemos, who saw me as nothing but a prize to be taken and discarded at will?
    As though she had read my thoughts, Cythera changed the subject. “Neoptolemos is back,” she said.
    “I had heard,” I said wryly.
    “He has come to raise an army,” she said. “Come to the feast tomorrow at the palace and you will see.” I began to demur. “You must come,” she said. “It is your Lady’s business, and you have every reason to know what passes.”
    And so I went. I had no part in that feast, or indeed in the Blessing of Ships. That is Cythera’s role, and she did it well. I wore my plain black chiton with the mantle, and did not speak.
    Afterward there were sweet fruits and roasted pig, the palace doors thrown open so that everyone could walk inside. Last year’s wine was opened and amphorae were tilted and the hearth was heaped higher. Musicians played in the firelight.
    I stood at the back, watching the warriors.
    I could hear Neoptolemos over other voices. “We will raze our old enemies’ citadel to the ground!” he said, a double-handed cup in his hand. “We will avenge our fathers, the heroes who fell before the walls of Ilios! And we will return rich in gold!” Around him, four or five young men cheered. “We will win our share of glory!” he continued.
    There was a knot of people around him now, young men who had never seen battle. And the Young King, Idenes the son of Nestor, who had much to prove.
    It was to him that Neoptolemos addressed himself. “Are we not of the same good bronze as our fathers? Shall we not be fit to stand in the brave company of their shades when we cross the River? Do we not want honors and women of our own? What keeps us then from venturing across the seas as they did?”
    I leaned back against the wall. The colors were bright and the wine strong, but I felt nothing except a little sick. No one paid any attention to me. If any noticed me they did not recognize me without the paint. A woman of the town. Or one of the palace slaves.
    I edged away, toward the passage that ran to the storerooms. Another was there before me.
    Triotes’ eyes glimmered in the firelight. There was no joy in his face either. And he knew me.
    I felt the faintest touch of a night breeze, Her hand on my sleeve.
    “Leave Aren here,” I said. “If you take him to shed the blood of his mother’s kin the Furies will pursue him all his days. And if you go, you will not return. The fish will eat your flesh.”
    He looked at me levelly. “Is that your word, Pythia, or Hers?”
    “Hers,” I said. “And mine. But it is true.”
    Triotes looked at me again, searching my face for something. “Aren will stay here,” he said. “I must go.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Because my king will command it,” he said. With a last glance at the Young King arm in arm with Neoptolemos, he turned and went down the passage.
    I went out through the main gates into the night. I walked away from the revelers, down toward the harbor. The stars were bright and clear over the sea.
    The sense of presence was gone. She was gone. I stood under the starlight,