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that I am impious, lady. I worship and offer with complete faith in the Gods.’
    ‘Yet you disclaim Zeus as your grandsire.’
    ‘Such tales are told, lady, to enhance a man’s right to a throne, as was certainly true of my father, Aiakos.’
    She stroked the white bull calf’s nose absently. ‘You must be staying in the palace. Why did King Lykomedes leave you to come here alone and unheralded?’
    ‘Because I wished it, lady.’
    Having tethered the white bull calf to a ring on the side of a pillar, she turned her back on me.
    ‘Lady, who accepts my offering?’
    Looking at me over her shoulder, she showed me eyes of a cool and neutral grey. ‘I am Thetis, daughter of Nereus. Not by mere hearsay, King Peleus. My father is a great God.’
    Time to go. I thanked her and left.
    But not to go very far. Careful to keep out of sight of any watcher from the sanctuary, I slithered down the snakepath to the cove below, dumped my spear and sword behind a rock and lay down in the warm yellow sand, shielded by an overhanging cliff. Thetis. Thetis. She definitely did have a look of the sea about her. I even found myself wanting to believe that she was the daughter of a God, for I had gazed too deeply into those chameleon eyes, seen all the storms and calms which affected the sea, an echo of some cold fire defying description. And I wanted her for my wife.
    She was interested in me too; my years and tally of experience told me so. The crux of the matter was how strong her attraction might be; within myself I felt a warning of defeat. Thetis would no more marry me than she would any of the other eligible suitors who had asked for her. Though I was not a man for men, I had never cared overmuch for women beyond satiation of an urge even the greatest Gods suffer as painfully as men do. Sometimes I took a woman of the house to sleep with me, but until this moment I had never loved. Whether she knew it or not, Thetis belonged to me. And as I upheld the New Religion in all aspects, she would have no rival wives to contend with. I would be hers alone.
    The sun beat down on my back with increasing strength. Noon came; I stripped off my hunting suit to let the hot rays of Helios seep into my skin. But I could not lie still, had to sit up and glare at the sea, blaming it for this new trouble. Then I closed my eyes and sank upon my knees.
    ‘Father Zeus, look favourably upon me! Only in the moments of my greatest abandon and need have I prayed to you as a man might seek the succour of his grandsire. But so I pray now, to that part of you kindest and most beneficient. You have never failed to hear me because I never plague you with trivialities. Help me now, I beg! Give Thetis to me just as you gave me Iolkos and the Myrmidons, just as you delivered the whole of Thessalia into my hands. Give me a fitting queen to sit on the Myrmidon throne, give me mighty sons to take my place when I die!’
    Eyes closed, I stayed on my knees for a long time. When I rose I found nothing had changed. But that was to be expected; the Gods do not work miracles to inculcate faith in the hearts of men. Then I saw her standing with the wind blowing her flimsy gown behind her like a banner, her hair crystal in the sun, her face uplifted and rapt. Beside her was the white bull calf, and in her right hand she held a dagger. He walked to his doom tranquilly, even settled himself across her knees when she went down on them in the edge of the lapping waves, and never struggled or cried out when she cut his throat, held him while bright ribbons of scarlet coursed over her thighs and her bare white arms. The water about her became a fainter red as the shifting currents sucked the calf’s blood into their own substance and consumed it.
    She had not seen me, did not see me as she slid further out into the waves, dragging the dead calf with her until she was deep enough to sling his body around her neck and strike out. Some distance offshore she shrugged her shoulders to