Chapter 228: Three Days of Silence

Agamemnon did not raise his voice.

That was what made the room feel smaller.

His son stood before the campaign table with his cloak still fastened around his shoulders. Dust marked the hem. A dark stain had dried near one sleeve.

Agamemnon looked at it.

Then he looked at his son.

"You were ordered to enter the city."

The young man said nothing.

"You were not ordered to approach her."

"She had found the source."

Agamemnon’s fingers rested on the edge of the table.

"She had found a thread."

"She was pulling it."

"We did not know where it led."

"She would have discovered it."

"Perhaps."

The word struck harder than anger.

The young man’s jaw tightened. "She was going to expose your spy."

"She was going to expose someone connected to my spy."

"That distinction would not have saved us."

"No," Agamemnon said. "But it might have saved the network."

His son’s eyes hardened.

"She was an old woman."

"She was Hecuba."

The name remained between them.

Even here, in the Greek camp, the queen’s name carried weight. She had survived kings, wars, famine, disease, and the death of her husband. She had held Troy together after Priam’s death when the city should have broken apart.

And now she was dead.

Agamemnon looked again at the stain on his son’s sleeve.

"You left the sword in her."

"It was necessary."

"It was convenient."

"She needed to be silenced."

"You left Mycenae’s seal inside Troy."

His son did not answer.

"You put a Greek sword through the back of the queen of Troy, in a hidden passage beneath the harbour, and left the mark of Mycenae where her sons would find it."

"She was going to expose the source."

"And now every man in Troy knows that we reached inside their walls."

"They already knew we had spies."

"They suspected." Agamemnon’s voice remained quiet. "Now they have a body."

The young man’s hand moved toward the sword at his side.

Agamemnon noticed.

"Do not mistake my anger for regret," he said. "I regret the timing. I regret the method. I regret that you acted before we understood what she had discovered."

"She would have changed everything."

His father’s eyes narrowed.

"No. You changed everything."

For the first time, the young man looked away.

Outside the tent, the camp was beginning to move. Orders passed between officers. Horses stamped in the mud. Somewhere near the beach, a hammer struck bronze.

Agamemnon turned toward the entrance.

"Three days."

His son looked back at him.

"Three days?"

"No attack on the walls. No movement against the harbour. No rams. No arrows."

"They will think we are weak."

"They will think we are mourning."

"We are not."

"I know."

Agamemnon looked toward the dark line of Troy beyond the camp.

"Grief is more useful than fear when you want a city to reveal itself."

His son remained silent.

During the three days, the Trojans would gather around their dead queen. The commanders would leave their positions. The families would come out of hiding. Messages would move through the city. Men would speak without checking who stood behind them.

And the murderer would have time to disappear.

"You will leave the camp before sunrise," Agamemnon said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere no one knows your face."

The young man looked at him.

"You are sending me away."

"I am removing you from the story."

The order was clear.

By dawn, Agamemnon’s son would be gone.

Agamemnon lifted a tablet from the table.

"Prepare the announcement."

His son stopped at the entrance.

"What will you say?"

Agamemnon did not look at him.

"That Troy has three days to bury its queen."

He paused.

"And that Greece respects the dead."

The young man gave a quiet, humourless breath.

"Do you?"

Agamemnon finally turned toward him.

"No."

He looked past his son, toward the city.

"But Troy does."

---

The announcement reached the walls before the sun had fully risen.

A Greek officer stood beyond bow range beneath a white cloth. Behind him, the army remained in place. The men on the platforms did not advance. The siege engines stood silent.

His voice carried across the open ground.

"By order of King Agamemnon, the Greek army will cease all attacks for three days in honour of Queen Hecuba of Troy."

No one on the wall moved.

"The gates may remain closed. The dead may be prepared and mourned without interference."

A murmur passed through the defenders.

The officer raised the cloth higher.

"No Greek soldier will approach the walls, the harbour, or the city during the period of mourning."

Lysander watched him from the parapet.

"What do they want?" Antenor asked.

"Something," Lysander said.

"They always want something."

The Greek officer turned back toward the camp.

Below him, fifty thousand men waited in silence.

Lysander looked at the city behind him.

People had already begun gathering in the streets. Word had spread faster than the announcement. Hecuba was dead. The queen was dead. The mother of Hector, Paris, and Lysander was dead.

"They can have the three days," Lysander said.

Antenor looked at him.

"You trust them?"

"No."

"Then why accept?"

Lysander’s eyes remained on the walls.

"Because we need the time more than they do."

---

Hector stood alone on the inner wall.

He had not slept.

His hands were closed around the stone parapet. He had pressed his fingers against it so hard that the skin across his knuckles had split.

Below, the city moved without purpose.

People carried cloth, oil, water, lamps. Others stood in the streets and did nothing. Some cried openly. Some whispered prayers. Some stared toward the harbour as if the answer to the murder might still be found there.

Hector did not hear Andromache approach.

She came beside him and stopped.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

"She asked me to eat yesterday," Hector said.

Andromache’s lips trembled.

"She told me I was trying to survive on bread and anger."

"She was right."

"I know."

His fingers tightened against the stone.

"She was always right about things that did not matter until they did."

Andromache looked toward the city.

"She was the first person here who treated me like I belonged."

Hector’s eyes remained fixed on the Greek camp.

"Everyone belonged to her."

"No." Andromache wiped at her cheek. "Not like that."

He looked at her then.

"She made room for me before I knew how to ask for it," Andromache said. "When I came here, I was a wife from another city. A treaty with a pulse. I did not know where to stand, what to say, or which silence belonged to me."

Her voice cracked.

"She found me in the eastern garden. She sat beside me and complained that the figs were too sour. She did not ask whether I was happy. She did not ask whether I loved you. She only sat there until I stopped feeling like a guest."

Hector looked away.

His breath came slowly through his nose.

"They walked into our city," he said.

Andromache reached for his hand.

"They found her in a hidden passage."

"They walked through our walls."

"Hector—"

"They put a sword in her back."

His voice broke on the last word.

He pulled his hand from hers and struck the parapet.

The sound travelled along the wall.

"I will kill them," he said.

Andromache did not tell him not to.

"I will kill every one of them."

His shoulders rose and fell.

"I should have been there. I should have known. I should have—"

"You could not protect her from everything."

"I was supposed to protect the city."

"You are not the whole city."

"I am her son."

The anger left his face for one moment.

Only the grief remained.

Andromache stepped closer and put both hands against his chest.

"Then grieve first," she whispered. "Kill them after."

Hector closed his eyes.

A sound escaped him. Small. Unsteady.

Andromache held him while he bent over her, his forehead against her shoulder.

For the first time since Priam’s death, Hector allowed himself to cry.

The city below continued to mourn.

---

Paris found Helen near the women’s courtyard.

She stood beside a basin filled with water. Her hands were submerged, though they were already clean.

Paris stopped when he saw her.

"You should go inside."

She looked at him.

"I have been inside."

"You should rest."

"I do not know how."

He came closer. His face had changed since the night before. There was no colour in it. His eyes were swollen, but he had stopped crying.

That frightened her more than his tears.

"She used to come into my room without knocking," he said.

Helen lowered her eyes.

"She said doors made people too formal."

"She told me that if a man needed permission to enter his mother’s house, the house was already lost."

Paris almost smiled.

The expression disappeared before it formed.

"She hated the cold."

"I know."

He looked at her.

"You know?"

"She complained every winter."

Paris sat on the edge of the stone basin.

"She kept saying the palace had been built by men who believed women did not feel cold."

Helen sat beside him.

For a while, they listened to the voices beyond the courtyard.

Someone was crying in the next passage.

Someone else was reciting the names of the dead.

Paris looked at Helen’s hands.

"You are shaking."

"So are you."

"I am trying not to."

"I know."

He turned toward her.

"Why are you crying like you lost more than the rest of us?"

Helen could not breathe properly.

Because she had lost Hecuba.

Because she had helped create the road that led to her death.

Because Hecuba had looked at her and understood that the part of the betrayal belonging to Helen could not be given to Agamemnon.

Helen pressed her hands together.

"She gave me more than I deserved."

Paris looked away.

"She gave everyone more than they deserved."

Helen shut her eyes.

Paris leaned against her shoulder.

She did not move.

If she told him now, he would never touch her again.

If she remained silent, she would carry the weight of Hecuba’s blood into every room they entered together.

Paris’s voice came quietly.

"I want my mother back."

Helen’s tears fell onto her hands.

"So do I."

He did not ask why.

He only sat beside her while the city mourned.

---

Arsini continued working.

The dead required water. The living required food. The guards needed replacements. The families from the lower town needed directions. The old and the wounded needed places near the inner walls.

She gave orders until her voice grew rough.

Then she entered the supply room, closed the door, and stood alone.

On the table lay one of Hecuba’s tablets.

Arsini touched it.

Her eyes blurred.

She wiped them angrily and picked up another tablet.

The door opened.

Lysander stood there.

"You should be outside," Arsini said.

"So should you."

"I am working."

"So am I."

Neither moved.

Arsini looked at his face.

He had always been difficult to read. Not now.

His eyes were red.

"She should have told us," he said.

"She believed she was protecting us."

"She was always protecting someone."

"She was the queen."

"She was our mother."

Arsini lowered her gaze.

Lysander tried to speak again, but the words failed. His mouth tightened. He turned away and covered his face with one hand.

Arsini crossed the room and held him.

He did not resist.

His body shook once, then again.

"She was supposed to come back," he whispered.

"I know."

"I should have asked where she was going."

"She would not have told you if she believed the answer would place you in danger."

"That does not make it easier."

"No."

Arsini held him until the shaking stopped.

Then Lysander pulled away.

"I need to speak with Cassandra."

"Why?"

"She may have seen something."

Arsini did not ask what he meant.

Lysander left the room.

---

Cassandra’s chamber was empty.

The lamp had burned out.

Her bed had not been disturbed, but the wool cloak she wore when travelling through the lower passages was gone. So was the small bronze lamp she kept beneath the table.

Lysander searched the room once.

Then again.

On the writing table, beneath a clay weight, lay a folded piece of linen.

His name had been written on it.

He opened it.

Lysander,

I saw the pain waiting above us.

I could not remain there and watch it take shape.

I have gone below.

In the vision, Miros was climbing toward you. Dexion was with him.

I do not know what they will bring with them.

I only know that they were alive, and that the road ended at you.

Do not follow me yet.

Some doors open only after someone has gone through them.

— Cassandra

Lysander read the letter twice.

The pain waiting above us.

He thought of Hecuba sitting against the wall with a sword through her chest.

He thought of the calm in her open eyes.

Cassandra had seen something.

Perhaps not the moment itself. Perhaps not the sword.

But she had seen enough.

He folded the letter.

Far below the palace, something moved through the dark.

Miros was coming.

And Dexion was with him.

Lysander looked toward the temple.

Then he turned away from the door.

For now, Cassandra had asked him not to follow.

He would obey.

He did not know whether that was wisdom or fear.

---

By noon, the bells of Troy began to ring.

Their sound reached the temple square, where people had gathered beneath the old columns. Some carried lamps despite the daylight. Others held strips of black cloth. A woman knelt beside the temple steps with both hands pressed to her mouth.

A door beneath the altar opened.

Miros climbed out first.

He paused when the light struck his face.

Dexion followed him, one hand against the wall, his breathing hard from the ascent.

Neither man spoke.

The people in the square turned toward them.

Miros looked from one face to another.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

No one answered at first.

Then an old man lowered his head.

"The queen is dead."

Miros stood still.

"Which queen?"

The woman beside the steps looked up at him.

"Hecuba."

The name reached him slowly.

He had been below for too long. The city above had continued without him. Battles had been fought. Walls had fallen. People had died.

But Hecuba had been alive when he descended.

"She was killed," the old man said.

Miros looked toward Dexion.

"By whom?"

"The Mycenaeans."

The woman began to cry again.

"They found her in the passage near the harbour. A sword through her back."

Dexion’s hand tightened around his spear.

Miros stared at the temple steps.

Above the city, the bells continued to ring.

Cassandra had seen him climbing toward Lysander.

She had not told him what he would find when he reached the surface.

Miros looked toward the palace.

The old man pointed toward the harbour.

Miros started walking.

Dexion followed.

Behind them, the hidden door beneath the altar swung shut.

The bells kept ringing.

Three days of silence had been offered to Troy.

Miros had returned to the city on the first.