Chapter 230: Beneath the Mourning City

The second day of the truce began beneath the sound of bells.

They had been ringing since dawn.

Their voices moved through Troy in slow waves, rising above the palace roofs, crossing the inner streets, and fading against the walls. Each time the sound disappeared, another bell answered from farther away.

Hecuba was being carried from the harbour room.

The procession moved toward the inner city through streets crowded with mourners. Black cloth hung from windows. Oil lamps burned beside doorways despite the daylight. People stood with their heads lowered as the queen passed, and many reached toward the bier without touching it.

Hector walked beside the body.

He had refused a horse. He had refused the shelter of a carriage. His hand remained on the edge of the bier as if he could still protect her from the men carrying it.

Paris walked on the other side.

He did not look at the sword wound. He kept his eyes on Hecuba’s face, though even that was becoming difficult.

Lysander walked behind them.

He watched the crowd.

The funeral had drawn almost half the inner city toward the palace and the temple. That was what they needed. Movement had become ordinary. Families crossed from one district to another. Guards opened passages for mourners. Servants carried water, cloth, and oil.

Among them, another group was being moved through the city.

Women.

Children under sixteen.

The sick and wounded who could not fight.

They had been told they were being transferred to a protected district inside the inner city in case the Greeks attacked when the truce ended.

No one had been told about the passage.

No one outside the group had been told that the relocation would continue beyond the city.

At the southern side of the procession, Ampelos moved between the families with a wax tablet in his hand. He checked names, counted children, and quietly separated those who were too frightened to move from those who had not understood the order.

A woman tried to pull her daughter from the group.

"She is staying with me," she said.

Ampelos lowered his voice.

"She will be safer where she is going."

"I was told this was inside the city."

"That is what you were told."

The woman stared at him.

Ampelos did not look toward the temple.

"Keep walking," he said. "If you stop here, people will notice."

The woman glanced toward the funeral procession.

Hector had just passed beneath the shadow of the temple wall.

She took her daughter’s hand and continued.

At the rear of the group, Antiphus carried a boy whose ankle had been wrapped in linen. The boy had tried to walk until the crowd began pressing around him. Now his arms were around Antiphus’s neck, and his face was hidden against the man’s shoulder.

Daidalos followed with two covered carts.

The carts did not carry weapons. They held lamps, oil, water jars, rope, tools, and food wrapped in cloth. Everything had been chosen for its usefulness and its silence.

Miros walked ahead of them.

He did not turn often. When he did, it was to count the lamps or check the space between the groups.

The temple entrance was less than a hundred steps away.

The funeral passed toward the main stairs.

The first group turned toward the side court.

No one stopped them.

The city was looking at Hecuba.

That was the point.

---

Inside the temple, the air was cooler.

The priests had moved aside earlier that morning. The official story was that the side chambers were being prepared for women and children who needed shelter during the funeral.

The doors remained open.

Miros entered the chamber behind the altar and waited until the first group had passed through.

The entrance to the hidden passage was not visible from the temple floor. It was concealed behind a section of stone that looked no different from the wall beside it.

Daidalos set down one of the lamps and knelt beside the mechanism.

"Still intact," he murmured.

Miros looked at him.

"Can you open it quietly?"

Daidalos touched the stone with two fingers.

"Quietly enough."

He pressed at the lower edge.

Nothing happened.

Behind them, a child began to cry.

Antiphus turned at once.

The boy in his arms had woken and was looking around the chamber.

"Where are we going?" the boy asked.

"Somewhere safer," Antiphus said.

"Where is my father?"

Antiphus shifted him against his shoulder.

"Your father knows where you are."

It was not an answer, but the boy accepted it for the moment.

Daidalos pressed the stone again.

A dull sound came from inside the wall.

The section moved inward by the width of a hand.

Miros placed his fingers into the gap and pulled.

The stone door opened slowly.

Cold air passed through the chamber.

The children grew quiet.

The passage beyond was narrow and dark. Its floor sloped away from the temple, and the ceiling was low enough that the tallest men had to lower their heads.

Miros lifted the first lamp.

"Single line," he said. "No pushing. Keep one hand on the person in front of you."

A woman looked at the darkness.

"How far?"

Miros did not answer with a number.

"Far enough that you must not lose the person ahead."

She swallowed and stepped forward.

The first group entered.

Antiphus followed with the injured boy. Daidalos came behind him, carrying the tools and two lamps. The other women and children moved after them, guided by the soldiers who had been chosen for the task.

The passage swallowed the sound of the temple.

The bells became distant.

Then even the voices above disappeared.

---

The first difficulty came before they had gone far.

One of the carts caught against the wall.

Daidalos stopped and tried to pull it free.

The wheel had entered a narrow groove in the floor. The cart shifted, but did not move forward.

"Lift it," Miros said.

"There are too many jars."

"Leave the jars."

Daidalos looked at him.

"We may need them."

"We need the people moving more."

Together, they lifted the front of the cart. Two soldiers pulled from behind. The wheel came free with a scrape that seemed loud enough to wake the dead.

A child began crying again.

"Keep moving," Miros said.

The line continued.

The walls were wet in places. Water gathered along the lower stones and reflected the lamplight. The air smelled of dust, old earth, and something metallic beneath it.

Miros knew the route.

He did not know every change in it.

That was why he kept stopping at the turns.

At the first junction, he raised his lamp and waited until the entire group had reached him.

"Left," he said.

No one asked why.

They had learned quickly that the passage could not be treated like a street. A person who took the wrong turn might not be found before the lamps burned out.

At the second turn, an old woman stumbled.

Antiphus caught her before she fell.

"I can walk," she whispered.

"I know," he said. "Walk beside me."

She tried to pull away.

He did not let her.

Ahead, Miros stopped beside a section of wall where three shallow marks had been cut into the stone. He touched the lowest one, then looked at Daidalos.

"Water."

Daidalos opened a small leather container and poured a little into the groove.

A faint vibration passed through the wall.

The women stepped back.

The stone ahead shifted with a deep grinding sound.

A narrow opening appeared.

Beyond it, the passage widened.

Miros entered first.

The others followed in smaller groups.

No one spoke until the last woman crossed through.

Then the stone began to move back.

"Wait," Daidalos said.

He had seen one of the lamps lying near the edge of the opening.

He reached for it.

The stone moved another handspan.

Daidalos grabbed the lamp and pulled it toward him. The door closed behind him with a heavy impact.

For a few moments, the group stood in darkness.

Then Antiphus raised his lamp.

The children were pressed against their mothers. Some of the women were crying silently. One man had begun praying beneath his breath.

Miros looked at them.

"We continue."

No one moved.

He understood why.

They were no longer beneath the temple. They could not hear the city. They could not see the sky. The passage did not feel like a road to safety.

It felt like being buried alive.

Miros lowered his lamp.

"The city above is still there," he said. "The bells are still ringing. The funeral is still moving. Nothing has changed except that you cannot see it."

A woman looked at him.

"Then why can’t we hear the bells?"

"Because the walls are thick."

It was simple enough to believe.

She took her son’s hand.

The group began moving again.

---

Above them, the funeral reached the inner court.

The bier was carried beneath a roof of dark cloth. Hecuba’s sons stood around it while the priests began the rites.

Hector did not look toward the side court.

He knew the first group had entered the temple. He knew Miros had opened the passage. He knew that every moment spent above ground made it easier for the city to believe the relocation was ordinary.

Paris stood beside him with Hecuba’s list hidden inside his sleeve.

One of the names had been marked twice.

A harbour official.

The man had appeared near the relocation group three times that morning. He had not joined the mourners. He had not spoken to the families. He had only watched the movement between the streets and the temple.

Paris saw him again at the edge of the court.

The man was looking toward the side entrance.

Paris did not approach him.

Not yet.

He turned his attention back to the funeral.

Lysander stood several steps away, speaking quietly with a guard. The guard nodded and moved toward the temple doors.

The doors were closed now.

The city saw only the funeral.

The passage below saw something else.

---

Miros led the group through the next section.

The floor continued downward, but the change was gradual. The children were tiring. The women had stopped asking how far remained.

Daidalos redistributed the supplies.

The food was divided into smaller bundles. The lamps were separated so that no single accident would leave the group in darkness.

Antiphus found a place for the injured boy on one of the carts.

The boy had stopped crying.

That worried him more than the crying had.

"Stay awake," Antiphus said.

"I’m not tired."

"Good."

The boy looked at the dark passage.

"Are we under the palace?"

"No."

"Under the city?"

Antiphus glanced at Miros.

"Not in the way you think."

The boy seemed satisfied with that.

They reached the second concealed entrance.

This one was not beneath the temple. It lay farther along the route, concealed within the inner-city wall where the passage narrowed before turning away from the city.

Miros stopped before it.

Daidalos moved past him and inspected the stone.

"This one is different."

"How?"

"The locking arm is under pressure."

Miros looked at the wall.

"Can you open it?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

Daidalos placed his ear against the stone.

"Long enough for everyone to become impatient."

"Then start."

Daidalos removed two tools from his belt.

The group waited.

Behind them, one of the lamps flickered.

Miros turned.

The flame steadied.

He looked back at the door.

Daidalos worked the metal pin free. The mechanism resisted, then released all at once.

The stone shifted.

A draft moved through the passage.

It carried a smell none of them had noticed before.

Salt.

Miros raised his lamp toward the opening.

The darkness beyond was wider than the passage behind them.

The road continued.

Daidalos stepped aside.

"Is this the way?"

Miros looked into the dark.

"Yes."

He did not say anything more.

The first group passed through.

When the last person had crossed, Daidalos began closing the stone.

Miros remained on the other side until the door was almost shut.

From the passage behind it came a faint sound.

Metal touching stone.

He stopped.

The sound came again.

Once.

Then silence.

Miros lowered the lamp and looked at the dust near the door.

There was a footprint there.

It was not one of theirs.

He did not call out.

Behind him, the women and children waited in the wider passage, their faces turned toward him.

Miros closed the door.

The sound above the stone did not return.

He lifted the lamp and faced the road ahead.

"Keep moving," he said.

No one asked what he had seen.

Behind them, the last light from Troy disappeared.

Ahead, the passage descended into darkness.