Song of Princes (Homeric Chronicles #1) (2 page)

I am god of war. I exist for the battlefield, the blood, the gore. Triumph. Victory. These are the laurels I rest upon my head. I require nothing more, nothing less. The challenge of competition satisfies my need for amusement. I revel in the moment mortal men cry out my name in the headlong charge of battle. They all scream for victory, for my guidance to balance their far-flung spears. I dole out my gifts in battle as I see fit. I find some more worthy than others through the smoke and carnage of war. I tell you, I find the Greeks a miserable batch of fucking cunts. They would fuck their own mothers for a short victory. Fucking Greeks!  The Trojans I find more honorable. They, at least, pay tribute to the tit that suckled them with life. They know that battle is a dance, a play of swords, a game where death is meted out as a reward born of passion. They fight for what they love, not for what they should hold dear.

As for love, there is a battle I would rather forget. It is the only fight where victory is as illusive as a trail of lightning and will singe the hand that seizes it. Love hits gods and mortals alike. I see no happy arrangements in this arena. Love is lunacy among humans. For the gods, love moistens appetites, but we trample it with heavy foot. See Zeus. He cannot even maintain stability in his own assembly because his eyes stray from Hera’s thighs to mortal flesh. His lust is well-known, for it populates the world below with heroes.

Some mortals earn respect for their acts of bravery or honesty. Be forewarned: never underestimate that a god may decide to test you at any moment. Beware or suffer.

I am god of the thunderbolt. And I love all women, especially mortal women.

I love their earthy essence, the feel of their human flesh entwined with my sexual forms, the way they shudder with ecstasy when I am with them. I revel in the flash of fear in their eyes when they realize it is I who beds them. My conquests being of mortal clay quickly bring my seed to ripen with children. Strange and beautiful children like Herakles and Perseus. They are helpless under my charms whatever guise I choose to assault them with. They moan and plead for me to stop or to continue—they cannot make up their minds. The pain of separation from the physical bond of our bizarre unions lingers with these women. They loath it and crave it when I am done with them. After union with a god, a sliver of desire remains with the mortal women that they will never quell.

The essence of goddess and nymph also pleases. I take my fill when I can. They are harder prey to conquer. Thetis is the only nymph I never pleasured out of fear for myself because Themis, Titaness and oracle for the gods, warned me that a son of Thetis would be greater than his father. No more mutinous wars of sons against fathers in Olympus.

My husband’s wandering eye and taste for mortal women disgusts me. Every time he spawns offspring with these creatures, I can smell them like a rotting fish on a parched river bank. He may wield that dreaded thunderbolt and shake mortal bones, but he does not shake me or my resolve. For all his power and sight, he cannot see how the most dangerous weapons are thundered from the wombs of mortal women. I must forgive him because he is the supreme god, but I do not forget. I do not forget how he tricked me as a wounded bird to gain my sympathies and my heart. He forgets that the milky streak of stars across the sky spilled from my breasts and fell to earth as fields of lilies. There is power in creating life. He forgets we all played our part creating the world below.

He is a magnificent specimen among immortals. He is father, lover, brother, supreme warrior, and he is also a murderer, a conspirator, a judge...a philanderer. He cannot be trusted... truth spoken, neither can any of us. We are all subject to our own particular passions and cruelties. Mortals pray and sacrifice in our honor. If it pleases us, we choose to answer with kindness. If we are displeased, retribution is almost certain and will usually come when least expected. We offer no reasons. Why should we? We are eternal, and humans but a flash in our eyes. I play my favorites, as much as he does.

1295 BCE              Hektor is born in Troy

Agamemnon is born in Mycenae

1290 BCE              Paris is born in Troy

1288 BCE              Clytemnestra born in Sparta

1285 BCE              Andromache born

1282 BCE              Briseis is born in Pedasus

Menelaus is born in Mycenae

1279 BCE              Odysseus is born in Ithaka

1272 BCE              Wedding of Thetis and Peleus

Paris fights Ares’ Bull

The Judgment of Paris (15 years old)

1271 BCE              Achilles born to Thetis and Peleus

1270 BCE              Penelope born

Cassandra’s Curse

Leda raped by Zeus in the form of a swan

Clytemnestra (18) marries Agamemnon (25)

Helen born

1266 BCE              Iphigenia born to Clytemnestra & Agamemnon

Achilles (5) with Chiron the Centaur

1265 BCE              Hektor (30) marries Andromache (20)

1257 BCE              Achilles (14 yrs) returns to Peleus

Studies under Phoenix

Corythus born, son of Oenone and Paris

Achilles (14) sent to Skyros by Thetis

1254 BCE              Achilles (17) marries pregnant Deidamia (16)

Helen kidnapped by Theseus and Pirithous

1253 BCE              Neoptolemus (Achilles’ son) born

1252 BCE              Helen (18) marries Menelaus (30)

Odysseus (27) marries Penelope (18)

1251 BCE              Hermione born to Helen and Menelaus

Paris quests to rescue Hesione at

Priam’s command

Menelaus attends funeral of

Catreus of Crete

Paris (39) takes Helen (19), takes half

Menelaus’ treasury

Oenone is heartbroken, turns to her father for advice/comfort

Telemachus born to Odysseus and Penelope

Gathering at Aulis for Troy

Odysseus to retrieve Achilles (20) at Skyros

Sacrifice of Iphigenia (15)

** A note about the timeline. I have tried to the best of my ability to incorporate as many myths as necessary into these stories. The process has uncovered several surprises for me, first as an historian, and secondly as a writer. Sometimes these two halves of me clashed in the process. I have tweaked a few dates so the stories make the most sense in an historical timeline.

Sing Muse, sing of the Forgotten Prince

How regal visions of smoke and fire

conspired with iron Fate

to take the child

Far and afield at Ida’s foothold

rising from the earth’s good ground

he abandoned

wept

Until gentle mercy came

with silver fur to suckle

heart-breaking cries

to peaceful sleep

...and the silent lies

tore the crown asunder

Sing Muse, sing of the Forgotten Prince

Sing of the bitter bite

of judgment

and sweet kisses

of betrayal...