Song of Princes (Homeric Chronicles #1) (24 page)

“Yes, that is what I am saying.”

“What if I do not wish it? I have a wife and work your land...what would a new father wish of me? I see no reason.”

“Paris, my dear son, you have no choice.”

“What do you mean, I have no choice?! I have a fucking choice and I choose not to visit this man.” 

“Paris, trust me. If you do not go, he will find me and run a sword through me for certain.”

“No one has the power to compel you or I to do what is against are wills.”

“Paris, it is the king. King Priam.”

Paris dropped his hands to his sides, and turned to Agelaus in the eyes. “You are a crazy fool. By the balls of Zeus, what are you talking about? I am no king’s son. I am no prince.” He shook his head. “Why are you doing this? Why would you jest regarding such a thing?”

Agelaus spoke, “It is no jest, Paris. You are the Forgotten Prince.”

Paris recalled the story. A prince born years ago who the king had put out to die. It was rumored the queen never forgave the king. “What has this to do with me? Nothing. I was an abandoned and unwanted child. You found me and raised me.”

“Paris, I was the servant chosen to leave the prince, you, in the wild. I left you there. For days I couldn’t sleep. The gods sent me nightmares so I went back. Found a silver-bear feeding you. Artemis I suppose. You were dirty, but your cheeks were rosy. I brought you home. We raised you as our own. Paris, I took you directly from the hands of Priam himself. I have no reason to speak untruth.”

Two armored guards appeared behind Agelaus, alarming him and his urgency grew to desperation. He must make Paris understand. “You must come with me to meet the king, your true father.”

Paris sized up the guards and considered his father’s words. He knew deep within that his father, the only father he’d ever known, was speaking the truth yet the words refused to take hold in his mind. He’d wanted to know the truth for so long, and now after finally hearing it, the truth sounded foreign in his ear, not at all the welcomed news he’d thought it would be. To be a prince would change everything about the life he’d come to love.

One guard stepped up, “Are you Agelaus?”

“Yes, yes I am,” the bull herder acknowledged.

“The king orders you return with the bull leaper.”

Agealus looked to Paris and said, “We’re coming presently.”

The guards escorted Paris and Agelaus straight to the royal compartments. As Paris approached he caught the eyes of several younger princes and princesses. They looked curiously at him. Then, he caught the image of a man a few years older than himself whose visage was almost a silvered mirror’s reflection of his own. His fingers touched the dip in his chin. The king rose to greet him.

“You are...” He turned to look at Hektor, then back to Paris. “You are him. I see the blood of my fathers in your face now that I can see you closely.” The king smiled broadly and tears filled his eyes. “You are him.”

Paris bowed his head. “I do not know who I am, my lord.”

“Agelaus tells me he has raised you as his own?”

“Yes, he has been father to me my entire life,” Paris said.

“He has told you, then, how you came to his household.”

“He has recently told me a tale I cannot believe.”

Priam nodded. “It is hard to hear the unbelievable and believe,” the king sighed, “Yet, it is true what he tells you.”

Paris grew angry. “Why?” He looked to the faces staring coldly and disbelievingly at him. Paris gestured at the royal family. “Why was I cast aside from among your jewels? What wrong had I done? You cannot be my father.”

“I am your father. You had done no wrong. A warning prophecy was given that your birth would bring destruction to Troy. So you were sent away...” There was a prophecy about your birth that caused me to send you away...”

“Sent to die, you mean.”

“My decision was only to protect Troy.”

Paris stepped away from the king, placing distance between the dawning truth and the world he yearned to keep. “Yet the city stands, as do I. Perhaps your seer was more practiced in deception than truth.”

“Your words are true enough. The seer must have misread the signs and the gods intervened through Agelaus to save you.”

Hecuba stepped forward without saying a word. She raised a hand and gently laid it on Paris’ cheek. Her large brown eyes softened with fresh tears and joy. “You are my son. I would know this face anywhere; even in the depth and fire of Hades I would know this face. My son...the Forgotten Prince to all, save me. You have lived in my grieving heart my entire life.” The queen embraced a surprised Paris and held him tightly to her and she wept quietly. Slowly, Paris brought his arms around the weeping woman.

Hektor watched his mother embrace the stranger and smiled for her joy and release of pain. He pulled his new wife to his side and whispered in her ear, “This will change everything for her.”

Andromache whispered back, “You are happy then?”

“Yes, yes I am glad. Her heart has suffered long.”

“You hold no jealousy or ill will toward him?”

“None. Curiosity, perhaps.”

“Then you are more generous than Deiphobus. His face holds hate than curiosity.”

Hektor noted his younger brother’s squinting eyes and slight sneer. “Jealousy serves no purpose here. If he is the Forgotten Prince, it is his right to return and claim his rank after me.” Andromache nodded agreement and nestled closer into Hektor’s embrace. The appearance of the man would seem joy, but she felt a shiver run through her of some cold future.

While the queen wept and chatted with the bull leaper, Priam pulled Agelaus aside to ask him a question in confidence. “What of the tongue you sent me, years ago?”

Agelaus cast his eyes to the ground and replied, “It was a dog’s tongue, sire.”

“WHAT?! DO YOU
jest at my expense?!” Lexias screamed.

He ducked as a clay plate whizzed past his ear. “There was nothing I could do to stop the king,” Agelaus defended himself.

“You could’ve lied! Isn’t that what we’ve been doing these many years? Who would know?”

“The priestess, Lexias, she singled him from the crowd. Called him the Forgotten Prince. She wouldn’t be silenced.”

“Some ranting of a lunatic girl and you give up our son?” Lexias dropped the cup from her hands and it cracked to pieces on the tile floor. “He is our son.” She pulled her bare breast from her chiton. “I suckled him with my own tit! He is mine!”

Agelaus judged it safe to approach his wife. Angry tears stained her face, and he knew her heated words only covered her hurt and betrayal. She loved Paris as he did. “Lexi, he is a Prince of Troy. Priam’s second son. One day he may even rise to become King of Troy, the gods forbid Hektor should fall.”

“Do you remember when he would talk to the cows? The chickens? He believed he could get them to lay more eggs...,” Lexias cried freely now. “I know what you say is true, Aggie. But my heart refuses to give him up.”

“We must. For his sake we must allow him to take his rightful place.”

PARIS GAZED OUT
at the green meadow lined with slender pines. He shielded his eyes from the sun, when from the corner of his sight he caught a flash of gold and silver. A shadow formed in the distance landing on the ground as gracefully as a bird. It made straight for him. Paris recognized the form he’d seen before, years ago, so long ago he’d almost forgotten the encounter and the judgment.

“Aphrodite. It has been as a life time,” Paris greeted the goddess with the appropriate deference.

“I am pleased you remember,” she said.

“One does not simply forget...Aphrodite.”

“Careful and as charming as I recall.”

“What brings you to the mortal realm goddess? Another contest?” Paris asked.

The goddess closed the small gap between them. “You have grown quite pleasing to the eye with the passing years. I had not noticed how much so until now.”

Dread knotted the back of his neck. There was nothing he could offer a goddess that she could not take for herself. “An undeserved compliment, Aphrodite.”

“I understand your true bloodline has been revealed to you? That you are a son of Priam?”

“Apparently, it is so.”

“You do not sound so pleased with this discovery? Apollo and Artemis played their parts well.”

“What has Apollo to do with me? And Artemis?”

“It was Apollo’s curse upon Priam for Hesione’s, shall we say, departure from Troy. That led to your...circumstance. It was Artemis who suckled you as a she-bear until the herder returned for you.”

“So, Agelaus was right...about the shining bear...,” Paris said.

“Enough talk of the mundane. I bring you news of the beauty that will one day belong to you, as I promised years ago.”

Paris didn’t want to hear the news. He’d hope that the goddess would forget the promise being pleased with her title of being the fairest. “I will hear your words, goddess.”

“She has been born, Paris. She will be the most fair of mortal women. And she will be yours.”

“I am thankful you’ve remembered the promise of such a gift on my behalf, but I have a wife I am pleased with. I desire no other.”

Aphrodite laughed at Paris’ thin rebuff of her gift. “Men do not refuse the will of the immortals.”

“I intend no insult goddess.”

“I take none. You need have no immediate concern. Helen is yet a child of two winters. I will not deliver her up until she has bled as a woman.”

“Where is she from?” Paris asked.

“Why do you fret so? Do not worry. When the season is upon you, I will provide the way to her.”

“So I have time yet?”

“Time for what mortal?”

“To make my home in Troy.”

“Take your place among the princes,” the goddess said. “I shall return.” Without further discussion, the goddess shimmered into thin air leaving Paris unsettled. He didn’t want a different wife. He loved Oenone. Betraying her would be like betraying himself. His thoughts troubled him all the way back to the home he shared with the nymph.

“THERE YOU ARE
, my love. The evening meal is almost cold,” Oenone said. Paris sat at the table without returning her greeting. “Is something the matter,” the nymph asked. Again, her husband didn’t answer. “Are you thinking about Troy again.”

Paris lied. “I can think of nothing else.”

Oenone sat next to him. “I wish there was some comfort I could give. But I am afraid I have more heaviness to add to your burden.”

Paris finally turned to face her. “Most unwelcomed news.”

“I have had a disturbing vision of our future, my love. One that pains me greatly.”

“Speak, then.”

The nymph spoke, “I have seen that you will abandon me for another. One who is golden and fair from across the sea.”

Oenone’s sadness pricked Paris’ heart. He thought of Aphrodite’s promise...
Helen...it must be Helen she speaks of
...“I will never leave you, Oenone. I could not forsake you for another; it would be as if I cut off a part of my flesh. No, I will not leave you.”

Oenone remained silent.

“There is more?” Paris asked.

“War will come to Troy. And you will be wounded grievously and only I will be able to heal you.”

“War? in Troy? I cannot believe that. The walls are impossible to breech. The world knows this. Who would start a war they could not win?”

“That was not revealed. Only that the war will come.” She grabbed Paris’ hand. “Promise me, that if this comes to pass, you will send for me. Let me heal your wounds so you are not lost to me forever.”

“Oenone, nothing is going to happen to me.”

“Promise?”

“I see you will not be deterred. I promise.”

“Promise you will always love me,” she said quietly.

“Shah, Oenone. I will love you, always,” Paris kissed her sweetly on the mouth and rested his forehead against hers. “But I must take my place among my true family.”