The Trojan Princess by JJ Hilton Read Free Book Online Page B

other.”
               
“Hector –” Priam protested, but his son had turned from him.
               
“I will hear no more of this,” he insisted. “King Eetion was a loyal friend of
yours for many years, was he not, father?” Priam looked shamed by the words.
“Yet you seek to treat his daughter, a princess, with such dishonour? I shall
do no such thing, she will be my wife.”
               
He swept from the council chambers, leaving an uncomfortable silence in his
wake. Diephobus edged forward, closer to his father, quiet until he had learned
of what mood his father might be in now.
               
“What think you?” he asked, when Priam remained quiet, brow burrowed in
thought.
               
“Hector is right,” he said, “Though how can such a disadvantageous marriage –”
               
Diephobus clapped his hands together, and Priam looked at him hopefully.
               
“Perhaps the princess’ position is not so undesirable after all,” he said,
delighted as his father eagerly clung to each word. “It is true that her father
is dead, and her mother near death. Her lands are destroyed, yet she still
remains heiress to them. Sole heiress, I believe, given that her seven brothers
were slaughtered in the sack of Thebes?”
               
Priam nodded, eyes sparkling with interest as he began to understand his son’s
meaning.
               
“If her mother was to pass away, and it seems likely that she will,” Diephobus
went on, “Then our dear Andromache will be heir to all that land, and when she
marries Hector, her lands will naturally pass to him as her husband, will it
not?”
               
“Of course,” Priam exclaimed, clapping his hand together. He smiled at the
thought of delivering such good news to Hector; he would send for him at once.
               
Diephobus bowed and made for the doors to exit the council chambers. His father
was delighted, but Diephobus felt no such joy. He rarely did; he was pleased to
have found a solution to his king’s dilemma, but only because he knew his
father would not forget such help. Perhaps he would get some of the lands when
they passed from Andromache to the royal family. He could but hope, he thought.
               
In the council room, Priam called for the guards and sent one off to find a
servant who could bring Princess Andromache to him. He would receive her
warmly, he decided, for she was a princess, he reminded himself, and to marry
his Heir Apparent as well.
     
     
               

Chapter Two
Princess of
Troy
               
King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy received Andromache, the princess of a
destroyed and kingless Thebes, with joy and ceremony. Priam showed no intention
of calling off such a wedding, though the fact that the advantages of such a
marriage being diminished significantly since the attack on her homeland was
clearly not lost on the wily king, and Hecuba hugged her close to her bosom and
wept warm, salty tears of commiseration over her. Whether Priam inwardly
regretted the betrothal, Andromache saw no sign, and it made her sigh with
relief that she had been welcomed so kindly to the royal palaces of Troy.
               
“Your mother will be cared for by the best healers in the land,” Hecuba told
her, gathering her to the seat beside her at the royal high table. “Grief is the
cruellest illness in the world, dear child.”
               
Andromache knew the truth of those words. She prayed that her mother would
recover but part of her knew that she would not. She remembered her mother’s
words under the moonlight, and she knew it had been a goodbye. Her mother did
not want to recover; she wanted to return to her husband’s side, and Andromache
thought that perhaps it would have been kinder for her to die on the sword
beside her husband, rather than be left alive in a