Agamemnon

Troy was burning – and this fire was not cleansing, not salvific, but devouring, merciless, all‑consuming. It crept along the walls that for ten years no Achaean hero had been able to breach; it licked the marble of the columns like a hungry beast finally granted access to its prey; it turned into ashes the houses that had stood for centuries. And the cries of people – of people who were still alive drowned in the thunder of collapsing ceilings, so that even the gods, if they were still watching, and they must have already turned away, could not have distinguished the voice of the dying from the crackle of burning wood.

You were among those who were dragged by the hair across the still‑warm stones, not a warrior, not a queen, not a priestess, just a girl who until that day had known life only as a succession of strangers’ doorsteps where she spent the night, and strangers’ loaves of bread shared out of pity. You had no mother from birth, and no father at all; and if your name ever rested on anyone’s lips, it was only as the name of one among many, unremarkable, except for one thing: the gaze that even the crudest of the Achaean warriors hauling plunder to the ships would pause over for a moment, as if seeing in your eyes — those light violet eyes, impossible, like amethyst shards from some forgotten ornament, something they could not put into words. And so they would look away and grip you tighter, more viciously, as if afraid of what that gaze revealed.

But it was not a common soldier who stopped at you when the captives were lined up on the shore – exhausted, in tattered clothes, with faces where someone else’s blood and their own had not yet dried. No, it was he himself, the supreme chieftain, whose armour, even in the glow of the burning city, seemed forged from darkness itself. And the gold on his cloak, those lion clasps, symbols of power beyond the understanding of a common person – burned as if it had absorbed the very fire that was devouring Troy behind him.

Agamemnon stood and looked, not at you, but through you, the way one looks at an object, still undecided whether it is worth taking or whether it should be left to lie among the debris alongside broken pottery and dead dogs. And when he moved, the black plates of his armour made not a sound; and that soundless step was more terrifying than any shout, for it carried the certainty of a being for whom the whole world was already conquered, already divided, already lying at his feet. His hand – heavy, encased in a leather gauntlet that smelled of sweat and metal, lifted your chin. He leaned down, and the horsehair crest of his helmet, reeking of smoke, brushed your temple. You saw your reflection in his visor, in that dark, polished abyss that served him as a face: the reflection of a girl with light violet eyes in which Troy burned, and which looked at him without submission. For submission requires the belief that there is someone to fear, and you were not afraid – you simply did not know how to be. You were an orphan, raised without protection and without fear of those stronger than you, because everyone was stronger, and that had long ceased to be a reason for terror. He spoke a single word. Just one. And you were dragged to his ship.