He lets go of his hands, noticing at last the tightness of his grip.

“Forgive me. I have disturbed you tonight.”

He takes a small sack of coins from his belt and drops it next to the old man’s plate, and leaning on his staff he leaves as swiftly as he is able to.

Ophellios’ sleep that night is disturbed. Dreams of strange councils of the gods; of sitting like a lapdog at the feet of greater beings than he; of his earthly father in the rivers of the Underworld; of great prophecies too terrible to bear–

He wakes up with a scream and reaches for Diameda.

When first she heard Ophellios was lost, she wept, and did not need to fake it. Insofar as she had dared hope for a future beyond the next day, she had hoped she might be allowed to return to Pylos and - fade into the background, hopefully, hopefully, be one of the king's many toys. 

And then he died, and she knew she would be given to another warrior if she was lucky - not another king, the used-up girl, and not even a man she understood as she now understands Ophellios better than he himself does. 

Then she heard what he had ordered for her, and she cried again. 

She had just begun to believe she might be - well, the closest possible thing to free. Aetos had just ignored her, and she appreciated him for it. 

Now he's back, they say. 

...She's not so sure. 

She first noticed it the very first night, in the healer's tent, when she traced his skin as he murmured and shifted - and didn't find the scar that she massaged oil into for weeks, didn't find the mark from his first boar-hunt as a boy, didn't recognise the matted mess of his hair. 

Her task is the same. 

She doesn't really think of those terrifying and grief-stricken and wonderful few weeks, when she was bereft and free. 

Without a second's hesitation she holds him, soothes him, strokes his hair and whispers to him. 

He clings onto her and at last finds sleep again in her arms.

It is dreamless this time – except for a face.

The face that he used to see behind his eyes every night was smiling. Supernatural, contorted; his heavenly father in the shape of a shadow.

Now it has the face of a friend, with grey-blue eyes turned hard like metal.

He whispers something in his slumber that Diameda cannot hear.

“How I long for Trojan blood,” he groans, throwing a dagger across his hut. It pierces deep, finding home among the king’s other knives embedded in a wooden pillar.  

“This winter has been tedious. There is little action; only waiting, only infighting. Tell me, how am I supposed to win back the Spartan Queen if we are all just sitting around?”

Another blade flies across the room. A pretty servant girl shrieks and ducks, and escapes with only a few locks of hair lost.

King Menelaus laughs. “Watch where you are going, girl.”

He leans back into his seat as the fire crackles, tiring now of throwing knives. Looking at Aetos, he raises an eyebrow. “Well? Are you going to answer me, or are you only going to drain my precious wine?”

He grunts. "More than half this is Cretan vintage, as you well know - you have enough of it out of my camp."

He stretches, drinking again from his cup. 

"In truth I feel the same. I do not like to sit here, watching my beard grow and whiling away my hours; I like it less since our present troubles. I cannot say what I would like, I cannot do what I would like. It makes my sword-arm itch."

His eyes widen as he is struck by a sudden idea.

“I know,” he conspires, taking his own cup. “Why do you and I not ride out together? We could raid a distant town; one of those who have not paid their tithes to us this winter, or one where Trojan guards still linger.”

"Ha!" He drains his cup. "There truly is a fire in you, Menelaus. I would for sport and for honour both; but what of the bitter winter? You were not present for the storm Zeus sent before; I should not like to see its like again."

He shakes his head. “What is this? Are you now scared of a little rain?”

The same serving girl, with shaking hands, tries to replenish the kings’ cups. She spills a little over Aetos’ fingers.

He stares at her darkly.

I can go another week- 

He stands abruptly, plucking the wine-jug lightly from the girl's hands and filling his own cup, and Menelaus's, a little higher than they should go, carelessly placing himself in between her and the other king. "What! Will you do battle with Lord Zeus himself in your boredom, Menelaus?" He cracks a grin. "I cannot say I lack sympathy, but even I would question that much courage, and you know how daring I can be."

The slave girl retreats. No matter. He will discipline her later.

“Quite. Throwing around such accusations yesterday, I thought the very gods must have breathed audacity into your old bones.”

A pause.

“Tell me truly, Aetos. Do you really think young Ophellios to be the traitor?”

He thumps back down into his chair, takes another long drink. 

What does he say?

He stares into the fire. "I... I do not know. There are many things, it seems, that I do not know." He looks up, and his eyes are blazing. "The gods play strange games with us, and it seems every king has his own hidden purpose, for all that their fate is set by the gods, and not by their intentions. But Ophellios- I watched him die."

What on earth does he say to that?

”Did you?” He asks uninterestedly, though… he does vaguely remember Aetos’ story from when it happened. Had it not been the case that Ophellios had simply disappeared?

”Well, you certainly made quite the statement yesterday, turning against the man so publicly.” 

He sits up. He had not truly meant to- ah. 

"Bah. I tire quickly of such intrigues; let them chatter about what they will. This Spartan wine of yours brings out strange thoughts in a man, Menelaus; let us turn to nobler subjects. This raid-"

The hour is late and Spartan wine lulls King Aetos into a trance.

Regardless, he has a visitor.

…