Read Online Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell - Free Book Online Page B

young.”
    “I was three years older than you. However, the next time I see Odysseus, I will ask him if you can sail with him one day.”
    “Would you do that? Oh, that would be wonderful. You would allow that, wouldn’t you, Mama?”
    The slender, golden-haired queen, Halysia, gave Helikaon a look of affectionate reproach. “Yes,” she said. “If Odysseus will have you.”
    “Oh, he will,” said Diomedes, “for I am just as brave as Helikaon.”
    “Braver,” Helikaon told him. “When I was your age I was frightened of everything.”
    “Even spiders?”
    “Especially spiders.”
    The boy sighed. “Oh, Helikaon, I wish I could come to Troy with you. I’d like to meet Great-Uncle Priam and Hektor. Is it true you are going to marry the beautiful Kreusa?”
    “No, it is not true. And what would you know about beautiful women?”
    “I know they are supposed to have big breasts and kiss men all the time. And Kreusa is beautiful, isn’t she? Pausanius says she is.”
    “Yes, she is beautiful to look at. Her hair is dark and long, and she has a pretty smile.”
    “Then why won’t you marry her? Great-Uncle Priam wants you to, doesn’t he? And Mother says it would be good for Dardania. And you said we both had to obey Mother.”
    Helikaon shrugged and spread his hands. “All this is true, little brother. But your mother and I have an understanding. I will serve her loyally in all matters, but I have decided to marry only when I meet a woman I love.”
    “Why can’t you do both?” asked the boy. “Pausanius has a wife and two mistresses. He says he loves them all.”
    “Pausanius is a rascal,” said Helikaon.
    Queen Halysia stepped in to rescue him from the boy’s questioning. “Helikaon can marry for love
because
he is not a king and does not have to consider the needs of the realm. But you, little man,
will
be a king, and if you are not a good boy, I shall choose a wife for you who is dull and cross-eyed and buck-toothed and bandy-legged.”
    Diomedes laughed, the sound rich and full of life. “I shall choose my own wife,” he said, “and she will be beautiful. And she will adore me.”
    Yes, she will, thought Helikaon. Diomedes would be a good-looking man, and his nature was sweet and considerate.
    The wind was picking up, and Helikaon leaned in to the steering oar. His thoughts turned to Priam’s favorite daughter. Kreusa was, as he had told Diomedes, very beautiful. But she was also greedy and grasping, with eyes that shone only when they were reflecting gold.
    But then, could she have been any different, he wondered, raised as she had been in a loveless palace by a father who considered nothing of worth except that which could be placed upon his scales?
    Helikaon had no doubt that it was Priam who had ordered Kreusa to flatter and woo him. The lands of Dardania, directly north of Troy, had never been rich. There were no mines supplying mineral wealth in gold, copper, silver, or tin. But Dardania was fertile, and its grasslands fed horses of surprising strength and endurance. Corn was also plentiful. Helikaon’s growing wealth as a merchant prince also had financed the building of ports, allowing access to the trade goods of Egypte and all the lands to the south and west. Dardania was growing in wealth and therefore power. Of course Priam would seek an alliance with his northern neighbor. No doubt in a few years Priam would seek to marry one of his daughters to Diomedes. Helikaon smiled. Perhaps strange little Kassandra or gentle Laodike. The smile faded. Or even Kreusa. The thought of his little brother wed to such a creature was dispiriting.
    Perhaps I am being unfair to her, he thought.
    Priam had little time for most of the fifty children he had sired on his three wives and thirty concubines. Those he drew close had been forced to prove their value to him. His daughters were sold carelessly to foreign princes in exchange for alliances; his sons labored either in his treasuries or in the