Horses of Fire: A Novel of Troy - Softcover

Rhine, A. D.

 
9780593473061: Horses of Fire: A Novel of Troy
Softcover
ISBN 10: 059347306X ISBN 13: 9780593473061
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

“One of those singular books that pulls readers into a completely immersive world with a dazzling story and characters so deftly drawn that you can’t help but ache for them.”–New York Times bestselling author Lisa Maxwell

I know the stories they will tell. I’ve heard the echoes of their songs—songs that will outlive us all. But this song is not theirs. It is mine.
 
Behind the timeless tale you know is the captivating story you never heard: a sweeping epic in which Troy’s strong, yet misunderstood women take center stage in the most famous war in history. 
 
Andromache is cast as the doting wife of Prince Hector, yet her Amazon warrior name means “battler of men.” The only one with the cunning to outwit the invading Greeks, she must gather a band of outcasts and become the military commander she was born to be before the life she and Hector have built is reduced to ashes. Rhea is a war refugee and a horse whisperer who finally earns a place and sense of belonging in Hector’s stables. To save her new home, she must become an unlikely spy and face down a forbidden love that will test all her loyalties. Helen is blamed by all for starting the Trojan War, but no one knows her real story. To escape her tormentor and foil a plot to undermine Hector, Helen must risk everything by revealing her true face to the one who despises her most.
 
Set in the wider landscape of the late Bronze Age collapse, this realistic and immersive Troy is a perilous battleground for warriors and politicians alike, not a playground where the fate of men and women make sport for gods and goddesses. The first book in an epic duology, Horses of Fire is a harrowing novel of palace intrigue, the transcendent bond of female friendship, and the everyday bravery of invisible heroes in times of war.
 
The women of Troy are threads spinning on a single loom. Can they reweave the tapestry of fate?

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A. D. Rhine is the pseudonym of Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinson. The authors are united by their military “brat” upbringing, childhood friendship spanning two decades, and love of classical literature. Ashlee holds graduate degrees in Medieval History from the University of St. Andrews and Theological Studies (with an emphasis in the Ethics of War and Peace) from Duke University. Danielle holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University. Their adult debut Horses of Fire is the book they have always dreamt of writing together.

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1

Andromache

The boy is lost.

And so is his mother. I can tell with one glance.

With a warrior this young, there is only ever one reason for such a clean spear wound. A neat hole right between the shoulder blades. Slowly, I roll the stiff corpse back onto the stone slab until he lies face up, eyes unblinking. Across the room, I meet his mother's raw, wild gaze. Her hands fidget anxiously.

There is no hiding what I've seen. She knows that I know.

The primal wail that follows is like no sound I've heard, and yet I've listened to a million variations of the same tune. Every mother's cry of lament is her own. As unrepeatable as each new life she carries. Only this woman's groans speak of a secret.

A song of betrayal. Of cowardice. Shame.

I take a step back from the washing slab, letting the wet cloth in my hand hit the floor with a soppy splat.

"Please, Harsa Andromache. I beg you."

The mother throws herself at my feet, arms wrapped around my calves. She thrusts the rag back into my hand, closing my fingers before returning unceremoniously to her seat at the other end of the slab. There she presses her tear-stained cheeks against the soldier's feet. The part of him farthest from the light that once filled her boy's eyes.

For that is what he is. A boy. Large for his age but younger than a soldier should be. I may not have sons, but I have washed enough of them to know what fifteen summers looks like. This child is at least a year shy of the minimum age for serving in Troy's army. Not that most captains care to check so long as he can carry his shield upright.

"He wanted to follow his father and brothers. For Prince Hector. He was . . . too strong . . . I, I couldn't stop him." The woman's explanation unravels into sobs. "I've given a husband and two sons for Troy already. Will you deprive me of my youngest even in the afterlife?"

My throat tightens. I open my hand. The flax-colored cloth is now pink in most places, a rusty red in others. No one in Troy, not even Hector, expects me to cover myself in blood that stains my nail beds brown. But that is exactly why I do it.

I want to get my hands dirty.

When I muster enough courage to look into the eyes of the desperate, childless widow again, I see that she is far from old. Despite her tears, the firm line of her mouth says she would do anything to guarantee her son's safe passage across the Great River.

My eyes land on the knife at the edge of the slab an instant before she lunges. I am fast, but she is faster. The mother brings the blade to her own quivering throat before I can exhale.

"If he is condemned to wander, then I will wander with him."

Her eyes blink fire. A thin, crimson drizzle travels to her collarbone.

"Have you heard me issue such a condemnation?" I ask calmly.

The mother's gaze flickers. Her grip on the knife handle loosens slightly even as her voice shakes. "My son was not a coward."

I nod. "No man who stands across the plain from Achilles can ever be called one."

And the boy who turns and runs from Achilles's spear? Surely the only name for him is human.

But the King's Council is not interested in shaping men. It is demigods they seek to mold. Names, after all, cannot be speared in the back. Names can live on, ringing glory throughout the ages. Which is why the punishment for fleeing the battlefield isn't so merciful as a clean death. It is eternal shame followed by a corpse left exposed. An unburned body that becomes a lost soul, doomed to wander the shadow lands. Even worse, there is nothing the warrior or anyone else can do to redeem his name. The last note of his song has been sung.

But only if you sentence the boy to this fate.

I look down at the blue, bloated face. The full cheeks of a child. With the swift stroke of my hand, I close the black holes of the boy's eyes.

"Eda, the stones."

The aging woman in charge of Troy's dead rushes toward me from her stool in the corner. She presses the smooth, flat stones made from smoky quartz into my hand. Compared to the boy's flesh, they are warm. As usual, Eda looks somewhat surprised to see me here.

She shouldn't be. If Hector is the type of commander who walks among his men, thanking even the lowest-born for his sacrifice, then I intend to be the kind of queen who reaches for a washcloth when the women of her city must bury sons who cannot yet grow beards.

If I live to be queen, that is. Or have a city left to rule.

I turn back to the mother. "It is time to let go."

With aching tenderness, the mother places the atamanui in her dead son's palm. A symbol of a life, carried into death. A fare to be paid at the Great River for passage across.

The atamanui the mother chose is a piece of jade carved into the shape of a small bird. The artistry is as impressive as the stone itself. It would have cost the woman much. By the looks of her ragged tunic, more than she could afford.

"It is beautiful," I tell her. Somehow, it is also confirmation that sending the boy to the pyre instead of the refuse heap is the right choice. "Fitting."

The woman's lips tremble as she closes her son's stiff fingers around the jade bird. "From birth, Antinous woke with the dawn. I would hear him singing in his sweet little voice. Just like a sparrow."

A sweet little sparrow.

Not the kind of soul there is room for on the plains of Troy. But perhaps there is a place for him in whatever lies beyond.

I place a smooth stone over each halfmoon of lashes, then kiss the boy's forehead and whisper, "May your journey across the Great River be swift and your rest eternal."

The mother's lament crests.

"Not a word of this to anyone," I whisper to Eda as I refit my headscarf. When I move toward the door, I stop to rest a hand on the mother's shuddering shoulder.

There is nothing more that I can do. There never is.

Outside the Citadel bathing house, the scent of the jasmine bush spilling over the wall hits me before my blinking eyes adjust to the bright day. Its luscious perfume overwhelms the pungent aroma at my back. Still, in Troy, one cannot escape the stench of death for long.

It was not always this way. When I left my home of Thebe under Mount Placos and glimpsed Troy for the first time, the city felt even more like a bridegroom than the prince who was to be my husband. Its high outer walls shone like the stores of bronze that could be found in every household past her great gates. My mountain-girl eyes had never glimpsed such a blue-green sea, nor had they encountered such wealth. Troy seemed to contain the colors, smells, and sounds of the entire world.

The stone streets inside the Citadel are quieter these days. Troy's common men defend the walls while her women secure food stores in the Lower City. The royal Citadel-home to the palaces of King Priam and his many children-sits at the top of the plateau. Its High Temple to the countless gods Troy has imported from every land hovers over the city, a shadowy place where the incense always burns. I am told the shimmer cast by the pearly white stone of the palaces can be seen from far off the coast, but I have never set foot on a ship. Nor do I ever intend to.

Still, before the war, I often gazed upon Troy from the shoreline. The city's many rings unfold like an artichoke, that uninviting vegetable I've watched our cook Bodecca prepare often, seeing as it is Hector's favorite. Despite a hard exterior, Troy contains the most tender heart.

"You are much the same," the old woman told me after I married the prince she'd nursed at her own breast. Somehow, I knew not to take offense.

The memory begins to thaw the chill in my chest, the one that settles in whenever I spend...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
059347306X
ISBN 13 
9780593473061
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
528
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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