A Spartan's Sorrow (The Grecian Women Trilogy, #2)

by Hannah M. Lynn

“It is no animal she requires,” he said, with a voice that could have been a thousand years old. “It is a child. Your fairest daughter, Iphigenia.”

Beauty—the most tainted gift there was. Being beautiful didn’t stop a man’s hands from striking you. Nor did it stop his eyes—and the rest of him—wandering when he grew tired of the same person in his bed at night.

Never believe yourself to be worth less than him, or any man for that matter, because thinking it is the start of it becoming true.”

She had promised her children a thousand times that she would keep them safe. She had promised, too, that Agamemnon would protect them.

I think that happens when you are abandoned as a child, you will always wonder what was wrong with you.”

Once he knew her limits, he pushed them, tested her, just the way her training would have been carried out in Sparta. The clang of metal, that sonorous ring that accompanied the quiver of the blade in her hand, was like a tonic to her. At Orrin’s instance, she wore armour and, although it was not the Spartan way, the extra protection around her body only served to drive her harder. She started to feel youthful again, as if anything were possible.

“What further pain can I suffer now? The gods and my husband have seen to it that it is my constant companion.”

“You do not have to talk to learn,” he replied. “In fact, often it is better if you do not. Far better to listen.”

But as the night drew in, the flicker became a steady glow, which seemed to be coming from the direction of Mount Arachneus. It had been many years since they had prepared the bonfires. A beacon was only to be lit there after a signal from Messapion, and that only in response to one from Lemnos. Fires on mountainsides across the Aegean meant just one thing. Troy had fallen. The war was won. Agamemnon would be coming home.

Few women found one man who truly loved them in their lifetime, and she had found two.

“Tell me then, how should I have behaved? I had a role to play. Surely you see that? All we ever have are the roles they force us to play.”

We have been fighting the same battle, Clytemnestra, against gods and kings and people with power and privilege. They are so terrified of losing their control over us, that they crush us at the slightest sign of our own independence or happiness.

The goddesses, the mothers, they are the ones we turn to. And yet it is a god’s word that we have to obey, one that tells us that a man must be avenged, but not a woman.”

Our choices are shaped by our experiences, and our experiences by those who surround us from our birth.

“In our darkest moments, we should recognise not just what has been lost, but who continues to stand beside us.