The tent was heavy with the smell of blood and sweat and the lingering smoke of the funeral pyres that still smoldered on the beach.
Kurash knelt in the center of the tent, his wrists bound behind him with leather straps, his knees pressing into the packed earth. His face was bruised from the blow that had brought him down, his lip split and crusted with dried blood. But his eyes were clear. His spine was straight. He did not look like a man who had been captured. He looked like a man who had chosen to be here.
Agamemnon sat on a camp stool across from him, a cup of wine untouched at his elbow. Ajax stood to the king's right, a mountain of muscle and shadow, his massive arms crossed over his chest. Nestor leaned on his staff near the brazier, his ancient eyes half-closed but watching everything. Idomeneus stood near the tent flap, his scarred face unreadable, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
