Titania of Troy

Chapter 18

Titania glared at Helen heatedly.

Their whole family had been summoned to the throne room the next morning to discuss the body in front of Titania's door. She didn't move her eyes. Not when Hector tried to comfort her. Not when Paris tried to speak to her. Not even when Aeneas tried to catch her gaze. Her heated stare remained on Helen of Sparta, and the blond-haired queen grew squeamish underneath it.

"This is an outrage!" Priam called out, "A murderer in our own castle, during a war no less!"

"Is there any chance that the servant was the target and not Titania?" Hector questioned.

"I doubt it," Aeneas replied, finally attracting her gaze from Helen's shrinking form to his tense face, "I don't even think Titania was a target. It was one of Helen's servants. Perhaps the killer thought those were Helen and Paris' rooms."

Helen's servant. A good Trojan who'd volunteered to serve this foreign queen. He'd died because of Helen, Titania was sure of it. Maybe another Trojan had done it to spite her. Titania didn't care for technicalities. She could not deny her gut feeling that this woman had something to do with it.

"I would like to handle the investigation myself," Pandarus suggested, "I think it might be linked to the leaked information about Cilicia. Maybe whoever killed this servant wanted to tie up any loose ends for the spy."

"Spy?" Titania questioned, her palms growing sweaty, "I wasn't aware that we suspected espionage at all."

Pandarus shrugged, "It seems logical, my lady. It was a very secret project. The only thing that explains the attack would be that there is a spy among those who knew about it."

"I will join you," Paris volunteered, resulting in Titania rolling her eyes, "We'll interview anybody who knew about the tunnels."

The meeting adjourned itself. Paris and Pandarus walked off to start interviewing their suspects, and Titania merely shook her head disappointingly at Helen before hurriedly avoiding Aeneas and going back to her rooms, grateful that the blood had finally been cleared from her door.

What was she to do? Confess that she'd seen Achilles? She'd be thrown out of the city faster than Poseidon on his horses. It didn't matter that telling the truth would reconnect her to her father, Troy would be lost to her. She recalled all the smiling faces she had seen the previous night as she sang and danced for them. She couldn't leave them. She couldn't leave her city. She didn't care how angry she had been at her people, she would miss those smiling faces too much.

Pandarus and Paris would discover it themselves, she reasoned. They would find evidence that Achilles had been in the castle, and hopefully Pandarus would be able to link to Helen to get rid of that queen before Paris lost his head. Anything Helen said would be ruled out as trying to save her own skin, no matter what accusations she made. Titania steeled herself in her decision.

A light knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Titania tentatively walked over to the large wooden structure and opened it. Deiphobos barged in and marched past her like as though he were King of Troy himself.

"Good morning to you too, brother," she groaned lightly, not in the mood for his scheming.

"Enough of the pleasantries," she started to fiddle with the quiver of arrows that rested on her lounger, "I take it your budding friendship with Helen of Sparta was a failure of epic proportions?"

Titania sighed tiredly and dropped herself onto her bed, "What gave it away?"

"Your glaring is not very subtle."

Titania rolled her eyes, "It wasn't supposed to be. I wanted to make her explode with just my eyes."

Deiphobos chuckled and started to feel around the room, fiddling with some of her tapestries. He seemed to be the most interested in the depiction of Artemis. Titania had gotten the done the moment she returned. She'd described the experience in such detail she worried the artist would refuse in fear of offending the goddess, but instead he'd captured the moment perfectly right down to the starlight that emanated from Artemis' bow, "Get in line. In any case, it appears Hector was somewhat successful."