The Glory of Troy, part I

This is a short story I just felt like writing one day, although it took me months to actually get it all done. The whole thing wound up being around five pages long in my word processor, so I'm posting it in three parts, which is how it's written at any rate. Hope you enjoy it.
Part II here
Part III here
.Jacki.

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Andromache stared at her husband. He stood on the wall in his armour, his eyes shining. Andromache knew the look; he was dreaming of war. She silently cursed Ares; the war-god drove men mad, made them forget reason.

'Hector,' Andromache began, and choked on her tears. Hector took her hand gently. She gripped his own, as though she could keep him from the dangers of the war by just holding him. She took in a shaky breath, and started again. 'Hector, please don’t go out. You’ll die; Ajax is not an easy foe. Even should you defeat him, the Achaeans are favoured by Hera and Athena, because of your brother. Haven’t I lost enough people whom I love?' She sobbed again, but she had no need to speak. Hector knew she spoke of her parents. Her father Eëtion had been slain by Achilles, and her mother was killed by an arrow of Artemis.

'Wife,' Hector said, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, 'I must go. I cannot just stay here, hiding behind the walls of Ilius like a coward. If I have to die, which it is likely I will, I would rather die in glory and honour than cowering like a child.'

'Send Paris,' replied Andromache before she could stop herself.

'Paris?' repeated Hector. 'My coward brother? You want to send him to fight Ajax?'

'Yes,' said his wife evenly, though her anger toward Paris could not have been surpassed by the Furies themselves. 'He started this war by stealing Helen from Menelaus,' she continued, surprised by her boldness. 'The Achaeans only want her back, and they would leave our great Ilius if they obtained her. Send your brother to battle, since it was his lust and foolhardiness that began this long war.'

But Hector shook his helmed head. '“No. Paris is a coward, and would be slaughtered by Ajax. Besides,' he smiled, 'Aphrodite apparently likes him too much to let him fight.'

Andromache remembered; Paris had gone to fight, and the goddess of love had lifted him from the battle field and put him back in Troy. She wondered yet again how her noble husband could be the brother of such a miserable worm as Paris. 'Troy will fall,' continued Hector, 'but that is not what frightens me. I am neither worried about my own death, nor the fate of the city. But if the city falls, it is you I worry about. You would be enslaved, taken as a wife for some wretched Greek prince.'

Andromache nodded dejectedly. The same cold terrors had gripped her own heart many times. The thought of living without Hector, having already lost both of her parents, was unbearable. She blinked back a fresh flood of tears, trying to smile to push back the nightmare. Hector squeezed her hand.

Astyanax, Andromache’s son, cooed behind her. She turned to see the infant, held by his nurse. She had nearly forgotten in her fright for Hector that her child was on the wall as well. Hector smiled, and let go of her hand. He reached for his son. Astyananx’s eyes grew wide, and he screamed in terror, bawling into his nurse’s shoulder. Hector started. 'What in the name of Zeus?'

Andromache smiled. 'It is your helm. It hides your face, and the horse-hair cannot look well to him.'

Hector threw his head back and laughed heartily. “' helm? Ah, the gods bless the hearts of children! Come, Scamandrius my son.' Andromache smiled; Hector was probably the only person in Troy who called Astyanax by his real name. The Trojan warrior took off his glorious helmet and set it on the wall. 'See, the warrior is gone. Here is your father.' Astyanax looked at his father and stopped crying. Hector took the babe from the arms of the nurse. 'Oh, Zeus,' he murmured, 'protect this my son. Let him live to see the end of this bloody war.' Andromache’s throat tightened. If Troy was indeed to fall, if Hector failed against the Achaeans, her son would not live. Images of people being slaughtered in the streets by Greek warriors rushed through her mind. Even if Astyanax did live, he would be taken as a slave for Menelaus and his people. But the odds that the Greeks would let a babe live were slim at best. O gods, this war!

Hector held out Astyanax to Andromache, and she took their son. His tiny hand took a fistful of her hair. She held him tightly. Hector leaned in close to her and caressed her face with his fingertips. She smiled, and he kissed her gently, holding her close. She tried to preserve the memory of him in her mind; the leathery smell of his armour, the feel of his lips on hers, his breathing, his grey eyes, the sound of his hearty laugh.

'I can’t escape the Fates,' he whispered, brushing a loose curl from her face. 'What the gods have ordained will be. Go back into the house and work on your loom. The horrors of war are the affair of men.'

Andromache nodded again. She walked toward the house as her husband went in the other direction. She watched him over her shoulder until he was out of sight, weeping as she went.