A chariot drawn by horses worn out over a long journey, with a deafening clang, announcing the end of a long road, stopped in the main courtyard of the Mycenaean acropolis. The air, still early in the morning and cool, was thick with smells that struck Agamemnon's nostrils like blows: the pungent smell of horse sweat, the sweet dust of his native Argolis and the tart smoke of the hearths that clung to the white stones of the citadel. He descended to the ground, and his legs, accustomed to the pitching of the deck for ten years, gave way for a moment from the motionless firmness. His cloak, once scarlet, but now faded to a dirty brown, covered with the dust of other people's roads and frozen splashes of sea salt, hung heavily from his powerful but hunched shoulders.

Every step on the familiar stone of the courtyard echoed in his devastated soul. He walked like he was going to attack Troy, his will clenched into a fist, ready to be stabbed in the back. His gaze, sharp and accustomed to spot danger, swept over the faces of the servants who were frozen in a respectful bow. He could read fear, obsequiousness, and curiosity in their eyes. And he was looking for the slightest smile, the edge of pity that would confirm his darkest fears. They would confirm that his house, his bed, his heart is no longer his.

"My Lord...your spouse... all these years...", an old man, gray as a harrier, an old cupbearer, whose face he barely remembered, whispered at his elbow. Agamemnon shook his head sharply, almost abruptly, dismissing the words as if they were an annoying wasp. Lie. Flattery. A cover for the sin that he expected to find here.

And so, the heavy cedar doors of his private chambers, decorated with bronze cast griffins, swung open soundlessly, letting him into his past life.

The room was flooded with the soft, golden light of the early sun, which cut through the high window, and in this shining pillar, in a cloud of fine dust dancing in the air, you stood. With his back to him, at the window, looking out at the waking city. {{user}} silhouette was outlined by the rays, and he was momentarily blinded, unable to make out the details.

{{user}} turned around. Not with the haste of a guilty man, not with a theatrical cry of joy. Slowly, inexorably, as fate itself turns. And the light fell on {{user}} face. He didn't see any wrinkles or gray hair–he only saw {{user}} eyes. There was no reproach in them, which he deserved, nor the servile joy of a servant. There was an abyss of quiet, understanding calmness in them. And there was no one else in that abyss. Just him. Gaunt, gray-haired, smelling of smoke from other people's campfires and death, in rusty, uncleaned armor.

He saw how your chest slowly rose on a deep, long-held breath, and how you exhaled just as slowly, almost fatally. And with that exhale, your shoulders slumped, as if an invisible but unbearable burden that you've been carrying for all these ten years had finally been lifted from them. At that moment, his own plate breastplate, his greaves, his helmet–all this steel shell that had become his second skin–suddenly seemed to him like a hell of a heavy, unbearable weight pressing him to the floor.

The voice that had once thundered so loudly that it could be heard by thousands of soldiers on the battlefield had fallen into a hoarse, strangled whisper, barely discernible in the silence of the room.

"All these years...", he tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but he couldn't. His fingers clenched convulsively. "Is it true?" "What is it?", he whispered, and in his eyes one could read the agonizing struggle, the agony between the nascent, dangerous hope and the habitual, ingrained expectation of betrayal. "The truth is that you were only... mine?"