It was the evening I met the stranger. I met him on the road to the palace. He was an old man with a grey beard and a dusty robe. He slipped from the shadow of a side street and stopped me.He pointed at the tortoise shell I carried. “You have a lyre,” he said. “You must be a poet.”“I am. I’m going to sing for Paris and Helen at the palace.”“Then I’ll come along with you,” he said. “You can show me the way.”“Everyone knows where the palace is,” I said.“I am a stranger,” he told me.I walked a few paces over the paved road, then stopped. “There are no strangers in Troy. The city has been locked for ten years to keep out the Greeks. How did you get in?”“There are ways,” he said softly. “Lead on. Perhaps you can help me get inside the palace. I need to speak to Paris.”“Why should I help you?”“I’ll give you all the food you ever dreamed of … and more,” he promised.I said I’d lie to help him. If you were hungry then you’d lie, too. I didn’t know I’d betray my city, did I?We walked on through the moonlit streets to the palace.
