‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s not a weakness to need people. It’s only a weakness if you don’t know that you need them, so you don’t reach out to them, and you’re left floundering alone. But if you reach out, and they reach back, then your strength can defeat worlds.’

‘And you did reach back, didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘It wasn’t just chance that we met again after so many years.’

‘True. I think the ancient gods gave their orders from Mount Olympus.’

‘And that’s why it’s been inevitable between us from the start-if you really feel you can put up with me.’

‘How could I disobey the orders of the gods?’ she asked him tenderly.

And what the gods ordered, they would protect. Their life together had been ordained, and so it must be. It would be a life of passion and pain, quarrels, reconciliations, heartbreak and joy. But never for one moment would they doubt that they were treading the path that had been preordained for them.

One day the River Styx would be waiting to carry them on, to Eternity.

But that day was not yet.

Lucy Gordon


LUCY GORDON cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She has also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences, which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.