Character guide · Troy
Who's who in Gemmell's Troy
Gemmell's Troy trilogy begins long before any Greek army lands, and this guide covers the people at its centre. Gemmell uses Greek rather than Latin spellings, such as Hektor, Mykene and Ithaka, and invents freely around Homer.
Helikaon
Helikaon is a prince of Dardania and a kinsman of King Priam, a trader and ship-captain whom later legend would know as Aeneas. He is the trilogy's central figure and has his own page.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
Helikaon: the full character page
Andromache
Andromache is the heroine of Gemmell's Troy and a long way from the grieving wife of the Iliad. She is the daughter of King Ektion of Thebe Under Plakos, sent to train as a priestess on the island of Thera, and her time there ends when she is betrothed, against her will, to Hektor, prince of Troy. She is red-haired and a fine archer, with no patience for being managed by the men around her, and she arrives in Priam's city determined to choose her own loves and live her own life. What she finds there is more complicated than she expects, starting with her feelings for Helikaon. Her friendship with Priam's shy daughter Laodike is one of the gentler threads in the first book.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow (spoilers for that book)
In Shield of Thunder she is still promised to Hektor, and she carries a birthmark that, by a prophecy Priam takes seriously, makes her the Shield of Thunder of the title. Across the trilogy she becomes one of the people Troy leans on, and the books keep returning to what the war is doing to her and to those in her care.
Odysseus
Gemmell's Odysseus is the King of Ithaka, an ugly, cheerful sea captain and the best storyteller on the Great Green, who happily admits in private that his tales of monsters are invented. He sails a ship called the Penelope, and he is one of the few people in the trilogy who can make both the reader and the other characters laugh. He is also much sharper than he lets on. It was Odysseus who, years before the story opens, visited the withdrawn young Aeneas and gave him the name Helikaon, and his affection for the man he helped to make runs through all three books. As the kings gather and Agamemnon's ambitions turn towards Troy, Odysseus finds friendship and obligation pulling him in opposite directions. He sees the shape of the coming war more clearly than most, and likes it less. Shield of Thunder fills in more of his own past.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Shield of Thunder (spoilers for that book)
He ends up a reluctant ally of Agamemnon, a man he does not trust.
Argurios
Argurios is a Mykene warrior, famous in every port for his deeds. Under Mykene's new king his loyalty counts for less, and the story takes him east to Troy, the city he was brought up to see as the enemy. He is the man forced to rethink everything he was raised to believe.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow.
Hektor
Hektor is Priam's son, the king's favourite and Troy's great soldier, and the man Andromache is sent to marry. The kings of the Great Green gather at Troy for his wedding in Shield of Thunder.
In Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
Priam
Priam is King of Troy, and Helikaon is his kinsman. His household is crowded and quarrelsome, and not ready for a bride as outspoken as Andromache.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow (spoilers for that book)
A prophecy he takes seriously is one reason he wants Andromache's marriage to Hektor so badly.
After Troy: Shield of Thunder (spoilers for that book)
By Fall of Kings he is ailing, bitter and losing his hold on his own mind.
Kalliades
Kalliades is a Mykene soldier who carries a famous sword, and in Shield of Thunder he and his friend Banokles have fallen foul of Agamemnon and are running for their lives. For many readers of the whole trilogy the two friends become its heart.
In Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Shield of Thunder (spoilers for that book)
In Fall of Kings the two are in Troy's service, carrying the ordinary soldier's view of the siege.
Banokles
Banokles is the friend of Kalliades and a fellow Mykene soldier, on the run with him from Agamemnon. Their soldier's-eye view and their friendship give Shield of Thunder much of its warmth and humour.
In Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
Piria
Piria, as she calls herself, is the young woman Kalliades and Banokles rescue on the road, a runaway priestess nursing a terrible secret.
Xander
Xander is a twelve-year-old boy who sees much of the action of Lord of the Silver Bow from its edges.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow.
Gershom
Gershom is an Egyptian fugitive pulled out of the sea in Lord of the Silver Bow.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Shield of Thunder (spoilers for that book)
By Fall of Kings he has become Helikaon's closest friend, and he finds that Kassandra's visions concern him too.
- Helikaon and Gershom: closest friends (Troy: Fall of Kings)
Kassandra
Kassandra is Priam's prophetic daughter, and in Lord of the Silver Bow, where no gods take the field, her second sight is one of the few uncanny notes.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Fall of Kings.
After Troy: Shield of Thunder (spoilers for that book)
In Fall of Kings she sails with Andromache on the long voyage west to fetch the tin Troy needs for bronze.
Laodike
Laodike is Priam's shy daughter, and her friendship with Andromache is one of the gentler threads in Lord of the Silver Bow.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow.
Agamemnon
Agamemnon, king of Mykene, is stirred by a prophecy into putting a price on Helikaon's head, and his appetite for Troy's wealth drives the trilogy towards war. In Shield of Thunder he has Achilles among his allies and is ready to use any pretext. Gemmell makes him a predator after treasure rather than a wronged brother.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, Troy: Shield of Thunder, Troy: Fall of Kings.
Kolanos
Kolanos is a ruthless Mykene commander in Lord of the Silver Bow.
In Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow.
Appears in
- 1Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow (2005)Years before the siege, a Dardanian prince, a Theran priestess and a Mykene hero are drawn to Troy as Agamemnon plans a war.
- 2Troy: Shield of Thunder (2006)The kings of the Great Green gather at Troy for Hektor's wedding, while Agamemnon's long-planned war moves from threat to fact.
- 3Troy: Fall of Kings (2007)Finished by Stella Gemmell after her husband's death, the last Troy novel follows the war to its end as Agamemnon's armies close on the city.