Rhapsode longs to write the songs in her head, about men and gods and a war on Troy. But female poets are illegal in archaic Athens, her husband's plotting a coup, and no one west of Phoenicia knows how to write. Luckily, her slave Kleo is Phoenician.  Maybe things would be better in Lesbos? (It worked for Sappho!) While the epic transpires in counterpoint, the women risk their lives to accomplish something unknown—and end up writing The Iliad.